Ultralearning

by Scott Young

  4. “learn to let it arise”: Susan L. Smalley and Diana Winston, Fully Present: The Science, Art, and Practice of Mindfulness (Philadelphia: Da Capo Lifelong Books, 2010), 59.

  5. High arousal creates: A. E. Bursill, “The Restriction of Peripheral Vision During Exposure to Hot and Humid Conditions,” Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 10, no. 3 (August 1, 1958): 113–29.

  6. Too much arousal, however: This inverse-U shape of arousal versus performance is known in psychology as the Yerkes-Dodson law.

  7. More complex tasks: Daniel Kahneman, Attention and Effort (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall), 1973.

  8. When doing a particularly creative task: Kalina Christoff, Zachary C. Irving, Kieran C. R. Fox, et al., “Mind-Wandering as Spontaneous Thought: A Dynamic Framework,” Nature Reviews Neuroscience 17, no. 11 (2016): 718–31, https://www.nature.com/articles/nrn.2016.113.

  9. In one experiment, sleep-deprived: Robert T. Wilkinson, “Interaction of Noise with Knowledge of Results and Sleep Deprivation,” Journal of Experimental Psychology 66, no. 4 (November 1963): 332–37, https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1964–03490–001.

  Chapter VI: Principle 3—Directness: Go Straight Ahead

  1. Jaiswal leaves the offices: This is, in fact, the same Vatsal Jaiswal who joined me on my yearlong language learning project in chapter 1. These events took place a few years prior to that.

  2. “Despite the importance”: Robert Haskell, Transfer of Learning (Cambridge, MA: Academic Press, 2000), xiii.

  3. In another study, college graduates were asked: James F. Voss, Jeffrey Blais, Mary L. Means, Terry R. Greene, and Ellen Ahwesh, “Informal Reasoning and Subject Matter Knowledge in the Solving of Economics Problems by Naive and Novice Individuals,” Cognition and Instruction 3, no. 3 (1986): 269–302.

  4. “in almost all the empirical work to date”: Michelene T. H. Chi and Miriam Bassok, “Learning from Examples via Self-explanations,” Knowing, Learning, and Instruction: Essays in Honor of Robert Glaser (1989): 251–82.

  5. “students who receive honors grades”: Howard Gardner, The Unschooled Mind: How Children Think and How Schools Should Teach, Basic Books (AZ), 2011.

  6. “Researchers who rigorously evaluate training”: John H. Zenger, “Great Ideas Revisited. The Painful Turnabout in Training. A Retrospective,” Training and Development 50, no. 1 (1996): 48–51.

  7. “Transfer is paradoxical”: Wilbert J. McKeachie, “Cognitive Skills and Their Transfer: Discussion,” International Journal of Educational Research 11, no. 6 (1987): 707–12.

  8. Better graphics and sounds: Robert W. Proctor, and Addie Dutta, Skill Acquisition and Human Performance (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1995).

  Chapter VII: Principle 4—Drill: Attack Your Weakest Point

  1. However, it was in the latter half: Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003).

  2. world-changing consequences: Walter Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2003).

  3. “written equally well”: Ibid.

  Chapter VIII: Principle 5—Retrieval: Test to Learn

  1. What’s more, he claimed: Robert Kanigel, The Man Who Knew Infinity: A Life of the Genius Ramanujan (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2016).

  2. This is essentially the question: Jeffrey D. Karpicke, and Janell R. Blunt, “Retrieval Practice Produces More Learning than Elaborative Studying with Concept Mapping,” Science 331, no. 6018 (February 11, 2011): 772–75, http://science.sciencemag.org/content/331/6818/772.

  3. Minutes after studying something: Henry L. Roediger III and Jeffrey D. Karpicke, “The Power of Testing Memory: Basic Research and Implications for Educational Practice,” Perspectives on Psychological Science 1, no. 3 (September 1, 2006): 181–210, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1745–6916.2006.00012.x?journalCode=ppsa.

  4. Inevitably, students who were performing: Jeffrey D. Karpicke, “Metacognitive Control and Strategy Selection: Deciding to Practice Retrieval During Learning,” Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 138, no. 4 (2009): 469–86, http://memory.psych.purdue.edu/downloads/2009_Karpicke_JEPGeneral.pdf.

  5. One answer comes: Robert A. Bjork, “Memory and Metamemory Considerations in the Training of Human Beings,” in Metacognition: Knowing About Knowing, ed. J. Metcalfe and A. Shimamura (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1994): 185–205.

  6. Delaying the first test: Jeffrey D. Karpicke and Henry L. Roediger III, “Expanding Retrieval Practice Promotes Short-Term Retention, but Equally Spaced Retrieval Enhances Long-Term Retention,” Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 33, no. 4 (July 2007): 704–19, http://memory.psych.purdue.edu/downloads/2007_Karpicke_Roediger_JEPLMC.pdf.

  7. However, if you delay the test: Herbert F. Spitzer, “Studies in Retention,” Journal of Educational Psychology 30, no. 9 (December 1939): 641–56, https://www.gwern.net/docs/spacedrepetition/1939-spitzer.pdf.

  8. An interesting observation: Chunliang Yang, “Enhancing Learning and Retrieval: The Forward Testing Effect,” PhD diss., University College London, 2018.

  Chapter IX: Principle 6—Feedback: Don’t Dodge the Punches

  1. “It’s not going to be”: Kelefa Sanneh, “Chris Rock, the Duke of Doubt,” New Yorker, November 10, 2014, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/11/10/duke-doubt.

  2. Many medical practitioners get worse: Anders Ericsson and Robert Pool, Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise, (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016).

  3. In a large meta-analysis, Avraham Kluger: Avraham N. Kluger, and Angelo DeNisi, “The Effects of Feedback Interventions on Performance: A Historical Review, a Meta-analysis, and a Preliminary Feedback Intervention Theory,” Psychological Bulletin 119, no. 2 (1996): 254–84, https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1996–02773–003.

  4. In one study, feedback: Michael H. Herzog and Manfred Fahle, “The Role of Feedback in Learning a Vernier Discrimination Task,” Vision Research 37, no. 15 (August 1997): 2133–41, https://ac.els-cdn.com/S0042698997000436/1-s2.0-S0042698997000436-main.pdf?_tid=9e63a472–9df4–43fa-a165–7ff3daa4ddd2&acdnat=1551035784_e6ebf10b08703a5479c3abbf649b5320.

  5. “The best feedback is informative”: Maria Araceli Ruiz-Primo and Susan M. Brookhart, Using Feedback to Improve Learning (New York: Routledge, 2017), 128.

  6. James A. Kulik and Chen-Lin C. Kulik review the literature: James A. Kulik and Chen-Lin C. Kulik, “Timing of Feedback and Verbal Learning,” Review of Educational Research 58, no. 1 (1988): 79–97.

  7. Expertise researcher: K. Anders Ericsson, Ralf T. Krampe, and Clemens Tesch-Römer, “The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance,” Psychological Review 100, no. 3 (1993): 363–406, https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1993–40718–001.

  8. In those studies, however: Wendy Jaehnig and Matthew L. Miller, “Feedback Types in Programmed Instruction: A Systematic Review,” Psychological Record 57, no. 2 (2007): 219–32.

  Chapter X: Principle 7—Retention: Don’t Fill a Leaky Bucket

  1. French, with its gendered nouns: Corazon Miller, “How Kiwi Nigel Richards Won French Scrabble Championship,” New Zealand Herald, July 22, 2015, https://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/news/article.cfm?c_id=6&objectid=11485116.

  2. “Nigel, since you’re no good at words”: Zeba Sultan, “Nigel Richards—An Enigma,” The paladin speaks . . . http://vivaciouspaladin.blogspot.com/2013/05/nigel-richardsan-enigma.html.

  3. “When I see you, I can never tell”: Stefan Fatsis, “Nigel Richards Article,” Scrabble Study Log, http://scrabblestudylog.blogspot.com/2009/08/nigel-richards-article-by-stefan-fatsis.html.

  4. He politely declined: Tim Hume, “A Way with Words,” Sunday Star-Times, June 6, 2010, http://www.stuff.co.nz/sunday-star-times/features/3778594/A-way-with-words.

  5. “The cycling helps”: Fatsis, “Nigel Richards Article.”

  6. “It’s hard work”: Daniel Stembridge, “Meeting Nigel Richards,” Mindspo
rts Academy, https://www.mindsportsacademy.com/Content/Details/2133?title=meeting-nigel-richards.

  7. “I’m not sure there is a secret”: OgilvyBroadcast, “World Scrabble Championships 2011,” filmed October 2011, YouTube video, 1:51, posted October 2011, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZE_olsi-pM&t=1m46s.

  8. “Physicians with more experience”: Niteesh K. Choudhry, Robert H. Fletcher, and Stephen B. Soumerai, “Systematic Review: The Relationship Between Clinical Experience and Quality of Health Care,” Annals of Internal Medicine 142, no. 4 (2005): 260–73, https://annals.org/aim/fullarticle/718215/systematic-review-relationship-between-clinical-experience-quality-health-care.

  9. This seems especially likely: Joyce W. Lacy and Craig E. L. Stark, “The Neuroscience of Memory: Implications for the Courtroom.” Nature Reviews Neuroscience 14, no. 9 (September 2013): 649–58, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4183265/.

  10. The authors of a popular study guide: Peter Wei and Alex Chamessian, Learning Medicine: An Evidence-Based Guide (Self-published, 2015).

  11. procedural skills, such as: Jong W. Kim, Frank E. Ritter, and Richard J. Koubek, “An Integrated Theory for Improved Skill Acquisition and Retention in the Three Stages of Learning,” Theoretical Issues in Ergonomics Science 14, no. 1 (2013): 22–37.

  12. Overlearning is a well-studied: James E. Driskell, Ruth P. Willis, and Carolyn Copper, “Effect of Overlearning on Retention,” Journal of Applied Psychology 77, no. 5 (1992): 615–22, https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1993–04376–001.

  13. One study of algebra students: Harry P. Bahrick and Lynda K. Hall, “Lifetime Maintenance of High School Mathematics Content,” Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 120, no. 1 (1991): 20–33, http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.1020.7785&rep=rep1&type=pdf.

  14. Rajveer Meena, the Guinness World Record: “Most Pi Places Memorised,” Guiness World Records, http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/most-pi-places-memorised.

  Chapter XI: Principle 8—Intuition: Dig Deep Before Building Up

  1. “a magician of the highest caliber”: James Gleick, Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman (New York: Vintage, 1993), 10.

  2. “He’s the only guy”: Richard P. Feynman and Ralph Leighton, “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!”: Adventures of a Curious Character (New York: Random House, 1992), 133.

  3. “I happened to know”: Ibid., p. 193.

  4. “I had a scheme”: Ibid., p. 85.

  5. In a famous study, advanced PhDs: Michelene T. H. Chi, Paul J. Feltovich, and Robert Glaser, “Categorization and Representation of Physics Problems by Experts and Novices,” Cognitive Science 5, no. 2 (April 1981): 121–52, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1207/s15516709cog0502_2.

  6. Another study, this time: William G. Chase and Herbert A. Simon, “Perception in Chess,” Cognitive Psychology 4, no. 1 (January 1973): 55–81, http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.601.2724&rep=rep1&type=pdf.

  7. Researchers have estimated: Fernand Gobet and Herbert A. Simon, “Expert Chess Memory: Revisiting the Chunking Hypothesis,” Memory 6, no. 3 (1998): 225–55, https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/d11f/079a1d6d3147abbb7868955a6231f4a5ba5b.pdf.

  8. “If [he] had said”: Feynman and Leighton, “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!,” 21.

  9. Feynman told a story: The work, which won the pair the Nobel Prize, demonstrated that the universe we live in is not mirror-image symmetrical. That is to say, there are certain physical processes that look different in a mirror version. At the time, it was an enormous surprise to physicists, who had assumed that this symmetry existed. Ibid., 249.

  10. One of Einstein’s earliest: Walter Isaacson, Einstein: His Life and Universe (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2008).

  11. “illusion of explanatory depth”: Rebecca Lawson, “The Science of Cycology: Failures to Understand How Everyday Objects Work,” Memory & Cognition 34, no. 8 (2006): 1667–75, http://gearinches.com/misc/science-of-cycology.PDF.

  12. Feynman’s and Einstein’s approach: The artist and designer Gianluca Gimini plays on this concept by designing bicycles that look as people think they ought to (but that of course don’t work). You can see some of his creations at gianlucagimini.it/prototypes/velocipedia.html.

  13. In one study of this effect: Fergus I. M. Craik and Robert S. Lockhart, “Levels of Processing: A Framework for Memory Research,” Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 11, no. 6 (December 1972): 671–84, http://wixtedlab.ucsd.edu/publications/Psych%20218/Craik_Lockhart_1972.pdf.

  14. Those who processed the words: Thomas S. Hyde and James J. Jenkins, “Differential Effects of Incidental Tasks on the Organization of Recall of a List of Highly Associated Words,” Journal of Experimental Psychology 82, no. 3 (1969): 472–81, https://people.southwestern.edu/~giuliant/LOP_PDF/Hyde1969.pdf.

  15. The Dunning-Kruger effect occurs: Justin Kruger and David Dunning, “Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 77, no. 6 (December 1999): 1121–34, https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/e320/9ca64cbed9a441e55568797cbd3683cf7f8c.pdf.

  16. “Some people think”: Feynman and Leighton, “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!,” 244.

  17. I had this uneasy feeling: Ibid., 281.

  18. With my textbook at my side: You can view my notes here: https://www.scotthyoung.com/mit/photogrammetry.pdf.

  19. To get a better handle: You can view my notes here: https://www.scotthyoung.com/mit/grid-accel.pdf.

  20. “I got it down”: Ibid., 141.

  Chapter XII: Principle 9—Experimentation: Explore Outside Your Comfort Zone

  1. “You started too late”: Steven W. Naifeh and Gregory White Smith, Van Gogh: The Life (New York: Random House, 2011), 260.

  2. “We considered his work”: Ibid., 514.

  3. sold for more than $82 million: Judd Tully, “$82.5 Million for van Gogh; Japanese Buyer Sets Art Auction Record,” http://juddtully.net/auctions/82–5-million-for-van-gogh-japanese-buyer-sets-art-auction-record/.

  4. “devoured these big books”: Naifeh and Smith, Van Gogh, 214.

  5. “Scarcely any color is not gray”: Ibid., 333.

  6. growth mindset: Carol S. Dweck, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success (New York: Random House, 2008).

  7. It may also dispel: I had my own experience when trying to write this book. As part of my process, I reread many other books whose style I wanted to emulate. In doing this, a thing that surprised me was that many such books had far fewer citations than I remembered, the “seriousness” of a book being mostly a matter of tone, not of scholarship.

  8. Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert: Scott Adams, “Career Advice,” Dilbert.Blog, July 20, 2007, http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/07/career-advice.html.

  Chapter XIV: An Unconventional Education

  1. “Grandmasters don’t like to lose”: The source I’ve been able to track down seems to be here: Shelby Lyman (02–08–1987), “Younger Sisters Are Also Proficient,” Sunday Telegraph 1 (45).

  2. “three or four great chess prodigies in history”: F. Lidz, “Kid with a Killer Game,” Sports Illustrated 72, no. 6 (1990): 8–8.

  3. “She has fantastic chess talent”: Ibid.

  4. “I was playing the World Champion”: Chess Life 50, (no. 7–12): 647.

  5. “How could you do this to me?”: Leonard Barden, “Sweet Revenge for Kasparov’s Opponent,” Guardian, September 11, 2002, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/sep/11/3.

  6. “I think a girl of her age”: Dirk Jan ten Geuzendam, “Finding Bobby Fischer: Chess Interviews by Dirk Jan ten Geuzendam,” Alkmaar, the Netherlands: New in Chess (1994), 203.

  7. “A genius is not born”: Peter Maass, “Home-Grown Grandmasters,” Washington Post, March 1992.

  8. “[W]hen I looked at the stories”: Linnet Myers, “Trained to Be a Genius, Girl, 16, Wallops Chess Champ Spassky f
or $110,000,” Chicago Tribune, February 1993.

  9. “Women are able”: Patricia Koza, “Sisters Test Male Domination of Chess,” Mohave Daily Miner, November 1986.

  10. “The Polgárs showed”: G. K. Kasparov and Mig Greengard, How Life Imitates Chess: Making the Right Moves, from the Board to the Boardroom (New York: Bloomsbury, 2008).

  11. “Have they been educated”: László Polgár, Raise a Genius! (Vancouver: self-published, 2007), 97, https://docplayer.net/64270951-Raise-a-genius-by-laszlo-polgar-original-edition-laszlo-polgar-nevelj-zsenit-budapest-interviewer-endre-farkas.html.

  12. “starting from 4–5”: Ibid., 33.

  13. “play is not the opposite”: Ibid., 20.