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Proof That Practice Does Make Perfect
eldavojohn sends us an article about a discovery by Carnegie Mellon researchers that explains why repetitive studying or training is effective. Previous research had suggested the opposite, which ran counter to nearly everyone's personal experience. Scientists hope that this information will help us to learn more about diseases which affect the memory, such as Alzheimer's. From the article:
"In a series of experiments the researchers blocked different receptors, including NMDA, to see the receptors' effect on long-term neural stimulation. They found that while the NMDA receptor is required to begin neural strengthening, a second neurotransmitter receptor -- the metabotropic glutamate (mGlu) receptor -- comes into play after this first phase of cellular learning. ...blocking mGlu receptors caused strengthening to stop."
... blocking mGlu receptors caused strengthening to stop.
What I want to know is, how many people block their own mGlu receptors? I mean, there are an awful lot of people that just do not seem capable of learning from experience. Maybe they should be concentrating on finding a drug that will unstick those people's mGlu's.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
What I want to know is, how many people block their own mGlu receptors? I mean, there are an awful lot of people that just do not seem capable of learning from experience.
So *that* explains the 2004 election. It all makes sense now.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
The research is a little deeper than you imply, it seems to be showing the biochemical mechanism which causes this phenomenon. knowing that repetition helps learning is simple, knowing exactly why it does so is useful if we ever want to do anything interesting with our brains from a technological standpoint.
as a bad analogy: knowing that an apple fell and whacked you on the head is obvious, knowing that the Earth curved space in such a way to allow this is something quite different.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
Yes, but intuition has no scientific validity, and the point here is not to prove that something is the way we all know it is, but to figure out why it works that way.
... maybe something like this is what ushers in Vernor Vinge's Singularity.
It will be interesting to see if this discovery results in some nifty new drugs to improve the efficiency of the learning process. Wouldn't it be cool to be able to absorb vast quantities of information as easily as remembering a phone number? Hell, if popping a pill could give one the effect of an eidetic memory, it would revolutionize everything. Who cares how hard something is to use? Just read the manual. Once.
Students could graduate from college with the equivalent of a dozen different degrees. Interdisciplinary cross-fertilization of ideas would be dramatically increased, the pace of progress would accelerate
Okay, so maybe it's not such a good idea after all. I'd still like to have a bottle of those pills handy though.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Be wary of any facts that confirm your opinion.
Anyone who actually read the article might tell you that was not the point of the article. They were wondering why the brain seems at first to weaken the synapses in parts of your brain after the initial learning phase. Now they discovered that actually the opposite happens in different parts of the brain after this initial process.
GeoKone.NET
Granted I'm a layperson and may have misunderstood what I just read but could I really be the only one googling for a readily available, safe, fast acting, and short lived mGlu inhibitor. Granted you probably don't want to pick any neuro chemicals to do without but inhibiting mGlu during short term study sessions.
By all means correct me if I am misunderstanding or better yet, if you know of that inhibitor.
Practice more....
By all means correct me if I am misunderstanding or better yet, if you know of that inhibitor. Scratch that, reverse it all. Otherwise I stand firmly by my statement.
Anyone who's ever had to rely in a serious way on their training can tell you this is true.
Say you buy a gun for protection, but you don't practice with it, never think about it. How well do you think you're going to do when you need it in a life threatening situation? Frankly, you'd be better off without a gun at all because as likely as not the assailant would take it away from you and use it against you.
I think "most people's intuition" is that rote learning doesn't work well, not repetition.
expandfairuse.org
Most people will agree that practice makes perfect. If you ask them which is more important, practice or talent, they will say that talent determines the degree of ultimate achievement. This, and other recent research, says they're wrong. Talent is highly over rated. Studies of experts and expert behavior show that a certain kind of practice produces talent.
Just doing something a lot doesn't necessarily produce better ability. For instance one may play an hour of chess every day for years and never get much better. What is needed is 'deliberate practice'. Deliberate practice is methodical and involves learning from feedback. It is reflected in the old adage: "Practice doesn't make perfect; perfect practice makes perfect."
http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetails/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=EJ768512&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=EJ768512
Ericsson cites a study of musicians studying at university. Their professors were asked to rate the students' chances of making it as a symphony musician. The correlation with previous practice was very strong. Those who would become symphony musicians had practiced 10,000 hours before they got to university. The second group, who wouldn't likely make it had practiced 7500 hours or less. A third group who would become music teachers had only practiced around 2500 hours.
Ericsson gives many examples of research that point out that deliberate practice is by far more important than 'talent'. Most people having trouble believing that.
Previous research had suggested the opposite, which ran counter to nearly everyone's personal experience.
What could have possibly have contradicted a learning curve such as "the more I play, the better I get"?
Practice does not make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect.
If you do the same bad thing over and over, all you get is a bad habit. If you record, analyze, correct, and repeat all your actions, you will get better.
I fly RC helis and airplanes. When doing pattern flying, I equip my birds with a GPS (garmin forerunner). After a practice session, I import the data into Google Earth and try and find out why my loops aren't round or why my vertical lines are not straight.
Lots of golfers record themselves at the driving range. After, they can overlay their swing with that of the Club Pro or another golfer and see exactly what they are doing wrong.
I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
"Practice makes permanent" is another one I've heard.
Starbucks, Harbuckle of Breath.
Could everybody who tagged this as 'duh' explain to me exactly how you felt it was obvious that while the NMDA receptor is required to begin neural strengthening, the mGlu receptor causes strengthening to stop?
The details are trivial and useless; The reasons, as always, purely human ones.
The researchers aren't explaining metaphysically "Why?" we learn by repetition,
The researchers aren't stating "Repetition works, you should try it sometime because it's a brand new discovery!!"
The only point of this experiment is that the researchers found the neurotransmitter and receptor sites that were shown to cause repetition to work, all we learn is that the chemical (mGlu) facilitates long-term learning...
Long term memory creation is called coding in the psych literature, which may appeal to some of the pretentious and humble nerds alike.
Now I love you guys, but we need to start moderating these "captain obvious" comments and stop making them in the first place.
10 Read
20 Think
30 React
40 Goto 10
A whopping 120 characters to take your mind off topic. Tested in MS Word.
As well as helping understand learning problems, maybe this kind of research could pave the way for increased speed of learning, a bit like in the Matrix where Neo learns Kung Fu.
I remember reading that many experts in expertise, if there is such a thing, believe that in order to master something, like a musical instrument or painting or an academic study you need about 30,000 hrs of training and practice. That's about 8 hrs a day for 10 years.
Before you go off looking to alter the biology before you understand the evolutionary reason for it, first ask the question "why do many people block their own MGlu receptors?"...you may discover that there is one if not many advantages to doing so.
;-p
Personally I don't learn from repetition, at least not of the type described. I learn by applying knowledge, aka experimentation... which is repeatedly using a concept in a variety of ways until enough of it's aspects are internalized that I can make a mental model of it. Then I get creative. When I can teach someone else what the concept is and how it works... that's when I know I've learned it.
OTOH ask me to tell you someone's name that I've known for years and used repeatedly and it may take me a few seconds to dig for it. Even if they are standing right in front of me. Names, labels, facts just don't stick with me - the upside is that I can tell you all about the concept of viscosity at a moments notice, just wait a sec while I recall the correct terminology
SO maybe blocking mGlu receptors allows people to keep things flexible in the brain until a deeper more complex pattern of understanding is achieved.
Even so, as long as there's no long term effect I'd be happy to drink a PowerMem(TM) right before sitting down to read the Python API, YUI script API, etc - I could finally get rid of all the cheat sheets that litter my desk.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
Not yet, but given how little we still know on the subject, I don't see why intuition should be regarded as something not scientifically valid simply because there currently may not be much research on it specifically.