New research published in the July issue of Cognition indicates that using gestures while studying can dramatically improve learning and memory.

The study, done by Susan Wagner Cook at the University of Rochester, showed that kids asked to physically gesture at math problems were almost three times more likely than non-gesturers to remember what they learned.

Cook suggests that gestures represent "an additional and potent avenue for taking in information".

In the study, students were asked to learn algebraic concepts. When using speech only to learn, 33% of students remembered the lesson. When using gestures, however, 90% of students retained the lesson.

If you’d like to read some more articles on gesturing published by Susan Cook, here are some PDF files:

• The Role of Gesture in Learning: Do children use their hands to change their minds?
• How our hands help us learn
• Probing the Mental Representation of Gesture: Is handwaving spatial?
• Explaining Math: Gesturing lightens the load

Earlier articles on the smartkit site which you may find helpful on the topic of learning strategies and improving memory include:

• Learning Strategies: How one study tip can significantly improve your memory
• Accelerated Learning and Improved memory via Distributed Practice
• What sleep research can teach us about unlocking learning potential: Crucial student study skills
• What every college student should know about ‘The All-Nighter"
• Students: Self-Test to improve your memory

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This important strategy should help improve your learning efficiency and memory. It’s presented in college student context, but of course applies to anyone looking for a good study tip.

Imagine that a psychology lecture has just let out. The vast majority of students will wait several weeks to review their lecture notes. Unfortunately, when they do so, very little of what they’ve written will make sense. The notes will be difficult to follow, and the content hard to understand. They might as well be seeing the material for the first time. Why? The answer is simple: Their memory of the material has long since decayed.

Why does forgetting happen?

Most students incorrectly believe that after learning new information, they steadily forget a little bit each and every day that passes.

This is a myth. Actually, newly learned information has a relatively short half-life in your brain. This fact is demonstrated very nicely by the forgetting curve.

The forgetting curve is not a new phenomenon. German psychologists (e.g., Herman Ebbinghaus) were plotting these curves 150 years ago. Since that time, a great deal of accumulated data has supported their validity. Take a look at the forgetting curve shown here:

The peak of the curve (T) represents your memory for material immediately after the learning session—let’s say the end of a lecture. Now, we can conclude 2 things from the curve: The Obvious and the Not-so-Obvious.

The Obvious:

We can see it makes no sense to wait until midterms or final exams to do your first review (that is, to wait until Day 30 or longer on the above graph). By that time, you’ll have forgotten more than 95 percent of the material. You’ll feel as if you’re encountering the information in your notes for the first time, and what should take you only 4 minutes to review will now take you 40 minutes. The notes will look foreign because you won’t remember anything.

Not-so-Obvious:

However, there’s a more important conclusion we can reach from the curve: You don’t have to wait several weeks for this degree of forgetting to occur. Massive forgetting actually happens within hours of the initial learning session. Therefore, even those students who wait several days to review the material are in trouble! If you look carefully at the graph, you can see that even before Day 2 arrives, you will already have forgotten 40–70 percent of what you learned!

The crucial point is this: Make sure to review new material within hours of any initial learning episode.

The vast majority of students could save dozens of hours of study time per semester by using this one technique alone to markedly improve learning efficiency and memory.

Notice how a small investment up front pays huge dividends come exam time.

It is also worth noting that these recommendations apply not only to lectures, but to any academic learning—whether from a textbook, video, or computer learning session.

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You’ve decided you’ve got four hours this weekend to review for your psychology exam. Is it better to do it all in one 4-hour session, or divide it up into four separate 1-hour sessions? The first strategy is referred to as massed practice, and the second is referred to as distributed practice.

It turns out overwhelming evidence supports the distributed practice strategy as the better of the two.

How much of a difference can distributed practice make? Let’s say you had a list of 100 vocabulary words to learn for your foreign language class. If your test was tomorrow, it might take you 50 times to study the list so that you know the words perfectly. However, if your test was 3 days from now, and you distributed your practice over 3 days, it might take you only 28 times to study the list to know the words perfectly. In other words, you’d be able to cut study time nearly in half with the same results.

Sound too good to be true? These are the same kind of results a famous German scientist (Ebbinghaus) got when he did some of the first distributed practice experiments back in 1885.

Since then, a considerable amount of research has accumulated demonstrating the wide applicability and power of this technique. For example, distributed practice has shown to greatly benefit the learning of diverse types of information, tasks, and skills, such as:

• Foreign languages
• Science
• History
• Mathematics (from the elementary to the college level)
• Games
• And even motor skills, including sports, playing musical instruments, dance, and so on.

One scientific paper [Reference below] reviewed dozens of other published research studies involving distributed practice. This meta-analysis found the effect size for distributed practice to be huge. To put the statistics into perspective, the average person getting distributed training remembered better than about 67 percent of the people getting massed training.

Since most of us do not distribute our studying over multiple sessions, this tip represents an important way many can accelerate learning and improve memory.

Reference: Donovan JJ, Radosevich DR. A meta-analytic review of the distribution of practice effect: Now you see it, now you don’t. Journal of Applied Psychology. 1999;84(795-805).

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This article reveals what modern neuroscience has learned about sleep as it applies to learning and memory. I believe this information can be of great benefit not only to students looking to improve their study skills, but to anyone interested in improving their memory and learning potential.

Most of us think of sleep as a time of rest … a time when the brain
settles down, relaxes, and becomes quiet. After a busy day of attending classes, talking with friends, studying, and stressing out, the brain finally gets to shut down and take a break from it all. Sounds logical, right? Well, that’s not quite what happens. Actually, when you’re asleep, your brain is continuing to learn the material you’ve been exposed to during the day.

You Sleep, But Your Brain Works

Dozens of intriguing studies over the past several years show clearly
that your brain is active—very active—during sleep. (Reference 1-7) It’s busy doing something miraculous, something that we can’t even come close to explaining.

Basically, your brain goes on automatic pilot. Without your being aware of it, something inside your head comes alive and starts mulling over all the things you learned that day. It sorts through them, organizes them, considers them, calculates them, decides what’s important and what’s not.

From all the information that your brain soaked up during the day, it derives meaning. It works through unsolved problems and somehow comes up with answers. Its powers, however, extend even farther than that. A spooky awareness speeds through neural circuits. As it does so, it changes the physical structure of brain cells so that specific pieces of knowledge are etched more permanently in memory. In the neurologic literature, these miraculous processes are referred to as consolidation.

What your brain is doing, without any conscious effort on your part, includes:

• reviewing,
• sorting,
• organizing,
• prioritizing,
• problem solving, and
• memorizing.

All this is happening while you sleep! As you can see, effortless sleep-learning is not only possible, it is a reality.

The amazing truth is that learning continues after the actual studying is done. In fact, research indicates the maximum benefit of all your hard hours of studying comes about only after a good night’s sleep.

Furthermore, even though you may have stopped studying, knowledge and skills continue to improve over several nights of sleep. Although sleep on the first night following training offers the most dramatic benefit, subsequent nights of sleep continue to provide smaller, less pronounced gains.(Reference 2)

Consolidation and Physical Skills

Athletes, pianists, surgeons, and video game addicts take note: This process applies to learning not just information but motor skills as well. One recent study showed that sleep after practice enhanced the speed of skilled motor performance by 33.5 percent on average and reduced the error rate by 30 percent, as compared with corresponding intervals of wakefulness.(Reference 7)

To extend this concept just a little bit further: Amazingly, learning does not stop when practicing and studying end. It turns out that performance and learning improvement occur not only during sleep but also during periods of wakefulness. (Reference 2,7) After you finish reading a chapter, your brain goes to work on that information over the next few hours, slowly learning and consolidating it. This subconscious processing of learning information is above and beyond what you did consciously during your actual study session.

An everyday example of this subconscious processing is the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon. Try as you might, when asked, to remember the name of a movie, store, or restaurant, you may find that you can’t. But several minutes or even hours later, it may come to you like a flash of lighting out of the blue. Why? Without your conscious knowledge, that spooky awareness we talked about earlier spreads through your neural networks, searching for the answer. When your brain finally finds the item you were seeking, it tosses it back up for your conscious mind to grasp. Imagine what happens when you throw a stone into a pond: The effect of the stone upon the water does not cease at impact. Long after the rock hits the water, waveforms slowly ripple out toward the periphery. So it is with the mind. When you ask something of it, the neural reverberations of the question (the “rock”) persist long after the question is asked.

Key Findings of Consolidation Research

So what, in brief, do we know about how the brain consolidates information?

• Development of procedural/motor skills does not stop when practice ends but continues over hours.
• Development of memory does not stop when studying ends but continues over hours.
• Neural activities during sleep contribute significantly to the formation of different types of memories and skills.
• For a given period of sleep vs. one of wakefulness, consolidation will be greater with sleep.
• The first nightly sleep period after practicing or studying is extremely important for starting consolidation of the skill or memory. Going without this initial first night of sleep will have a very negative effect on the consolidation of that particular skill or memory.

Making the Most of Sleep Learning (consolidation)

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Can certain smells boost brain power? Let’s first take a look at what else certain odors can do:

• Stores are now using special odors to make customers buy things and spend more money
• The leathery smell of a new car is an artificial odor sprayed on to enhance buyer satisfaction
• Casinos are using odors to make people gamble more
• London’s Heathrow Airport has used the scent of pine needles to reduce passenger tension and stress
• Bad odors can make people more aggressive.
• Olympic weight lifters have used smelling salts before competition to boost their strength
• Although going for a closed MRI scan can make people feel as if they’re getting buried alive, a vanilla-like odor has been shown to reduce anxiety by 63 percent in patients going for such a test. [Reference 1]

As you can see, smells are powerful forces that can change your mood and mindset. They have a surprising power to make us aggressive, happy, relaxed, anxious, focused, or aroused.

How can smells wield such power over us?

Odors can affect basic biologic processes. “Smell receptors” in your nose connect directly to the limbic area of the brain. (The limbic area is sometimes referred to as the “emotion center” of the brain.) The limbic area, in turn, connects to special brain regions that have major influences over basic bodily processes: (References 2-4)

• Heart rate
• Brain wave patterns (EEG)
• Blood pressure
• Muscle tension
• Skin temperature

Importantly, the limbic area also houses the hippocampus—the memory engine of the brain. Since smell signals project into the limbic area, it should not be too surprising, therefore, that smell can also affect memory. This leads us to the field of aromatherapy.

Aromatherapy seeks to capitalize on this nose-limbic system connection to enhance mental and physical well-being. Typically, its practitioners use essential oils (volatile organic oils derived from plants) to bring these changes about. While I am skeptical of many of the bold claims made for aromatherapy, certain studies have actually shown some real benefits and results.

Special odors can boost cognition

A study done in 2003 showed that rosemary could increase alertness. Additionally, it produced a “significant enhancement of performance for overall quality of memory and secondary memory factors”. (Reference 5)

Research out of the Neurological Clinic at the University of Kiel in Germany demonstrated that the essential oils of peppermint and eucalyptus increased cognitive performance. These same oils also had a muscle-relaxing and mentally relaxing effect. (Reference 6)

A survey of the aromatherapy literature also reveals this anecdotal evidence:

• Jasmine has been linked with an alert and awake mental state.
• Lavender may be good for reducing test anxiety or anxiety right before you give a speech. It may also be useful for reducing excess stress that may get in the way of studying.
• Vanilla lifts a person’s mood.
• Ginger is thought to promote alertness and stimulate cognition.
• Citrus is also felt to be energizing. Some companies are using lemon essential oils in offices to negate the effects of the post-lunch dip on alertness

Some cautions, however:

Odors may influence different people differently.

Just because essential oils come from plants does not mean that they are automatically safe. Be well informed before you use any essential oil. When not used properly, essential oils can do more harm than good.

"Aromatherapy for Dummies" by Kathi Keville is a good book to consult for more information on how to use essential oils responsibly.

Reference 1: Redd WH, Manne SL, Peters B, et al. Fragrance administration to reduce anxiety during MR imaging. J Magn Reson Imaging. Jul-Aug 1994;4(4):623-626.

Reference 2: Bensafi M, Rouby C, Farget V, et al. Autonomic nervous system responses to odours: the role of pleasantness and arousal. Chem Senses. Oct 2002;27(8):703-709.

Reference 3: Sanders C, Diego M, Fernandez M, et al. EEG asymmetry responses to lavender and rosemary aromas in adults and infants. Int J Neurosci. Nov 2002;112(11):1305-1320.

Reference 4: Kim YK, Watanuki S. Characteristics of electroencephalographic responses induced by a pleasant and an unpleasant odor. J Physiol Anthropol Appl Human Sci. Nov 2003;22(6):285-291.

Reference 5: Moss M, Cook J, Wesnes K, et al. Aromas of rosemary and lavender essential oils differentially affect cognition and mood in healthy adults. Int J Neurosci. Jan 2003;113(1):15-38.

Reference 6: Gobel H, Schmidt G, Soyka D. Effect of peppermint and eucalyptus oil preparations on neurophysiological and experimental algesimetric headache parameters. Cephalalgia. Jun 1994;14(3):228-234; discussion 182.

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Your mental energy and ability to concentrate depend to a very large extent on the types of food you eat. Unfortunately, most people fall short when it comes to understanding how to best feed the brain. Here’s a short tip you may find helpful:

One of the quickest things you can implement to improve brain power is to modify the protein to carbohydrate ratio of your lunch. While it’s all too easy to down a large, tasty plate of food- most of us wind up ruining the rest of the afternoon’s mental productivity by consuming meals that are loaded with excess carbohydrates.

The modern diet suffers horribly from a surplus of carbs-with most meals having a protein to carb ratio in excess of 4:1. According to multiple lines of research, however, the human brain tends to perform much better with a ratio that is closer to 1:1 [Sample reference provided below].

So in other words, most people would do well to markedly reduce the amount of carbs in their lunches. By doing so, you’ll also lessen the chance you’ll become one of the 1 in 3 Americans who are slated to develop diabetes, which in itself is a major player in ruining the integrity and health of your brain cells.

[Reference: Fischer K, Colombani PC, Langhans W, et al. Carbohydrate to protein ratio in food and cognitive performance in the morning. Physiol Behav. Mar 2002;75(3):411-423.]

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One of the main benefits of stimulant drugs (such as cocaine, ephedrine, and amphetamines like Ritalin) is their ability to dramatically increase mental energy and concentration. They can make it easier to focus on your work and studies for prolonged periods of time.

How is this achieved? Basically, it’s thought that psychostimulants increase catecholamine neurotransmission in the brain.

Catecholamines are a special category of brain chemicals used for neurotransmission. They include epinephrine, norepinephrine, and dopamine.

Unfortunately, however, these drugs often have very harmful side effects (both long- and short-term), and taking them can sometimes result in death. What most people don’t realize is that there is a much safer, more natural way to boost brain catecholamines: Acute Bouts of Aerobic Exercise.

Both stimulants and aerobic exercise exert similarly powerful effects on: norepinephrine, dopamine, and epinephrine. There is quite a bit of evidence in the scientific literature to back this up. [see References 1-6 below].

Since it is widely believed that the beneficial effects of stimulants stem from their ability to boost catecholamines in the brain, it certainly makes sense that aerobic exercise would produce these same beneficial effects (dramatic increases in mental energy and concentration). Is there any direct evidence to support the idea that aerobic exercise actually enhances cognition? Absolutely:

• “Acute exercise can improve learning and mental performance.”[Reference 7]

• “Acute bouts of exercise selectively facilitate multiple cognitive processes; exercise can, under certain conditions, enhance response speed and response accuracy, and it can facilitate cognitive processes that are central to problem-solving and goal-oriented action.”[Reference 8]

• “Exercise produces a condition during which individuals are able to perform both simple and complex tasks rapidly and efficiently.”[Reference 8]

• “Acute bouts of exercise improve the ability to block irrelevant information and to select and respond to task-relevant information.”[Reference 9,10] (Note: This is the basis of concentration)

• “Recent studies have provided the research community with clear support for an improvement of cognitive performance during exercise”[Reference 11]

So yes, it’s true. One of the most powerful nonpharmacologic ways to boost your ability to concentrate and focus while studying is to exercise aerobically beforehand.

References: 

1.Winter B, Breitenstein C, Mooren FC. High Impact running improves learning. Neurbiol Learn Mem. Dec 2006.

2.Ransford CP. A role for amines in the antidepressant effect of exercise: a review. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 1982;14(1):1-10.

3.Peyrin L, Pequignot JM, Lacour JR, et al. Relationships between catecholamine or 3-methoxy 4-hydroxy phenylglycol changes and the mental performance under submaximal exercise in man. Psychopharmacology (Berl). 1987;93(2):188-192.

4.Meeusen R, De Meirleir K. Exercise and brain neurotransmission. Sports Med. Sep 1995;20(3):160-188.

5.Pagliari R, Peyrin L. Physical conditioning in rats influences the central and peripheral catecholamine responses to sustained exercise. Eur J Appl Physiol Occup Physiol. 1995;71(1):41-52.

6.Pagliari R, Peyrin L. Norepinephrine release in the rat frontal cortex under treadmill exercise: a study with microdialysis. J Appl Physiol. Jun 1995;78(6):2121-2130.

7.Cotman CW, Berchtold NC. Exercise: a behavioral intervention to enhance brain health and plasticity. Trends Neurosci. Jun 2002;25(6):295-301.

8.Tomporowski PD. Effects of acute bouts of exercise on cognition. Acta Psychol (Amst). Mar 2003;112(3):297-324.

9.Hogervorst E, Riedel W, Jeukendrup A, et al. Cognitive performance after strenuous physical exercise. Percept Mot Skills. Oct 1996;83(2):479-488.

10.Lichtman S, Poser EG. The effects of exercise on mood and cognitive functioning. J Psychosom Res. 1983;27(1):43-52.

11.Brisswalter J, Collardeau M, Rene A. Effects of acute physical exercise characteristics on cognitive performance. Sports Med. 2002;32(9):555-566.

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Can college students pull an ‘All-Nighter’—staying up the entire night to cram for a test—and have their brains function close to normal the next day? The majority, of course, think so …

But several studies clearly show brain function takes a big hit after an all-nighter. Memory systems and frontal lobe function especially suffer. [References 2-6 below]

Take a look at the title of this article published in the journal Occupational & Environmental Medicine [Reference 1 below]:

Moderate Sleep Deprivation Produces Impairments in Cognitive and Motor Performance Equivalent to Legally Prescribed Levels of Alcohol Intoxication

According to the article, after 19+ hours without sleep, performance on cognitive tests reached levels equivalent to those associated with a BAC (blood alcohol concentration) of 0.1 percent. In the majority of states, a BAC of 0.08 percent is grounds for a DUI—an arrest for driving under the influence of alcohol! This means that if you pull an all-nighter, you don’t have enough brain function to legally drive a car.

As mentioned above, memory systems and frontal lobe function markedly suffer after an all-nighter. The functions of memory systems are obvious, but what do the frontal lobes do? They are brain regions important for:

• Verbal fluency (how well you speak, read, write, and understand)
• Creativity (how original, imaginative, and resourceful you are)
• Executive function (planning skills and problem solving skills

Frontal lobe function is therefore particularly important for:

• Exams in math, physics, chemistry, or economics, or in any other test that requires not only recall of information but application of recalled knowledge to new situations and problem solving
• Oral presentations, debates
• Essay tests in literature, history, social sciences, art

Frontal lobe function is less important in these:

• Multiple-choice tests that emphasize rote memorization
• Short answer tests that don’t involve much problem solving; that is, plain recall

However, it is worth repeating that after an all-nighter, all types of memory recall will be impaired regardless of the type of test you take.

ADDENDUM: If you’re a medical student or medical resident still suffering through crazy call schedules, you may want to print out the articles below and take them to the dean of your medical school or head of your residency program and tell them to stop being such hypocrites.

References:

1. Williamson AM, Feyer AM. Moderate sleep deprivation produces impairments in cognitive and motor performance equivalent to legally prescribed levels of alcohol intoxication. Occup Environ Med. Oct 2000;57(10):649-655.
2. Jones K, Harrison Y. Frontal lobe function, sleep loss and fragmented sleep. Sleep Med Rev. Dec 2001;5(6):463-475.
3. Kim DJ, Lee HP, Kim MS, et al. The effect of total sleep deprivation on cognitive functions in normal adult male subjects. Int J Neurosci. Jul 2001;109(1-2):127-137.
4. Halbach MM, Spann CO, Egan G. Effect of sleep deprivation on medical resident and student cognitive function: A prospective study. Am J Obstet Gynecol. May 2003;188(5):1198-1201.
5. Forest G, Godbout R. Effects of sleep deprivation on performance and EEG spectral analysis in young adults. Brain Cogn. Jun-Aug 2000;43(1-3):195-200.
6. Dahl RE. The impact of inadequate sleep on children’s daytime cognitive function. Semin Pediatr Neurol. Mar 1996;3(1):44-50.

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One of the greatest misunderstandings people have about the brain is their belief in “free energy”.

Hundreds of millions of students and workers all over the world consume drinks and pills in the hopes of magically relieving fatigue and boosting their energy levels without suffering any downside. Hence the popularity of Red Bull, Monster, Mountain Dew, Coke, Pepsi, energy pills, caffeine pills, amphetamines, cocaine, and of course coffee.

I’m a firm believer that when it comes to brain circuitry and energy metabolism, Newton’s Third Law still holds: Every action has an equal an opposite reaction.

Based on my years of studying the brain and expertise as a neurologist, I am deeply convinced that, on a fundamental level, the consequences of a chemical energizer are twofold:

• As high up as the drug brings you, you will afterwards sink to an equally commensurate low
• Pushing neural circuits into overdrive stresses the hardware, and leads to cumulative wear-and-tear type brain damage

In life, there are always tradeoffs, and everything has a benefit and a risk. Surely, there are times when it is worthwhile to consume a chemical energizer. The important point is to realize there is a downside to taking it, and therefore only use the minimal amount needed to get the job done.

Taking a large dose initially doesn’t mean the beneficial effect will last longer. It just means your handgun gun just magically became a nuclear bunker buster.

Back in college, I never thought twice about downing an oversize vanilla cappuccino to help get in the studying mood. In actuality, all that was probably needed was a few sips at the start and maybe another couple sips an hour or two later.

Just because Monster Energy shoves 16 ounces of caffeinated sugar into a can doesn’t mean you need to drink all of it.

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The neurologic theory of Consolidation states that things you learn during the day are etched more permanently down in memory at night while you sleep. In other words, sleep plays a major role in learning and memorizing.

New proof of this process comes from researchers out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who recently published their work in the December 18th issue of Nature Neuroscience.

The research basically shows that the hippocampus, which initially records information while awake, rewinds and replays its stored data at night and passes it along to the neocortex while you’re sleeping . The neocortex is thought to be the long-term home of memories, and is also the place where higher order thinking takes place.

So basically, no sleep, no transfer of knowledge to long-term memory.

And if you’re not getting a full 8-10 hours of sleep per night, you’re probably shortchanging your true learning potential.

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Recent research out of Washington University suggests a great study tip for students:

• One group of students studied a text passage for 5 minutes, and then were given 3 immediate recall tests on the material. [ study-test-test-test ]
• The 2nd group also studied the text passage for 5 minutes initially, but they were not given any tests. Instead, they were allowed to restudy the text passage for another 5 minutes each time their counterparts were involved in a testing session. In other words, they got to study the material for 20 minutes all together [ study-study-study-study], while the students in the 1st group got to study only 5 minutes.

The results are amazing: When tested 1 week later, the [study-test-test-test ] group scored dramatically better, remembering 61% of the passage versus 40% by the [ study-study-study-study ] group.

“The study-only group had read the passage about 14 times, but still recalled less than the repeated testing group, which had read the passage only 3.4 times in its one and only study session.”

For those of you whose study skills mainly involve reading and reading your notes & text, this should be a wake-up call. The take-home learning strategy and study tip to improve memory is that a large portion of your study time must involve finding and creating ways to test yourself- before the big exam date.

The above research was published in March issue of Psychological Science by Henry L. Roediger III, Ph.D.

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