The Power of Mindful Learning (13 page)

Psalms

Luis LLORENS TORRES

Especially as we age, we worry about forgetting much of what we have known. What
would life be like if we remembered everything we once knew? Would I notice how you
looked today if I kept before me clear pictures of how you
looked every other time I saw you? Would I be inclined to
listen to you if you said something at all similar to something
else you once told me and I remembered every word you
said? Would I taste the food I'm eating if I simultaneously remembered exactly how it tasted the last time? Wouldn't it
be easier (more guilt free) to eat pasta, now considered
healthy, if I did not remember that I was first taught that it
was fattening? Would I even consider having another baby if
the pain of every minute of the last delivery were still perfectly vivid?

A certain degree of memory is a necessary protection. We
avoid touching hot stoves. A recollection that winters in New
England can be cold is probably sufficient to lead one to buy a
warm coat. To remember every sensation we felt when the temperature fell below zero and the winds reached sixty miles per
hour, however, is probably unnecessary. There are clear advantages to forgetting bad experiences.

Is it ever good to forget good things? Forgetting pleasure
allows us to re-experience it. We seek out others because of a
general memory that company feels good. To be able to
re-create the entire experience of a party might mean we
needn't go to another. On first thought, that sounds like a
good thing. We wouldn't need anybody or wouldn't need to
make much effort because all we'd have to do is call up the
memory. To do this, though, would mean that we were relying on pleasures enjoyed by younger, less experienced versions of ourselves. At what point would we want to freeze
the experience? At twenty? Forty? Sixty? Would the experience be less rich and deep the earlier we froze it? My appreciation of novels, landscapes, and conversations is quite
different for me now than it was when I was a teenager. Continually re-experiencing life from a fresh vantage point is
part of being truly alive.

It is easier to learn something the first time than it is to unlearn
it and then learn it differently. The facts we are taught today
often contradict what we were taught when we were much
younger. Perhaps we would have a better feel for the nature of a
quark if we hadn't been taught that electrons, protons, and neutrons were the smallest particles. Comprehending new complexities might be easier if we were not burdened by mindlessly
memorized old information.

It is said that mathematicians do their best work when
they are young. (The highest mathematics award, the Fields
Medal, is given only to mathematicians under the age of
forty.) Is this because they are not yet weighed down by too
much knowledge, by mindsets they would be better off having
forgotten?

Itiel Dror and I conducted three experiments to test the
effect of knowledge on creative performance.' We explored
whether a small amount of knowledge about a problem has a
restricting effect on the ability to generate original ideas. Earlier
research had established that certain kinds of previously learned
information can restrict creativity.2 That research examined creativity per se, that is, it examined originality as a goal in itself. In
our experiments, we evaluated creativity as a means for accom plishing a desired goal, that is, we looked at the appropriateness
and utilitarian value of the generated ideas.

In each experiment undergraduate participants were required to build a bridge over an imaginary river using small,
custom-made wooden blocks. They were told that the height
of the bridge would determine the size of the boats that could
use the river, so the higher the better. Half the participants
were briefly shown examples of how the blocks could be used
in a different building task (building the longest bridge possible
or building a tower). The other half had no prior exposure to
the blocks. In the first experiment, 92 percent of the group that
saw the examples used the blocks in formations identical to
ones they had been shown, whereas only 8 percent of the group
that did not see any examples used such formations. The prepared group came up with two solutions; the unprepared group
came up with ten. We replicated these results in two other
experiments. Our hypothesis in these experiments was that the
group shown examples would have difficulty forgetting those
examples. Our hypothesis was confirmed.

In social psychology there is a well-known phenomenon
called the sleeper effect. People hear persuasive arguments by
sources that are either credible or not and are later tested to see
whether their attitudes have been affected by the communications. Initially, source credibility seems to matter. If the source
of the message is someone we respect, we are more likely to be
influenced than if we view the source of the message as
untrustworthy. The interesting aspect of the phenomenon,
however, is that over time, the credibility of the source ceases to matter. People forget where they heard it or from whom, but
they retain general aspects of the persuasive message. This
effect seems to support the belief that any publicity is good
publicity.

Related work in social psychology has shown that over time
people are more likely to make dispositional than situational
attributions.' That is, people are more likely to consider several
aspects of the situation in their explanations when they try to
explain behavior soon after it has occurred than when they try
to explain it later. As they forget the details of the situation, the
explanation becomes more global. For example, "He was late
because of the weather" may be replaced with the attribution,
"He is inconsiderate."

When people forget details, they often supply their own in
ways that fit their particular interpretation of events. They work
backward and construct possible scenarios in accordance with
their remembered general impressions. Typically, the particulars
are more likely to be forgotten than is the basic situation.4

We can remember information in two ways: mindfully or
mindlessly. In previous chapters we saw that mindful learning
enables us to be sensitive to context and to notice the present.
When we have learned information mindfully, we remain open
to ways in which information may differ in various situations.
This sort of memory may guide our current behavior, as we are
primed to notice the subtle changes. When we have learned something mindlessly, however, either by accepting information unconditionally or by overlearning or memorizing it, we
may be better off forgetting such context-free facts so that we
are not bound by them.

My notes before a lecture are sparse to nonexistent. I fear
that if I write out all that I plan to say, it will be hard not to rely
on past thoughts when I give the lecture again. Without a
script, I'm forced to reinvent the lecture instead of delivering a
canned one. I remember the general points, but the particulars
have to be rediscovered. Preparing in this manner makes it
much more likely that I will deliver a lecture that reflects my
current thinking and the present situation; I'm not tied to a
rigid outline or to reading notes. Moreover, I find that I feel
excited by the possibility of coming to a new insight.