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Comment by brg | Hacker News Reader

A pet theory of mine is that those with low self-awareness and lowered inhibitions are the fastest learners.

The positive way of saying this is that those who are not afraid of making mistakes will learn the most. By their willingness or indifference to being wrong in a conversation they overcome the problems of accumulating unknown unknowns. Meanwhile others who fear embarrassment accept a higher level of ignorance.

The negative way of saying this is that the loudmouth in class is actually doing everyone a favor.

It ties well into this article, as in the study alcohol is being used as a medium to decrease self-awareness. There could be more to this theory. For instance it possible that alcohol is accelerating the formation of new neural connections. But it wouldn't be needed to show a benefit towards learning.

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A similar concept probably applies to the amazing ability of kids to pick up different languages and learn so many new concepts in the early years. Their low self-awareness and disregard for most social norms (including looking stupid ) allows them to be more persistent towards their goal (eg learning a new language or a new skill).

The reason kids pick up languages and concepts early in life is a result of evolution. It has nothing to do with self-awareness and disregard with social norms. It's the complete opposite. Survival of early humans depended on learning and communication. When we were hunter/gatherers cooperation and socialization meant survival. The faster you learned language and social skills (i.e. hunting or gathering) meant an increased chance of survival. The faster you learned, the more likely you were to survive. Language and socialization were key to early human survival and the more you excelled at it, the more you thrived. If you didn't, your more likely to be a victim of natural selection. Humans have an intrinsic nature to conform to what they perceive as "social norms". It's a genetic response.

I don't see how the two (excelling at language acquisition due to lowered social inhibition vs evolving to excel at language acquisition early in life) are mutually exclusive.

This doesn't contradict the previous post. Evolution may have resulted in a mix of adaptive neural physiology and the lack of self-awareness. But perhaps the latter is tempered as a result of the acquisition of language.

Its fun how you see your own strategies somewhat validated :). I started to improve my french by watching french movies and drinking one beer before and one while watching the movie. My experience is that I tend not to care about understanding one word while focusing more on whole dialogues. So I attribute that more to a healthy focus shift than a self-awareness issue.

Also, it makes the process more enjoyable, for me. I might want to add that I do not drink at all for long stretches (weeks) while still enjoying a good wine or beer, so this is also a real reward. This, in my opinion, is also key. It kind of lured me into actually doing what I intended.

Well, there's some evidence that one's general level of anxiety correlates strongly to their success at mathematics. I can't seem to find the paper though, as it's been drowned out by tons of "Math Anxiety" material.

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