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Spatial abilities have been shown to be important for achievement in STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering, math), but many people have felt that spatial skills are something you’re either born with or not.
Here’s an exciting little study, implying as it does that one particular aspect of information processing underlies much of the cognitive decline in older adults, and that this can be improved through training.
Back in 2010, I briefly reported on a study suggesting that a few minutes of ‘quiet time’ could help you consolidate new information. A new study provides more support for this idea.
Meditation may improve multitasking
I’ve reported before on how London taxi drivers increase the size of their posterior hippocampus by acquiring and practicing ‘the Knowledge’ (but perhaps at the expense of other functions).
Adding to the growing evidence for the long-term cognitive benefits of childhood music training, a new study has found that even a few years of music training in childhood has long-lasting benefits for auditory discrimination.
My recent reports on brain training for older adults (see, e.g., Review of working memory training programs finds no broader benefit;
The research is pretty clear by this point: humans are not (with a few rare exceptions) designed to multitask.
Back when I was young, sleep learning was a popular idea. The idea was that a tape would play while you were asleep, and learning would seep into your brain effortlessly. It was particularly advocated for language learning.
A couple of years ago I briefly reported on a finding that students who had lived abroad demonstrated greater creativity, if they first recalled a multicultural learning experience from their life abroad.
Articles on Mempowered
- Everyday memory strategies
- Improving attention
- Mnemonics
- Photographic Memory
- Practice counts! So does talent
- Knowing what to do
- Metamemory
- A cognitive failure is generally a strategy failure
- Have we really forgotten how to remember?
- Memory is complicated
- Why asking the right questions is so important, and how to do it
- Successful remembering requires effective self-monitoring
- Why it’s important to work out the specific skills you want to improve
- Variety is the key to learning
- The most effective learning balances same and different context
- What babies can teach us about effective information-seeking and management
- Shaping your cognitive environment for optimal cognition
- Retraining the brain
- Finding the right strategy through perception and physical movement
- Subliminal & sleep learning
- When are two (or more) heads better than one?
- Approaches to learning another language