
Scientists have found a way to help learn skills faster - davidiach
http://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-have-found-a-technique-that-helps-you-learn-new-skills-twice-as-fast
======
gwern
If anyone is curious, the psychologists discovered this long ago; it's related
to spaced repetition, but in education & sports & psychology, this is known as
blocking: you get better skill gain by not massing practice on a single skill,
but by regularly rotating through multiple tasks. (So in a baseball study, the
players would rotate through batting, throwing, catching etc, instead of
spending a long time at each activity.)

~~~
jacobolus
This seems to be a different thing than just practicing different activities
related to the same sport. These are two functionally similar activities which
use slightly different muscle patterns to accomplish, so that the trainee is
directly applying their knowledge of the first action to the second, but can’t
just do the precise same motion.

> _“If you make the altered task too different, people do not get the gain we
> observed during reconsolidation. The modification between sessions needs to
> be subtle”_

A better baseball analogy might be practicing catching line drives then
practicing catching popups then practicing catching one-bounce throws then
practicing catching a lobbed egg.

Or maybe practicing batting and then practicing golfing and then practicing
kendo swings.

~~~
walking
If I'm reading the source article correctly (linked below by Perixoog), it
sounds like change was so subtle that the participants themselves weren't even
aware of it:

"Participants were unaware of this manipulation"

"We chose to manipulate sensorimotor variability so that participants were
unaware of the fact that there was any change in the task"

[1]
[http://www.cell.com/cms/attachment/2045379445/2056784269/mmc...](http://www.cell.com/cms/attachment/2045379445/2056784269/mmc2.pdf)

So not only are the tasks similar, but they're so similar that participants
weren't consciously aware that they were doing something different. Wacky

They also mention that "participants strengthened skill through the re-
exploration of sensorimotor space."

I wonder how large an exploration of the sensorimotor space could be while
generalizing/improving the original skill. (re batting and kendo). No idea,
but interesting article either way

~~~
kriro
Which makes me wonder if you can apply this as an autodidact. If you know you
have made subtle changes, do the results still hold. I'd guess the answer
would be yes but it could be an interesting problem.

There also might be a delta (variation of the activity) that optimizes the
learning progress. My guess for that would be...change too little and you're
inefficient, change too much and you are inefficient, too.

~~~
walking
This is all speculation, on my part (certainly not an expert in this area)

In the article they say that "Contextual variability can strengthen retention
[15] and generalization of skills", but that they "chose to increase
sensorimotor variability while maintaining constant the original learning
context."

They also mention that "attributing errors to internal sources can strengthen
learning [19, 20] and generalization [21] of motor behavior"

My guess for an autodidact would be how powerful internal attribution is
compared to the change in context and exploration of the sensorimotor space.
Of course, they're probably not discrete, and probably also impact one
another.

Sounds like some really interesting possible implications, and possibilities
for further research. Really makes me want to reread the article and go
through some of the articles they cite

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bluusteel
I think this is called varied practice and that the idea has been around for
awhile. The book Make It Stick[1] discusses a study that had 8 year olds toss
beanbags at a target. For one group, the distance to the target was varied.
For another, the distance to the target was fixed. At a later time, both
groups were tested and the group that practiced with a variable distance
performed better than the fixed distance group.

[1]
[http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0674729013](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0674729013)

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Perixoog
Current Biology - Motor Skills Are Strengthened through Reconsolidation

12 page pdf:
[http://www.cell.com/cms/attachment/2045379445/2056784269/mmc...](http://www.cell.com/cms/attachment/2045379445/2056784269/mmc2.pdf)

~~~
kgarten
Thanks ... it's really bad practice from news articles to not link to the
actual study or cite it. "Scientists found ... " yeah at least they mention
the author and the journal.

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mdorazio
How would this apply to something like learning to play the piano or guitar?
The examples given for sports training seem practical, but I'm having trouble
envisioning small variations of a similar type for things like instruments.
Maybe varying the size/weight of the piano keys, or fret spacing on a guitar?

~~~
valvar
I'm thinking more along the lines of practicing different scales, arpeggios
and pieces each time, and practicing several different things instead of
repeatedly practicing a single thing. Unfortunately, though, as an amateur
violinist, I can say that this approach is not all that feasible after a
certain level. Varying your warm-ups like what scales, arpeggios and etudes
you play might be a good idea, but in the end the only really effective way of
mastering a piece is to play it over and over, mostly in small sections, until
you get it right. If you just scim over it each time, you're probably going to
let mistakes slip in and ferment. But maybe changing something less related to
the actual activity more in line with what you suggested might also work -
lowering and raising the music stand and piano stool or chair, changing
instruments or location, etc.

~~~
pinkrooftop
If you take the approach of mastering the instrument instead of a piece then
scales, arpeggios, and other building blocks become critical. Almost like
learning improv jazz violin, before taking on a classical piece

~~~
ZenoArrow
Mastering a musical instrument can be broken down into physical skills and
aural skills. Exercises can be useful for physical skills, but aural skills
can be practiced without them. Improvising is about being open to where you
can go, and ear training of various kinds is going to be far more useful for
that than practising the same group of exercises time and time again.

~~~
pinkrooftop
Scales is the key to improv in my experience

~~~
bhrgunatha
Scales are an important and necessary part, but I agree with ZenoArrow -
developing aural skills is the key. It opens up so many possibilities. I
haven't fully mastered those skills yet (still working on them), but learning
just a little is like suddenly having a map while trying to find your way
around a city. Before, you stumble around, stopping to ask for directions and
taking wrong turns. After, you can plan what you want to do much more easily.

------
agumonkey
Random anecdote, take care of your heart. Impaired blood flow will decrease
your skills (be it physical, neurological, intellectual) and your ability to
grow again.

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pjdorrell
Don't buy your child a bicycle: buy him/her _two_ bicycles.

~~~
hurpAdurp
Instead of the awkward "him/her", try just using "them" to de-genderify your
pronouns.

The slash looks goofy.

~~~
kentosi
Wouldn't that just be grammatically incorrect? Unless you replace "child" with
"children" of course ...

(Australian English speaker here.)

~~~
Natsu
English used to allow 'they' to be singular (Shakespeare used this). Some
people are coming back to it as acceptable as it's easier than the other
solutions.

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hiphopyo
There's also Donepezil, a drug similar to the one from the movie Limitless
(2011).

[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2593268/The-d...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2593268/The-
drug-helps-adults-learn-fast-children.html)

    
    
        - Donepezil is used to improve memory function in Alzheimer’s patients
        - Children learn skills quickly as their brains go through 'critical periods’
        - Researchers found donepezil can revert adult brains to these periods
        - It increases the 'elasticity' of the brain making it capable of learning rapidly
        - Researchers rewired a visually impaired patient’s brain to process images
        - The drug works by boosting chemicals in the brain that reduce with age

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anotheryou
I'd describe at least one of the factors as "play". "Play" to get to know the
system you are trying to learn. This knowledge than helps with the specific
task.

Given the study I assume a different mechanism coming in to play also:

If you try to play a musical piece on an instrument teachers will advise you
to practice as slow as needed, not to make a single mistake, that could end up
being learned.

It's like trying to correct yourself on word you mangled up while speaking,
you'll be so fixated you immediately make the mistake again and again.

This memory effect might have been countered by the variations in the study.

(I posted the same thing elsewhere, but as a comment of the furthest down top-
level comment I doubt it will be seen there)

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ddingus
I am understanding this to mean the small, but sensible variations, gets at
the dynamics of a task better than mere repetition does.

Instead of learning to correct toward a given nominal, we get a sense of what
nominal is, given an input, essentially.

~~~
anotheryou
I was really missing this from the article. I'd describe it as "play" to get
to know the system you are trying to learn. This knowledge than helps with the
specific task.

Given the study I assume a different mechanism coming in to play also:

If you try to play a musical piece on an instrument teachers will advise you
to practice as slow as needed, not to make a single mistake, that could end up
being learned.

It's like trying to correct yourself on word you mangled up while speaking,
you'll be so fixated you immediately make the mistake again and again.

This memory effect might have been countered by the variations in the study.

~~~
ddingus
Yes, you hit it on the instrument practice.

I struggled with exactly that, and failed on that instrument. Never did quite
get the same thing out of it twice, without a lot of focus on that thing.

Later, with little formal practice, I would play with a different one. Ended
up with some modest skill that remains today.

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halpme
How would this apply to learning a conceptual topic, as opposed to a physical
skill?

~~~
guimarin
when trying to learn something, engage with it repeatedly on exponential
decay. IE. Index cards. Go through them as many times as it take to learn
whatever you are learning. Then perform a 20-30 minute context switch. do
again. Now wait 1 hour. Do the cards again. Wait 2 hours. Again. Do this until
you review those cards at the week level. You can learn almost anything with
very high recall 6-9 months later with this method.

edit: Sleep is an extremely important component of this. You must be well
rested, and preferably do not ingest significant amounts of alcohol before
sleeping as that will mess up short term to long term memory mapping from
hippo to pfc.

~~~
spangry
I can anecdotally attest to this. When I had a piano recital coming up I used
to practice very intensely, but would 'hit a wall' at some point. When I came
back to it the next day I'd find my playing had improved significantly.

It almost felt like the gains from practising got stored up somewhere while I
was awake, and slowly unspooled while I was sleeping.

~~~
guimarin
this is how short-term -> long-term memory works. You build up 'competence; in
the hippocampus during waking hours, and then when you sleep 'a part' of those
memories are shifted into other areas of the brain so the hippo can be fresh
for the next day. Caveats apply to things sometime take days, don't move, get
erased etc. hippo is very capable so people can operate without sleep for
quite a while but eventually overflowing this buffer/registry causes
insanity/death. hilariously, your long-term appreciation of time is just the
working set in hippo divided by the stored area in long term memory. thus as
you get older time appears to go by faster in the aggregate. experience of
simple in the moment phenomena is controlled elsewhere.

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etiene
I've known this for over a decade... My piano teacher instructed me to do
that.

To learn any piece by heart, never start at the same measure, play voices
separately, combine different voices, sing together with it, play it backwards
(measure n then measure n-1 + measure n, then measure n-2 + measure n-1 +
measure n...), you can do this with bigger sections as well, change tempo,
etc. I still remember how to play my 4-voice Bach fugue even though I've
stopped playing the piano for years now. I tried this with text and public
speaking too and it works.

I thought this was widely known...?

~~~
gavazzy
Can confirm this is widely known within music pedagogy.

However, quite a few of my peers thought it was "stupid" and just practiced
the same piece over and over, at the same tempo, without ever stopping and
working on the hard parts.

After several years of music, there was a pronounced difference between those
who practiced effectively and those who merely repeated their mistakes.

Perhaps a study like this could convince future students that it's worthwhile.

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nickpsecurity
This is old news: train your brain guides used to tell people to do this same
stuff. Intuition trainers also did it with simulations and such that varied a
bit. Those doing it knew it worked due to better performance. Published
experiments confirming it is A Good Thing, of course.

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mavsman
This one weird trick that will make you learn things twice as fast.

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reed1
That's why polygot programming is better I guess.

