When was the last time you sat down and tried to learn something? How did you approach it? Did you make flashcards for hard-to-remember terms and concepts, ask a friend to quiz you on the subject or simply jump into the deep end with a new project?

New research from Northeastern University psychology professor Aaron Seitz published in Current Opinion in Neurobiology suggests that whenever we learn something new—if we’re successful—what we’ve actually done is tricked our brains into a learnable state. He calls this “incidental learning.”

“‘Incidental learning’ typically refers to what we learn without explicit intention,” Seitz says. A good example of this comes from “statistical regularity” in one’s surroundings, he says.