Deviating slightly off theme here’s something about connections. Here’s an article by Scott Young is a blogger and author of Learn More, Study Less.Here’s some quotes from the article:“K. Anders Ericsson[’s]…. research had a fairly groundbreaking conclusion: practice, not potential, defined our level of ability. Studying everyone from athletes to typists, he found that a person’s potential could commonly be surpassed, with focused effort and practice.”“If you understand something in only one way, then you don’t really understand it at all. The secret of what anything means to us depends on how we’ve connected it to all other things we know.” – AI researcher Marvin Minsky“Compare learning through connections to its opposite: rote memorization. Rote memorization involves learning merely by repeated exposure. Even if it can work, it rarely produces the speed or brilliance we associate with extraordinary mental abilities.”“Many of us learn by rote, simply because nobody ever taught us a better method. It’s difficult to imagine a professional basketball player who was never instructed in how to dribble or shoot. Yet most people are never taught how to learn; instead, we are expected to just pick it up as we play.”   “Across a variety of learning theories and mnemonic tricks, one broad generalization stands out: Smart people learn through connections.”  ”One way is to create metaphors. A metaphor is a connection between two ideas that aren’t actually related. Describing differential calculus in terms of the speedometer and odometer on a car is an example.”“Good metaphors and analogies aid in understanding because it forces you to really examine the idea. You can’t draw out similarities without understanding how a concept works. Metaphors also aid in memory because they make the ideas more vivid. Vivid imagery also appears to be an almost universally used tactic of brilliant thinkers.”“Another way is to create visual associations. Memory works better storing pictures and places than facts and figures. By translating those abstract details into vivid mental pictures, you’re leveraging your brain’s strengths.”(via 99%)

Link: Training Genius: The Learning Secrets of Polyglots and Savants