{"id":1827,"date":"2017-04-01T08:00:27","date_gmt":"2017-04-01T08:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/braindevs.net\/blog\/blog\/?p=1827"},"modified":"2017-12-28T01:04:30","modified_gmt":"2017-12-28T01:04:30","slug":"the-benefits-of-overlearning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/the-benefits-of-overlearning\/","title":{"rendered":"The Benefits (?) of Overlearning"},"content":{"rendered":"

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I’m reviewing the vocabulary I learned in today’s Spanish class. The last time I went through my flashcard deck, I got all of those new words right. Should I keep studying? Or, is it time to move on to my Algebra?<\/p>\n

In a recently published paper<\/a>, Shibata and colleagues argue that overlearning<\/em> benefits long-term memory formation. That is: I should keep studying<\/span>, because that extra level of work — above and beyond what’s required to get all my flashcards correct — protects these new memories from later interference.<\/p>\n

(If you want the neurotransmitter details, Shibata finds that overlearning, which he calls “hyperstabilization[,] is associated with an abrupt shift from glutamate-dominant excitatory to GABA-dominant inhibitory processing in early visual areas. Hyperstabilization contrasts with passive and slower stabilization, which is associated with a mere reduction of excitatory dominance to baseline levels” p. 470. Got that?)<\/p>\n

And yet, there’s a reason I put that question mark in the title of this article. Earlier researchers have found that overlearning just doesn’t work<\/em>. (Doug Rohrer and Hal Pashler have published on this topic\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

For the time being, I’m inclined to believe Rohrer and Pashler. Why? Because Shibata’s research paradigm showed a change in neuotransmitters<\/em> after 2 days<\/strong>. Rohrer and Pashler’s paradigm showed no benefits for learning<\/em> after 1 month<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

In my view, teachers ought to be more interested in learning<\/span> than in GABA and glutamate<\/span>; and we ought to be less impressed by results obtained after 48 hours<\/span> than by results obtained after 4 weeks<\/span>.<\/p>\n

(To be clear: I am interested in neurotransmitters. But, as a teacher, I’m MUCH more interested in demonstrated learning.)<\/p>\n

So, for the time being, I’m will continue to recommend that students and teachers not emphasize overlearning. However, I will add an asterisk to that advice: as of today, our understanding of the neural results of overlearning is far from complete.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m reviewing the vocabulary I learned in today’s Spanish class. The last time I went through my flashcard deck, I got all of those new words right. Should I keep studying? Or, is it time to move on to my Algebra? In a recently published paper, Shibata and colleagues argue that overlearning benefits long-term memory […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":1829,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[15,23,17],"class_list":["post-1827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lb-blog","tag-classroom-advice","tag-long-term-memory","tag-neuroscience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1827"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1827\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1831,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1827\/revisions\/1831"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}