When you learn something new, and when you call up an old memory, you're actually using different parts of your brain.

Think of two people reciting the times tables:

The first person (the computer-illiterate group, in the UCLA study) must actually figure out every times table in his head, cranking through the arithmetic and coming out with an answer.

The second person (the computer-savvy group) have already gone through their times tables and memorized them, so they must simply call up an old memory.

While both people spit out the same answer, they’re using very different parts of their respective brains to get to it.