I'm excited to be starting my “new school year” as a blogger here on Healthland — and what better way to begin than with news about boosting your ability to learn, using neuroscience! One of the hottest articles flying around the Web today is Benedict Carey's great New York Times science story headlined "Forget What You Know About Good study Habits."
很高兴可以在Healthland作为一个博客使用者开始我的“新学期”——比提高学习能力的说法更有效的学习方法是使用神经系统科学。如今网络上流传的最热门文章是Benedict Carey在《纽约时报》上发表的题为《忘记你所知道的好的学习习惯》。
In it, Carey shows, among other things, why the conventional wisdom about learning — getting into the habit of studying in the same place each time — is wrong. How come? Essentially, making studying monotonous contradicts key aspects of what we know about learning. Novelty is a key part of the connections that ease learning. Studies find that simply switching study rooms helps make new associations and keep them fresh. Carey writes:
除了其他方面，Carey还在文章里表明，为什么关于学习的传统观点——养成每次都在同一地方学习的习惯——是错的。为什么？单调枯燥的学习跟我们所了解的学习主要观点相违背。新奇是使学习变得简单的主要部分。研究发现仅仅需要转换书房帮助建立新的联系，使他们保持新鲜感。Carey写道：
The brain makes subtle associations between what it is studying and the background sensations it has at the time, the authors say, regardless of whether those perceptions are conscious. It colors the terms of the Versailles Treaty with the wasted fluorescent glow of the dorm study room, say; or the elements of the Marshall Plan with the jade-curtain shade of the willow tree in the backyard. Forcing the brain to make multiple associations with the same material may, in effect, give that information more neural scaffolding.
大脑在学到什么和在那时产生的背景感觉形成了微妙的联系，作者说，不管那些感知是否有意识的。例如，它用旧的日光灯照亮宿舍自修室来渲染《凡尔赛和约》的氛围；或用后院中柳树绿玉色窗帘般影子渲染《马沙条约》的内容。强迫大脑对同一种物质做出多种联系，实际上，会提供那个信息更多神经支架。
“What we think is happening here is that, when the outside context is varied, the information is enriched, and this slows down forgetting,” said Dr. Bjork, the senior author of the two-room experiment.
“我们所认为的是，当外部条件改变了，信息就更加丰富，这就放慢忘记的速度。”两个房间实验的高级作者Bjork博士说。