Free The Power of Forgetting by Mike Byster

algebraic equations, given a little interest or motivation.”
    In other words, in subject areas that make us uncomfortable or whose ideas and rules are not easy for us to grasp, being able to rely on our perceptions can change everything. It can turn sciencephobes into scientists. It can help someone who could never before turn math equations into graphical interpretations become incredibly adept at this skill. And it can help anyone accomplish certain tasks more easily by relying more on intuition than on set rules and steps that require precise recall, thought, and consideration.
    Carey brings up a good point in his reporting: When you think about it, perceptual learning is really just a way of looking at the world and asking yourself,
How can I solve this problem intuitively? Without really thinking about it, how can I arrive at an answer?
Although we’re not always aware of it, in fact we ask ourselves these questions every single day, many times over. Whenever we’re faced with a real-life problem, our first questions are always “What am I looking at? What’s the problem? Where do I want to go with this? What should my solution or outcome be?” We then consider the facts, try to discern which ones are relevant and which we can forget, and figure out what to do next. All of this activity that our brain performs pretty much belowour conscious radar is a perfect example of our perceptions at work helping us to solve problems. Our “perceptions at work” are what compose our habits. And by “problems” I’m referring to any number of situations, from decoding a serious math equation to deciding whether to turn right or left at a busy intersection. Put simply, our habits shape and hone our perceptions, which in turn streamline our daily duties and workload. The more we can effortlessly perceive throughout our day that’s filled with decisions to make, the more we can save our mental energy.
    Perceptual learning is rooted in the very fact that our ability to detect patterns, even the most subtle ones, happens subconsciously and well before we know we are learning. Carey cites a landmark 1997 experiment in which researchers at the University of Iowa found that some people playing a simple gambling game with decks of cards could unconsciously distinguish between the “good decks” (those that led to wins) and the “bad decks” (those that led to greater losses) after just ten cards. The study, which was published in the journal
Science
, proved that nonconscious biases can sometimes guide behavior before conscious knowledge does. In other words, you can perceive something different or special about a certain thing, such as a deck of cards, without any other knowledge or facts to consider.
    Although some people, like me, develop sensitive perceptual radar the old-fashioned way through years of practice (and a self-inflicted obsession with recognizing patterns), there is growing evidence that a certain kind of training—“visual, fast-paced, often focused on classifying problems rather than solving them”—can build intuition quickly. For example, in another recent experiment cited by Carey, researchersfound that people were better able to distinguish the painting styles of twelve unfamiliar artists after viewing mixed collections of works from all twelve than after viewing a dozen works from one artist and then moving on to the next painter. “The participants’ brains began to pick up on differences before they could fully articulate them,” Carey notes.
    Steven Sloman, a cognitive scientist at Brown University, explains it beautifully in Carey’s article: “Once the brain has a goal in mind, it tunes the perceptual system to search the environment for relevant clues.” Or as Carey describes it, “In time the eyes, ears and nose learn to isolate those signs and dismiss irrelevant information, in turn sharpening thinking.”
    So how exactly is perceptual learning relevant to my ideas and exercises? The