Attention is crucial to this process. As long as we pay attention to whatever we are learning, and then repeat over and over whatever thought we are enacting, the neocortex can begin to pattern new connections in new networks, so that we can have a lasting map that is accessible in the future. If, however, we move our mind to something else in the moment we are attempting to develop new connections, the brain cannot begin to map and pattern our efforts, because the mind has left the scene and gone to a different neural pattern.
