3 Keys To Superior Learning That Lasts Longer

An extra 20 minutes can really help you properly absorb new information.

An extra 20 minutes can really help you properly absorb new information.

Overlearning could be the key to locking in new information, research finds.

The conclusions comes from a study in which people continued to learn a task 20 minutes after they had already mastered it.

The extra 20 minutes were vital to locking in those performance gains.

Continuing to practice — even after you have stopped improving — protects the learning.

Professor Takeo Watanabe, one of the study’s authors, said:

“These results suggest that just a short period of overlearning drastically changes a post-training plastic and unstable [learning state] to a hyperstabilized state that is resilient against, and even disrupts, new learning.”

Usually, new learning can be disrupted by any subsequent learning, studies show.

For effective learning, the study’s authors recommend these three points:

  1. Overlearning cements training quickly. However, be aware that overlearning one subject can interfere with similar learning that follows.
  2. Don’t try to to learn anything afterwards. If you don’t overlearn something, it can interfere with what you have just learned.
  3. Two tasks can be learned without interference as long as there is a few hours between them.

In the research 183 people were presented with a series of images for learning.

Those that overlearned — they carried on learning after mastery — laid down stronger memories than those who did not overlearn.

Those who did not overlearn were likely to see memory interference from a subsequent task.

However, if there was a gap of a few hours in between bouts of learning, one task did not then degrade the performance on the other.

Professor Watanabe concluded:

“If you want to learn something very important, maybe overlearning is a good way.

If you do overlearning, you may be able to increase the chance that what you learn will not be gone.”

The study was published in the journal Nature Neuroscience (Shibata et al., 2017).

How To Learn Information At Double Speed (M)

The findings are remarkable because previous studies have suggested that 275 words per minute is the point at which comprehension starts to decline.

The findings are remarkable because previous studies have suggested that 275 words per minute is the point at which comprehension starts to decline.


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Googling Gives Illusion of Knowledge Even When The Search Reveals Nothing

Even when an internet search is unsuccessful, people feel they know more.

Even when an internet search is unsuccessful, people feel they know more.

Searching the internet makes people feel they know more than they really do, a study finds.

And it doesn’t seem to matter much that people don’t actually find the information for which they were searching.

Matthew Fisher, who led the research, said:

“The Internet is such a powerful environment, where you can enter any question, and you basically have access to the world’s knowledge at your fingertips.

It becomes easier to confuse your own knowledge with this external source.

When people are truly on their own, they may be wildly inaccurate about how much they know and how dependent they are on the Internet.”

In one of the nine experiments researchers carried out, people were asked: “Why is ancient Kushite history more peaceful than Greek history?”

Even when they couldn’t find complete answers to this very difficult question, simple searching made people more confident their personal knowledge was greater.

This was even true when researchers blocked their searches so they couldn’t find out anything at all.

Mr Fisher said:

“If you don’t know the answer to a question, it’s very apparent to you that you don’t know, and it takes time and effort to find the answer.

With the Internet, the lines become blurry between what you know and what you think you know.”

The reason may be that just being in ‘search mode’ is enough to make people feel they know more.

One of the experiments asked participants to look at various brain scans — some of which showed more activity in the brain than others.

People who’d just searched the internet chose pictures that represented more activity in their brains.

Mr Fisher said:

“In cases where decisions have big consequences, it could be important for people to distinguish their own knowledge and not assume they know something when they actually don’t.

The Internet is an enormous benefit in countless ways, but there may be some tradeoffs that aren’t immediately obvious and this may be one of them.

Accurate personal knowledge is difficult to achieve, and the Internet may be making that task even harder.”

The study was published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General (Fisher et al., 2015).

The Type Of Breaks That Boost Skill Learning (M)

Directly after learning a new skill, the brain repeatedly and rapidly replays the activity, as though neuronally practising it.

Directly after learning a new skill, the brain repeatedly and rapidly replays the activity, as though neuronally practising it.


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A Break Of Just 10 Seconds Improves Learning

A 10-second break taken after learning helps the brain to consolidate new information more effectively.

A 10-second break taken after learning helps the brain to consolidate new information more effectively.

Taking very short breaks is vital to effective learning, neuroscientists find.

A 10-second break taken after learning helps the brain to consolidate new information more effectively.

Recordings of the brain’s electrical activity show that there are more changes in key areas during the rest period than during learning.

Giving the brain those few seconds after learning allows it to solidify the memory.

Dr Leonardo G. Cohen, the study’s first author, said:

“Everyone thinks you need to ‘practice, practice, practice’ when learning something new.

Instead, we found that resting, early and often, may be just as critical to learning as practice.

Our ultimate hope is that the results of our experiments will help patients recover from the paralyzing effects caused by strokes and other neurological injuries by informing the strategies they use to ‘relearn’ lost skills.”

For the study, people were given a typing task to learn while the electrical activity in their brains was recorded.

Naturally, the more people practised, the better they got.

However, Dr Marlene Bönstrup, study co-author, noticed something interesting:

“I noticed that participants’ brain waves seemed to change much more during the rest periods than during the typing sessions.

This gave me the idea to look much more closely for when learning was actually happening.

Was it during practice or rest?”

When they reanalysed the data, the researchers found that performance improved more during rests than when actively practising.

The gains were even greater than those seen after a full night’s rest.

The researchers also saw large changes in beta oscillations during the rest periods.

These happened in the brain’s right hemisphere in areas of the brain known to control movement and planning.

These changes to brain waves only happened during rest and were associate with improvements in performance.

Dr Cohen said:

“Our results suggest that it may be important to optimize the timing and configuration of rest intervals when implementing rehabilitative treatments in stroke patients or when learning to play the piano in normal volunteers.

Whether these results apply to other forms of learning and memory formation remains an open question.”

The study was published in the journal Current Biology (Bönstrup et al., 2019).

The Lazy Secret To Faster Learning

Practice is not the key faster learning: it’s something much easier.

Practice is not the key faster learning: it’s something much easier.

Short rest periods are as important as the practice itself in learning a new skill, new research concludes.

Far from needing an overnight sleep, 10 seconds rest may be enough to help new learning bed in.

People’s performance actually improves while they are resting, not when they are practicing, the scientists found.

Rest periods are even more important in the early stages of learning, when the brain is doing the most work.

Dr Leonardo G. Cohen, study co-author, said:

“Everyone thinks you need to ‘practice, practice, practice’ when learning something new.

Instead, we found that resting, early and often, may be just as critical to learning as practice.

Our ultimate hope is that the results of our experiments will help patients recover from the paralyzing effects caused by strokes and other neurological injuries by informing the strategies they use to ‘relearn’ lost skills.”

For the study, right-handed people learned a simple typing task with their left hand.

They did 10 seconds practice followed by 10 seconds rest.

Looking at the electrical activity in the brain during both learning and rest, though, Dr Marlene Bönstrup, who led the study, saw something interesting:

“I noticed that participants’ brain waves seemed to change much more during the rest periods than during the typing sessions.

This gave me the idea to look much more closely for when learning was actually happening.

Was it during practice or rest?”

Analysis of people’s brain waves showed that the consolidation of memories occured in the rest period when they were not practising.

Dr Cohen said:

“Our results suggest that it may be important to optimize the timing and configuration of rest intervals when implementing rehabilitative treatments in stroke patients or when learning to play the piano in normal volunteers.

Whether these results apply to other forms of learning and memory formation remains an open question.”

The study was published in the journal Current Biology (Bönstrup et al., 2019).