Use it next time you need to tackle a complex topic.

BY MINDA ZETLIN, AUTHOR OF ‘CAREER SELF-CARE: FIND YOUR HAPPINESS, SUCCESS, AND FULFILLMENT AT WORK’@MINDAZETLIN

For Inc.

Bill Gates. Photo: Getty Images

When Bill Gates wants to learn about something and remember it well, he reads widely, not only on the topic at hand, but also on related topics. For example, he explains in a video interview, if you want to learn about science, it helps to read about the history of science and about individual scientists and their struggles and insights.

“So, you have the timeline, or you have the map…the branches of science,” he explains. “If you have a broad framework, then you have a place to put everything.” And, he says, “If you read enough, there’s a similarity between things that makes it easy because this thing is like this other thing.” On the other hand, he says, if you have to learn something completely new, where there’s no framework or pattern in your mind, that’s much, much harder.

Brain research suggests he’s right, and that looking for frameworks or patterns that information can fit into, can help you learn more easily. University of Pennsylvania researchers working in physics, neuroscience, and bioengineering teamed up to conduct a fascinating experiment on 360 volunteers. Subjects looked at rows of five gray squares, one or two of which would turn red. When that happened, participants were told to immediately press corresponding keys on the keyboard in front of them. The scientists monitored how long it took from when the squares turned red to when the subject pressed the keys.

What participants didn’t know is that the keys that turned red were not doing so in a random order. They were following one of two patterns, a “modular” pattern, based on three linked pentagrams or a “lattice” pattern, based on five linked triangles. The researchers hypothesized that subjects would be able to press the keys more quickly if their brains recognized the pattern, and thus would be able to predict which squares would turn red next. And indeed, when looking at squares in the more easily recognized modular pattern, subjects were able to anticipate which squares would turn red, and press the corresponding keys much more quickly, although they also made mistakes.

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