drink more coffee

Another reason to drink more coffee

by in Psychology 0

If you’re a coffee lover like me, you probably don’t need more excuses to drink coffee, but now and again I like to reflect on all the positive reasons I should continue my three cup a day habit….especially when I’m about to pay $3.50 for another cappuccino on a tough day!!

In a study by Borota, Murray, Keceli, Chang, Watabe, Ly, Toscano and Yassa (2014), the effects of Caffeine on long term memory were examined.

Participants were given a series of pictures to view and learn.  After the task, they were then either given a caffeine tablet (containing 200mg of caffeine) or a placebo tablet.
The next day, the participants were administered the task again, with some images being the same and some different.
The “Caffeinated” participants were better able identify the similar images than the non-caffeinated group.

The researchers concluded that the group given the caffeine following the tasks were aided in the “consolidation” of long term memories rather than short term recall.

What are the implications of this?  Learning something new?  More reason to have a cup of coffee after each chapter read/study session/discussion/task practised etc, to help you to better consolidate those memories for long term learning!!

 

improve learning

Boost your learning power with this simple tip!!

by in Psychology, Uncategorized 1

Learning a new skill is difficult for the best of us, particularly as we age *sighs*…..but there is a simple strategy you can try which can help you to learn more efficiently.

Simply by mixing up the way you learn with interleaving, you can experience large gains in your learning.

Interleaving means practising or learning different skills in quick succession.  Often when learning, we traditionally focus on learning one task at a time.  For example, if I was learning to play a new song on the guitar, I might spend an entire practice session on the one song only…. but if I was interleaving, I might practice multiple techniques in a practice sessions – for example, scales, fingerpicking, or even work on a few different songs in the same session.

A study by Rohrer et al., 2015, showed that children learning maths who used interleaving, performed 25% better than students learning one technique at a time (such as spending an entire lesson on fractions!), one day later.  A month later the children were re-tested, and the interleavers performed 76% better than students practising one task at a time.

The implications of this are that whether you are learning a new skill, such as learning to play golf, or going back to university for further education, by shaking up how you practice and learn, you can learn much better.

You might feel stuck when learning a particular task or skill, but by moving on to a different task in the same session, it may actually help you to learn the first one!!

Do you interleave?  What works best for you when learning a new skill?