Efficient Learning via Brain Priming

Externally modulating the brain's activity can boost its performance. The easiest way to manipulate the brain is through transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), which involves applying electrodes directly to the head to influence neuron activity with an electric current.

Roi Cohen Kadosh's team at the University of Oxford showed last year that targeting tDCS at the brain's right parietal lobe can boost a person's arithmetic ability - the effects were still apparent six months after the tDCS session (newscientist.com/article/dn19679).

More recently, Richard Chi and Allan Snyder at the University of Sydney, Australia, demonstrated that tDCS can improve a person's insight. The pair applied tDCS to volunteers' anterior frontal lobes - regions known to play a role in how we perceive the world - and found the participants were three times as likely as normal to complete a problem-solving task (newscientist.com/article/dn20080).

Brain stimulation can also boost a person's learning abilities, according to Agnes Flöel's team at the University of Münster in Germany. Twenty minutes of tDCS to a part of the brain called the left perisylvian area was enough to speed up and improve language learning in a group of 19 volunteers (Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, DOI: 10.1162/jocn.2008.20098).

Using the same technique to stimulate the brain's motor cortex, meanwhile, can enhance a person's ability to learn a movement-based skill (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0805413106). _NS

In traditional learning psychology, the term "priming" often refers to the concept of "implicit learning (PDF)," where unconscious associations between mental objects often aids recall and memory. But in a larger sense, priming can refer to a wide array of methods to prime the brain for more efficient learning. As mentioned above, different types of direct electromagnetic brain stimulation can serve as "priming" stimuli.

A person can learn to prime the brain for efficient learning to the point where he can eventually dispense with the hardware, once he develops the knack -- using feedback.

Gabrieli and his colleagues used functional MRI scanning to monitor the naturally fluctuating brain activity of 20 volunteers and investigate whether the brain enters such a learning state. While in the scanner, each person was presented with 250 images, one at a time, and asked to memorise them. The volunteers were shown the images again 2 hours later - mixed in with 250 new ones - and asked to remember which they had seen before.

Looking through the results, the team was surprised to find that in the moments before individuals were shown images that they later remembered, they had low levels of activity in the parahippocampal place area - a region of the brain that is known to be highly active during learning. "Maybe the fact that this region was less active meant that the deck was cleared - that it was more open for a stimulus to provoke a response," suggests Gabrieli.

To investigate further, the team attempted to boost subsequent participants' memory test scores by presenting them with images only when they showed this pattern of brain activity. "There was around a 30 per cent improvement in the memory task," Gabrieli says (NeuroImage, DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2011.07.063).

The MIT team is now working on a way to monitor this "preparedness to learn" using electroencephalography (EEG) - a more portable and much cheaper brain-monitoring technique. Gabrieli's idea is to make learning more efficient by selectively teaching the prepared brain. "You could imagine a computer-based learning system which would stop when the brain is not prepared to learn and restart when it is," he says. _NS

The MIT researchers are able to detect when the brain is ready to learn, by using MRI and EEG. But individuals can teach themselves to detect this "learning readiness state" using neurofeedback.

Using neurofeedback, subjects not only can learn to detect their learning readiness states, but they can learn to actively shift their brain into more efficient learning modes on command. Eventually they can master the skill well enough to do it without the expensive equipment.

This is a type of individual empowerment which is potentially revolutionary and disruptive to society at large. It is particularly threatenting to a power structure which has worked so hard to dominate most levels of academia, media, political agencies, and conventional culture and thought.

Imagine, individuals who are more creative, learn better, can master physical skills more quickly -- and are likely to grow more independent from the herd. It will be interesting to watch these developments.

Online Puzzles and Brain Boosters: Saving Your Brain

Norman Doidge: Neuro-plasticians show that the brain is plastic not only in early childhood but from cradle-to-grave. This means we have to revisit the whole notion of adult development as a very, very serious undertaking. The adult brain can be maintained, developed and improved in many areas. But not by taking the occasional course after the age of 45.

VB: That message is going to become increasingly important with an aging population.

Norman Doidge: Yes, the longer we live the more relevant it becomes. And it is relevant not just for developing and improving but also for preserving. The secret to old age is a very simple one from the medical point of view. What you want is to have all your organ systems last as long as they can and then cease to function all at once!

VB: Exactly.

Norman Doidge: We’re in a situation now where, because of extended lifespan, a very high proportion of people—close to half—will find that their brains crap out before their hearts, livers and kidneys. So extending mental life span to equal that of other organs is a kind of imperative, otherwise we’ll have aged humans that are like infants who can’t function and care for themselves. _IdeaConnection

We make choices from moment to moment, unconsciously, as to how we will train our brains. Children and young adults need mentors and guides to help them make best use of early life mental plasticity. But the brains of adults and seniors are still plastic to a significant degree. Grownups have to be their own mentors and guides, more times than not, in the continuing task of brain development and preservation. Fortunately, there is a wide range of tools available online to assist in this task. Here is a report on one of these tools, n-back mental training exercises:

In an award address on May 28 at the annual meeting of the Association for Psychological Science in Washington, D.C., University of Michigan psychologist John Jonides presented new findings showing that practicing this kind of task for about 20 minutes each day for 20 days significantly improves performance on a standard test of fluid intelligence—the ability to reason and solve new problems, which is a crucial element of general intelligence. And this improvement lasted for up to three months.

Jonides, who is the Daniel J. Weintraub Collegiate Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience, collaborated with colleagues at U-M, the University of Bern and the University of Tapei on a series of studies with more than 200 young adults and children, demonstrating the effects of various kinds of n-back mental training exercises. The research was supported by the National Science Foundation and by the Office of Naval Research.

According to Jonides, the n-back task taps into a crucial brain function known as working memory—the ability to maintain information in an active, easily retrieved state, especially under conditions of distraction or interference. Working memory goes beyond mere storage to include processing information _MedXPress

Online brain games from Online Brain Games Blog:

Memory Games:

Dual N-Back — Documented I.Q. booster!

Simon Says

Concentration

Cogolog — Memory game site with 14 different memory games
Board Games:
Go – (Go Rules and tips) — 3000yr old board game!

Checkers — (Checkers Rules and tips)

Chinese Checkers – (Chinese Checkers Rules and tips)

Chess — (Chess Rules and tips)

Reversi — (Reversi Rules and tips)

Words:

Crosswords — (Crosswords Rules and tips)

Wordcrunch

Numbers:

Online Math Games – Highlight post with many links

Other:

Click The Color – Based on the Stroop Effect
Connect4 — (Connect4 Rules and tips)
Phit
Tetris
Other Websites with Free Brain Games
brainbashers.com
braingle.com
brainwaves.com
fitbrains.com
freebrainagegames.com
funbrain.com – elementary school
fun4thebrain - elementary school
gamesforthebrain
interjeux.net
mathplayground – elementary/middle school
matica.com
neuroscience for kids - elementary/high school
nursingdegree.net
online-college-blog
playwithyourmind.com
proprofs
samgine.com – online flash game puzzles

100 Online Puzzles, Brain Games, and Brain Tests from Nursingdegree.net (excerpt):

79. Sharp Brains: This site is "the brain fitness authority," and you’ll find all kinds of tricky brain teasers.
80. Smart Kit: This "brain gym and puzzle playground" has picture puzzles, Flash puzzle games, brain games, cryptograms, logic puzzles and more.

Evaluation Tools and Articles
Test your brain fitness with these tricks and games.

81. Brain Teasers and IQ Tests: Visit this site to take all kinds of tests and quizzes and to solve brain teasers.
82. Test Your Brain: Test your brain on its processing speed, ability to process information in a noisy room and more.
83. Lumosity: The initial trial for Lumosity’s brain fitness program is free.
84. IQ and intelligence tests: Take these IQ tests, subliminal messages test, organizational web design tests, memory tests and more to see how well your brain is functioning.
85. 50 Fun Ways to Maximize Your Brain Fitness: This website has lots of great ways to keep your brain in shape, from drinking pomegranate juice to changing up your regular route.
86. Steps to Brain Fitness: The Alliance for Aging Research lists 10 different ways to have a well-exercised brain.
87. Train the Brain: Take reflex tests, play with a Rubik’s cube and more on this site.
88. Mensa Fun Test: Find out if you’re one of the smartest people in the world when you take this test.
89. Surveys and Psychology Tests: Tests offered on this BBC website include an art and personality test, memory and more.
90. Test Cafe: Take all kinds of quizzes to test your brain, IQ, personality type and more.

Metronome Learning in Elementary School--Calibrating the Internal Brain Clock

Mental calibration for optimal learning is an important discipline, particularly for children just beginning to learn how to deliberately learn. One mental calibration method that appears to help elementary school children learn better is the interactive metronome.

...the 9-year-old bobs his head between cowbell tones to help him fixate on the metronome beat. Scores on the computer screen in front of him track his timing with the beat, but unbeknownst to the fourth-grader, the repetitious movements are helping him develop new neural pathways in his brain....Almost a dozen youngsters have been hooked up to the metronome at the school, which includes a hand and floor pad sensor that measures the accuracy of the user's response to the reference tone and shows results on a computer screen.

There are 13 exercises that involve a combination of clapping, tapping the hand sensor and stepping in time to the beat with one foot, and shuffling both feet onto the floor pad sensor. While it may be difficult to fathom how synchronized tapping can improve your brain's ability to process information, studies back up anecdotal evidence that the metronome works.

...After a short stint using Interactive Metronome, teenagers at the school showed a sharp one-year improvement in reading fluency scores. Even more interesting to Taub and his colleagues, there were gains in the students' ability to solve problems in mathematics.

It's an important point because most learning seems to be domain-specific, said Kevin McGrew, an educational psychologist and director of the Institute for Applied Psychometrics, a private consulting company in Minnesota...."It doesn't make you smarter; it doesn't give you more knowledge, but you're better able to manage, focus and concentrate better," said McGrew, a visiting professor in educational psychology at the University of Minnesota.

Source via Kevin McGrew

From the research paper by Gordon Taub et al, referenced by Kevin McGrew, one of the coauthors:

86 participants completed pre- and post-test measures of reading achievement (i.e., Woodcock-Johnson III, Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing, Test of Word Reading Efficiency, and Test of Silent Word Reading Fluency). Students in the experimental group completed a 4-week intervention designed to improve their timing/rhythmicity by reducing the latency in their response to a synchronized metronome beat, referred to as a synchronized metronome tapping (SMT) intervention. The results from this non-academic intervention indicate the experimental group’s post-test scores on select measures of reading were significantly higher than the non-treatment control group’s scores at the end of 4 weeks. This paper provides a brief overview of domain-general cognitive abilities believed effected by SMT interventions and provides a preliminary hypothesis to explain how this non-academic intervention can demonstrate a statistically significant effect on students’ reading achievement scores.

Tick Tock Talk

I am more familiar with the Interactive Metronome technique as used for brain rehab. But it makes sense as a mental calibration method for young children--whose brains are rapidly changing. Every athletics coach understands the need for an athlete to "warm up" prior to performing. The same need to calibrate applies for singers and actors. Smarter surgeons will tend to mentally rehearse a complex procedure before beginning.

But the mental calibration of the interactive metronome is at a more basic level than a pre-performance warmup. It is closer to the neuroplasticity shaping that occurs with neurofeedback training. I would expect neurofeedback to be useful from time to time in overseeing metronome therapy. It is only a matter of time before the various parallel calibrations find each other.

Here is a video illustrating basic IM technique

Here is one of many free online metronomes

Emotional Calibration

Our emotions are powerful tools for evaluating the world around us quickly, and at levels we may not be able to describe verbally. Cognitive scientists are just now starting to tackle the complexities of emotions in their more advanced machines and programs.

Human emotions need calibrating, just as our cognitive systems and mind-body controls need calibration.

I was first exposed to conscious calibration of emotions when taking drama class and musical theatre class. A good actor needs to express a wide range of emotions, without having to reach too far for them. Likewise, a good singer in a musical play needs to find the emotions within himself that the song is expressing.

Everyday life can also be emotionally demanding, with the threat of an emotional boobytrap being tripped at any time. By "calibrating" our emotions regularly, we keep our emotions tuned and ready for appropriate responses.

We are all actors on the stage. We need to utilise methods of emotional priming that are just as sound as what actors use.

The best everyday method for exercising and calibrating emotion that I have found, is the Sentic Cycle method, developed by neuroscientist and musician Manfred Clynes.

Sentic Cycles lets you generate and express your emotions in a series, as a spectrum, your emotion 'symphony', so you tend to become free from emotional rut - being stuck in one emotion- and be in touch with your real self - not overwhelmed by single emotion (yet able to savour them all as in music).

It takes only 10 minutes to learn to do it - and then you may benefit from doing it anytime the rest of your life - as long as human nature does not change! Anyone can do it.

It uses only your own natural expressions of emotion to generate and to enjoy them.

....We all tend to be prisoners of emotion more than we may wish to be. Emotions make life enjoyable and meaningful, but not if you are in an emotional rut, where a particular, most often negative, emotion takes over, and makes it hard to get out of, even temporarily. Often such negative emotions are suppressed, but still interfere with function and freedom of experience.

Sentic Cycles allow you to experience and express all such emotions more constructively, without being overwhelmed by them.

Source.

Emotions are powerful and fast, compared to other types of cognition. But they have to be kept toned and in shape, like our bodies.

A satisfying play or movie is one that exercises our emotions skillfully, so that usually we are not even aware of what is being done to us subconsciously. Most people go through life being manipulated emotionally, without realizing it. How much better it would be to become well acquainted with our emotions on a regular basis, so that they are seen more like friends than potentially dangerous strangers.

Hat tip Pastorius.

Brain Calibration

Baseball pitchers warm up with practice pitches before every appearance. Basketball players shoot practice hoops before games. Actors practice emoting before acting, singers practice intervals and runs, surgeons go through the sequence of a major surgery before scrubbing. All of these preliminaries are examples of mental calibration.

Calibrating the brain is a priming operation. The brain can be prepped for specific types of performance. But it is not just professional performers and practitioners of high risk procedures who need to calibrate. Every morning when the brain wakes up, it falls into a new dynamic state. If the brain has to achieve a certain level of performance each day, it must be calibrated for that performance. Otherwise, the level of achievement from day to day is left to chance. That is how most people live, by chance. When has popular culture ever offered anything else?

In Palestine the children are calibrated daily to hate the Jew, as they are in Hizballah controlled Lebanon, and much of the arab muslim lands. Hatred of the proper enemy is too important to be left to chance. If a society wants a ready supply of suicide bombers and guerilla fighters, it must begin calibrating minds at an early age.

Christian fundamentalists begin calibrating the minds of their children quite early as well. Sunday School and church, religious schools, camps, bible schools, and so on. Maintaining the proper religious way of thinking is too important to be left to chance. Early morning mass, confession, liturgy, prayer meetings, revivals. If a group wants the next generation to carry on the traditions of the current one, it must begin calibrating minds very early.

But then, those examples are not really the same thing as calibrating for top performance. They are more like brainwashing. But why do so many parents leave the cultivation of the minds of their children to chance and a largely indifferent culture? Affluent societies so often breed listless and goalless children. Decadence is what happens when one generation leaves the minds of the next generations to chance.

People think in basic metaphoric "thought concepts", and combinations of concepts called "thought patterns."

A thought-pattern is always subjectively created, and successively "objectified" by different calibration procedures. The state of consensus (= collective agreement on validity) of any though-pattern is represented by its corresponding calibration history. Since the thought-patterns presented here lack an attempt to describe this history, they are to be considered basically my own. That does not mean, however, that I consider them all as having originated with me. On the contrary, I have often tried to express how I conceive the thought-patterns of others. This is of course an important part of the group-consensus forming calibration process.

Source.

Brain calibration can take many forms--from meditation to mental imaging to neuromuscular practice to estimating distances or calculations, then checking the estimates. More complex forms of calibration are needed for more complex thought patterns. Unfortunately, modern educational practices have not kept up with current findings in neuroscience, but have instead regressed to conform with current whims of "political correctness."

Many professors of educational trends are willing to destroy a society in order to see their methods of social engineering "tried out" on new generations of hapless students. Fortunately, there are others who pay attention to scientific findings, who are outside the reach of the fashionable trendsetting PC social engineers.

There is a lot of need for reform in education, thanks to the PC professors who currently rule the universities and schools of education. Whether they like it or not, this reform is coming.