Learning All the Time (Whether You Know It Or Not)

As of this Wednesday, the fall semester is underway at my college and I’m explaining how to pronounce v as w in Latin to one class, and leading another in reciting and writing the 24 letters of the Greek alphabet. I’m teaching early in the morning thanks to Charlie being in middle school, which starts much earlier than his elementary school. I’m a quite energetic teacher, a necessary feature (I think) if you’re going to instruct college students in “dead languages” with complicated grammatical systems. At some point, some student’s attention will seem to waver, as indicated by eyes focused out the window rather than on the dry erase board, by a student saying “huh” when I call on their name.

I used to just think, ok, this student’s not absorbing anything—-not paying attention. Then I had Charlie, Charlie was diagnosed with autism, we started to figure out that he needed to be taught in very specific ways, and some, oh, 8-plus years of teaching Charlie ensued; some 8-plus years of me learning and relearning, students learn in different ways. Indeed, students show they’re focused and paying attention in different ways: It’s not every student who’s going to be sitting up straight in her or his seat, eyes on the dry erase board and book open. Certainly, I’ve time and again realized that Charlie is more than aware of what’s going on around him and of what’s being said, even when his body posture and eyes looking to the side and head down would suggest he’s not.

Yesterday’s Science Daily reports on a new study in the August 28th Neuron, Subliminal Instrumental Conditioning Demonstrated in the Human Brain:

“Humans frequently invoke an argument that their intuition can result in a better decision than conscious reasoning,” says lead author Dr. Mathias Pessiglione from the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at the University College London. “Such assertions may rely on subconscious associative learning between subliminal signals present in a given situation and choice outcomes.” For instance, a seasoned poker player may play more successfully because of a learned association between monetary outcomes and subliminal behavioral manifestations of their opponents.

Researchers used functional magnetic imaging to study the brain circuitry associated with subliminal learning—learning occurring without the brain consciously processing contextual clues. It was found that, even when the brain does not consciously process such clues, “subjects nonetheless developed a significant propensity to choose cues” that were paired and associated with monetary rewards, even when the cues were abstract and could not be seen. As the abstract to the study notes, “even without conscious processing of contextual cues, our brain can learn their reward value and use them to provide a bias on decision making.”

Regarding being conscious or not while trying to learn something: So often Charlie has said a sentence, a word, 100%-plus clearly once, or sight-read a piece on the piano; when asked to say the same thing again or play a few measures again, he is, more often than not, unable to do what he just did. It’s as if, when he’s consciously trying to do something (and particularly something that he has not mastered, or that is new), some “interference” ensures and the words are garbled, he hits the wrong notes. Charlie often does best on the first attempt and without being too aware that he’s trying when, perhaps, he’s relying on intuition. He knows when the pressure is on for him to do something—to perform.

For all that eye contact may be overrated, college students do need to learn to look up, look people in the eye, and speak clearly and sufficiently loudly to be heard, and Charlie too, at times. But perhaps there’s more than one way of showing you’re interested and listening, and being there.