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Hi Guys,
Wanted to start this thread with a quick link to a video of Jonah Leher talking about Aha! moments..
Koichi seems a little obsessed with learning techniques and the psychology/neurology of learning and memory retention.. As a language teacher, this can only be a good thing. Especially as he is kind enough to incorporate all this into the ever easily digestible Textfugu!
JONAH LEHRER: How to Have an Aha! Moment: http://youtu.be/rNVEZ5Whmk8
He talks about Alpha waves.. Years ago I came across Isochronic Tones, which are basically beats set to a certain repetition frequency which are supposed to stimulate certain neurological patterns in the brain, such as alpha waves.. Not really advocating them, havn’t had a positive or negative experience from them.. I just thought I would throw it out to the textfugu community and hope you all self guinea pig!
So anyway, do you have any weird and wonderful psychological tips / techniques you use or interesting things you have discovered out there?
Rather than the traditional ‘I use this mnemonic’ I’d like.. ‘I eat floppy disks for their tasty data!’ ^-^
Smashing my head off the textbook usually makes the info leech into my head. You should ALL try it. Needs to be at least 10 times or it wont work. If you see blood, don’t bother going to the hospital – it’s not blood at all, it’s just the red juices of ignorance being kicked out by all the information. If you started to get dizzy, that’s just all the little pieces of data running around trying to find where to store themselves.
True story.
Jonah Lehrer is a pretty interesting guy; I saw him speak at school a couple years back.
Glad you enjoy reading/hearing about all these psychology/neurology studies. I’ve been trying to read up more on them recently and hope to write more about them on Tofugu.
Eh, I’ll sometimes put a binaural beats track on in the background while I study, but that’s mainly just because it’s a monotonous stream of noise that won’t catch my attention the way that most music will.
Looked up that isochronic tones thing and it sounds like the biggest load of BS but I’m still very curious for some reason :P I’ll maybe give it a go, though I doubt it will do anything.
Same goes for binaural beats.There is no science with music. The key is to get used to it. No matter what I do, be it reading, writing, exams etc.. I always listen to music of 125-180BPM. I concentrate better, so I seriously think “special music” for concentration is a load of BS.
I know it has been proven that music with BPM around 60(if I remember correctly) can help you concentrate, but I find 3 times that BPM to reinforce my concentration just as much. Get used to listening to music while doing everything and it will help you a great deal.With all that being said, my advice is to just get used to listening to music. It takes a while before very loud music at around 70-80db don’t mess your concentration the slightest – but damn it is helpful once you can do it. As long as you have a good headset you can concentrate everywhere :D
Yeh I always study with some music, it’s usually something ambient or instrumental though. I find anything with discernible lyrics to be off putting.. When I have two different languages flowing into my head by two separate sensory channels my brain just kind of farts..
And i’m absolutly not condoning iso/binural beats.. I have tried to use them before for things like sleep and running.. I just find i’m in control of my emotions / body without the need for any extra stimuli..
However, a good meditation before studying should work wonders.. Even just a 15 minute sit down in silence. Would help to quiet your mind and bring you into a relaxed state which is ideal for leaning (see alpha waves above). If I get in from work and my mind is all full of crap still, the last thing I can do is hold 15 vocab words in my head :(I’ve never found music to help my concentration in the slightest. I still listen to music when I do my reviews and other things that require half a brain, but honestly it’s only to make an otherwise repetitive task bearable; for doing just that, however, it works tremendously.
If I try to do something that demands more than a few brain cells, I find that music makes me rush through it halfheartedly. It’s trying to think hard while being externally stimulated. Like dancing while being tickled… It may be more fun, but it’s just not ideal.
And now that I’ve positively derailed the thread, I’ll get back on track. The idea that you can somehow change your brain and the way it thinks by listening to the right frequency sounds absurd to me. The brain waves that you can detect with electrodes is the result of the underlying activity. It doesn’t work the other way around… and I’ll be contend with being cocksure of this until science proves me wrong ;)
That music can *increase* concentration is pure hokum. Nothing that splits your attention can increase it – you’re actively moving some attention away from the main task at hand and directing it to the music. Say you have two plates, one with a big cake on it. If you move a small slice from the first plate to the second plate, it’s impossible to be left with *more* cake on the first plate :P However, I *do* listen to lyricless music while I’m studying to help with the monotony of it :D The slower and less “engaging” the music, the less attention needs directed towards it, and thus the smaller the decrease in attention to the stuff you’re studying (which is why 60bpm baroque music is often suggested). I always find that if I listen to anything with lyrics, my brain is like “aaaahhh!!” :P
Right now, I’ve been listening to the The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword soundtrack quite a lot while studying. It’s goddamn brilliant, and there’s no singing in it, so it’s not too distracting :)
Listened to 15 minutes of binaural beats at 15Hz while reading calculus textbook. Felt bizarre that’s for sure, but there was no noticeable increase in concentration. I don’t really wanna try it again because it’s given me a bit of a headache (and can most likely induce tinnitus) haha
Hmmm…
I think this must be something completely personal then, because no matter how many cake examples that will be brought up, I will still concentrate better with music. It allows for complete immersion in what you are doing because you can’t hear anything(assuming you have an isolating headset).
I do only listen to vocal-less music, so that might also be why I am able to concentrate to it. Vocals are a thing of the past ^^Actually this is a pretty interesting topic :) I must admit I thought some people would feel the same as me :P
I think it just varies with people as you say. I don’t think the cake example is applicable for everyone. Music is just acceptable noise, some people study better with music, some better in silence, some with the sound of birds chirping outside. I don’t think you would say the chirping birds are taking away part of the cake, they’re all just noises that put people’s minds into a sate of “learning Zen”.
I think you can relate it to the state of mind people need to be in to sleep as well, some people listen to music to sleep, others silence, etc. Everyone is weird, some more than others. :p
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This reply was modified 12 years, 8 months ago by
クリス.
I love following linguists online because it really feels like our understanding of language education is still in it’s infancy, and the age we live in is like the ages of discovery other areas of study have already had.
Cake is ALWAYS relevant, whether the point it makes is wrong or not :P I’m not saying noise in general is a bad thing and that you must study in silence at all times, but just that different things take different sized slices of cake. Bird tweets and ocean noises take the tiniest sliver whereas full-on rap battles probably take a massive slab ;) But you do still only have a finite amount of attention (and thus a finite size of cake); your brain can’t just grab extra processing power out of thin air, so it has to divert some, however little, to processing the aural input. So yeah, listen to music if you want, but just make sure it’s not too attention-hogging :P
I don’t know about you guys but I just use my thinking cap
MMMMmmmmm cake. :)
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This reply was modified 12 years, 8 months ago by
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