Hello listeners!
Today is April 4th, 2025 – a date when new beginnings and personal growth are always within reach here on "The Science of Self."
Our motto reminds us that you can improve your life from the inside out—and what better way to do so than by mastering how we learn?
In our latest episode, I'm thrilled to introduce a treasure trove for eager minds – Peter Hollins’ "Super Learning: Advanced Strategies for Quicker Comprehension, Greater Retention, and Systematic Expertise."
The book is available on Amazon or as an audiobook.
You can find it not only in physical form but also digitally via iTunes or Audible if that's your preferred listening method!
Peter Hollins – a best-selling author with expertise in psychology and peak human performance, backed by over 12 years of academic research.
His guidebook offers scientific techniques to transform learning into an exciting habit you look forward to each day.
Get ready for strategies that make studying as natural and refreshing as taking a deep breath!
Dive right in with Peter Hollins' website – peterhollinsbooks.com (feel free using the shortened link bitly: https://tinyurl.com/y53869m2).
From understanding how memory works to unraveling why we forget, "Super Learning" brings it all together for you on your journey of intellectual empowerment and self-improvement!
In today's episode specifically, chapter 2 takes us deep into the heartbeat of learning – Memory Retention.
Peter Hollins guides us through topics like 'The Forgetting Curve,' offering insights that challenge conventional wisdom on how we learn best.
By understanding memory’s biology and psychological preconditions to effective learning, you're about to discover new pathways towards academic excellence!
So grab your copy of "Super Learning" or just listen in as I discuss the essential takeaways with Peter Hollins himself – all on this special episode dedicated purely for those hungry minds ready to learn smarter and faster.
Remember, learning doesn’t have to be a chore; it can become an exhilarating journey towards mastery that enhances every aspect of your life!
Let's embark on this transformative experience together in today's episode of "The Science of Self."
Tune into us for continuous growth and self-improvement.
Until then, keep learning with love – because the only way to learn smarter is by making it enjoyable again.
Stay tuned!
Memory, of course, is heavily related to learning.
People are seldom said to have learnt something if they can’t really remember any of it!
This is why so many techniques and methods around learning focus on recall.
As with other aspects of our cognition, however, we can drastically improve our memory if we take the time to understand its optimal function, and how we can support this for better learning.
If memory is a storage system that exists within specific neural pathways, then learning is about changing neural pathways to adapt one’s behavior and thinking to the emergence of new information.
They depend on each other because the goal of learning is to assimilate new knowledge into memory, and memory is useless without the ability to learn more.
Many memory techniques exist, but they all truly function on the contents of this chapter.
Memorization is how we store and retrieve information for use (essentially the process of learning), and there are three steps to creating a memory.
An error in any of these steps will result in knowledge that is not effectively converted to memory—a weak memory or the feeling of “I can’t remember his name, but he was wearing purple .
.
.”
1.
Encoding
2.
Storage
3.
Retrieval
Encoding is the step of processing information through your senses.
We do this constantly, and you are doing it right now.
We encode information both consciously and subconsciously through all of our senses.
If you are reading a book, you are using your eyes to encode information, but how much attention and focus are you actually giving it?
The more attention and focus you devote to an activity, the more conscious your encoding becomes—otherwise, it can be said that you subconsciously encode information, like listening to music at a café or seeing traffic pass you by at a red traffic light.
Many people mistakenly think they have a “bad memory” when it may be more accurate to say that it’s a question of attention.
Such a person might forget the name of someone they just met, not because they have a faulty memory, but because they simply weren’t paying much attention when they were introduced—but they do remember in great detail the adorable dog on a lead walking past at just that moment.
How much focus and attention you devote also determines how strong the memory is and, consequently, whether that memory only makes it to your short-term memory or if it passes through the gate to your long-term memory.
If you are reading a book while watching television, your encoding is probably not too deep or strong.
Similarly, you are more likely to remember something that has strong emotional significance for you when compared with something that doesn’t really concern you beyond the intellectual level.
Storage is the next step after you’ve experienced information with your senses and encoded it.
What happens to the information once it passes through your eyes or ears?
There are three choices for where this information can go, and they determine whether it’s a memory that you will consciously know exists.
There are essentially three memory systems: sensory memory, short-term memory, and long-term memory.
The last step of the memory process is retrieval, which is when we actually use our memories and can be said to have learned something.
You might be able to recall it from nothing, or you might need a cue to bring the memory up.
Other memories might only be memorized in a sequence or as part of a whole, like reciting the ABCs and then realizing you need to sing to remember how it goes.
Usually, however much attention you devoted to the storage and encoding phases of memory determines just how easy it is to retrieve those memories.
Most of the learning process isn’t necessarily focused on retrieval—it’s concentrated on the storage aspect and what you can do to force information from sensory and short-term areas into long-term ones.
Think about when you cram for a test.
You want information you experience to be in your brain for perhaps 24 hours, which means it has to exist beyond short-term memory and certainly beyond sensory memory.
You might not care if you remember this information about the French Revolution at the end of the year, so you will reach a level of attention and focus that will push the information into the hazy area between short- and long-term memory.
In reality, what’s happening is that you will rehearse the information enough to make a very faint imprint on your long-term memory.
But after that, the impression fades pretty quickly.
Accelerating your learning, in a sense, is the same as improving your memory capacity and how absorbent your memory is—the more sponge-like, the better.
It’s also about giving you conscious control over the steps of the process that normally run automatically.
If you know how and why your memory works, you can squeeze the most out of it!
Forgetting
However, learning is both the process of improving memory while also getting better at not forgetting.
Why do we forget?
Why can’t we remember this fact?
How did we ever let something slip from our brains?
As you have read, forgetting is usually a failure or shortcoming in the storage process—the information you want only makes it to short-term memory, not long-term.
The problem isn’t that you can’t find the information in your brain; it’s that the information wasn’t embedded strongly enough to begin with.
This may have happened partly because you never cemented the memory by recalling it again and again; i.e., you didn’t strengthen those tentative neural connections and your brain, seeing that they weren’t really needed, let them go.
Sometimes it’s easier to think about forgetting as a failure in learning.
There are generally three different ways you retrieve or access your memories:
1.
Recall
2.
Recognition
3.
Relearning
Recall is when you remember a memory without external cues.
It’s when you can recite something on command in a vacuum—for example, looking at a blank piece of paper and then writing down the capitals of all of the countries of the world.
When you can recall something, you have the strongest memory of it.
You have either rehearsed it enough or attached enough significance to it so that it is an incredibly strong memory within your long-term memory.
You go into your brain’s storage, find exactly what you’re looking for, and reproduce it in full.
Of course, because recall represents the strongest level of memory, it’s also typically the toughest to achieve.
It would generally require hours of rehearsal or study to get anywhere close to this level.
However, once we acquire information this way, the benefit is that it’s a lot harder to un-learn or forget.
When we study, we want information to enter this realm, but we will usually settle for the next type of memory retrieval.
Recognition is when you can conjure up your memory in the presence of an external cue.
It’s when you might not be able to remember something by pure recall, but if you get a small clue or reminder, you will remember it.
For example, you might not be able to recall all of the capitals of the world, but if you got a clue such as the first letter of the capital or something that rhymes with it, it would be fairly easy to state it.
This “jogs your memory” enough that you can carry on once you get started.
When we cram information, recognition is typically what we end up with.
This is also how mnemonics and similar memory devices work.
We know we aren’t able to definitively store and recall so many pieces of information without a massive amount of rehearsal, so we work on chunking information into easily recognizable cues.
With the right cue, we are pointed in the right direction and can gradually access memories stored a little less concretely.
Relearning is undoubtedly the weakest form of recall.
It occurs when you are relearning or reviewing information and it takes you less effort each subsequent time.
For example, if you read a list of country capitals on Monday and it takes you 30 minutes, it should take you 15 minutes the next day, and so on.
Unfortunately, this is where we mostly lie on a daily basis.
We might be familiar with a concept, but we haven’t committed enough of it to memory to avoid essentially relearning it when we look at it again.
This is what happens when we are new to a topic or we’ve forgotten most of it already.
When you’re in the relearning stage, you essentially haven’t taken anything past the barrier of short-term memory into long-term memory.
From your brain’s perspective, this kind of information is simply not important, relevant or repeated enough to warrant more space in your memory.
The Forgetting Curve
Not only are we fighting weak encoding or storage in our quest for learning, we are also fighting the brain’s natural tendency to forget as soon as possible.
This is encapsulated by the forgetting curve, a concept pioneered by psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus.
Below is a picture of the forgetting curve, courtesy of Wranx.com.
This shows the rate of memory decay and forgetting over time if there is no attempt to move information into long-term memory.
If you read something about the French Revolution on Monday, then you’ll typically remember only half of it after four days and retain as little as 30% at around a week’s time.
If you don’t review what you’ve learned, it’s very likely you will only retain 10% of what you learned about the French Revolution.
However, if you review and rehearse it, you can see in the graph above how you will retain and memorize more over time.
You will bump the retention level back up to 100%, and then the graph will start to become shallower, indicating less decay.
It’s as though you are teaching your brain, “This is important.
I keep needing to know this, so remember it.”
The goal is to make the forgetting curve shallower—to make it resemble a horizontal line as much as possible.
That would indicate very little decay, and doing that requires constant review and rehearsal.
Ebbinghaus found patterns for memory loss and isolated two simple factors that affected the forgetting curve.
First, the rate of decay was significantly blunted if the memory was strong and powerful and had personal significance to the person.
Second, the amount of time and how old the memory was determined how quickly and severely it decayed.
This suggests there is little we can do about forgetting other than to come up with tactics to assign personal significance to information and rehearse more often.
As you can see, forgetting isn’t as simple as having something on the tip of your tongue or rummaging through the stores of your brain.
There are very specific processes that make it a near-miracle we actually retain as much as we do.
You’re probably also noticing that improving your memory is as much about good encoding and attention as it is proper rehearsing and recall.
Being able to recall information is always the goal, but more realistically, we should be shooting for recognition and to learn how to expertly use cues and hints in our daily lives.
I may not be able to recite the lyrics of my favorite songs, but I can sure remember them if I hear the melody.
If I become expert at managing cues for myself, I can work around the unavoidable limits of my memory.
• Learning relies on memory, and memory is in turn an interplay between two processes: storing and retrieving information.
There are three main steps: encoding, storing and retrieval.
• How well we encode material (i.e.
cement it into our minds) depends on the degree and intensity of attention we pay it, as well as the senses through which we encounter it, and our associated emotions.
• When we store memories, we do so either as transient sensory memory, short-term memory or more long-term memory.
• Retrieval is when we return to stored memories and pull them out again, either with a cue or helpful sequence, or without one.
We can retrieve information in a few ways: recall it directly (no cues, this is obviously preferable), recognition (remembering something after a cue or prompt, and relearning, which is the least effective and lasting method.)
• Forgetting is a normal state of affairs, and occurs on a “forgetting curve.” Every time we rehearse, however, we refresh this memory, and the subsequent forgetting trails off at a less steep curve.
The goal is to rehearse until the curve eventually flattens, and the rate of decay slows enough for you to say, “I’ve permanently learnt this.”
Welcome back listeners!
We're wrapping up our latest episode on The Science of Self where we dived deep into the art and science of learning as explained by Peter Hollins in his book, Super Learning: Advanced Strategies for Quicker Comprehension, Greater Retention, and Systematic Expertise.
We've explored how memory works with its three key components—encoding where we solidify our experiences into memories; storing them as either short-term or long-term recollections; and retrieval when pulling those stored memories back up for use again in life situations, like exams or job interviews.
We touched on the fact that forgetting is a natural process which follows a curve we all experience called "forgetting," but with strategic practice of material, this decay can be slowed to an acceptable level where information feels permanently learnt and accessible when required most.
This understanding paves way for us not just to learn more efficiently, faster or even better than others—beating the competition!
It empowers you on a personal journey towards self-improvement from within by making learning habitual, fun, exciting and motivating in ways never experienced before.
Peter Hollins has unlocked his potential over many years of studying psychology alongside peak human performance to help others like us harness our innate capabilities for success—in work productivity, academic achievements or even hobbies that bring joy into your life!
Remember: learning is not a textbook; it's more of an experience guide and journey where we discover ourselves in the process.
Now before you start absorbing all this newfound knowledge like never before - here’s our Call to Action—Start investing time, effort or resources today into adopt these proven scientific strategies for learning!
Remember that your potential lies within yourself waiting to be discovered and unlocked-just as Peter Hollins has done.
So let's end where we started: with the goal of reversing misconceptions about our ability to learn, bringing back fun into learning experience while improving ourselves from the inside out!
Make sure you grab a copy or download your audiobook version of 'Super Learning', and embark on this transformative journey that could forever change how you perceive yourself, work, education productivity as well as hobbies.
Thank you for tuning into The Science of Self podcast where we continually strive to empower ourselves with scientific knowledge about human psychology in our quest towards self-improvement and personal excellence!
Keep learning—keep growing.
Stay curious, my friends!