Scientists Find A Simple Trick To Teach People New Skills Twice As Quickly
If you’re struggling to learn something new - like how to play an instrument, or (importantly) how to master a level on PlayStation - you could be doing it wrong.
Instead of simply repeating the act over and over again - the traditional way of mastering such skills - you should mix things up, scientists found.
Researchers at John Hopkins University found that slightly changing the task meant that lessons were more likely to ‘stick’.
The researchers tested their theory with groups of volunteers who were trying to master a computer task where they moved a mouse by gripping.
They found that if they changed the task slightly as people practiced, they did twice as well as volunteers who had repeated the same task for the same amount of time.
Lead researcher Pablo Celnik said, ‘What we found is if you practise a slightly modified version of a task you want to master, you actually learn more and faster than if you just keep practising the exact same thing multiple times in a row.
‘This shows how simple manipulations during training can lead to more rapid and larger motor skill gains because of reconsolidation.
‘The goal is to develop novel behavioural interventions and training schedules that give people more improvement for the same amount of practise time.’
