OVERLEARN TO LOCK IN, SAYS RESEARCH

Everyone who learns- be it an actor learning lines or a teacher learning to teach key factors to students, or a musician learning music, has to sink the learning into his brain.

Previous studies and the current one show that when one learns a new task and then shortly follows it with learning a similar one, the second one usually interferes with and undermines the first one’s mastery.

A psychological study by the Brown University has found a solution to this. It suggests that over learning helps lock-in performance gains.

They found that learning for 20 minutes past the point of mastery, “locked in” that learning. It shielded it from the interference made by a new learning.

For some duration, the over learning of the first task even prevents the second one’s effective learning. The underlying neurophysiology is that a temporary shift in the balance of the neurotransmitters that controls neural flexibility occurs in the part of the brain where learning happened.

The study was conducted on a visual task. It holds true for learning other tasks like motor tasks as well, says Takeo Watanabe, the corresponding author. This has been published in the Natural Neuroscience journal.

Content Source: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/01/170130111017.htm

Image: http://www.cleartalkmastery.com/blog/2014/01/15/english-speaking-skills-overlearning-youll-love-the-results/