We Learn Faster When We Aren’t Told What Choices to Make
The way we decide may even give insight into delusional thinking
«Choice tips the balance of learning: for the same action and outcome, the brain learns differently and more quickly from free choices than forced ones.»
More from Scientific American
The Role of Luck in Life Success Is Far Greater Than We Realized
Are the most successful people in society just the luckiest people?
The Elusive Origin of Zero
Who decided that nothing should be something?
Why You Can’t Remember Being Born: A Look at ‘Infantile Amnesia’
Infants can form memories, just not the kind that recalls specific experiences
Why Do Computers Use So Much Energy?
It’s possible they could be vastly more efficient, but for that to happen, we need a better understand of the thermodynamics of computing
You May Also Like
The 85% Rule for Learning
How often should you succeed at a task, to maximize learning? I review research suggesting the answer is close to 85%.
«we find that the optimal error rate for training is around 15.87% or, conversely, that the optimal training accuracy is about 85%.»
How to Be a Little Wiser: 3 Practical Tips From Wisdom Experts
What is wisdom? Here, according to those who study it, are some answers and practical tips for making wiser decisions in your life.
«“A highly intelligent fool may not recognize that such a tradeoff exists in the first place,”»
Why Do People (Usually) Learn Less as They Get Older?
Why do people tend to learn less as they get older? What should we do to be the exception?
Self-Taught AI Shows Similarities to How the Brain Works
Self-supervised learning allows a neural network to figure out for itself what matters. The process might be what makes our own brains so successful.
What is Refind?
Every day Refind picks the most relevant links from around the web for you. Picking only a handful of links means focusing on what’s relevant and useful. We favor timeless pieces—links with long shelf-lives, articles that are still relevant one month, one year, or even ten years from now. These lists of the best resources on any topic are the result of years of careful curation.
How does Refind curate?
It’s a mix of human and algorithmic curation, following a number of steps:
- We monitor 10k+ sources and 1k+ thought leaders on hundreds of topics—publications, blogs, news sites, newsletters, Substack, Medium, Twitter, etc.
- In addition, our users save links from around the web using our Save buttons and our extensions.
- Our algorithm processes 100k+ new links every day and uses external signals to find the most relevant ones, focusing on timeless pieces.
- Our community of active users gets the most relevant links every day, tailored to their interests. They provide feedback via implicit and explicit signals: open, read, listen, share, mark as read, read later, «More/less like this», etc.
- Our algorithm uses these internal signals to refine the selection.
- In addition, we have expert curators who manually curate niche topics.
The result: lists of the best and most useful articles on hundreds of topics.
How does Refind detect «timeless» pieces?
We focus on pieces with long shelf-lives—not news. We determine «timelessness» via a number of metrics, for example, the consumption pattern of links over time.
How many sources does Refind monitor?
We monitor 10k+ content sources on hundreds of topics—publications, blogs, news sites, newsletters, Substack, Medium, Twitter, etc.
Can I submit a link?
Indirectly, by using Refind and saving links from outside (e.g., via our extensions).
How can I report a problem?
When you’re logged-in, you can flag any link via the «More» (...) menu. You can also report problems via email to hello@refind.com
Who uses Refind?
200k+ smart people start their day with Refind. To learn something new. To get inspired. To move forward. Our apps have a 4.9/5 rating.
Is Refind free?
Yes, it’s free!
How can I sign up?
Head over to our homepage and sign up by email or with your Twitter or Google account.