English

0:00
What do you do when you just can't figure something out? For zombies, it's pretty
simple. They can just keep bashing their brains against the wall. But living brains
are a lot more complex. It turns out, though, that if you understand just a little
bit of some of the basics about how your brain works, you can learn more easily and
be less frustrated.
0:23
Researchers have found that we have two fundamentally different modes of thinking.
Here, I'll call them the Focused and the Diffuse modes.
0:34
We're familiar with focusing. It's when you concentrate intently on something
you're trying to learn or to understand. But we're not so familiar with diffuse
thinking. Turns out that this more relaxed thinking style is related to a set of
neural resting states.
0:53
We're going to use an analogy of the game of pinball to help us understand these
two thinking modes. Incidentally, both metaphor and analogy are really helpful when
you're trying to learn something new.
1:08
If you remember, a pinball game works by, you pull back on the plunger, release it,
and a ball goes boinking out, bouncing around on the rubber bumpers, and that's how
you get points. So, here's your brain, with the ears right here, and the eyes
looking upwards. And we can lay that pinball machine right down inside it. So,
there you go. There's the analogy for the focused mode. The blue bumper bumpers
here are placed very close to one another. See this orange pattern here towards the
top? It represents a familiar thought pattern. Maybe involving something simple
like adding some numbers, or more advanced ideas like literary criticism or
calculating electromagnetic flows. You think a thought, boom, it takes off, moves
smoothly along. And then, as it's bouncing around on the bumpers, you're able to
figure out the problem you're trying to solve, or. The concept you're trying to
understand that's related to something you're rather familiar with.
2:10
So look at how that thought moves smoothly around on the fuzzy underlying orange
neural pathway. In some sense it's as if it's traveling along a familiar, nicely
paved road. But what if the problem you're working on needs new ideas or
approaches? Concepts you haven't thought of before. That's symbolized here by this
neural pattern towards the bottom of the pinball machine area. But if you haven't
thought that thought before, you don't even know how that pattern feels or where it
is. So how are you going to develop that new thought in the first place? Not only
do you not know where the pattern is or what the pattern looks like, but see all
the rubber bumpers that are blocking your access whatever direction you do decide
to move in?
3:00
To get to this new thought pattern, you need a different way of thinking. And
that's represented here, by the diffuse mode. Look at how widely spaced the rubber
bumpers are. Thought takes off, look at how it moves widely, bounces around. It
could travel a long way before being interrupted by hitting a bumper. In this
diffuse mode of thinking, you can look at things broadly from a very different,
big-picture perspective. You can make new neural connections traveling along new
pathways. You can't focus in as tightly as you often need to, to finalize any kind
of problem solving. Or understand the finest aspects of a concept. But you can at
least get to the initial place you need to be in to home in on a solution.
3:52
Now as far as neuroscientists know right now, you're either in the focused mode or
the diffuse mode of thinking. It seems you can't be in both thinking modes at the
same time. It's kind of like a coin. We can see either one side, or the other side
of the coin. But not both sides at the same time. Being in one mode seems to limit
your access to the other mode's way of thinking.
4:18
In our next video we're going to see how some extraordinary people access their
diffuse ways of thinking to do great things. Thanks for learning about learning,
I'm Barbara Oakley.

Welcome to Learning How to Learn.

0:04
Your brain has amazing abilities, but it didn't come with an instruction manual.
Perhaps the greatest gif that our brains give us is the ability to learn new things
everyday.
0:15
On my way here, I thought about the journey that will take us to the last day of
the course and how much we will learn along the way. Our goal is to give you a
better understanding of how we learn, so that your brain becomes a better learner.
0:29
These insights are based on solid research from neuroscience, from cognitive
psychology, and also from dozens of leading instructors and practitioners in
difficult-to-learn subjects. Whether you're a novice or an expert, you will find
great new ways to improve your skills and techniques for learning, especially
related to math and science.
0:50
>> This course is meant to help you reframe how you think about learning, to help
reduce your frustration and increase your understanding. We approach things a
little differently. You're not expected to have an in-depth background in any
particular subject. Instead, you're expected to take these ideas and apply them to
whatever subject you're trying to learn or improve in, to help you learn more
deeply, effectively, and with less frustration. You'll hear experts from a variety
of different disciplines talking about their best tips for learning more
effectively. You can benefit from these ideas whether you are struggling in high
school or soaring through math and science at graduate levels at a university.
1:35
>> I'm a co-director of a science and learning center that is sponsored by the
National Science Foundation, based here in La Jolla. In recent years, we've made
great strides from research, in discovering how to learn most effectively. Finding
a way to simply and effectively share these ideas with you, has been a big
undertaking, but we feel it's well worth doing. You'll see that many of these
ideas, although simple, are incredibly powerful. And along the way, we'll also
learn a lot in the process of teaching you.
2:06
>> You'll see how you can fool yourself about whether you actually know the
material. You'll discover new ways to hold your focus and embed the material more
deeply and powerfully in your mind. And you'll learn to condense key ideas you're
learning about, so you can grasp them more easily, master the simple, practical
approaches outlined here, including simple tips to help prevent procrastination.
And you'll be able to learn more effectively and with less frustration. This course
is meant to enrich both your learning and your life. You'll able to get what you
want from this material. So, welcome to the course, and happy learning.

[BLANK_AUDIO] So let's take a look at some famous people from history who used
their different thinking modes to help them with their problem solving. If you look
at that guy right there, he was Salvador Dali, a very well known Surrealist painter
of the 20th century. He was the very definition of a wild and crazy guy. You can
see him here with his pet ocelot, Babou.
0:31
Dali used to have an interesting technique to help him come up with his
fantastically creative Surrealist paintings. He'd relax in a chair and let his mind
go free, often still vaguely thinking about what he had been previously focusing
on. He'd have a key in his hand, dangling it just above the floor. And as he would
slip into his dreams, falling asleep, the key would fall from his hand [SOUND] and
the clatter would wake him up, just in time so he could gather up those diffuse
mode connections and ideas in his mind. And off he'd go back into the focused mode
bringing with him the new connections he'd made while in the diffuse mode.
1:17
Now you might think, well, you know, that's okay for an artist, but what is it have
to do with more scientific or mathematical kinds of thinking? Well, if you look
down here, this guy was Thomas Edison, one of the most brilliant inventors ever.
According to legend, what Edison used to do was he'd sit and relax in his chair,
holding ball bearings in his hand. He'd relax away letting his mind run free,
although it would often noodle back in a much more relaxed way to what he'd been
focusing on previously.
1:57
When Edison would fall asleep, the ball bearings would drop [NOISE] and clatter to
the ground just as with Dali. And it would wake Edison up and off he'd go with his
ideas from the diffuse mode, ready to take them into the focused mode and build on
them. So the bottom line is, when you're learning something new, especially
something that's a little more difficult, your mind needs to be able to go back and
forth between the two different learning modes. That's what helps you learn
effectively. You might think of it as a bit analogous to building your strength by
lifting weights. You would never plan to compete in a weight lifting competition by
waiting until the very day before a meet and then spending that entire day working
out like a fiend. I mean, it just doesn't happen that way. To gain muscular
structure, you need to do a little work every day, gradually allowing your muscles
to grow. Similarly, to build neuro-structure, you need to do a little work every
day, gradually allowing yourself to grow a neuro-scaffold to hang your thinking on,
a little bit every day and that's the trick.
3:22
In summary then, we learned that analogies provide powerful techniques for
learning. We learned about how the brain's two different thinking modes, focused
and diffuse, each helps us learn, but in very different ways. And finally, we learn
that learning something difficult can take time. Your brain needs to alternate its
ways of learning as it grapples with and assimilates the new material.

Welcome to learning how to learn. My name is Terry Sejnowski. Let me introduce you
to your brain.
0:13
First, some brain surgery. We take off the skull and take out the brain.
0:21
This brain weighs three pounds, but it consumes ten times more energy by weight
than the rest of the body, a very expensive organ. It is the most complex device in
the known universe. All of your thoughts, your hopes, your fears are in the neurons
in this brain.
0:41
We prize our abilities to do chess and math, but it takes years of practice to
acquire these skills. And digital computers are much better at it than we are.
0:52
It came as a surprise to discover that what we do so well and take for granted,
like seeing, hearing, reaching, running, are all much more complex problems than we
thought and way beyond the capability of the world's fastest digital computers.
1:11
What this illustrates is that we are not consciously aware of how our brains work.
Brains evolved to help us navigate complex environments, and most of the heavy
lifting is done below our level of consciousness.
1:25
And we don't need to know how it's done in order to survive.
1:30
Psychologists who study the unconscious mind have found that influences include
thought processes, memory, emotions and motivation.
1:39
We are only aware of a very small fraction of all of the activity in the brain, so
we need to rely on brain imaging techniques to guide us.
1:48
Here is the activity map of someone's brain who was asked to lie still, at rest, in
a brain imaging scanner. On the left is the side view of the brain and on the right
is the view from the midline.
2:00
The colors indicate brain areas whose activities were highly correlated, as shown
by the time courses below, color-coded to the brain areas.
2:09
The blue areas are highly active when the subject interacts with the world, but
turn off in a resting state.
2:16
The red-orange areas are most active in the resting state and are called the
default mode network. Other brain areas are also more active when you are resting,
and these areas can be further divided into groups of areas that have common
patterns of activity. This is a new and intense area of research, and it will take
time to sort out all the resting states and their functions. There are a million
billion synapses in your brain where memories are stored. The old view of the brain
is that once it matures, the strengths of synapses can be adjusted by learning, but
the pattern of connectivity does not change much unless there is brain damage. But
now we know that brain connectivity is dynamic and remains so even after it
matures.
3:04
With new optical techniques for imaging single connections between neurons called
synapses, we can see constant turnover, with new synapses being formed and others
disappearing. This raises a puzzle. In the face of so much turnover, how do
memories stay stable over so many years? This is a picture of one dendritic branch
on a neuron which receives inputs from other neurons. The synapses are on the spiny
knobs coming off the dendrite. On the top, the dendrite was imaged before learning.
The same dendrite is shown below after learning and after sleep. Multiple synapses
that are newly formed together on the same branch are indicated by the white
arrowheads. You are looking down into the brain of a live animal. This is really a
fantastic new technique.
3:52
Synapses are less than a micron in diameter. In comparison, a human hair is around
20 microns in diameter.
4:00
This new technique allows us to see how learning changes the structure of the brain
with a resolution that is near the limit of light microscopy.
4:09
This illustrates that, intriguingly, that you are not the same person you were
after a night's sleep or even a nap. It is if you went to bed with one brain and
woke up with an upgrade. This is a better deal than you can get from Microsoft.
Shakespeare, the great English poet, already knew this.
4:28
Here is Macbeth lamenting his insomnia.
4:33
Sleep that knits up the raveled sleeve of care, the death of each day's life, sore
labor's bath, balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course, chief nourisher in
life's feast.
4:48
Here Shakespeare is making an analogy between knitted clothes and sleep that knits
up the loose threads of experience and concerns during the day and weaves them into
the tapestry of your life story. You will learn in this first week how to take
advantage of your unconscious mind, and also sleep, to make it easier to learn new
things and solve problems.
5:10
During the lectures you may ask yourself, how does the brain do this? A good place
to find out more about your brain is the website brainfacts.org, brainfacts, one
word, .org. You will find a wealth of interesting things about brains and behavior,
and in particular about learning and memory. I am Terry Sejnowski. Happy learning
until we meet again.