Articles

I’ve recently had a couple of thoughts about flow — that mental state when you lose all sense of time and whatever you’re doing (work, sport, art, whatever) seems to flow with almost magical ease. I’ve mentioned flow a couple of times more or less in passing, but today I want to have a deeper look, because learning (and perhaps especially that rewiring I was talking about in my last post) is most easily achieved if we can achieve "flow" (also known as being ‘in the zone’).

Let’s start with some background.

When we are presented with new information, we try and connect it to information we already hold. This is automatic. Sometimes the information fits in easily; other times the fit is more difficult — perhaps because some of our old information is wrong, or perhaps because we lack some of the knowledge we need to fit them together.

The effects of exercise on cognitive function in older adults

A number of studies in the past few years have provided evidence that physical exercise can ameliorate the effects of aging on the brain, in terms both of preventing or postponing dementia, and reducing the more normal age-related decline in cognitive function. The reasons for the effect are almost certainly multiple, for example:

There are many memory strategies that can be effective in improving your recall of text. However, recent research shows that it is simplistic to think that you can improve your remembering by applying any of these strategies to any text. Different strategies are effective with different types of text.

In a 1987 experiment (1), readers were presented with a text that included one or other of these sentences:

or

Both texts went on to say:

The method of loci or place method

This is the classic mnemonic strategy, dating back to the ancient Greeks, and is (as evident from its continued use over 2500 years) an extremely effective strategy for remembering lists.

Vocabulary is a sticking point for many language learners. That’s because words have a certain arbitrary quality that makes them hard to memorize. There are two strategies which are very effective with this task: the keyword mnemonic, and retrieval practice. I have written about these extensively in my books Mnemonics for Study, and How to revise & practice.

Autobiographical memory contains the information you have about yourself. It includes several domains:

Michael Gove is reported as saying that ‘Learning facts by rote should be a central part of the school experience’, a philosophy which apparently underpins his shakeup of school exams. Arguing that "memorisation is a necessary precondition of understanding", he believes that exams that require students to memorize quantities of material ‘promote motivation, solidify knowledge, and guarantee standards’.

I have previously reported on how gait and balance problems have been associated with white matter lesions, and walking speed and grip strength have been associated with dementia and stroke risk.