Scientists Have Found The Secret To Learning Twice As Fast

As we go through life, there's always that one thing we'd like to drop everything and do. Whether it's a dream project or a new profession that seems interesting, it's something we catch ourselves fantasizing about every now and then. 

But that project or that interesting job usually requires a new set of skills, and that old "10,000 hours" trope tends to make learning those skills seem really daunting. Who can put in that kind of time in this busy world, right?

Well, it looks like researchers at Johns Hopkins have found a way to make the tedious process of learning and practicing new skills easier.

Share this if you know someone whose dreams seem just a little out of reach. 

As a kid, you may have been encouraged to take up a sport or a musical instrument.

If so, you probably remember have to do the same thing over and over again until your instructor was satisfied.

But that was pretty boring, wasn't it?

Well, it turns out there was a better way to do it all along. It involves changing each practice session just a little every time.

This is possible through a memory process called reconsolidation.

Whenever we remember something, there's a six-hour window in which that memory can be modified. Therapists will often use this window to "overwrite" traumatic memories and help their patients find new ways to deal with them emotionally.

But the team at Johns Hopkins found reconsolidation is also useful for developing motor skills.

By "overwriting" muscle memory the way we do emotional memories, we not only learn more, but learn it faster. 

So what did they actually do?

They trained three separate groups to move a cursor around a computer screen by squeezing a pressure-sensitive controller. After six hours, the first group was given the exact same training session, the second received a slightly different training program and the third control group wasn't retrained at all.

The next day, all three groups were asked to repeat the task.

As you can imagine, the control group didn't fare very well and performed 25% worse than those who received the exact same training both times.

But researchers discovered that the group that changes things up did the best.

In fact, they were almost twice as fast and accurate in completing the task as the group who repeated the same program.

And while these results seem promising for learning a new skill,

researchers believe they could end up helping stroke patients regain their motor functions. 

But as they study the matter further, they're finding out something else.

The changes in training have to be fairly subtle, like different sizes or weights for baseball bats. 

If the changes are too extreme, that faster and more accurate learning goes away.

If the game suddenly changes from baseball to tennis, people split between the two activities won't develop skills in either of them.

So hopefully the new study works out just how subtle the changes should be.

And then we can all figure out how to reach or goals faster.

Main image via Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Collage image via The Independent