If anyone is curious, the psychologists discovered this long ago; it's related to spaced repetition, but in education & sports & psychology, this is known as blocking: you get better skill gain by not massing practice on a single skill, but by regularly rotating through multiple tasks. (So in a baseball study, the players would rotate through batting, throwing, catching etc, instead of spending a long time at each activity.)
This seems to be a different thing than just practicing different activities related to the same sport. These are two functionally similar activities which use slightly different muscle patterns to accomplish, so that the trainee is directly applying their knowledge of the first action to the second, but can’t just do the precise same motion.
> “If you make the altered task too different, people do not get the gain we observed during reconsolidation. The modification between sessions needs to be subtle”
A better baseball analogy might be practicing catching line drives then practicing catching popups then practicing catching one-bounce throws then practicing catching a lobbed egg.
Or maybe practicing batting and then practicing golfing and then practicing kendo swings.
If I'm reading the source article correctly (linked below by Perixoog), it sounds like change was so subtle that the participants themselves weren't even aware of it:
"Participants were unaware of this manipulation"
"We chose to manipulate sensorimotor variability so that participants were unaware of the fact that there was any change in the task"
So not only are the tasks similar, but they're so similar that participants weren't consciously aware that they were doing something different. Wacky
They also mention that "participants strengthened skill through the re-exploration of sensorimotor space."
I wonder how large an exploration of the sensorimotor space could be while generalizing/improving the original skill. (re batting and kendo). No idea, but interesting article either way
Which makes me wonder if you can apply this as an autodidact. If you know you have made subtle changes, do the results still hold. I'd guess the answer would be yes but it could be an interesting problem.
There also might be a delta (variation of the activity) that optimizes the learning progress. My guess for that would be...change too little and you're inefficient, change too much and you are inefficient, too.
This is all speculation, on my part (certainly not an expert in this area)
In the article they say that "Contextual variability can strengthen retention [15] and generalization of skills", but that they "chose to increase sensorimotor variability while maintaining constant the original learning context."
They also mention that "attributing errors to internal sources can strengthen learning [19, 20] and generalization [21] of motor behavior"
My guess for an autodidact would be how powerful internal attribution is compared to the change in context and exploration of the sensorimotor space. Of course, they're probably not discrete, and probably also impact one another.
Sounds like some really interesting possible implications, and possibilities for further research. Really makes me want to reread the article and go through some of the articles they cite
> “If you make the altered task too different, people do not get the gain we observed during reconsolidation. The modification between sessions needs to be subtle”
I saw that quote but I have no idea what the researcher is basing it on. As described, the study can only show that blocking/interleaving is superior to massed practice:
> The volunteers were split into three groups, and each spent 45 minutes practising this. Six hours later, one of the groups was asked to repeat the same training exercise again, while another group performed a slightly different version that required different squeezing force to move the cursor. The third group only completed the first training session, so they could act as a control.
That is, as described, there is no 'interleaved subtle-difference' vs 'interleaved gross-difference' comparison, because they only compared 'near-zero-practice' vs 'massed-practice' vs 'interleaved-practice'. They seem to be wildly extrapolating from there, in ignorance of a good deal of prior work.
> practicing batting and then practicing golfing and then practicing kendo swings
Actually, as the subject progresses toward being an "expert" their practice should be increasingly specific. Beginners will certainly benefit from the approach you mention initially, but professionals will not.
Regular successful achievement of a physical task (reliably hitting a ball with a bat) can be considered a walk through a problem space. Initially, any training that approximates the task will take you closer to the target in the space. However as you approach that target, the margin for error diminishes sharply. Consequently your training should become more specific.
We got best improvement on our catcher by getting close enough to force a rapid response, or get hit by the ball, and a series of varied throws. High left, low right, center fast, high slow...
Take a bucket of balls and just run through them quick.
This seems to align with the study. Same basic task, lots of minor, well in our case occasionally major too, variations. The kids would improve notably and significantly in a single session.
I think it has more to do with subtle variation, not repetition in time. I haven't read the whole paper but just from the intro I got that one shouldn't robotically overtrain doing the same things, but should change the rhythm, syncopation, etc. Neural network overfitting. The same phenomena exist in physiological athletic improvement.
Just a quick correction (because it is a very common mistake). I think you are referring to "spaced learning" or "spacing", not "spaced repetition".
Every time you reinforce your memory, the amount of time it takes to forget it lengthens. Or, more properly, the slope of the curve that describes the probability of forgetting it decreases. That curve is known as the "forgetting curve". In spaced repetition, you are trying to time the repetition so that you still have a low percentage chance of forgetting.
"Spaced learning" or "spacing" is almost the opposite effect. What it says is that inserting a space in learning such that you forget something makes the material stronger when you subsequently relearn it. Although I am not aware of research that actually links spacing to the forgetting curve, you can probably imagine that if you learn something once, the forgetting curve is fairly steep (i.e., the probability of you forgetting it grows fairly quickly with time). With spacing, if you wait until you forget something and then relearn it, the forgetting curve is much shallower the second time (i.e. the probability of you forgetting it grows fairly slowly with time). In fact, it is apparently much shallower than if you had done spaced repetition (i.e. timed a reinforcement so that that allowed you to remember the item rather than forgetting it). Forgetting an relearning is rather an annoying and difficult way of learning, but some research suggest that it is dramatically more effective. This has been called "desired difficulty".
Also, there is a slightly nuanced difference between "blocking" and "interleaving". In interleaving, you fairly rapidly change topics and then loop back to the first again. So, if you have to learn 5 tasks, (A, B, C, D and E) you could spend 10 minutes on each and then loop back to the beginning. If you did that 6 times, you would have spent 1 hour on each task. Blocking would be spending 1 hour on each task, in blocks and then going back to it the next day. These are both different from the approach of training A until you learned it, then moving on to B, etc, etc.
In schools you can talk about "blocked" schedules (i.e. you try to fit in every subject every day -- not to be confused with the opposite of cramming a single subject into 3 or 4 periods, annoyingly also called a "blocked schedule"). Inside each subject they often don't interleave the material, though. There are some textbooks available that try to interleave the material within a subject. I have also read papers of some experiments where they actually tried to interleave all of the subjects (i.e., in each period you would have 10 minutes of each subject) with some success.
Anyway, I hope that helps. I spent a huge amount of time reading about this a few years ago, but have neglected it for about 3 years, so I hope I have not made any mistakes myself ;-)
No, I'm referring to spaced repetition, which is also often called spaced learning; the forgetting curve is why it works, but it is not otherwise relevant. The question about learning is how to distribute the reviews over time: all at once, or gradually over time with possibly expanding intervals. Similarly, with interleaving vs massed practice, the question is how to split up a fixed number of activities: should activity A be practiced for the maximum allowable amount of time, then B, then C and so on (analogous to massing on a single item), or should it be broken up with a few instances of A, then a few of B, and so on in a cycle until you've gone through all activities for the maximum allowable time? It turns out that for the same number of reviews or actions or exercises or time, spaced produces better recall than massed, and blocked/interleaved produces better skill learning than massed as well.
I think this is called varied practice and that the idea has been around for awhile. The book Make It Stick[1] discusses a study that had 8 year olds toss beanbags at a target. For one group, the distance to the target was varied. For another, the distance to the target was fixed. At a later time, both groups were tested and the group that practiced with a variable distance performed better than the fixed distance group.
Thanks ... it's really bad practice from news articles to not link to the actual study or cite it. "Scientists found ... " yeah at least they mention the author and the journal.
How would this apply to something like learning to play the piano or guitar? The examples given for sports training seem practical, but I'm having trouble envisioning small variations of a similar type for things like instruments. Maybe varying the size/weight of the piano keys, or fret spacing on a guitar?
Nah, this is already a common part of good practice techniques. When I was 12, I learned Chopin's Fantasie-Impromptu, a piece where you have to play four sequential notes in the right hand in the same beat length as playing three notes in the left, over and over again (they call this four-against-three), by doing the following:
1) Practicing right hand alone slowly
2) RH staccato (short punchy notes)
3) RH long-short long-short (so it "swings" kinda like jazz)
4) RH short-long short-long
5) RH short-short-short-long, and all other combinations
6) Same techniques as above, but with the LH, applied to a triple rather than a quad
7) Practicing both hands together, with RH steady but LH a syncopated "wrong" rhythm
8) Both hands together, LH steady but RH a syncopated "wrong" rhythm
9) Gradually speeding up the metronome until 7) and 8) "met in the middle" and it started sounding smooth
Later when I learned Beethoven's Appossionata (first movement), there's this section in left hand that is hard and fast, five notes per beat. Really hard if you're not left-handed. My teacher had me learn it by learning the mirror-image inverse in the right hand at the same time - so for instance if you'd play a C# in the left, you'd play an Eb (an octave up) in the right. It sounded like crap, but the end result was like it was my right hand "teaching" my left hand and I was eventually able to nail it.
>The examples given for sports training seem practical, but I'm having trouble envisioning small variations of a similar type for things like instruments. Maybe varying the size/weight of the piano keys, or fret spacing on a guitar?
Huh? It's not about changing the instrument. They mean stuff like practicing in different tempos, the same pattern in different scales, playing a piece with different accompaniment styles, playing the piece with open vs barre chords, or with a different strumming pattern, etc.
I'm thinking more along the lines of practicing different scales, arpeggios and pieces each time, and practicing several different things instead of repeatedly practicing a single thing. Unfortunately, though, as an amateur violinist, I can say that this approach is not all that feasible after a certain level. Varying your warm-ups like what scales, arpeggios and etudes you play might be a good idea, but in the end the only really effective way of mastering a piece is to play it over and over, mostly in small sections, until you get it right. If you just scim over it each time, you're probably going to let mistakes slip in and ferment. But maybe changing something less related to the actual activity more in line with what you suggested might also work - lowering and raising the music stand and piano stool or chair, changing instruments or location, etc.
If you take the approach of mastering the instrument instead of a piece then scales, arpeggios, and other building blocks become critical. Almost like learning improv jazz violin, before taking on a classical piece
Mastering a musical instrument can be broken down into physical skills and aural skills. Exercises can be useful for physical skills, but aural skills can be practiced without them. Improvising is about being open to where you can go, and ear training of various kinds is going to be far more useful for that than practising the same group of exercises time and time again.
Scales are an important and necessary part, but I agree with ZenoArrow - developing aural skills is the key. It opens up so many possibilities.
I haven't fully mastered those skills yet (still working on them), but learning just a little is like suddenly having a map while trying to find your way around a city. Before, you stumble around, stopping to ask for directions and taking wrong turns. After, you can plan what you want to do much more easily.
The key to musical improv (as opposed to experimental improv, which has its place) is meaning to play what you play, and you can only truly be free to do that when you know what the notes sound like before you play them.
For example, let's say you were learning guitar, a good exercise would be to look at a random note on the fretboard (for example, the 10th fret on the G string in standard tuning) and sing the note, then play the note and see how close you were. When you can do that reliably, that's a big step forward towards mastery IMO.
However, I would recommend starting with ear training for relative pitch rather than absolute pitch (which is what the exercise above is for). For that, you play a note, then sing a note a certain interval away from it (e.g. a minor third) then play the note which is a minor third away from the first note. I believe this is a great exercise to start with.
Imagine practicing a scale on the guitar. You could just repeat the scale over and over, but you could also add rhythmic variation, or play two notes up and one note down. Based on the article, it doesn't seem like moving the goalposts (ie, fret spacing) is the critical point, it's just that you don't want to just blindly do the same thing over and over and hope to get better.
Well, my violin teacher used to say that there were three important stages that a musician has to go through - playing badly and being unaware of what is going on, playing well and being unaware of what is going on, and finally, playing well and being aware of what is going on. When you've reached that final stage, you don't just repeatedly play a tune and hope to get better - you play it, hear your mistakes or what you want to change, and then repeat those sections and adjust them until you are content. Blindly repeating patterns is something you should get past relatively soon if you're hoping to get anywhere with an instrument.
That sounds a lot like the 4 stages of competence[1].
Unconscious Incompetence: You don't know that you don't know. (I don't know how to drive a manual)
Conscious Incompetence: You know that you don't know, and start learning the skill. (I'm learning how to drive a manual)
Conscious Competence: Your skills have improved and you understand them, but there's a lot of manual work involved. (To drive a manual, you do step X, Y, and Z)
Unconscious Competence: The skill has been internalized and is automatic. (I know how to drive a manual without thinking about it)
Think 10 minutes on scales, 10 minutes on playing the piece you know best, 10 minutes sight-reading something you've never seen, 10 minutes playing by ear to the radio, and 10 minutes playing a different instrument (or RockBand!). Repeat for 10k hours, and I'll see you at the Grammys ;)
Random anecdote, take care of your heart. Impaired blood flow will decrease your skills (be it physical, neurological, intellectual) and your ability to grow again.
English used to allow 'they' to be singular (Shakespeare used this). Some people are coming back to it as acceptable as it's easier than the other solutions.
- Donepezil is used to improve memory function in Alzheimer’s patients
- Children learn skills quickly as their brains go through 'critical periods’
- Researchers found donepezil can revert adult brains to these periods
- It increases the 'elasticity' of the brain making it capable of learning rapidly
- Researchers rewired a visually impaired patient’s brain to process images
- The drug works by boosting chemicals in the brain that reduce with age
I'd describe at least one of the factors as "play". "Play" to get to know the system you are trying to learn. This knowledge than helps with the specific task.
Given the study I assume a different mechanism coming in to play also:
If you try to play a musical piece on an instrument teachers will advise you to practice as slow as needed, not to make a single mistake, that could end up being learned.
It's like trying to correct yourself on word you mangled up while speaking, you'll be so fixated you immediately make the mistake again and again.
This memory effect might have been countered by the variations in the study.
(I posted the same thing elsewhere, but as a comment of the furthest down top-level comment I doubt it will be seen there)
I was really missing this from the article. I'd describe it as "play" to get to know the system you are trying to learn. This knowledge than helps with the specific task.
Given the study I assume a different mechanism coming in to play also:
If you try to play a musical piece on an instrument teachers will advise you to practice as slow as needed, not to make a single mistake, that could end up being learned.
It's like trying to correct yourself on word you mangled up while speaking, you'll be so fixated you immediately make the mistake again and again.
This memory effect might have been countered by the variations in the study.
I struggled with exactly that, and failed on that instrument. Never did quite get the same thing out of it twice, without a lot of focus on that thing.
Later, with little formal practice, I would play with a different one. Ended up with some modest skill that remains today.
when trying to learn something, engage with it repeatedly on exponential decay. IE. Index cards. Go through them as many times as it take to learn whatever you are learning. Then perform a 20-30 minute context switch. do again. Now wait 1 hour. Do the cards again. Wait 2 hours. Again. Do this until you review those cards at the week level. You can learn almost anything with very high recall 6-9 months later with this method.
edit: Sleep is an extremely important component of this. You must be well rested, and preferably do not ingest significant amounts of alcohol before sleeping as that will mess up short term to long term memory mapping from hippo to pfc.
I can anecdotally attest to this. When I had a piano recital coming up I used to practice very intensely, but would 'hit a wall' at some point. When I came back to it the next day I'd find my playing had improved significantly.
It almost felt like the gains from practising got stored up somewhere while I was awake, and slowly unspooled while I was sleeping.
this is how short-term -> long-term memory works. You build up 'competence; in the hippocampus during waking hours, and then when you sleep 'a part' of those memories are shifted into other areas of the brain so the hippo can be fresh for the next day. Caveats apply to things sometime take days, don't move, get erased etc. hippo is very capable so people can operate without sleep for quite a while but eventually overflowing this buffer/registry causes insanity/death. hilariously, your long-term appreciation of time is just the working set in hippo divided by the stored area in long term memory. thus as you get older time appears to go by faster in the aggregate. experience of simple in the moment phenomena is controlled elsewhere.
I think problem sets in textbooks already do this; you do multiple problems relating in different ways to a lesson and so you learn how to master it in different ways.
I've known this for over a decade... My piano teacher instructed me to do that.
To learn any piece by heart, never start at the same measure, play voices separately, combine different voices, sing together with it, play it backwards (measure n then measure n-1 + measure n, then measure n-2 + measure n-1 + measure n...), you can do this with bigger sections as well, change tempo, etc. I still remember how to play my 4-voice Bach fugue even though I've stopped playing the piano for years now. I tried this with text and public speaking too and it works.
Can confirm this is widely known within music pedagogy.
However, quite a few of my peers thought it was "stupid" and just practiced the same piece over and over, at the same tempo, without ever stopping and working on the hard parts.
After several years of music, there was a pronounced difference between those who practiced effectively and those who merely repeated their mistakes.
Perhaps a study like this could convince future students that it's worthwhile.
This is old news: train your brain guides used to tell people to do this same stuff. Intuition trainers also did it with simulations and such that varied a bit. Those doing it knew it worked due to better performance. Published experiments confirming it is A Good Thing, of course.
