Flynn effect: Average IQ scores increase each decade for most of the twentieth century. Intelligence tests capture not just the innate…

Our memories can be easily altered by simple changes in wording or external suggestions. When watching the same traffic accident, people…

Survivors of bridge jump suicide attempts often report immediate regret because the abrupt interruption of jumping takes them out of the…

Looking at the horizon relaxes your brain. That's why walking outdoors oftentimes helps your thinking. Podcast: Josh Waitzkin: The Art of…

"I'm a visual learner" is a myth. There is no scientific evidence that tailoring instruction to learning styles can improve learning. Paper…

Bloom's Taxonomy: Our learning objectives can be classified as a hierarchy of remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, and create…

Curiosity drives us to seek information, not because we expect pleasure from finding the answer, but to relieve the discomfort from the gap…

Memory retrieval is easier when the context of recall matches the context when the memory was formed. If you learn the content underwater…

Déjà vu is not simply a weak memory, but rather from a separate memory system in our brains. Perirhinal cortex creates familiarity while…

Zero-One-Infinity Rule: When designing software systems, the only reasonable numerical limits are zero, one, and infinity. Article: Zero One…

The Cathedral Effect: Higher ceilings can make us more creative by triggering feelings of freedom and encouraging people to see broader…

Languages naturally evolve to be more complex in isolation but tend to simplify when more people learn it as a second language because of…

Changing study environments can significantly improve how well you remember information because environmental context is critical for memory…

“It isn't events themselves that disturb people, but only their judgments about them.” – Epictetus Quote This old Stoic wisdom can also be…

We have two selves: the experiencing self and the remembering self. The self that remembers decides what makes us happy, not the self that…

Dual-coding theory: Verbal and nonverbal information are stored separately in our memory, and simultaneously processing both verbal and…

Absorbing information for our brain is like training our machine learning model of the world. Even if we forget what we've learned, the data…

Our working memory has a limited capacity for task-related information. To perform complex tasks, we should offload some mental load onto an…

Taking notes on paper or screens doesn't merely simplify complex tasks like contemporary physics or other intellectual pursuits. Taking…

Pain is not the unit for effort. If it hurts, maybe we are doing it wrong. Article: Pain is not the unit of Effort There seems to be a…

The opposite of knowledge is the illusion of knowledge. The opposite of you know something is you thought you know something, not you don't…

We make better decisions when we know we are making decisions. Therefore, the first step to improving decision-making is to be aware of the…

Cognitive Tunneling: When our brains abruptly shift from a relaxed state to high alert, we tend to focus too much on the most obvious…

Need for Cognitive Closure: How much do you prefer getting a clear and definitive answer to questions versus remaining uncertain or…

Diversity is multifaceted. People with correct points of view can be less diverse than those who are wrong because there are many more ways…

Overview Effect: Sudden and dramatic shifts in perspective can make the observer into a state of awe with self-transcendent qualities…

We can never know the actual reasons why we do anything. The observations of split-brain patients reveal that our true motivations are…

Procedural knowledge tends to be retained longer than declarative knowledge in our memory. All skills start as declarative knowledge and…

Kuleshov Effect: Viewers derive more meaning from the interaction of two sequential shots than from a single shot in isolation. Article…

Decoy Effect: When we are choosing between two options, introducing a third option can cause shifts in our preference between the first two…

Forward testing effect: Taking an exam before learning the subject can enhance future learning of that subject. Book: Ultralearning The…

Desirable Difficulty in learning: Harder retrieval leads to better learning, given retrieval is successful. Test yourself before we think we…

People thinking others are "just stupid" indicates that they are avoiding thinking by jumping to conclusions. Article: Smart people don’t…

True learning is understanding. True understanding is linking new information to existing knowledge and applying it to problems. Book: How…

Solomon's Paradox: When helping ourselves make decisions, imagine helping a friend. Article: The 10 Best Ideas I Learned in 2022 We are…

Why is my bus always late? Inspection paradox: Averaging final results can be different than averaging individual responses. Article: The…

Losses hurt much more than the happiness gained from winning. Therefore, we must focus on the process to overcome this asymmetry (loss…

Poker teaches us that just because people are skillful in one domain doesn't mean they can transfer the skill to another. Podcast: Annie…

The desire to be right and the desire to have been right are two desires. The sooner we separate them, the better off we are. Book: The Web…

Be curious, not judgmental. Video: Ted Lasso: Be curious, not judgmental We tend to form our opinions quickly when seeing someone's behavior…

Cluttering Illusion: Our brains love to find meaning in short‐term trends and rush to conclusions. Avoid irrational small sample size bets…

Why do we forget bad feelings about memories faster? Fading affect bias (FAB). Article: Fading affect bias - Sketchplanations On my…

Illusion of explanatory depth (IOED): we believe we understand more about the world than we actually do. Article: The Illusion of…

Listen and Opinion Razors: Listen twice as much as we speak when encountering different perspectives and have opinions only after we can…

Hanlon's razor: never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. Article: Hanlon's razor Hanlon's razor is a…

"The secret to doing good research is always to be a little underemployed. You waste years by not being able to waste hours." - Amos Tversky…

"A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention." - Herbert Simon Quote Herbert Simon is the receiver of the Nobel Prize in…

To have more immersive memory and relive the experience, have some camera-free time and document the experience with your brain only. Video…

We have to learn to separate the fact from the story. Podcast: Neil Pasricha: Happy Habits [The Knowledge Project Ep. #72] "I failed the…

Zeigarnik Effect: People remember uncompleted tasks better than completed tasks Article: The Zeigarnik Effect Explained In 192…

A rational-emotive explanation of personality is as easy as ABC, Activating events, Beliefs, Consequences. Book: Systems of Psychotherapy…

"The empiricist thinks he believes only what he sees, but he is much better at believing than at seeing." - George Santayana Quote I learned…

Why did they do that? Three Attribution Traps: Fundamental Attribution Error, Actor-Observer Bias, and Self-Serving Bias Online Course…

Cheerleaders Effect: People look better when they are in groups Article: Cheerleader Effect: Why People Are More Beautiful in Groups The…

The ability to differentiate between similar emotions helps us do better and be more resilient. Podcast: Lisa Feldman Barrett: Balancing the…

The longer you think about a task without doing it, the less fun it becomes to do. Article: Improvisational Productivity This is from Daniel…