Working memory capacity and level of math anxiety were assessed in 73 undergraduate students, and their level of salivary cortisol was measured both before and after they took a stressful math test.
Laparoscopic surgery makes intense demands on cognitive, perceptual and visuospatial abilities, rendering it particularly vulnerable to the effects of alcohol (and also making it a sensitive indicator). In a real-world type experiment, students and experts participated in a study looking at the effects of previous-night’s carousing on next-day’s performance on the Minimally Invasive Surgical Trainer Virtual Reality (for which all participants received training, providing baseline scores).
The mental differences between a novice and an expert are only beginning to be understood, but two factors thought to be of importance are automaticity (the process by which a procedure becomes so practiced that it no longer requires conscious thought) and chunking (the unitizing of related bits of information into one tightly integrated unit — see my recent blog post on working memory). A new study adds to our understanding of this process by taking images of the brains of professional and amateur players of the Japanese chess-like game of shogi.
What makes one person so much better than another in picking up a new motor skill, like playing the piano or driving or typing? Brain imaging research has now revealed that one of the reasons appears to lie in the production of a brain chemical called GABA, which inhibits neurons from responding.
Two experiments involving a total of 191 volunteers have investigated the parameters of sleep’s effect on learning. In the first experiment, people learned 40 pairs of words, while in the second experiment, subjects played a card game matching pictures of animals and objects, and also practiced sequences of finger taps. In both groups, half the volunteers were told immediately following the tasks that they would be tested in 10 hours. Some of the participants slept during this time.
In a recent study, volunteers were asked to solve a problem known as the Tower of Hanoi, a game in which you have to move stacked disks from one peg to another. Later, they were asked to explain how they did it (very difficult to do without using your hands.) The volunteers then played the game again. But for some of them, the weight of the disks had secretly reversed, so that the smallest disk was now the heaviest and needed two hands.
There are a number of ways experts think differently from novices (in their area of expertise). A new study involving 72 college-age typists with about 12 years of typing experience and typing speeds comparable to professional typists indicates that our idea that highly skilled activities operate at an unconscious level is a little more complex than we thought.
I’m not at all sure why the researcher says they were “stunned” by these findings, since it doesn’t surprise me in the least, but a series of experiments into the role of imagination in creating false memories has revealed that people who had watched a video of someone else doing a simple action often remembered doing the action themselves two weeks later.
A new study explains why variable practice improves your memory of most skills better than practice focused on a single task. The study compared skill learning between those asked to practice one particular challenging arm movement, and those who practiced the movement with other related tasks in a variable practice structure.
A new study challenges the popular theory that expertise is simply a product of tens of thousands of hours of deliberate practice. Not that anyone is claiming that this practice isn’t necessary — but it may not be sufficient. A study looking at pianists’ ability to sight-read music reveals working memory capacity helps sight-reading regardless of how much someone has practiced.