Joseph: the second time you hear something that you’ve forgotten it “still rings a bell”. So we might have an easier learning curve…
Truthfully though I believe it’s more of a cultural thing, where learning for the sake of learning is appreciated and encouraged. We start learning early and and never stop. Even in the secular Jewish world the concept of education is extolled more than in many other cultures.
The funny thing is that IQ is supposed to measure intelligence and not knowledge, but it’s hard to separate the two when testing, and learning teaches one to think critically.