Why the best learners talk to themselves | Tania Lombrozo

Elise Hu (0:03)

You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hu.

With tools like the Internet and AI at our fingertips, learning should be easier than ever, right? And yet cognitive scientist Tania Lombrozo says it often isn't. In fact, she says that all the information we now have, almost instant access to, might actually be getting in the way.

Tania Lombrozo (0:28)

And more information can make learning harder rather than easier. We run the risk of information overwhelm.

Part of the problem is that we tend to approach learning by looking outside of ourselves for more information. But that can just exacerbate the overwhelm.

Elise Hu (0:48)

In her talk, Tania makes a counterintuitive case that the best place to start learning isn't on the web or in a search bar or a chat bot, but in your own head. She calls it learning by thinking, and it starts by explaining things to yourself out loud, the way a programmer might talk through a problem with a rubber duck on their desk. Try it, she says, and you'll often discover you understand less than you assumed.

Tania Lombrozo (1:11)

I suspect that all of us have had an experience like this one, an experience of trying to explain something and realizing in the course of doing so, that we understand much less than we thought we did. It's a phenomenon called the illusion of explanatory depth.

Elise Hu (1:31)

That's not a bad thing, though. This act of self-humbling actually sets you up to be a better student. It creates a foundation to build off of. Today, Tania shares the science behind why explaining things to yourself in your own words makes you a better learner and how in an age of endless information, the smartest first step might be to log off and look inward instead. That's coming up right after a short break.

And now, our TED Talk of the Day.

Tania Lombrozo (2:07)

Software engineers have a delightful practice called rubber ducking. When they run into a problem with their code, they'll explain it to a rubber duck. They'll work step by step, line by line, and some of the time, they'll learn something new. But how can this work? The ducks don't talk back, so the programmers are explaining to themselves. They're not getting any new information. And yet, something about this process helps them learn. Rubber ducking is an example of what I call learning, learning by thinking. And understanding how learning by thinking works is the key to becoming a better learner. Now, most of us want to be better learners. That's because we want to make our minds better, more effective, and more informed. But learning can be hard. And in the years ahead, we'll have access to more and more tools and to more and more information through the internet and social media and AI. And more information can make learning harder rather than easier. We run the risk of information overwhelm. Part of the problem is that we tend to approach learning by looking outside of ourselves for more information. But that can just exacerbate the overwhelm. Instead, we could be learning by thinking. We could be starting with the information we already have. I'm a cognitive scientist, and I've been studying learning for over 25 years. One thing I've come to appreciate is that our minds are richer and deeper than we often give them credit for. In fact, our minds contain vast repositories of knowledge, knowledge that's contained in our memories and our skills. Learning by thinking is the process of tapping into that knowledge to become a better learner. To give you a sense for learning by thinking in action, I'd like to ask you a few questions. As soon as you have an answer, please raise your hand. You ready?

How many windows are along the front of your house or apartment?

What is the fifth letter of the alphabet?

Is the letter Z on the left or the right side of a typical keyboard?

I'll bet that many of you didn't know the answers to these questions immediately, but you had the knowledge you needed to figure them out. You could use your visual memories to count the number of windows along the front of your home. You could use your auditory memories to figure out that E is the fifth letter of the alphabet. And you could use your motor skills to figure out that the letter Z is on the left side of a typical keyboard. These simple examples highlight the richness and depth of the knowledge you already have, and they illustrate the process of learning by thinking.