Liftology 5: The role of reactivating in learning

It’s clear that thoughts, as we know them, are created by patterns of activation across neurons. It’s also become clear that learning is strengthening the relationships between patterns. More, using patterns can help us abstract the important elements. How does this work?

So, first, strengthening the relationship between patterns takes time. That is, you can only strengthen a wee bit before the strengthening function fatigues, and you literally need rest to continue. Thus, you need to reactivate the patterns in conjunction, again and again, over time. That is, you should be revisiting the principles, and practicing applying them again.

Also, they shouldn’t be the exact same pattern. That is, you don’t keep doing the same addition problems, you vary them, so you learn the more abstract concept of addition, not just what 4+7 is. And so on. The point is that we want to vary the contexts, so the underlying structure becomes abstracted and understood across situations. This supports appropriate transfer.

If one possibility is ‘over transfer’, that is folks are likely to use the new approach even when they shouldn’t (perhaps negotiating with your kids when you’re not supposed to), you may need some reactivation on negative examples or practice to understand those 

The main point however, is that you need to see the concept applied in different situations to a) acquire the ability to use the concept accurately, and b) to understand where the concept does, and does not, apply. Reactivation is the mechanism that underlies the reasons for multiple exposure. So, here’s to reactivation!