Understand How Brain Learns

Understanding how brain learns helps us to learn effectively for competitive examinations like NEET.

Video Lecture on How Brain Learns

Audio Transcription for How Brain Works during Learning

Let us take a simple test to understand the power of your brain. Only Great minds can read this. Please give a try. Please watch the first few seconds of video to see the image.

You might be wondering how easy it is to read this without much effort. You are able to read this because you are not reading the letters but the words as the whole. This is called as chunking. We will discuss more on chunking later in this course. Do you, think that you have a super brain.. let’s try another test. In this test, you have to name the color used to write each of the below words. For example, you should say blue when you read RED. Try to say the color of the subsequent words.Please watch the video to check out the diagram.

Did you struggle to say the color?. This happens because your conscious mind gets confused with the contradicting information received from the subconscious mind. This is called as Stroop effect. In order to understand why we perform better in the first test and performed poorly in the second test, we need to understand how our brain works. Knowing how our brain works not only help to clear this doubt but will also help you to learn effectively.

Conscious Mind and Subconscious Mind

The mind is logically divided into two types, conscious mind, and subconscious mind. The subconscious mind makes up more than 90% of the brain whereas the conscious mind makes up less than 10% of the brain. Let’s try to understand these two minds in detail.

Conscious Mind

Let’s first discuss the Conscious Mind. The function of the conscious mind is to perform higher order thinking such as planning, reasoning, combining ideas, decision-making, and problem-solving. The conscious mind can focus on only one thing at a time. It cannot do multitasking. If someone says they can do multitasking, what they actually mean is that they are switching tasks. No one can do two conscious tasks simultaneously if they do, they are alternating between the two tasks, one after the another. This will result in a poor outcome for both the tasks.

To perform higher order thinking skills, the conscious mind uses scratch pad called as working memory. What happens when you add 88 and 87, you need a place to store the carry over the number, the place where we store this number is called as working memory. Also when you are talking with someone, you keep your argument in the working memory till the other person finishes the talking.

Working memory acts like a buffer for temporary storage of information such that the processing can take place. Working memory gives us the ability to remember and process information at the same time. It has the capacity to store around 7 items and it lasts for few seconds up to a minute. New information, pushes the older information out, from the working memory, unless the older information is directed to attention by rehearsal. As the information stored in short term memory fades, we have to make conscious effort to retain the information.

When you retain the information in the working memory for a long time, the chances of that information getting into long term memory increases. This technique is popularly called as rote learning. This is how the brain learns new things and stores it in long term memory.

Chunking Technique

Chunking is another technique used by memory experts to increase the capacity of working memory. It is the organization of information into meaningful groups. A mobile number can be easily remembered when it is split into 2 or 3 digit group compared to one group with 10 digits. When information is chunked, each chunk or group occupies one slot in the working memory out of the 7 slots, thereby extending the number of items that can be held.

Ericsson in his research paper ‘Acquisition of a memory skill’ published that his student after more than 230 hours of practice in the laboratory, was able to increase his working memory capacity to remember from 7 to 79 digits. He reported that he used the technique called as chunking to increase his short-term memory capacity. He used his specific background knowledge to “chunk” information into meaningful groups. The easy way to remember 10 digit phone number 1324567121 is to group them as three chunks such as 132-4567-121. When The same student who is able to remember more than 70 digits was asked to remember strings, he was able to remember only seven items.

The intelligence of the student is largely determined by the number of items one can hold in their working memory. Students whose working memory size is less than or equal to 3, find it difficult to perform higher order thinking skills such as planning, evaluating and problem-solving. Recent research indicates that, it is possible for students to increase their working memory capacity by practice. If you are interested, You can find tools in NEETlab website that gives you the practice to increase your working memory capacity.

Subconscious Mind

Now let’s move on to the second type of mind, the Subconscious Mind: Subconscious is the part of consciousness that is not currently in awareness. Your subconscious mind has a huge memory bank called long term memory which has virtually unlimited capacity. Its function is to store and retrieve data. It stores facts such as information about who, what, when and where, and their relationships, based on your daily experience. The information stored in the long term memory is not readily available for the conscious mind to process, hence the name subconscious.

The conscious mind has the ability to send search command to long term memory to seek the necessary information by giving clues. Once the subconscious mind gets the clue, it searches the long term memory and places the result in the working memory such that the processing can continue in the conscious mind. The success of search in long term memory depends on the clues sent for the search, similar to the quality of keyword in the online google search. More the number of clues and more specific the clue, better the quality of the result retrieved from long term memory. This is the reason why learning by association and divergent thinking improves memory retrieval significantly because there are more clues to reach the required information.

Power of Subconscious Mind

Do you play any music instrument?. If so imagine that you are going to play your favorite song, can you tell the exact keys or strings and the duration for which you need to press to play the song. You would struggle to tell the steps. Even though this information is stored in your subconscious mind, your conscious mind cannot access this information as they are not stored in verbal form. When you turn your bike, you don’t know the lean angle but your body and bike adjusts to the perfect angle such that you do not skid.Information related to motor skills such as driving car or bike are also stored at the subconscious level but in the different part of the brain called cerebellum whereas facts and events are stored in the hippocampus.

When you practice problems or solve previous year question papers, you are actually moving the processing from your conscious mind to subconscious mind which is more powerful and error-free. You can also cultivate good learning habits such as 7-hour compulsory sleep, adhering to study schedule, getting to study mood, by using the power of your subconscious mind. More information on how to use the power of your subconscious mind to excel in your studies is discussed later in this course.

Information related to motor skills such as driving car or bike are also stored at the subconscious level but in the different part of the brain called cerebellum whereas facts and events are stored in the hippocampus. When you practice problems or solve previous year question papers, you are actually moving the processing from your conscious mind to subconscious mind which is more powerful and error-free. You can also cultivate good learning habits such as 7-hour compulsory sleep, adhering to study schedule, getting to study mood, by using the power of your subconscious mind. More information on how to use the power of your subconscious mind to excel in your studies is discussed later in this course.

How We Learn – The Learning Process

Now let’s get on to how brain learns. Learning comprises of three main subprocesses namely acquisition, consolidation and recall. The acquisition means how the new concept is stored in the brain. Consolidation is the processes of storing the concept in permanent memory. Recall means the retrieval of stored concept into our awareness. What gets stored in long term memory is mainly determined by two things, does it make sense, and does it have meaning. Making sense refers to, Understanding of the concept and, meaning refers to whether the information is relevant and useful to the learner.

Acquisition Process

Lets first look at the acquisition process. The acquisition process is wholly dependent on whether the new learning makes sense. Learning is the process of associating the new concept with other concepts you already know. If someone says that they understood the concept very well, it means that they are able to relate the new concept with previous concepts which they have already learned and stored in the brain. For example, when we read rain in a book, concepts such as cloud, condensation, forest, Sea, the sound of thunder, as well as your feelings when you get drenched in rain are associated together in your long term memory. The more we associate known concepts to the new ones, we better understand the new concept.

The acquisition process can be strengthened by employing other senses in your learning. When you read, you learn 30%, when you listen, you learn 40%, when you watch video, you learn 50%, when you write, you learn 60%, when you draw, you learn 70%, when you think, you learn 80%, when you teach, you learn 90%. Waiting for the next one. Want to know what would make it 100%. I really don’t know. If you know, please enlighten me by commenting below in this video.

Consolidation Process

Let’s move to the consolidation phase, consolidation happens based on the meaning or importance of the information learned. The importance is generally determined by the duration and number of times the information resides in working memory. This is the reason why we are asked to repeat the sentences from textbook again and again. The consolidation phase does not happen immediately after we learn the concept, it happens during the sleep. Even after consolidation, the information in the long term memory is not permanent and may fade if it is not strengthened.

For long term consolidation, researchers suggest that the information learned needs to be revised after 10 minutes of learning and then the next day, followed by next week and next month. The strength of the connection in the brain increases every time you recall the information. This is why revision is given importance while preparing for any examination. One of the problems many students face is to track the revision schedule for all concepts in all topics of all subjects. Revision Tools such as the one provided by NEETlab can come handy to rescue students from this revision problem.

Recall Process

The next phase is recall phase, where we try to search required information from long term memory by sending some cues. Let’s say you want to remember where you kept the bike key yesterday. You send the event which happened just before you placed the key as the cue. All information connected to this event is retrieved and placed in the working memory.

The conscious memory then picks the required information from the working memory. The success of recall depends on the quality of cues you send for the search. Also if the information you search, has many associations with many other related concepts, any of these related concepts can act as a cue to retrieve this information. This is the reason, why associative learning and divergent thinking are considered as most important for effective learning.

When we read some textbook, we make associations based on the flow of the textbook. We never try to establish the relationship between concept we learned in the first chapter with a concept that we learn in some other chapter. When our associations are weak, the knowledge we learn becomes less retrievable as well as less usable. One thing which differentiates experts and novice is that experts have strong associations between their concepts which help them to apply in varying contexts. If you have any doubts or comments regarding how brain learns please put your comments below.