Now this one is a real suprise. Everyone assumes that learning that is fun delivers better results right? There’s research to support it, e-learning games are very constructivist, they motivate learners more effectively than boring old traditional learning approaches, they very hot, very now! But…

A new study suggests that whilst fun learning games are motivational for lower achievers, high achievers may percieve ‘fun’ learning as a less credible guage of excellence and as a result it undercuts their desire to excel.

In the study, participants were subliminally primed with high-achievement words (e.g. excel, compete, win) and then asked to complete a word-search puzzle.  But instead of describing the task as a serious test of verbal proficiency, the researchers called it “fun.” In the results, high achievers did worse than low achievers. Yet in earlier experiments when the test was described as serious, they did significantly better than the low achievers.

This doesnt discount the learning value of games, but it definately serves as a warning as to how we should frame the experience for learners before they begin. Perhaps the ‘fun’ learning activities should be described as serious and important learning, even if they are fun.

I wonder what the physchographics of game (xbox, playstation etc) players are in temrs of high achievers and low achievers. Do high achievers readily apply their desire to excel to games when they percieve it as just a recreational activity? Anyway interesting stuff.

A team of scientists from Carnegie Mellon University has uncovered how the brain organises concrete nouns like ‘apple’ using fMRI and developed a consistent model that has major implications for how we organise information for learners (taxonomies).

Subjects heard 60 different concrete nouns whilst being imaged and a computer analysed the results looking for patterns. What they discovered were three main semantic factors underpinning the neural representation:

1. Manipulation – how you physically interact with the object (how you hold it, kick it, twist it, etc.)
2. Eating – how it is related to eating (biting, sipping, tasting, swallowing)
3. Shelter – how it is related to shelter or enclosure.

Whilst the study did not examine any benefits to learning from presenting information in a form consistent with this model, it does remind me of the good old model used in learning for many years of how, what and where. I would speculate that aligning a learning taxonomy or curriculum to this model, would enhance its encoding within the brain or at the very last minimise cognitive barriers and the chance of misunderstanding or misreprsentation.

For example, if you were training learners on making coffee, one obvious curriculum would be natural sequencing, where you tackle the task in order of the steps you would actually take to make a cup of coffee. But perhaps we should be chunking the learning based on what you do with the bits of equipment, what the various qualities and tastes of different coffes are and where people like to drink/serve coffee.

Anyway, I know its all a bit speculative, but it’s really intersting to discover that our brain has a consistent, simple survival based taxonomy of its own and we should certainly be mindful of it when sequencing training. As a side note, this researchrs showed that what you were thinking from those 60 concrete nouns could also be predicted, so at least for simple conrete nouns, machine based mind reading is now a reality.

I wanted to take a look back on the month that was and see if there is any connective tissue to be found. Mostly, i’ve blogged about various brain-based mechanisms and speculated about how they might be applied to adult learning.

The common elements seem to be neurotransmitters in stimulating reward centres and mirror neurons in giving us a kind of empathy. I learned that through your gaze, through chocolate, through feeling safe, or through kindness, we start a cascade of chemicals in our brain and that all these things can be harnessed to not only give learning more impact, but it can increase its depth of its encoding in the brain and with an emotional context, even increase its importance to the brain through Amygdala activation.

The other common element is like the biological basis for empathy, with mirror neurons seemingly tricking our brain into believing we are having the experience of the other person, well what we think they are experiencing anyway. What amazing implications this has for role playing, simulations, so on. These mirror neurons are equally activated by representations (eg eLearning) as they are by actual experience!

So heres a look back on these speculations.

Leading and following avatar eyes

When you lead someones gaze with your own it stimulates the reward and motivation centres of your brain. When you follow someone elses gaze, it stimulates those parts of your brain responsible for imagining another persons thoughts. An avatar is telling a story about an accident in which a worker loses an arm in a chainsaw accident. As the story unfolds, the avatar gazes to the left and an image appears of a person looking at their watch, holding a chainsaw, with a chain guard in pieces at their feet and contemplating a stack of logs. This may stimulate the learner to reflect on what caused the logger to lose an arm. Were they under time pressure and so decided not to put the chain guard on the chainsaw?

Alternatively, the avatar could be made to simulate ‘following’. Imagine a game on-screen where the avatar explains the rules of the game and then begins. In the game the learner must be the first to identify the correct object out of several on screen by clicking on it. The avatar could gaze at the various options, making comments about their thoughts on each possible answer, revealing their interior dialogue to the learner and possibly mirroring the learners thoughts. You could delay the discovery of the right answer by the avatar, so that when the learner clicks the object, the avatar’s gaze moves to the correct object and it declares that it has found the object, but the learner found it first.

More here

Cognitive dissonance and visualisation

If we are asked to walk and press a button in our imagination, it takes just as long as if we did it in real life, but moderated by our expectations (so if we erroneously expect it to take longer, then it will in our imagination, but not in real life). Consider cognitive dissonance theory. If we posit a situation that is in line with their old beliefs and ask them to visaulise it, they may be so laden with  expectations (and the sensory experience is so real) about how it will turn out, that it distorts their visualisation of the situation. Resulting in a pretty unrealistic outcome or vision. Then when we invite the learner to execute the same situation in real life, the dissonance will be so much the greater.

More here

Enlisting the subconcious in conscious learning

Plant and load – Place ideas in a learners subconcious by asking them not to think about them. Then when the learner is placed under a heavy mental load, these ideas inevitably surface.

Mirroring – By modeling the actions, behaviours and so on we wish the learner to aquire (and assuming they have at some point executed those behaviours previously), their brain responds as if they were actually doing it themselves.

More here

Laws of human nature and collaborative communities

Parkinsons  law of triviality – Nobody talks about important issues, in case they’re wrong – but they’re happy to talk about less important issues, as they carry less risk. So start with less important issues, on which stakeholders are likely to have opinions, but issues on which they feel safe to comment.

Student syndrome – People generally underestimate how long a task will be, and generally people miss deadlines because they leave things to the last minute. Assign student tasks at the last minute to put them under pressure.

Pareto principle -  80% of the dicussion being generated by 20% of the learners. Make them a moderator to recognise hier power and value. Have learners determine which 20% of the task to do, to get 80% of the results desired.

Salem hypothesis – Education in the engineering disciplines forms a predisposition to creationist viewpoints. Know thine audience and operate (at least initially) within its worldview.

More here

Crafting rewards in learning activities to release neurotransmitters

Chocolate – Chocolate triggers the mesolimbic dopamine pathway. Reward learners with it and encourage them to eat it immediately, thus initiating the chemical release and creating incentive salience. Use smells in the same way to key into pleasurable memories and frame an activity within an emotional context.

Security  – For intense training activities where participants are emotional, be sure to do a follow up activity, that re-establishes the learners in a safe space, dampening their cortisol levels and stimulating reward centres.

Kindness – Use peer-based learning. When people do something for someone else it releases oxytocin, the chemical helpful in reducing stress and bonding humans.

More here

Many argue that we have no motivation to learn unless it rewards us. These rewards include the physical; food, water, sex or drugs that make us feel good. These also include social rewards such as a pleasant sensation (Rolls et al. 2003), an attractive face (Aharon et al. 2001), positive words (Hamann & Mao 2002), a positive interaction with others (Rilling et al. 2002) or the gaining social status (Tooby & Cosmides, 2002).

When we experience anything, one of the dopamine pathways activated is the mesolimbic pathway, which triggers activity in the Amygdala. This structure processes the intensity of the experience and the degree to which we perceive it as a negative or positive one. If it is positive (or rewarding) it triggers the release of dopamine, which is the reward. Then the fontal lobe stores the reward value of that experience and the behaviors that led to the reward. This gets laid down in memory as incentive salience or ‘wanting’ and becomes an intrinsic motivation.

Even our most complex motivations and experiences are mediated through the lens of these primary rewards. So for example, our motivation to earn money, is in many cases motivated by the dopamine release we receive when spending it. Similarly doing work or learning we love can be traced to dopamine release arising from us perceiving it as rewarding.

This all begins to sound a lot like a combination of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and classical conditioning. These fundamental and deeply embedded behavior and reward pathways, laid down in the brain so early, likely form the blueprint for our later motivational landscape. So how can we use these blueprints to motivate adult learners? Well here are three suggestions.

1. Food reward – Remember when classroom trainers use to throw chocolates at you if you got an answer right? Well, they were spot on and despite our dietary paranoia, we should return to this practice. Chocolate contains phenylethylamine and triggers the mesolimbic dopamine pathway. So not only could we use this reward to condition a strong association between the achievement of learning and the reward of chocolate, we should also encourage the learner to eat it immediately, thus initiating the chemical release and creating incentive salience.

2.Security and safety reward – Creating an environment of safety and security, not only reduces activity in the Amygdala, rendering a situation less emotionally charged, but in mice studies it also stimulates the caudoputamen region of the brain, known to be involved in reward and motivation.

This knowledge helps us focus not only on reducing learner threats, but also on ‘coming down’ from threatening situations. So for intense training activities where participants are emotional, be sure to do a follow up activity, that re-establishes the learners in a safe space. Then the learning is laid down as a stronger memory, not only as a source of perceived threat arsing from the process, but also as a source of reward arising from the resolution or outcome.

3. Kindness reward – When people do something for someone else with no expectation of reward, be it giving them a compliment, being compassionate or pretty much any kind of altruistic behavior, it releases a number of reward neurotransmitters including oxytocins, the chemical helpful in reducing stress and bonding humans.

Knowing this we can enhance learning cohort activities to be more centred on peer-based teaching. As long as they are adequately supported in achieving the learning outcomes, then not only is the learning achieved, but it is probably more deeply embedded by the altruistic nature of its acquisition, both for the teaching peer and the learning peer. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is part of the neuroscientific basis for the enormous success of informal social learning, facilitated by the internet.

How else might we tap into the neurological processes in learners and use them to enhance memory formation and to strengthen associations between new learning and the situations that stimulate its recall and application? As always, your thoughts are welcome… really. I think my oxytocin levels are dropping because nobody out there seems to love what i’m saying. Prove me wrong people and leave a comment;)

If the  iceberg metaphor of the concious mind being the tip and the unconcious being the underwater mass is accurate, then our instructional designs are pretty flawed if they play only to the tip. As an eLearning Consultant, I’m usually asked to design training to improve performance,  but I rarely get to refine and move the program forward as a true opportunity to change human behaviour. So here are four ways to enlist the help of the learners’ unconcious mind and possibly maximise my one shot at helping someone develop:

1. Plant and load- This fascinating article shows how we can place ideas in a learners subconcious by asking them not to think about them. Then when the learner is placed under a heavy mental load, these ideas inevitably surface. Eg ‘Dont mention the war’, from Faulty Towers is a prime example. We are effectively assigning to the unconcious, a monitoring task – “watch out for these ideas”. In so doing we store those monitroing programs and in times of heavy mental load, they are disrupted and actually generate the idea.

This approach is easily seconded to learning design, by setting out some rules or conditions that the learner is explicitly instructed not to think about, then have them complete an intense activity, to which those rules are relevant. They will remember them and apply them. Had we just exposed them to the rules and asked them to apply them we would have been relying on their conscious mind to keep them in short term memory. Instead we have installed them in the unconscious as monitoring programs.

For example, ask the learner not to think about or judge a persons religion, upbringing, current circumstances and so on in a cultural sensitivity program, then expose them to a stressful and sensitive situation and they will inevitably think about those things. You may have just broadened their terms of reference for that situation. For example, where previously they may have consciously thought, you are from this background, you may be poor etc, by asking them not to think about various other factors, their unconscious mind may throw up, you may be poor, you may be religion X, you may be looking for a job and so on, thus a broader set of factors (albeit stereotypical assumptions;) has been brought to the learners attention.

2. Johari window – Of course there is always this classic theory that suggests a pathway for learners in moving the aquisition of new skills and knowldege from the unconscious to the conscious mind. This approach is incredibly useful for structuring pathways to mastery and even in developing ‘train the trainer’ based courses, because it recognises the different stages of learning and the inteplay between conscious and unconscious mind. This one is well known, so I won’t go into details.

3. Mirroring – This is an NLP technique, and through the discovery of mirror neurons, now has a bit more credibility. By modeling the actions, behaviours and so on we wish the learner to aquire (and assuming they have at some point executed those behaviours previously), their brain responds as if they were actually doing it themselves. You might say their conscious mind is observing us acting a certain way, but their unconscious actually thinks they are doing it. This is important for reinforcement and whilst we have been using role modelling for years, knowing that a learners unconscious mind thinks they are doing it, not watching it, offers us a new perspective on this old technique.

For example, say I’m teaching closing techniques to sales people. I might show them a couple of variants and have them practice a couple of times with each other. Knowing that my demonstration actually lights up their brain as if they were doing it themselves, I might include some pre-class video materials that show the technique many more times, to reinforce their unconscious response to seeing it. When they attend class, they will have a preframed response of “I already do this” to observing my demonstration. This could dramtically reduce their fear of the new and unknown.

4. Fast, better decisions – Several studies conducted a few years back suggested that the unconcious mind is better at decision making than the conscious mind in some circumstances. In brief, our conscious minds can over analyse multi-factorial situations, acutally impeding our ability to make good or accurate decisions. Whereas our unconscious minds are able to encompass and intergate more factors, (the counter point is that our unconsious minds also imposed lots of bias).

But if we were to mitigate these bias’ by making the learners aware of them up front and give them some tools and techniques to make snap decisions, we may help them make better decisions within specific domains. For example, lets say we are teaching learners about establishing trust with people, and flash up some images/audio for a short amnount of time and asking them to make a decision – trust or not trust. Initially we may use stereotypes to uncover and make conscious their bias’ – you trusted the person in the suit, but not the scruffy looking person. Why?

Then give them more complex examples and more time to ponder – trust or not trust, and have them explore thier bias and their conscious milti-factorial analysis. Hopefull an examination of their success rate would uncover the role of over analysis and the subconscious in making better decisions.

Finally we could return to the snap decision approach and hopefully get a better success rate, with the bias somewhat mitigated and with the outcome being that the learner now has the ability to make fast and good decisions about trusting people.

What techniques do you use to engage the learners unconscious mind?

I get so much info and as a busy eLearning consultant, sometimes I feel like i’m drowning, so am thinking about a roundup approach. Despite the title, these two gems are totally unrelated;)

Research suggest you should limit items in visual change detection tasks to 3 to 4 items and perhaps limit the changes to about 2. This has impacts on learning and assessment activities that involve visual detection of difference particlarly in diagnostic and investigative training. For example, you may have a course on medical diagnosis showing 4 healthy skin images, then showing the variants on the images and requiring the learner to identify the changes/risk. This research suggests there are limits to our ability to process those visual cues.

Refresher training for physical skills may not be needed as frequently as other skills and knowledge this study suggests. Granted it is rat studies, but if we assume the same holds true for humans, then synaptic and spine (in the brain, not spinal cord spine) changes are pretty permanent. The study also  reveals that rapid, but long-lasting, synaptic reorganisation is closely associated with motor learning. When carefully considered, this could be used to breath new life and tangible value into in the ‘team building weekend’ where staff bungie jump for very ephemeral reasons! Instead we might blend the bungie jump with related cognitive activities to embed both skills into long term memory.

Came across an interesting chapter from a book that unpacks creative visualisation and its role in accessing unconcious or implicit memory . It shows that when we visualise, it stimulates our full sensory aray (touch, smell, vision etc) and that it works best in enhancing performance (up to 30% improvement over control group in physical skills!) if it is combined with physical practice, a demanding cognitive component and positive visualisation (ie successful outcome).

It also finds that our imagined experience, very closely matches the real deal, so if we are asked to walk and press a button in our imagination, it takes just as long as if we did it in real life, but moderated by our expectations (so if we erroneously expect it to take longer, then it will in our imagination, but not in real life).

So for me this is the key. Consider cognitive dissonance theory, in which we seek to tip the balance from a belief about something to another position, by undermining one and building up the other.

We can use creative visualisation to help undermine unhelpful beliefs and attitudes. If we posit a situation that is in line with their old beliefs and ask them to visaulise it, they may be so laden with  expectations (and the sensory experience is so real) about how it will turn out, that it distorts their visualisation of the situation. Resulting in a pretty unrealistic outcome or vision.

Then when we invite the learner to execute the same situation in real life, the dissonance will be so much the greater. This has really interesting implications for change management and coaching. As an eLearning consultant, I often find my pure-play eLearning solutions need a behavioural/attitudinal change component to be effective so this may be a useful tool in my kit. What do you think?

Research by Vermeulen et al. shows that the brain responds to facial expressions denoting fear and disgust quite differently. Expressions denoting fear heighten our sensory input and increase our attention to the material immediately following the stimuls, whilst a face denoting disgust throttles our sensory input and attention.

What does this mean for adult learning? Using imagery and soundscapes it would be relatively simple to stimulate fear in learners, fear of job loss, fear of poor health and so on, then follow it up with critical information to prevent these fears being realised. As an eLearning consultant, I’ve used this technique quite often, for example using disturbing case studies as an extrinsic motivator, but never with the intent of generating fear.

What about the ethical dimensions this approach? Do the ends justify the fear? Is a good scare what learners need?

Check out this interesting research in joint attention and avatars. It examines the role of leading someones gaze with your own in stimulating the reward and motivation centres of your brain. It also shows that when you follow someone elses gaze, it stimulates those parts of your brain responsible for imagining another persons thoughts.

As a consultant I have rarely advocated the use of avatars to my clients, preferring other ways of providing mentoring/advisory scaffolding. But this could be useful in developing avatars that not only form part of the learning, but also reinforce the learning. For example, an avatar could tell a story and move its eyes to lead the learner to a visual element or key points that appear on-screen to reinforce or build upon the story. In so doing it may stimulate the learner to hear what the avatar is saying and then speculate on what the additional on-screen elements mean to the story and for them personally. In effect you could use it to activate the learners imagination.

Here’s an example. An avatar is telling a story about an accident in which a worker loses an arm in a chainsaw accident. As the story unfolds, the avatar gazes to the left and an image appears of a person looking at their watch, holding a chainsaw, with a chain guard in pieces at their feet and contemplating a stack of logs. This may stimulate the learner to reflect on what caused the logger to lose an arm. Were they under time pressure and so decided not to put the chain guard on the chainsaw?

Alternatively, the avatar could be made to simulate ‘following’ the learnrs gaze, thus stimulating the learners reward and motivation sensors. Of course without retinal tracking this would be difficult, but you may be able to fake it. Imagine a game on-screen where the avatar explains the rules of the game and then begins. In the game the learner must be the first to identify the correct object out of several on screen by clicking on it.

The avatar could gaze at the various options, making comments about their thoughts on each possible answer, revealing their interior dialogue to the learner and possibly mirroring the learners thoughts (also relevant to mirror neurons and social learning). You could delay the discovery of the right answer by the avatar, so that when the learner clicks the object, the avatar’s gaze moves to the correct object and it declares that it has found the object, but the learner found it first. This tactic may engender feelings of leadership and accomplishment in the learner.

This example is a bit trite, but you get the idea. Anyway interesting stuff. Of course it’s not just limited to eLearning. Even more powerful is the conscious use of eye contact in leading and following by classroom trainers and mentors. Many opportunities abound here.

How might you use joint attention in your learning activities?

I read an interesting article about the role of sleep in learning, with evidence suggesting that relevant sounds and smells being played while we sleep enhance learning! I remember playing around with subsconscious learning tapes and CD’s years ago, with no appreciable result. As an eLearning and blended learning consultant, i’ve never  used the technique except to advice classroom learners to get a good nights sleep before and after learning. But this new research suggests the role of subconscious learning may be to reinforce conscious learning.

Further, the different stages in the sleep cycle may be suited to enhancing different kinds of learning and different learning styles. The article gives the example of playing darts being processed during REM sleep, while declarative knowldege is processed during slow wave sleep. It also touches on the role of powernaps and the proximity of sleep to learning in enhancing retention.

So how can we use this to make better learning programs? One way might be to schedule training closer to when we sleep, or to allow learners to take a nap right after learning. Another might be a take home CD with music, sounds and voice that reinforce the key learnings, to be played as they drift off that night.

What do you think? How can we use this information to enhance adult learning?