One of my perennial themes is the importance of practice, and in the context of developing expertise, I have talked of ‘deliberate practice’ (a concept articulated by the well-known expertise researcher K. Anders Ericsson). A new paper in the journal Psychology of Music reports on an interesting study that shows how the attributes of music practice change as music students develop in expertise. Music is probably the most studied domain in expertise research, but I think we can gain some general insight from this analysis. Here’s a summary of the findings.
Articles
I recently reported on a study showing how the gestures people made in describing how they solved a problem (the Tower of Hanoi) changed the way they remembered the game. These findings add to other research demonstrating that gestures make thought concrete and can help us understand and remember abstract concepts better.
Michael Gove is reported as saying that ‘Learning facts by rote should be a central part of the school experience’, a philosophy which apparently underpins his shakeup of school exams. Arguing that "memorisation is a necessary precondition of understanding", he believes that exams that require students to memorize quantities of material ‘promote motivation, solidify knowledge, and guarantee standards’.
I have spoken before, here on the website and in my books, about the importance of setting specific goals and articulating your specific needs. Improving your memory is not a single task, because memory is not a single thing. And as I have discussed when talking about the benefits of ‘brain games’ and ‘brain training’, which are so popular now, there is only a little evidence that we can achieve general across-the-board improvement in our cognitive abilities.
A fascinating article recently appeared in the Guardian, about a woman who found a way to overcome a very particular type of learning disability and has apparently helped a great many children since.
A study1 of nearly 2000 older adults has found that eating a Mediterranean diet was associated with less risk of developing mild cognitive impairment or of transitioning from MCI to Alzheimer's disease. The third with the highest scores for Mediterranean diet adherence had a 28% lower risk of developing MCI compared to the third with the lowest scores, and of those who already had MCI, those with the highest scores for Mediterranean diet adherence had a 48% less chance of developing Alzheimer’s.
Most people find numbers — phone numbers, personal identification numbers, dates, and so on — more difficult to remember than words. That is, of course, why businesses try to get phone numbers that correspond to some relevant word. The system whereby this is possible — the linking of certain letters to the different digits on a telephone calling pad —is a kind of coding mnemonic. Basically, coding mnemonics are systems that transform numbers into words.
The mediotemporal lobe (MTL) is a concept rather than a defined brain structure. It includes the hippocampus, the amygdala, and the entorhinal and perirhinal cortices - all structures within the medial area of the temporal lobe.The temporal lobe is in general primarily concerned with sensory experience - specifically, with hearing, and with the integration of information from multiple senses. Part of the temporal lobe also plays a role in memory processing. It is situated below the frontal and parietal lobes, and above the hindbrain.
Genes
Several genes have been implicated in Alzheimer's, but the big one is the e4 allele of the ApoE gene (on chromosome 19). This variant is found in about a quarter of the population.
Having it doesn't mean you are foreordained to develop Alzheimer's, but it certainly increases the risk substantially. The risk goes up considerably more if both of your genes are the e4 variant (remember you inherit two: one from each parent).
In the following case study, I explore in depth the issue of learning the geological time scale — names, dates, and defining events. The emphasis is on developing mnemonics, of course, but an important part of the discussion concerns when and when not to use mnemonics, and how to decide.
The Geological Time Scale
Phanerozoic Eon 542 mya—present
Cenozoic Era 65 mya—present