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RE: The Best Way to Learn Anything
That's interesting - it is so strange how the ability to memorize can change from your early adulthood. I think we need a psychologist on the scene here to comment. That coat hanger effect was something the amazing presenters at the conference used to explain the overarching basis of the book. There is a lot of free info online about the Understanding by Design framework too, so you may want to start there.
Thanks I will take a look. I think in psychology there are a number of theories to account of it. On the one hand there is the idea that as you have more experiences you develop the ability to be more selective about what information you store. This would be enhanced executive function as a result of increased frontal lobe activity which is one of the major changes that occurs in adolescence and throughout early adulthood.
There is also the issue of memories being formed and consolidated more often and more strongly for novel experiences. The older you get the fewer truly novel experiences you have and the more similarities there are in your day to day experiences.
Thanks for explaining that - and I guess this selective process of what to store is something we don't have control over - I wish we did! I would have told mine to keep selecting a variety of things. Although memorizing things still comes fairly quickly, I would love to be able to do it the way I used to.
Me too. I think it is a natural adaptation to the limits of storage. The brain must prioritise what to store and things that are novel probably have a survival benefit.
Survival benefit makes sense - that is actually stuff that still comes easiest for me, like learning new skills for work and such.