Mental Effort

The pupils are sensitive indicators of mental effort—they dilate substantially when people multiply two-digit numbers, and they dilate more if the problems are hard than if they are easy.

**

Much like the electricity meter outside your house or apartment, the pupils offer an index of the current rate at which mental energy is used. The analogy goes deep. Your use of electricity depends on what you choose to do, whether to light a room or toast a piece of bread.

**

As you become skilled in a task, its demand for energy diminishes. Studies of the brain have shown that the pattern of activity associated with an action changes as skill increases, with fewer brain regions involved. Talent has similar effects. Highly intelligent individuals need less effort to solve the same problems, as indicated by both pupil size and brain activity. A general “law of least effort” applies to cognitive as well as physical exertion. The law asserts that if there are several ways of achieving the same goal, people will eventually gravitate to the least demanding course of action. In the economy of action, effort is a cost, and the acquisition of skill is driven by the balance of benefits and costs. Laziness is built deep into our nature..

**

Psychologists speak of “executive control” to describe the adoption and termination of task sets, and neuroscientists have identified the main regions of the brain that serve the executive function. One of these regions is involved whenever a conflict must be resolved. Another is the prefrontal area of the brain, a region that is substantially more developed in humans than in other primates, and is involved in operations that we associate with intelligence.

**

One of the significant discoveries of cognitive psychologists in recent decades is that switching from one task to another is effortful, especially under time pressure. The need for rapid switching is one of the reasons

**

We normally avoid mental overload by dividing our tasks into multiple easy steps, committing intermediate results to long-term memory or to paper rather than to an easily overloaded working memory. We cover long distances by taking our time and conduct our mental lives by the law of least effort.

Gerçektir Yazdıklarım

 

İnsancıklar

 

 

Thinking Fast and Slow

 

When you are asked what you are thinking about, you can normally answer. You believe you know what goes on in your mind, which often consists of one conscious thought leading in an orderly way to another. But that is not the only way the mind works, nor indeed is that the typical way. Most impressions and thoughts arise in your conscious experience without your knowing how they got there. You cannot trace how you came to the belief that there is a lamp on the desk in front of you, or how you detected a hint of irritation in your spouse’s voice on the telephone, or how you managed to avoid a threat on the road before you became consciously aware of it. The mental work that produces impressions, intuitions, and many decisions goes on in silence in our mind.

Much of the discussion in this book is about biases of intuition. However, the focus on error does not denigrate human intelligence, any more than the attention to diseases in medical texts denies good health. Most of us are healthy most of the time, and most of our judgments and actions are appropriate most of the time. As we navigate our lives, we normally allow ourselves to be guided by impressions and feelings, and the confidence we have in our intuitive beliefs and preferences is usually justified. But not always. We are often confident even when we are wrong, and an objective observer is more likely to detect our errors than we are.

Learning is a process of identity formation

 

The Swiss scholar Etienne Wenger created an important framework to help people think about learning differently. He states that when we learn something, it is more than just acquiring knowledge or accumulating facts and information, because learning changes us as people. When we learn new ideas, we see the world differently—we have a different way of thinking and a different way of interpreting every event in our lives. As Wenger says, learning is a process of identity formation. Psychologists used to see identity as a static concept, maintaining that we all have “an” identity that we develop as children and keep throughout our lives. But more recent work has given identity a more fluid meaning, suggesting that we can all have different identities in different parts of our lives. You might, for example, present yourself differently as a member of a sports team than you do in your job or in a family role. I wrote this book because I know that when we learn about brain growth, mindset, and multidimensional deep and collaborative thinking, it unlocks aspects of our true selves. These ideas do not turn us into different people, but they can set free what was in us already, what was always possible for us but in many cases not being realized.

**

When we give up on something and decide we cannot do it, it is rarely because of actual limits; instead, it is because we have decided we cannot do it. We are all susceptible to this negative and fixed thinking, but we become particularly susceptible to it when we age and start to feel that we are not as physically or mentally strong as we once were.

**

I am often asked by teachers what they can do with their “unmotivated” students. It is my firm belief that all students want to learn, and they only act unmotivated because someone, at some time in their lives, has given them the idea that they cannot be successful. Once students let go of these damaging ideas and someone opens a learning pathway for them, the lack of motivation goes away.

Collaboration in learning

 

Collaboration is vital for learning, for college success, for brain development, and for creating equitable outcomes. Beyond all of this, it is beneficial to establish interpersonal connections, especially in times of conflict and need.

Victor and Mildred Goertzel studied seven hundred people who had made huge contributions to society, choosing those who had been the subject of at least two biographies, people such as Marie Curie and Henry Ford. They found, incredibly, that less than 15 percent of the famous men and women had been raised in supportive families; 75 percent had grown up in families with severe problems such as “poverty, abuse, absent parents, alcoholism, serious illness,” and other major issues. Their study was conducted in the 1960s. Clinical psychologist Meg Jay, in her interesting Wall Street Journal article on resilience, reports that similar results would be found today and cites Oprah Winfrey, Howard Schultz, and LeBron James as examples of people who grew up in extreme hardship.

Jay has studied resilience over many years and points out that people who survive hardship often do better, but not through “bouncing back,” as some think, because the recovery process takes time and is more of a battle than a bounce. She also points out those who ultimately benefit from hardship, becoming stronger and resilient, do so when they maintain self-belief, when they “own the fighter within,” and when they connect with other people. The thing that people who overcome hardship and do not become defeated by it have in common is that in times of need they all reached out to someone—a friend, a family member, or a colleague—and those connections helped them survive and develop strength.

**

Shane was beginning high school when he hit an all-time low. He had just started at a typical large US high school with high expectations for his experience there, but within weeks he said it was the “loneliest experience he had ever felt.” Shane, in a powerful video that has had tens of thousands of views, describes feeling like an outsider, someone who didn’t belong. It was this deep-seated feeling of emptiness that led Shane to an appointment with his guidance counselor. Shane agreed to this because he thought it might result in his transferring to another school.

Instead, he walked out of the meeting with the recommendation to join five different clubs at the school. Shane was skeptical at first, but he joined the clubs and started to notice some things shifting. He had people to say hello to in the corridors, and the more he got involved in school life, the more he felt he was part of the school community.

Shane discovered that the more he did, the better he felt about himself; the more involved he got, the more “connected, driven, and motivated” he felt. He now reflects that he felt like an outsider because he was one; the only thing that changed was that he put himself on the inside—and that shifted everything. This was such a powerful change that Shane became inspired to share his experience with others and to start what is now a global movement—to help young people to become more personally connected with others.

Shane initially had an idea to hold an assembly at his school to help other students know what can happen when they connect with others and then match them with clubs of interest to them. They expected about fifty students, but word spread and four hundred students from seven different schools attended the assembly. The following year that number grew to a thousand, and the numbers have continued to grow every year. Shane started the movement “Count Me In,” which has now impacted more than ten million people, with speaking programs that have reached students in over one hundred countries. When I interviewed Shane for this book, he highlighted the challenges today’s young people face in forming meaningful connections:

Teenagers today have it harder than any other generation by far, in my educated opinion. Not only are they dealing with all the same issues we’ve seen for generations, but also things like peer pressure, bullying, social isolation that can really be harmful on your upbringing and the trajectory of your life. These are now 24/7 issues for every kid because of technology and smartphones and how much they are plugged in online, yet unplugged in reality and in community. Those community connections, I think, are the key in forging something—so we can see the world just differently enough that we begin to feel a greater sense of self-acceptance and belonging.

He makes a crucial point, and his movement to create greater connections among young people serves a much-needed purpose, as he stated in our interview:

The more you get involved, the more you immerse yourself in the community, the more connected you feel, and the more different you see things, the stronger that lens becomes, and the softer things become. The real defining moment for me that I can pinpoint is when I started living from this place of: My life is bigger than this moment, and it doesn’t matter what’s going on, how dark or desperate I feel inside. I know for a fact, with absolute conviction and certainty, that my life is bigger than this moment, than any one moment.

Shane’s movement has been particularly helpful for young people who feel isolated, who are going through difficult times at home, or who are facing any of the myriad issues that impact young people. He reflected that the main response that differentiates those who change positively from those who don’t is their perspective, or their mindset. Shane’s movement is also a helpful reminder that even—or perhaps particularly—in a world of online connectivity, genuine human connections are something that everybody needs and that changes people’s lives. Shane found that they helped young people know that their lives are bigger than the moments they are in now and that no matter how hard a situation may be, connections with people bring you out of it.

**

Everybody has a different way of approaching things and you can always learn and grow.” She told me that these ideas had caused students to be less egocentric. In their interactions now, instead of insisting on their way of thinking or working and closing down because others have a different idea, students think: “Oh, you know what? This is how I’m thinking about it, but I know others think about it another way.” This acceptance of different ways of thinking has led to greater tolerance and appreciation of each other. As Holly reflected:

They know that other people have good ideas too and they also know that they should open their mind to hearing other people’s solutions, because that might be a new idea for them that they hadn’t yet thought of. And so that mindset of, “Hey, maybe your idea is something that I could add to my idea” is a huge one for kids.

Many reformers in education who work to change student experiences in classrooms work on content, finding new ways to approach topics, often with cool technology. But imagine what students’ learning and lives outside school would be like if they learned to collaborate with others more productively, going into conversations with an openness to hear and understand what others have to say. This would change classroom dynamics as well as many other aspects of students’ lives.

**

Prior to learning about the value of struggle and brain growth, Jenny “felt like an island.” She described to me a mindset that I am sure many share—of feeling that she had to be an expert when interacting with others, of being fearful of revealing a lack of knowledge. And as a teacher in a classroom, she felt she had to be the one who knew everything. But Jenny’s perspective has changed, and she now embraces uncertainty and opens up more to her community of colleagues. Part of this change has involved letting go of the idea that she is being judged. Jenny described her new perspective:

Being willing to feel uncomfortable with not knowing something and still know that I don’t have to give up on something just because I don’t understand it right away. And I have other resources that I can utilize to increase my learning as an educator, as a person. So for me, it’s just . . . I always felt like I was an island and I had to show up knowing. . . . I think for me, it’s changed the way I navigate life in terms of I listen better, I think. I feel like I grow and learn by collaborating, so I think I’ve opened up a different way of connecting to my community of colleagues so that I can learn better, and sharing is really learning. That whole idea of letting go of judgment and knowing your worth changed me as a person.

**

This new approach—of embracing uncertainty instead of pretending to know everything, of looking for resources to learn more—seems to enhance people’s connections with each other as well as people’s way of being in the world.

Approaching content with uncertainty and vulnerability is a trait I also recommend to teachers I work with. When students see their teacher present correct content all the time, always knowing the answer to any student question, always being right, never making mistakes, and never struggling, it creates a false image of what it means to be a good learner, in any subject. Teachers should embrace uncertainty and be open about not knowing something or making a mistake.

If you are a teacher, share these times with students so that they know such times are an important part of having expertise. When I teach my undergraduates at Stanford, I give them open mathematics problems to explore. They take them in all sorts of directions, some of which are new to me. I embrace these moments and admit that I do not know, saying, “How interesting. I have not seen that before. Let’s explore it together.”

**

Mathematics is often depicted as the most solitary of subjects, but it is a discipline, like all others, that has been built through connections between ideas. New ideas and directions come from people reasoning with each other, setting out ideas, and considering the ways they are connected to each other. Parents, particularly of high-achieving students, often say to me, “My child can work out the answers correctly. Why should she have to explain them?” But such parents are missing an important point—mathematics is all about communication and reasoning.

Conrad Wolfram, well known for his work with Wolfram Alpha, the online computational knowledge site, and director of Wolfram Research, told me that people who are unable to communicate their mathematical thinking and ideas are of no use to him as employees, because they cannot take part in team problem solving. In team problem solving, when people communicate their thinking, others can connect with their ideas. Critical evaluation by many minds also guards against incorrect or irrelevant ideas. When people cannot communicate an idea or come up with the reasoning that led them to it, they are not particularly useful in a team of problem solvers. I am sure this principle is true of all areas—people who can explain and communicate their ideas to others, whether in math, science, art, history, or any other area, are more effective problem solvers and are able to make a larger contribution to the work in companies and other groups.

The six keys that have been presented play an important role in changing people’s communication and, consequently, create a multitude of life opportunities. Many people are too locked up to be good communicators. They are fearful of saying something wrong, and they worry that what they say is an indication of their worth, that they are being judged by others. When people learn about mindset, brain growth, multidimensionality, and struggle, it often unlocks them, gives them a limitless perspective, and enables them to let go of the fear of being judged. Instead, they embrace openness and uncertainty and become more willing to share ideas, which, in collaboration with others, grow into solution pathways. Such collaborations enhance people’s lives, and the very best collaborations, it seems, start with a limitless approach to people and to ideas.

Amerika'nın Avantajı

 

Türkiye'de Gezi Edebiyatı

 

Kanji and Gender Issues in Japanese Language

 

Alana Chandler, The Tech

As the routine went on Saturday mornings during middle school, I crammed for my Japanese vocabulary quiz on the hour-long drive to the Japanese Saturday School I attended. Attempting to pound the complex strokes into my head, I scribbled down hundreds of characters, one after another in a robotic fashion. In the rushed and rhythmic push, pull, flick of my pencil, it was seldom that I would take a moment to actually consider the meaning of the characters I was writing. Yet, on an otherwise mundane Saturday morning drive, something changed. I was learning the character for “slave” (奴), going through my typical chicken-scratch routine, when I paused. It dawned on me that this character was composed of two others — the characters for “female” (女) and “hand” (又). Suddenly, I wanted to tear up the paper I was writing on. I looked at my trembling hand, that of a girl, stained with the matte silver of lead rubbed off page. My fingers curled tight. 

Quite recently at MIT, the term “freshmen” was replaced with “first years.” In an effort to promote equality across all genders, many universities like MIT are motivating the academic community to use neutral terms instead of words with gendered origins. For some, such a transition in language is perceived as petty and even meaningless. After all, no one says the word “mankind” with the purpose of excluding women from humanity; no one refers to something as “man-made” with the intention of stressing that that something was built solely with testosterone-pumped strength… right?

While it’s true that many people of all genders use such terms without any consciously sexist motive, this is beside the point. What is paramount is the realization that language uncovers the basic perception and biases of a group. In using words chosen by those in power, language reflects a world of how the authority wants the group to be, consequently shaping the very group that uses that language. A growing body of research suggests that gendered language contributes to sexism. In one study by the Rhode Island School of Design, of 111 countries investigated, countries that spoke languages with gendered grammar systems, such as Spanish and German, evidenced more gender inequality compared to countries with other grammar systems. 

Yet, this does not go to say that countries without gendered grammar systems have negligible sexism. At a more basic level than grammar, an examination of Japanese words, as well as the characters that make up those words, reveals that even languages without gendered grammar systems can be insidiously gendered.

Unlike the alphabet, Japanese uses kanji (漢字), an ideographic writing system developed in China around 3,000 years ago that combines visual symbols to create a word. In fact, kanji were what I practiced on my drives to Japanese school. For instance, 人 is the kanji character for “person,” and 木 is the character for “tree.” Combining these two characters creates the character for “rest” (休) with the “person” character on its side up against the “tree” character. Each kanji tells its own story; it is this nature that sheds light on the embittering roots of discrimination in Japanese society. 

While kanji were exclusive to upper-class men, “hiragana” (平仮名), a phonetic letter system, was later created by the few females in the upper class who could read kanji. Mostly used by women, hiragana letters were called “onna moji” (female lettering), while kanji characters were called “otoko moji” (male lettering). While “kan” (漢) in kanji means “man” in Japanese, “hira” (平) means level, flat and peaceful — perhaps this alone sheds light on the perception of women during the inception of Japanese writing. 

The dawn of hiragana deepened the divide between men and women. General communication matters, news, and business information were written in kanji, while hiragana were used by women for personal purposes. The historical exclusion of women from writing kanji made it possible for men to develop words and revitalize characters with sexist meanings behind the backs of the very people they talked about.

 

Like Latin and Greek roots in English words, Japanese characters are often created based on radicals, or “hen” (編), used for categorization of the character’s meaning. For example, the “person” hen (人) is used three times to create the following character, 众, which means “crowd”. The “tree” hen (木）used three times in one character (森) means “forest”. Yet, the female hen (女) used three times in one character (姦) means both “loud” and “rape.” 

Some common kanji words include the following:

• Bride (嫁): female hen (女) + house (家)
• Wife (家内): house (家) + inside (内)
• Husband (主人): synonymous to “lord” and “master”
• Security/Cheap (安): female hen (女) + roof hen (宀)

These characters suggest that it is most safe and effective for men to have women remain domestic beings. 

While there does exist a handful of kanji associated with women with positive connotations, most kanji for women have a negative connotation, while kanji for men award power and leniency in their actions. Combining the female hen with the “disease” hen creates the character for “jealousy” (嫉), implying that envy is a sickness inflicted by women. Even the character for “dislike” (嫌) contains the familiar female hen. On the other hand, the character for “man” (男）is that of dignity and hardwork, composed of the character for “field” (田) and “strength” (力). The character for “bravery” (勇) looks almost identical to the character for “man”.

Both of the characters 嫐 and 嬲 are comprised of only the male (男) and female (女) characters. The former character (嫐) is two female characters enclosing a male character and translates to “flirting.” The latter (嬲) is two male characters enclosing a female character and means “to tease and bully,” “toy with,” and “make fun of.” These characters imply that when there is a female majority, they seduce the male, yet when there is a male majority, the men can have a good time at the expense of female suffering. Granted, even my mother who is a native Japanese speaker, had never seen these characters, showing that although these characters exist in the Japanese language, they are not heavily used. 

Perhaps even more elucidating of the male-female discrepancy is the nefarious description of sex crimes. The kanji for “molester” (痴漢) is made of characters meaning “foolish” (痴) and “man” (漢). This insinuates that message that perverted men are indulgently stupid in their sexual desires rather than criminal abusers. While 30 different words prevail for female prostitution, I could not find a single one that exists for men who buy their services. Kanji portray women as objects, and men can use these objects with little shame and social repercussion.

While these kanji convey stereotypical notions of women, people do not use these words on a daily basis with the thought that the characters are discriminatory. When learning kanji, the emphasis is placed on learning characters as a whole, rather than their components, making it almost automatic to bypass thinking about their sexist meanings. Yet, given that so many kanji relating to women are demeaning, is it a surprise that sexism is still widespread in Japan? According to The Japan Times, in 2019, only 13 percent of managerial positions were held by women in Japan. Japanese is just one example of a language that reflects underlying gender bias, embodying cultural thoughts and values. 

As I continue to learn kanji, I am amazed at the potential for a single character to convey both meaning and sound. Yet, as times progress from the nativity of kanji, its evolution and adaptability is required to suit the modern times, instead of depict an inaccurate, insulting perspective.

There exists a yearly competition in Japan to create pseudo-kanji; one such submission replaced the male character (男) in bravery (勇) with the female character (女) to symbolize one who is strong-willed and spirited. Seeing new characters like these brings me hope that language that excludes or demeans women, or anyone for that matter, is a reality we may one day no longer have to bear. While changing a language from its most basic component, its characters, is perhaps idealistic, the first step to making progress is by being aware of the sexism inherent in our world.

The Thinking of "Trailblazers"

 

Adam Grant has written a book called Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World in which he argues that we have long valued the rule-following, memorizing students. He notes that the students in the US often regarded as “prodigies”—the ones who “learn to read at age two, play Bach at four, breeze through calculus at six”—rarely go on to change the world. When scholars study the most influential people in history, they are rarely those regarded as “gifted” or “geniuses” in their childhood. Instead, the people who excel in school often “apply their extraordinary abilities in ordinary ways, mastering their jobs without questioning defaults, and without making waves.” Grant concludes: “Although we rely on them to keep the world running smoothly, they keep us running on a treadmill.” Those who do go on to change the world are creative and flexible thinkers, people who think outside rather than inside the box.

Many people know that creative and flexible thinking is valuable, but they do not associate it with mathematics. Instead, they see math time as an area in which to follow rules and be compliant. But when we combine mathematics with creativity, openness, and out-of-the-box thinking, it is wonderfully liberating. This is something everybody deserves to know about and experience, and when they do, they do not look back.

The advantages of deep and flexible thinking apply to all subjects and avenues of life. We do not know what problems people will need to solve in the future, but they are likely to be problems we have never even dreamed of. Filling our minds with content that we can reproduce at speed is unlikely to help us solve the problems of the future; instead, training our minds to think deeply, creatively, and flexibly seems far more useful. The thinking of “trailblazers” whose brains were studied was found to be more flexible than that of regular people. They had learned to approach problems in different ways and not just rely on a memory. Speed and fixed approaches will only take us so far. In the education world and beyond, we must all challenge the assumptions about the benefits of speed and memorization and instead focus on flexible and creative learning. This will help us unlock our own and others’ potential as learners.

"Mathematics is amazingly compressible"

 

When we learn new knowledge, it takes up a large space in the brain—it literally occupies more room—as the brain works out what it means and where it connects with other ideas already learned. But as time goes on, the concepts we have learned are compressed into a smaller space. The ideas are still there so that when we need them, we can quickly and easily “pull” them from our brain and use them; they just take up less space. If I were to teach arithmetic to kindergarten students, the concepts would take up a large space in their brains. But if I asked adults to add 3 and 2, they would quickly do so, pulling the answer from their compressed knowledge of addition. William Thurston, a mathematician who won the Fields Medal, described compression in this way:

Mathematics is amazingly compressible: you may struggle a long time, step by step, to work through the same process or idea from several approaches. But once you really understand it and have the mental perspective to see it as a whole, there is often a tremendous mental compression. You can file it away, recall it quickly and completely when you need it, and use it as just one step in some other mental process. The insight that goes with this compression is one of the real joys of mathematics.

You may be thinking that few students describe math as a “real joy,” and part of the reason is that we can only compress concepts. So when students are engaging in mathematics conceptually—looking at ideas from different perspectives and using numbers flexibly—they are developing a conceptual understanding, creating concepts that can be compressed in the brain. When students believe that mathematics is about memorization, they are not developing a conceptual understanding or forming concepts that can then be compressed. Instead of compressed concepts in the brain, their math knowledge is more like a ladder of memorized methods that stack one on top of another, stretching, as it may seem to these learners, to the sky. 

Creativity and Flexibility

 

Neuroscientist Sian Beilock has studied the brain when people are working under pressure. A particular area of the brain called the “working memory” is needed when we do calculations. The working memory is sometimes referred to as the “search engine of the mind” and, like all areas of our brains, is developed through practice. What Beilock has shown is that when we are stressed or under pressure, our working memory is impeded. The students who are the most compromised are those with the most working memory. This means that when students are given timed math tests and they become anxious, as many do, their working memory is compromised, and they cannot calculate the answers. Anxiety sets in, and a pattern of harmful beliefs soon follows.

The feeling of stress impeding your brain may be something you have known yourself. Have you ever had to work on a math calculation under pressure and felt as though your mind “went blank”? That is the feeling of stress blocking your working memory. When we give timed tests to young children, many of them experience stress, their working memory is compromised, and they cannot recall math facts. When they realize they cannot achieve, anxiety sets in.

**

The irony of the unfortunate speed-based math activities in schools, where children are turned away from a lifetime of mathematical and scientific thinking because they don’t produce math facts quickly and under pressure, is that mathematics is not a subject that requires speed. Some of the strongest mathematical thinkers are very slow with numbers and other aspects of mathematics. They do not think quickly; they think slowly and deeply.

In recent years, some of the world’s greatest mathematicians, including those who have won the Fields Medal, such as Laurent Schwartz and Maryam Mirzakhani, have talked openly about how slow they are with math. After Schwartz won the Fields Medal, he wrote an autobiography about his school days in which he talked about feeling stupid in school because he was one of the slowest thinkers. He says:

I was always deeply uncertain about my own intellectual capacity; I thought I was unintelligent. And it is true that I was, and still am, rather slow. I need time to seize things because I always need to understand them fully. Toward the end of the eleventh grade, I secretly thought of myself as stupid. I worried about this for a long time.

 

I’m still just as slow. . . . At the end of the eleventh grade, I took the measure of the situation and came to the conclusion that rapidity doesn’t have a precise relation to intelligence. What is important is to deeply understand things and their relations to each other. This is where intelligence lies. The fact of being quick or slow isn’t really relevant.

**

At the time I was speeding through my math questions, I was myself working under the myth that speed is what is important. In our archaic school system, it is not surprising that millions of students believe speedy performance is what is valued. Now many years on, I have learned to approach content differently. I no longer look at math problems as something to answer quickly, but as something to think about deeply and creatively. That change has helped me greatly. I now get more from not only mathematical thinking, but any scientific or technical reading or work. The change in my approach has helped me so much and has fueled my passion to help others disarm this pervasive myth in the pursuit of understanding, creativity, and connections.

Medical doctor Norman Doidge says that when people learn something quickly, they are probably strengthening existing neural connections. These he describes as “easy come, easy go” neural connections, which can be rapidly reversed. This is what is happening when we study for a test, and we go over something we have already learned. We cram information in and reproduce it in a day or so, but it does not last and is quickly forgotten. More permanent brain changes come from the formation of new structures in the brain—the sprouting of neural connections and synapses. This is always a slow process.