Unlearning 101

Train Your Brain to Unlearn

Quick. I want you to say aloud what color you see in every word in the chart to the right. Do not say the word you read. (For example, sometimes the word "white" will be in the color red so you would say "red.") The quiz, better known as the Stoop task, is a classic psychology experiment and is used in neuropsychological evaluations to measure mental vitality and flexibility.

It is best done with another person observing you because you won't always catch your own mistakes. The reason this simple exercise is so difficult is because reading a word is an automated task and takes relatively little mental effort. Naming the color of the word, however, requires concentrated and deliberate thought.

In many ways the act of learning is similar to reading words -- it can become an automated process requiring little effort. For example, think of reading an article in a scientific journal or an opinion piece in the commentary section of your favorite newspaper. In many cases all you are doing is either adding new knowledge to your existing base of knowledge or reconfirming an existing viewpoint you have previously learned. (This isn't an inherently bad thing but if your base of knowledge is becoming obsolete or if your viewpoint is based on biased information it isn't helpful.)

Unlearning, like the naming of the color of the word, is more difficult. It requires deliberate thought and forces you to ignore the "obvious" answer. This act of ignoring the "obvious" answer can often be  the first step down the difficult, albeit rewarding, path of unlearning.

Interested in other unlearning exercises? Check out these past posts:

To Unlearn: Try a Blind Taste Test

To Unlearn: Meet Me in St. Louis

Train Your Mind to See Different Views

To Unlearn: Try a Blind Taste Test

Yesterday, I encouraged people interested in unlearning to "trust but verify" their instincts. One area where this technique might save you some money is to have a friend or loved one give you a blind taste of your favorite (and perhaps expensive) wine or coffee along with that of a lesser brand.

Interestingly, a few years ago researchers at Stanford gave a group of wine experts a blind taste test of five different wines. The only information provided was the price of each wine -- ranging between $5 and $90. Not surprisingly, the most expensive wine was identified as the best. What is interesting, though, is that three of the wines (the $5, $45, $90 bottles) were the same wine.

In other words, it was not the inherent characteristic of the wine (i.e. a"charismatic Cabernet Sauvignon with a full-bodied flavor and a hint of cherry and oak") that the tasters were reacting to, it was the price.

Now consider some of your favorite wines, coffees and chocolates. Are you really reacting to the superior taste -- or the inflated price? If you're unsure, take a blind taste test.  The results may very well encourage you to unlearn some of your expensive habits.

To Unlearn: Meet Me in St. Louis

St. Louis's Gateway Arch is one of the world's largest optical illusions. It appears to be much taller than it is wide. The reality is that it is as high as it is wide. The problem is that the illusion can't be overcome just by taking another look -- only an objective measurement will do.

The relationship to unlearning is this: You can't simply rely on what you see to be the sole determinent of truth. In many cases only objective measurement will do.

For example, as I explained in this video, people often "see" patterns when none exist. Alternatively, we tend to view people based more on their surroundings and environment than on who they truly are.

If you want to unlearn, my recommendation is to recall the old phrase: "Trust but verify."

Is It Time To Unlearn How We Read?

Reading. Most of us do it every day and it is so ingrained from such an early age that it is difficult to imagine that there is another way of doing it. Yet, there is.

Last summer, I had the opportunity to sit down with Adam Gordon, the vice president of marketing for Live Ink, to discuss his company’s revolutionary new technology—Live Ink.

Before explaining the technology, let me ask you a simple question: Have you ever wondered why we read the way we do? That is, why do we read words in block text—such as you are doing at this very moment.

I am no historical scholar but I suspect the answer goes back thousands of years and it was dependent on writers (and publishers) need to make efficient use of limited resources. First, stone tablets; then papyrus and, ultimately, pulp-based paper.

In much the same way that the QWERTY keyboard has become the de facto manner in which we interact with computers —even though it has been demonstrated that there are more efficient and faster methods of typing -- the same can be said for how we read. But instead of dealing with one hundred years of established tradition—as in the case of QWERTY keyboard—printed text in block form has been around since Johannes Gutenberg printed off his first bible.

In the near future, however, the resistance to this long-held paradigm could begin to fade. I am not suggesting that printed block text will fade away overnight, but a convergence of technologies have now created an environment in which a different method for how we can access the written word has been created.

Before I go any further let me first invite you to view a visual demonstration of Live Ink’s technology here. In its simpliest form, Live Ink displays text in shorter lines; breaks the text into grammatically meaningful segments; and then indents the text to cue the brain to key phrases within a given sentence.

What immediately appealed to me about Live Ink’s technology was the notion that written text as it was historically formatted was not optimized for the human brain. In other words, while it is true that we can read long line-by-line text that does not imply that it is necessarily the best way for the human eye to operate or for the human mind to comprehend written information.

Until recently there wasn’t much that could be done about this shortcoming. To make books compact and conserve limited resources, it helped to cram as many words onto a page as possible. Today, however, as ever more people access digital information on the Web; from their cellphones; Kindle-like electronic books; and, soon, other flexible electronic media, it will make sense to display information not as “we have always done it,” but rather in a manner that is easiest, fastest and allows us to retain the most information.  First, the publishing industry will have to unlearn its reliance on block text.

Live Ink executives don’t make any claims that their technology improves the rate at which people read; they have, however, documented how their technology dramatically increases reading comprehension rates and eases strain on the eye.

I cannot often say with a strong conviction that I have seen the future; but, in the case of Live Ink, I truly believe I have seen the future of reading. Within a year or so, I fully expect my website—and thousands of others—to begin placing a widget on their site which will allow readers to access written information in a new, faster and more efficient manner.

Unlearning Bad Spelling ... Or Why Your Neice is Wierd

The words "neice" and "wierd" are purposely misspelled in the above title. The correct spellings are "niece" and "weird." The misspellings, which are fairly common, beg the question: How do you unlearn an incorrect fact?

Luckily, for me, I don't have to answer the question because the fine folks at Scientific America have already answered the question is this illuminating article entitled "Why is it hard to unlearn an incorrect fact?"

Rather the purpose of this post is to highlight one of the unlearning tactics suggested in the article. According to the author, one strategy is make a new association which highlights -- or emphasizes the correct -- answer. For example, in the case of "neice" you might use the phrase "my niece is nice," or for "wierd" the phrase "we are weird" could be used to make the new association.

The strategy is important because it is not only our "neices" who must unlearn. Many of us hold within our heads some "wierd" ideas which we would also do well to unlearn. So the next time you encounter one of these incorrect "facts" intruding on your thoughts try making a new -- and correct -- association.

For readers interested in other unlearning tactics, I recommend "Unlearning Untruths" and "Changing Your Worldview."

Cathy Davidson on Unlearning

Earlier today I came across a tweet from a person (@riverblindmusic) in New Zealand who said that my post the other day (To Unlearn Learn to Disenthrall) was keeping him (or her) awake as he wrote a new song based on the word. At the time, I thought it was just a cool example of how new social media is making random connections. But, after watching this insightful video (posted below) by Cathy Davidson, it got me thinking that my pleasure in the serendipitous connection is actually something much more profound.

As I think about this, I invite you to watch the six-minute video by Ms. Davidson. To tease you fellow unlearners here are two quotes taken from the interview:

"You're in a deep pool and you're not even close to touching the bottom."

"We must go through a huge, massive process of unlearning."

Do We Need to Unlearn the "Nature vs Nuture" Debate?

I understand the appeal of saying something is either black or white (and thus denying all the various shades of grey in between). Numerous debates occur everyday. For example, some people argue that  homosexuality is genetic in nature. Others claim it is a nurtured condition.

In spite of the efforts of supporters on both sides of the debate, the issue is not so clear cut. Neither are the hundreds of other such "nature vs nuture" debates.

In a new study being released today in Child Development Perspectives a team of researchers is calling for society to say "neither" to the debate. In short, they are saying that the world is far more complicated than many of us would like to acknowledge. But rather than gravitate toward "intellectually lazy" answers which tend to support one point of view over the other, or favoring "one-liners over 10-minute explanations," the authors suggest we should remain open to how various pieces of knowledge fit together.

In essense, the article and the study are really just a call for common sense but because common sense is a commodity which is often in short supply today -- even in academic and scientific circles -- it never hurts to stop and ask ourselves whether there is a new approach.

To this end, I'm in favor of unlearning the "nature vs nuture" debate and staying open to the idea that the real answer may be "neither."

To Unlearn Learn to Disenthrall

"The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise—with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country."

A good friend of mine, knowing of my passion for the concept of unlearning, recently forwarded this famous quote from Abraham Lincoln and suggested that what Lincoln was really advocating was "unlearning."

To a large degree, I believe this true, for exactly one month after uttering these famous words, Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.

The word "disenthrall" means to "set free"  and, in his speech, Lincoln was in essence calling upon Congress and the American people to free their minds and free their thinking. By calling upon his fellow citizens to do so, Lincoln set this country on the path to a new and better future.

Of course, we still have a long way to go but if we hope to achieve a better future for our children and grandchildren it would behoove all of us to get down to the serious business of disenthralling ourselves from the "dogmas of the quiet past."

(P.S. As some readers may know, last year I ran unsuccessfully as an independent candidate for the U.S. Senate in my home state of Minnesota. My initial ad, entitled "Reverse Your Thinking" tried to get at this idea. It is 2.5 minutes long and you have to watch the entire commercial to get the point but if you do I think you'll catch my drift and see that one way to unlearn is to reverse your thinking.)

Unlearn By Dispelling Old and New Ignorance

In his famous speech at Rice University where he declared that it was America’s intention to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade, President Kennedy said “the greater our knowledge increases, the greater our ignorance unfolds,” adding that “the vast stretches of the unknown and the unanswered and the unfinished still far outstrip our collective comprehension.”

 

Kennedy went on to offer a historical perspective for the magnitude of change society had experienced over the short course of human history. He asked his audience to condense the 50,000 years of man’s recorded history into the span of fifty years. Under this scenario, Kennedy noted that not much happened for the first forty years. Ten years ago, man emerged from his cave, and only five years ago did he learned to write. Christianity appeared two years ago, the printing press this year, and just two months ago the steam engine appeared. Last month electric lights, telephones, automobiles, and airplanes became available, and only last week did we develop penicillin, television, and nuclear weapons. To reach “the stars before midnight tonight,” Kennedy then poignantly added that Americans would have to “dispel old [and] new ignorance.”

 

Since achieving Kennedy’s goal in 1969, progress has continued exponentially. (Ironically, perhaps, with the exception of space exploration which, as Monday's 40th aniversary of the moon landing reminds us, has not made much progress.) Taking his historical analogy a little further, however, in the last proverbial "day" computers, biotechnology, the Internet, and the sequencing of the human genome have all appeared on the scene.

 

What Kennedy's analogy reminds us it that will need to continue to “dispel old ignorance” -- or continuously unlearn if you will -- only on a faster scale.

Take a Course in Unlearning

At the end of yesterday's post on learning to unlearning, I posed the following question: How does one learn a new gestalt? To begin a person must start by unlearning some things. But what things do we unlearn? For our purposes, a good place to start might be to imagine what a course on unlearning what might look like.

 

One place to start is to imagine where the course would take place. Initially it will be—and already is—online. In 2007 the Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced that it was putting all of its courses online for free—for anyone in the world to access.

 

And let’s remember, the online, virtual classroom of the future is only going to get better. The Internet of the future will be streaming incredible amounts of data-rich information anywhere in the world, students will be capable of wirelessly downloading the latest information from flexible electronic books that display both the written word and video files, and new software programs will be capable of translating text from Mandarin Chinese, French, or Farsi into English—and vice versa. (See "The Future of Reading.")

 

Another place a course on unlearning might gravitate toward is 3-D virtual-reality environments such as Linden Labs’ Second Life—a site where anyone can create a personal avatar of himself, meet other virtual avatars, and engage in online training sessions. As of this writing IBM, Dell, Intel, Circuit City, and Sears have all created a virtual presence in Second Life.

 

Interestingly, one of the initial motives of this move was not to create a stronger presence on the Internet (although that is certainly a factor), it was to achieve cost savings on employee education.

 

What is more interesting from the perspective of unlearning is how Second Life and other virtual-reality sites can be exploited to provide people with different perspectives. In a virtual environment, people can take on any appearance they want. While some people will undoubtedly use it for escapist fantasies, it could also be a powerful tool to help people unlearn certain habits. Imagine, for example, customer service representatives or managers being required to act as customers in one of their own online stores. The experience could provide a unique and refreshing perspective. (And, as I recently wrote, we could all benefit on occasion from unlearning everything from our perspective of color to that person across the street.)

 

Longer term, the classroom of unlearning will likely become even more immersive. Perhaps Second Life will morph into Third Life. Among the technologies this environment are likely to incorporate will be enhanced visual, auditory, voice and speech recognition, and haptic technologies. Doctors and service technicians could use these tools to practice operations and repairs in silico before being allowed to ply their trade in the real world.

 

These tools will also be a boon for learning, unlearning, and relearning. People are often classified into one of three broad categories of learning: visual, auditory, or kinesthetic. Visual people learn by seeing or reading something, auditory learners by hearing it, and kinesthetic learners learn by doing it with their hands and muscles. (It is not quite this simple. Many people use a combination of different techniques for different things, but in general, most people tend to favor one of the three methods over the other two.)

 

A course on unlearning could exploit these natural tendencies and help people absorb new ways of doing things. For instance, instead of just reading about how a new drug works on a cancer patient, doctors could watch how it interacts with and disables a cancer cell. Other businesses could use such immersive technology to gain a deeper appreciation of what an elderly person experiences and create products that better address their needs. (See "Unlearning Your Age.")

 

Many courses on unlearning won’t have a teacher. They will rather be open source in nature, and the content will not be provided by a single “expert” but rather it will be continually added to and improved upon by a vast collection of people. To this end, a relatively new wiki called Curriki has recently been created. Its goal is to support the development and free distribution of world-class educational material to anyone who needs it—anywhere in the world.

 

But far from being a shoddy collection of disjointed or inferior ideas, the result of these wikis will be vastly superior to anything a single expert could pull together. In the case of business wikis, they will contain advice and insights from employees, suppliers, and customers.

 

Among the adjustments this will require is that managers will need to unlearn their own reliance on experts. People will need to unlearn the idea that money and quality are synonymous. In the future, many of the best products will be the creation of open-source methods and wikis.

 

Another thing people will have to unlearn is that there isn’t always an answer. This is because so many fields are constantly evolving. An admission of one’s own ignorance may well be the first step most people will need to take upon entering the unlearning classroom of the future. Exponential executives may even have to go a step farther and accept that ignorance will be the largest element in their future educational needs.