Aswad
Posts: 9374
Joined: 4/4/2007
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Vendaval
I do prefer audio myself.
A kindred spirit! 
You wouldn't happen to enjoy music in a very different way from the "rest" of the world too, would you? Just about everyone I know looked at me as if I'd gone mad when I spent about USD 2000 or so on a set of headphones, 'cept my dad, who got the same brand (Stax) when he was younger.
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You mean like sticking one's hand in the fire or running with scissors? 
That certainly qualifies as "direct feedback", yes, although I did point out that it isn't necessarily advisable in all cases, fire and scissors being good examples of inadvisable, just like putting your hands on a 350 volt cap. I'm not sure I'd trade away the bits I've gotten from inadvisable application of direct feedback, though.
As a general rule, if your kids are running around with scissors, tripping them probably isn't the best way to teach them. If they are teasing the cat, however, a few scratches won't hurt if they've had their shots, and eating a cactus is just so a problem that fully contains its own solution.
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Aswad, your endless amounts of knowledge never cease to amaze me!
Bah. I admit it: I don't have a life, and I soak up trivia like a sponge. Now if only there was any practical use for it.
Seriously, though, it's kind of what a previous poster said ... some of us start reading in one end, and follow the trail of attention, then apply more discipline to successive approximations if we actually need to know it more fully. Starting off with studying stuff about how to learn and how to organize information is helpful to some of us, as well.
Speed reading helps; though you shouldn't waste your money on a course, just read faster. If you put aside any thoughts that "I can't do that", you'll see that you can, as everyone can do it. The only problem is that reading comprehension starts dropping above 400wpm or so, along with retention, which is why I use the time "saved" to go back and reread things several times over, then pore over any fuzzy details. I think a rate of about 1000-2000wpm should be achievable for anyone, with a little bit of getting used to.
Retention is mostly a matter of organizing what you are exposed to, and that comes down to spending a bit of time reflecting on how you think, occasionally "freezing" your own thought processes and examining them to see how you tick. Then you can use this knowledge systematically to play to your strengths and circumvent your weaknesses. It has worked for the people I've tried to teach it to.
Formal intelligence, in the sense of IQ, is largely heredetary, but that too can be raised somewhat (about 1-2 standard deviations, IIRC) by training, although I'm not up to date on the "how" of this. I'm in the 99th percentile or so, hence it wasn't a priority for me, although I have done a bit of work on this with others. If you're interested, I can probably look it up, or talk to someone who's looked into it. Reminding me via PM would probably be good, as I presently have the memory of a goldfish.
Also, bear in mind that our retention is maximized when we do not study a topic for consecutive days, at least for book learning, although I think it also goes for muscle memory, but possibly not for applied semantic knowledge (e.g. fixing an engine). That is to say that if you have a week to learn something, you should study it on days 1, 3, 5 and 7, not the days in between. I don't know why this is so, probably something to do with reorganizing and consolidating memories. It's probably okay to speedread through the material once as a recap on the days in between, but I haven't tested this. When I work or study, I usually try to take on at least two longer-term tasks, and then space them in this manner. It also improves (by feedback) your ability to leave notes and work in a state that makes sense when coming in with a blank slate, which is a good thing in a business context, as it reduces the "line 13" factor (a.k.a. "What will you do if employee X gets hit by a bus tomorrow?").
A simple way of picking up a lot of interesting information, although somewhat time-consuming and prone to inaccuracies (I check with other sources, usually) is to open up Wikipedia on a topic that interests you, using the Firefox or Opera browsers (I hear IE7 also has tabs, now) and opening whatever links seem to be of secondary interest in background tabs while reading the text. When you're done reading it, you'll usually have a handful to a dozen new tabs ready to read. Repeat until boredom, nausea or Real Life(tm) sets in.
My preferred means of picking up information is talking to people who know about stuff, probably because it's interactive (which offers better learning) and because it's auditory (my preferred input modality). For instance, with regard to psychiatry, I talk to doctors, psychiatrists and professors in the field, while for IT/ICT-related topics, I talk to colleagues, and for BDSM-related topics, I talk to a few friends who share the interest or I come here.
The only thing special about it is that I did it, not that I could do it. Almost anyone can.
_____________________________
"If God saw what any of us did that night, he didn't seem to mind.
From then on I knew: God doesn't make the world this way.
We do." -- Rorschack, Watchmen.
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