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+welcome to the huberman Lab podcast
+where we discuss science and
+science-based tools for everyday
+[Music]
+life I'm Andrew huberman and I'm a
+professor of neurobiology and
+Opthalmology at Stanford school of
+medicine today we are discussing mental
+training and visualization mental
+training and visualization is a
+fascinating process that has been shown
+over and over again in now hundreds of
+studies to improve our ability to learn
+anything when I say anything I mean the
+ability to learn music the ability to
+learn and perform mathematics the
+ability to learn and perform motor
+skills in sport in dance across
+essentially all domains the other
+incredible thing about mental training
+and visualization is that as you'll soon
+see when you go into the literature that
+is the scientific studies on mental
+training and visualization you quickly
+realize that it does not take a lot of
+mental training and visualization in
+order to get better at anything however
+that mental training and visualization
+has has to be performed in a very
+specific way and today we will discuss
+exactly how to do mental training and
+visualization in the specific ways that
+allow it to complement the actual
+performance of a motor or cognitive
+skill to allow you to learn more quickly
+and to consolidate that is to keep that
+information in mind and body so that you
+can perform those cognitive tasks music
+tasks motor tasks etc for long periods
+of time without ever forgetting how to
+do them all of mental training and
+visualization relies on what I consider
+consider really the Holy Grail of our
+brain and nervous system and that's
+neuroplasticity neuroplasticity is our
+nervous system which of course includes
+the brain the spinal cord and all the
+connections between the brain and spinal
+cord and the organs and tissues of the
+body and then all the neural connections
+back from the organs and tissues of the
+body to the brain and spinal cord so the
+whole thing in both directions has the
+ability to change in response to
+experience in ways that are adaptive
+that is that allows us to do things that
+we could not do before and by doing
+those things or by being able to perform
+those mental operations we can do better
+in the world that we live in we can
+perform new tasks we can think new
+thoughts we can come up with novel
+solutions to pre-existing problems that
+before really vexed us and that we
+couldn't overcome all of that is
+considered neuroplasticity so today what
+I'm going to cover is a brief summary of
+what neuroplasticity is that is how it
+occurs in the brain and body this is
+extremely important to understand if
+you're going to use Mental training and
+visualization then I'm going to talk
+about what happens in our brain and body
+when we do mental visualization in a
+dedicated way many people have heard
+perhaps that when you imagine something
+happening that your brain doesn't know
+the difference between that imagination
+of the thing happening and the real
+thing happening turns out that is not
+true it is simply not true however there
+is somewhat of an equivalence between a
+real experience and an imagined
+experience and we'll talk about the
+difference between those and how that
+can be leveraged in order to get the the
+most out of mental training and
+visualization then I will cover exactly
+which types of mental training and
+visualization work best across all
+domains meaning for Music Learning
+mathematics solving puzzles motor
+learning Sports Performance etc etc to
+really allow you a template in which you
+can plug in or designate what you're
+going to do each day for a brief period
+of time in order to accelerate your
+learning in whatever you choose and then
+I'm going to go into a bit of what
+happens in the brains of different types
+of people uh these different types of
+people that I'm referring to are people
+who have more or less of a natural
+ability to imagine things and visualize
+them because it turns out that we vary
+tremendously from one individual to the
+next in terms of our ability to mentally
+visualize and imagine things and our
+ability to get better at that over time
+and the good news is anyone can get
+better at mental training and
+visualization in ways that can serve
+them well I'll also briefly touch on the
+fact that certain people in particular
+people on the autism spectrum as well as
+people with synesthesias which is the
+combining of different perceptual
+experiences so you may be one of these
+people or you may have heard of people
+that for instance when they think of a
+number they also just naturally
+spontaneously think of a color and vice
+versa we talk about how that relates to
+mental imagery and visualization and the
+creative process and problem solving in
+general and then finally what I'll do is
+I'll recap mental training and
+visualization from the standpoint of how
+best to apply mental training and
+visualization according to specific
+challenges things like challenges with
+public speaking or challenges with
+sports performance or challenges with
+test taking Performance challenges with
+essentially anything that will allow you
+to build specific mental training
+visualization practices that are brief
+that are supported by Neuroscience
+studies and that are highly effective
+before we begin I'd like to emphasize
+that this podcast is separate from my
+teaching and research roles at Stanford
+it is however part of my desire and
+effort to bring zero cost to Consumer
+information about science and science
+related tools to the general public in
+keeping with that theme I'd like to
+thank the sponsors of today's podcast
+our first sponsor is element element is
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+I use element in my water when I wake up
+I like to hydrate right away so I'll
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+episode is also brought To Us by eight
+sleep eight sleep makes Smart mattress
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+tracking capacity I've talked many times
+before in this podcast about the fact
+that sleep is the foundation of mental
+health physical health and performance
+now one of the key features to getting a
+good night's sleep is making sure that
+you get the temperature of the
+environment you sleep in right that's
+because in order to fall asleep and stay
+deeply asleep throughout the night your
+core body temperature needs to drop by
+about 1 to 3° conversely in order to
+wake up in the morning feeling refreshed
+and ready to go your core body
+temperature needs to go up by about 1 to
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+huberman to save $150 at checkout let's
+talk about mental training and
+visualization now perhaps surprisingly
+mental training and visualization has
+been studied since the late 1800s
+there's actually a paper published in
+1880 by gton called the statistics of
+mental imagery so long ago people were
+quantifying and trying to understand how
+is it that people come up with mental
+images and how they can apply that to
+learning things more quickly and more
+stable over time now as I mentioned
+earlier mental training and
+visualization relies on a process that
+we call neuroplasticity neuroplasticity
+is a term that many people have heard
+and encompasses many different things so
+broadly speaking neuroplasticity
+includes developmental plasticity which
+is the sort of plasticity that occurs
+between about birth and age 25 and that
+can be summarized very easily as passive
+plasticity in other words the sorts of
+changes that happen in one's nervous
+system simply by engaging in the world
+and experiencing Life as a child as a
+young adult as an adolescent and as a 22
+23 24 year old Etc now of course of
+course of course it is not the case that
+on your 25th birthday you close out
+passive developmental plasticity and
+start engaging in the other type of
+neuroplasticity which is adult
+neuroplasticity it's a gradual tapering
+off of Developmental plasticity that
+occurs between age 0 and 25 and for some
+people might occur somewhere around 26
+for other people around 23 when we say
+25 we're really just talking about the
+average age in which passive plasticity
+tapers off however starting fairly early
+in adolescence and extending all the way
+out into one's 80s or 90s or hundreds
+should one live that long is the other
+form of neuroplasticity which is adult
+neuroplasticity adult neuroplasticity is
+very different than developmental
+plasticity
+because it is the sort of plasticity
+that one can direct towards one's own
+specific desired learning so if we
+wanted to get a little bit technical
+here for sake of clarity not for sake of
+confusion we would say adult plasticity
+is really about self-directed adaptive
+plasticity and the reason we call it
+that as opposed to something else or
+simply adult plasticity is that there
+are many different forms of
+neuroplasticity there is for instance
+maladaptive neuroplasticity that occurs
+if one gets a really hard head hit and
+concussion there will be changes to the
+brain and nervous system but those
+changes to the brain and nervous system
+do not allow it to perform better in
+fact it often impairs the brain and
+nervous system's ability to function and
+therefore is maladaptive so I don't want
+to get overly wordy with a number of
+different terms here but I do think it's
+important to understand that we have
+developmental plasticity again in which
+the brain and nervous system changes
+simply in response to experiencing
+specific things for better or worse and
+there's adult self-directed adaptive
+plasticity in which one can direct
+specific changes in terms of learning
+things cognitively or learning things in
+terms of motor function so sport Dance
+Etc or combination of the two now just
+to really clarify what I mean by
+developmental versus self-directed
+adaptive plasticity I mentioned that
+self-directed adaptive plasticity
+actually can start in adolescence right
+even though there's ongoing
+developmental plasticity I mean let's be
+really direct the brain of a 14-year-old
+is very different than the brain of that
+same individual when that person is 21
+because there's ongoing developmental
+plasticity however starting at about
+adolescence we can all start to decide
+what it is that we want to learn and
+engage in self-directed adaptive
+plasticity now the way to engage
+self-directed adaptive plasticity
+regardless of whether or not you're a
+13-y old 14y old or you're a 90-year-old
+or anywhere in between is that it
+requires two things the first thing it
+requires is focused dedicated attention
+to the thing that you're trying to learn
+that's the first step and that actually
+triggers a number of different chemical
+and electrical processes in the brain
+that are often associated with agitation
+and frustration believe it or not the
+agitation and frustration is a
+reflection of the release of specific
+chemicals in particular nor epinephrine
+and epinephrine also called nor
+adrenaline and adrenaline in the brain
+and body that creates this discomfort
+and this heightened level of alertness
+and attention that many of us don't like
+and tend to back away from but it is
+exactly that chemical or I should say
+neurochemical milu which signals to the
+neurons the nerve cells in the brain and
+elsewhere in the body that something
+needs to change because if you think
+about it if you can do something
+perfectly or if you try and do something
+and it doesn't cause any neurochemical
+change in your brain and body well then
+there's no reason for your brain and its
+connections with the body to change in
+any particular way okay so you need
+Focus dedicated attention to the thing
+that you're trying to learn it's often
+accompanied by agitation frustration Etc
+so that's perfectly normal in fact
+that's a signal that things are going
+right meaning they're headed towards
+learning but there's a second component
+that's really required for self-directed
+adaptive plasticity and that's periods
+of deep rest in particular a goodn night
+sleep in particular on the night that
+follows that focused attention to the
+thing you're trying to learn there are
+now hundreds of studies in both animal
+models and in humans showing that it is
+really during sleep and other states of
+deep relaxation things like meditation
+and non-sleep deep rest which I've
+talked about before on this podcast but
+really during our main night of sleep
+that the rewiring of neural connections
+that is the actual neuroplasticity takes
+place so the verb neuroplasticity the
+rearrangement of connections between
+neurons really occurs during sleep in
+particular on the first night following
+an attempt to learn something through
+this focused attention now developmental
+plasticity which is passive also
+requires good sleep it's slightly
+different or frankly it's a lot
+different in terms of the underlying
+mechanisms than self-directed adaptive
+plasticity but because today we're
+mainly talking about how to learn faster
+through mental training and
+visualization and that really Maps more
+closely onto self-directed adaptive
+plasticity just really want to emphasize
+this two-step process there has to be
+focused dedicated attention and then
+there needs to be sleep and in
+particular sleep on the first night
+following that training now should you
+have the unfortunate experience of
+getting woken up in the middle of the
+night following trying to learn
+something or should you simply not be
+able to sleep for whatever reason on the
+night following
+a bout of learning or an attempt to
+learn do not despair because it turns
+out that there are what are called
+second and third night effects also once
+you sleep you will learn those
+neuroplastic events the reordering of
+connections that we call synapses and
+the changes that occur in neural
+circuits that reflects what we call
+self-directed adaptive plasticity that
+still will occur but ideally you got a
+great night's sleep on the first night
+following trying to learn and the second
+night and the third and so on and so on
+on now there are a few other things that
+are critical to understand about
+self-directed adaptive plasticity that
+will become especially important when
+thinking about protocols for developing
+the ideal mental training and
+visualization process for you and that
+is that there are different forms of
+plasticity that occur between neurons
+although the two main forms are what are
+called long-term potentiation and
+long-term depression I just want to ceue
+up right now that the word depression is
+a very loaded word because the moment
+people hear the word depression oh no
+that's bad but in the case of
+neuroplasticity long-term depression is
+simply a change in the connections
+between neurons and the excitability
+between neurons that in many ways can be
+excellent for learning things in
+particular motor skills and we'll get
+into this in more detail in a little bit
+but it turns out that a lot of our
+ability to get better at some sort of
+motor skill involves this thing that we
+call long-term depression and that's
+because much of what is happening when
+we learn a new motor skill is that we
+are deped pressing or suppressing
+specific actions in order to generate a
+very specific coordinated action some of
+the best examples of long-term
+depression can actually be borrowed from
+developmental plasticity so for instance
+if you've ever sat across from an infant
+who is trying to eat their meal so
+imagine a one and a half-year-old or a
+2-year-old trying to eat some noodles or
+some soup or any kind of baby suitable
+food with a spoon and they're holding
+the spoon or they're trying to hold the
+spoon what you'll notice is that their
+motor movements are terribly
+uncoordinated they often will take that
+spoon to their cheek or to their eye or
+to their head we've all seen these very
+amusing photos of babies with bowls of
+food on their head or with food all over
+their face or just everywhere it appears
+that they're basically getting the food
+everywhere except where it's supposed to
+go which is in their mouth and that's
+because their motor movements are not
+very well coordinated at that age and
+they're not very well coordinated not
+because they lack sufficient numbers of
+neural connections synapses between
+neurons but rather because they have too
+many connections between too many
+different neurons the neural circuits
+that control very dedicated coordinated
+movement are not there yet instead too
+many neurons are connected to too many
+other neurons and so they can't generate
+the precise movements that are required
+in order to get that spoon to their
+mouth now over time they get better at
+moving the utensil to their mouth such
+that hopefully by about F age five or
+six they are eating you know in a
+relatively cleaner way and hopefully by
+time they're 10 or 11 or 12 they're
+getting the food into their mouth and
+not all over their face uh people learn
+this to varying degrees all you have to
+do is go to a restaurant and watch how
+people eat um and you will see a vast
+variation in people's coordinated
+movements with utensils but in general
+there's a theme the younger the person
+the more uncoordinated their movement of
+utensils and as they get older the more
+coordinated now of course in people that
+are very very old they have challenges
+moving objects and their limbs in very
+smooth ways and that has to do with a
+topic that we'll get into when we talk
+about age related cognitive decline and
+motor related dementias but for sake of
+today's discussion if you just want to
+think about what happens with long-term
+depression and the development of a
+motor skill both as a baby as an
+adolescent and as an adult when you're
+trying to learn a new motor skill is
+that you are eliminating incorrect
+movement and when you are eliminating
+incorrect movements to arrive at only
+the correct movements in a very
+reflexive and repeated way so think your
+golf swing your tennis serve think
+serving of volleyball think a child
+learning to crawl and then walk think a
+child learning to eat with utensils in
+the example I gave before what's
+happening in all of those cases is that
+yes certain Connections in the brain are
+being strengthened or what we call
+potentiated they are undergoing
+long-term potentiation the so-called
+quote unquote fire together wire
+together Mantra that was popularized by
+the great neurobiologist Dr Carla shatz
+my colleague at Stanford but in addition
+to that long-term depression the
+quieting or the silencing of specific
+synapses that is connections between
+neurons is absolutely critical for motor
+skill learning so we have ltp long-term
+potentiation and LTD long-term
+depression is every bit as important as
+ltp long-term potentiation for getting
+better at some sort of motor skill and
+indeed at getting better at some sort of
+cognitive skill now as we hear this this
+should be intuitive to all of us if you
+look at somebody's attempt to learn a
+particular dance step or at somebody's
+attempt to do a tennis serve the first
+time it's all over the place now it's
+not perhaps all over the place in that
+they're doing a jumping jack while
+trying to serve the tennis ball but
+they're generally arcing the racket too
+widely on one trial and then they're
+arcing it too close to their body on the
+next trial so if we were to draw a line
+over each one of those trials we would
+see that there were lines everywhere
+over time whereas once they quote
+unquote perfect the tennis serve it's
+going to be line drawn directly over
+line drawn directly over line meaning
+the Arc of that tennis serve is going to
+be very restricted and that without
+question has reflected the removal or
+the quieting of particular synapses
+connections between neurons in the brain
+and body to allow that very narrow
+coordinated and direct movement the same
+is true for learning anything in the
+cognitive domain meaning if you are to
+learn a language it is not of course the
+case that you know every word in that
+language and then you simply remove
+certain words and arrive at the correct
+sentence structure that you're trying to
+achieve but rather you have to suppress
+your native language or if you're a
+young child you have to suppress the
+generation of just kind of random
+babbling sounds turns out babbling isn't
+random at all but the point is that you
+have to suppress the enunciation of
+particular sounds and direct the
+pronunciation of other sounds in order
+to generate that new language or your
+ability to speak at all okay so we can
+really think about neuroplasticity as
+both a building up process in which you
+increase connection so-call long-term
+potentiation and a sculpting down or a
+removal of connections process that
+we're going to call long-term depression
+now I have to acknowledge that of course
+there are other forms of neuroplasticity
+too I know there are probably some
+afficionados listening to this who will
+be perhaps shouting back at uh whatever
+device my voice is coming out of wait
+what about Spike timing dependent
+plasticity or what about pair pulse
+facilitation yes yes and yes there are
+multiple forms of communication between
+neurons that can strengthen those
+connections or weaken those connections
+but for today's discussion we just
+broadly want to think about long-term
+potentiation and long-term depression
+because it captures the two most
+important themes related to mental
+training and visualization which is that
+when we perform a given cognitive or
+physical task in the real world so we
+actually try the dance step or the
+tennis serve or when we actually try a
+math problem where we try and learn some
+specific knowledge and write it down and
+remember
+it that is engaging particular neurons
+right they're firing they're releasing
+chemicals but it is also actively
+suppressing the activity of other
+neurons and we are always completely
+unaware of the ways in which our brain
+is suppressing certain activity okay so
+today we have to keep in mind that where
+there is strengthening of connections
+there is also weakening of connections
+and when it comes to mental training and
+visualization and here's the really key
+point with mental training and
+visualization you are capturing both
+processes both the potentiation that is
+the building up and strengthening of
+connections and the weakening of the
+connections that are inappropriate for
+the thing you're trying to learn and
+there are different aspects of mental
+training and visualization protocols
+that really harness the potentiation
+versus the depression aspect and today
+we will cover mental training and
+visualization protocols that capture
+both the potentiation and the depression
+aspect of neuroplasticity and in that
+way serve as an augment that is a
+complement to the actual real world
+cognitive and physical training that
+you're doing because I'll just give this
+away right now turns out that mental
+training and visualization is not a
+replacement for real world cognitive or
+motor
+Behavior again mental training and
+visualization cannot replace real world
+execution of cognitive tasks or of motor
+tasks if you want to learn however
+mental training and visualization can
+and has been shown to be effective for
+greatly enhancing the speed at which you
+learn and the stability of that learning
+over time okay so let's take a second
+and really think about what's happening
+in the brain and body when we do mental
+training or visualization in fact we can
+do a little experiment right now that is
+not unlike many of the classic
+experiments looking at what's happening
+in the brain and body Dre mental
+training and visualization in which I
+just ask you to close your eyes and
+imagine a yellow Cube okay and next to
+that yellow cube is a red rose and
+perhaps I also ask you to float or fly
+up above the cube and the rows and look
+at them from the top top down and then I
+tell you to fly back around and land
+behind those and look at them from the
+perspective of behind that yellow Cube
+and that red rose okay now what the data
+tell us is that most people will be able
+to do that most of you will be able to
+do that to some degree or another
+regardless of your attention span
+whether or not you have ADHD or not most
+of you will be able to do that to some
+degree or another we also know from
+neuroimaging studies in which people are
+placed into a functional magnetic
+resonance imaging scanner that during
+the sort of visualization you just did
+or that I described that your visual
+cortex and Associated areas quote
+unquote light up they become very active
+in similar but not identical ways to how
+they would light up and be activated
+were you to actually look at a yellow
+cube and a red rose on a screen and
+perhaps Fly Above them virtually of
+course and land behind them virtually of
+course or if you were to actually look
+at a yellow Cube and red rose in the
+real world right in front of you on a
+table then you know get up on your tippy
+toes and look down at them from the top
+and then walk around the table and look
+at them from the other side so there is
+some degree of what we call perceptual
+equivalence between real world
+experiences digital experiences and
+imagined meaning with our eyes closed
+just in our Mind's Eye experiences this
+is true not just of vision and what we
+call the visual domain but also the
+auditory domain okay so for instance I
+could play for you a short motif of a
+song Let's just pick something that I
+think most people know goodness I'm a
+terrible musician and even worse um
+singer but let's just take the the
+opening to acdc's back and black right I
+think I can do that when it's like
+[Music]
+okay got it that's the the actual sound
+although admittedly a dreadful version
+of of the great ACDC song Back in Black
+but now I ask you to close your eyes or
+you could keep them open and just
+imagine
+that okay or for instance I place you in
+a quiet room so you close your eyes and
+ask you to imagine the opening to acdc's
+black and black but I ask you to pause
+it halfway through what you would find
+again is that most people somewhere
+between 90 and 95% of people would be
+able to do all the sorts of things I
+described right Cube and rows ACD back
+and
+black even a samata sensory task I
+imagine you to imagine what it's like to
+touch felt or to touch chinchilla hair
+or something like that a Chinchilla's
+hair ideally alive chinchilla sitting
+still those little critters move really
+really fast but they have very very soft
+hair High hair density So Soft okay most
+people can do that a about 5 to 15% of
+people are less able to do that and
+there's a small percentage of people in
+that 5 to
+15% that simply cannot do it at all that
+just cannot visualize well we'll talk
+later about these people they have
+what's called
+aasia an inability to mentally visualize
+but most people are actually pretty good
+at visualizing things when they are told
+what to visualize and and this is a
+really key point and if what they are
+told to visualize is very simple
+and the whole visualization is quite
+brief lasting on the order of about 15
+seconds to generate the visualization in
+the auditory or in the visual aspect of
+one's mind's eye or ear if you will and
+if it's repeated over and over what's
+far harder for everybody to do and in
+fact what most people simply cannot do
+is Imagine long extended scenes and
+stories in their mind that go on for
+minutes and minutes and involve a lot of
+different sensory stim
+this is a really key point in fact as we
+start to home in on ideal mental
+training and visualization protocols I'd
+like to establish this as the first
+principle of mental training and
+visualization which is that if you are
+going to use Mental training and
+visualization to its best effect in
+order to engage neuroplasticity and
+learning you need to keep those
+visualizations quite brief really on the
+order of about 15 to 20 seconds or so
+and pretty darn sparse meaning not
+including a lot of elaborate
+visualization not including a lot of
+sequences of motor steps what I mean are
+motor sequences if you're trying to
+learn something in terms of physical
+movement or visual sequences or auditory
+sequences if you're trying to learn
+things in terms of music or Dance Etc
+that can be completed and repeated in 15
+seconds or less now later I'll give you
+a couple of specific examples but if you
+want to use Mental training and
+visualization understand this is the key
+first principle they have to be very
+short visualizations that you can repeat
+over and over and over again with a high
+degree of accuracy so you don't want to
+embark on a mental training and
+visualization Paradigm in which it
+involves a lot of elaborate stimul and
+you have to think really hard and work
+really hard even if you're in that
+category of people who can do mental
+visualization pretty naturally and
+easily now if you're somebody who can't
+do mental visualization in fact if
+you're somebody who has full-blown FN or
+the inability to mentally visualize well
+then it's especially important that you
+make those mental trainings and
+visualizations really brief and very
+very simple I'd like to take a quick
+break and acknowledge one of our
+sponsors athletic greens athletic greens
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+vitamin D3 K2 now in order to develop
+the best mental training and
+visualization protocols for you let's go
+a little bit deeper into what the
+research says about mental visualization
+now the classic work on mental
+visualization really hinges on a number
+of different researchers and their work
+but in particular Roger Shepard who did
+this work at Stanford and Steven klin
+who's now at Harvard there of course
+others in the field but it's really the
+work of Shephard and cin that lay the
+foundation for our understanding of what
+happens in the brain when we mentally
+visualize
+something Shephard did these incredible
+experiments in which he had students
+mentally visualize simple objects like a
+square like a triangle and he measured
+how long it took them to do that now of
+course at the time when he did these
+experiments there were no sophisticated
+brain Imaging devices and machines like
+fmri however everything I'm about to
+describe has been later confirmed using
+things like fmri what Shephard did and
+what he found is that if people were
+told to visualize very simple objects
+they did it pretty quick
+however if they were told to visualize
+more complex objects or importantly to
+rotate those objects in their Mind's Eye
+well then it took longer for them to
+perform those mental visualizations now
+many of you might think duh if I have to
+just imagine a triangle or a cube that's
+going to be very easy and very fast
+whereas if I have to rotate that
+triangular cube in my mind's eye that's
+going to take more time and indeed that
+is somewhat of a duh except and this is
+so very important except that what
+shepher and his colleagues found is that
+how long it takes somebody to generate
+and rotate a given visual image scales
+directly with the complexity of that
+image in fact kyin did some experiments
+I think illustrate this even better and
+here's the experiment I love this
+experiment I think you'll love it too
+because it illustrates something so
+fundamentally important about how our
+brains work not just for sake of mental
+training and visualization but this is
+how our brains work at
+all he showed people a picture of a map
+so a map drawn on a piece of paper this
+was a map of an island it included
+things like a loading dock for some
+boats it had a location for getting food
+on the island it had some trees it had
+some other small landmarks drawn out and
+people looked at this and memorized it
+or in other experiments they just had
+people imagine this island and the
+location of these different landmarks on
+the island so didn't really matter which
+but then he had people imagine moving or
+walking from one location on the island
+to another so they'd say okay you're at
+the loading dock now move to the
+restaurant okay you're at the restaurant
+now move to the palm tree you're on the
+NorthShore of the island now go around
+the side of the island clockwise to
+arrive at the bay on the southwest
+corner this sort of thing what klin
+found was absolutely incredible what he
+found was that the amount of time that
+it takes people to move from one
+location on the map to another scaled
+linearly directly with the actual
+physical location between those objects
+on the map so for those of you that can
+understand or in the importance of what
+Shephard and coslin showed great I'm
+guessing however that for most people
+out there you're still grasping it like
+okay interesting you know how things
+happen in the real world dictates how
+they happen in our mind's eye but I want
+to make sure that I really nail home the
+importance of this for everybody the
+importance of this is that when we look
+at something in the real world so if I
+look at the pen in front of me I'm
+holding up my pen for those of you there
+listening just holding up my pen in
+front of me I move it to the right and
+back and forth what's happening is I'm
+activating or I'm triggering the
+electrical activity of neurons which we
+can think of kind of as pixels in my eye
+okay so it's you know leftward to
+rightward motion for me and back and
+forth and those are getting activated
+and they're sending signals up to my
+visual cortex and that information is
+processed at a given
+speed what the visualization experiments
+that Shepard and klin and others did
+show is that the processing speed of
+imagined experiences is exactly the same
+as the processing speed of real
+experiences and the spatial relationship
+between imagined and real experiences is
+exactly the same as well put simply when
+we imagine something in our mind's eye
+or mind's ear we are Imagining the real
+thing happening and when I say the real
+thing it's not the obvious real thing of
+course if you're imagining something
+that's the thing you're imagining what I
+mean is that your brain at the level of
+neurons is behaving exactly the same way
+and this needn't have been the case okay
+there could have been a result for
+instance that if people were asked to
+visualize a cube and rotate it from you
+know flip it from top to bottom okay so
+put the top that's upward on a table now
+down on the table and so forth or to
+migrate around the island you know
+counterclockwise going from you know the
+northern coast all the way down to the
+southern coast clockwise and then back
+up to the northern coast that they could
+have just done it really quickly like
+all in one second but that's not what
+happens they always match the speed at
+which they do things in their Mind's Eye
+to the same speed that they do them in
+the real world so in telling you this
+what I'm saying is that mental
+visualization at the neural level is
+identical to real world events so when
+you've heard that when we imagine
+something it's identical in terms of our
+brain's experience of it and our body's
+experience of it as when we actually
+experience something that is true at the
+neural level however when it comes to
+learning and improving performance in
+the cognitive or physical domain they
+are not equivalent so this is the second
+principle of mental training and
+visualization as you recall the first
+principle of mental training and
+visualization was that in in order to
+make it effective it needs to be very
+brief and very simple and repeated over
+and over again the second principle of
+mental training and visualization is
+that while yes mental training and
+visualization recaptures the same
+patterns of neural firing in the exact
+same ways as real world behavior and
+thinking it is not as effective as real
+world behavior and thinking in other
+words if you want to learn something the
+ideal situation is to combine real
+training in the physical world with
+mental training and I'll talk about
+exactly how to do that and in what
+ratios a little bit later now there's a
+really incredible set of experiments
+that illustrate why it is that mental
+training and visualization can be
+extremely effective but that it's always
+going to be most effective when combined
+with real world training and experiences
+the experiments that I'm talking about
+involve the use of what are called by
+stable images or impossible figures some
+of you are probably familiar with
+possible figures these are figures or
+objects that when you look at them they
+have these odd features like you're not
+sure where they stop and where they
+start where they end uh one good example
+would be the so-called Mobius strip the
+mobus strip is literally a strip or a
+line that is contiguous it goes up and
+it loops around and then it curves
+around and then it goes back and and it
+just continues and continues and when
+you look at it you can never really tell
+where it starts and where it stops
+because it doesn't have any of the
+features that allow you to see what's
+the front and what's the back in any
+kind of stable way another example of an
+impossible figure would be you know a
+little um set of Cubes that look like
+they're coming out toward you maybe with
+a little Bend in them going up at a
+right angle perhaps but then if you look
+at it a little bit longer that little
+piece that's facing up looks like it's
+in front and you can't really tell
+what's in front and what's in back and
+so it's called an impossible figure
+because you don't really know how to
+frame it in your mind to tell what's
+closer to you and what's further apart
+by stable images are somewhat similar
+although different in the sense that
+they typically are simple Silhouettes so
+for instance the faces vases by stable
+image is perhaps the most famous of
+these where you look at this image it's
+very simple and it looks like two vases
+but then you look at it a little bit
+longer and you realize that you're
+looking at the side angle or the profile
+of two faces looking at one another and
+when you see those two faces looking at
+one another you can't see the vases at
+the same time but then if you decide to
+see the vases again you can see the
+vases again but the faces disappear so
+it's by stable meaning that you can't
+see the faces and vases at the same time
+and impossible figures and by stable
+images are capturing the fact that your
+visual cortex and some of the associated
+areas that compute visual scenes in your
+world are essentially trying to recreate
+whatever it is that's out in front of
+them and that's effectively what your
+visual system does it's very good at
+recreating visual images in your brain
+in your mind's eye because if you think
+about it even with your eyes open your
+brain is just creating an abstract
+representation of what it thinks is out
+there but that when it comes to
+assigning an identity to something like
+oh that's a face or oh that's a vase
+that is constrained by different neural
+circuits by different areas of the brain
+and somehow those circuits can't be
+coactive we cannot see the faces and the
+vases at exactly the same time we can
+switch back and forth really quickly
+just as we can switch back and forth
+really quickly when we're looking at the
+impossible figure and think okay that's
+the front of it that's the back no wait
+that's the back that's the front and
+it's going back and forth but we can't
+see them both at the same time no one
+can see them both at the same time okay
+we know this from brain Imaging studies
+now impossible figures in bable images
+can be seen right you could look them up
+right now on your phone or computer or I
+could show you pictures of them on paper
+right in front of you and you can do
+these sorts of perceptual experiments of
+telling people look at the face look at
+the vase look at the front of the cube
+and I'll make it at the back of the cube
+and they can do somewhat
+deliberately however and this is I think
+so very interesting to understanding how
+mental training and visualization does
+and does not support Real World
+Learning if you try to imagine a by
+stable image you can't do it in fact no
+one can do it until they do something
+else okay so for those of you that
+saying wait I can do it I can do faces
+vases in my mind's eye I promise you
+that the
+neuroimaging disputes your belief okay
+and supports the idea that we can see
+real world by stable images we can see
+real world impossible figures but when
+we try and imagine those in our Mind's
+Eye we simply can't do it we can't do
+the perceptual shift in our Mind's Eye
+we can't switch back and forth between
+faces and vases however and I just have
+to chuckle because I think these
+experiments are so clever if I have you
+trace or
+Draw with a pen on a piece of paper and
+imp possible figure or the faces vases
+by stable image and then I ask you to
+imagine that bable image or impossible
+figure and to switch back and forth you
+were able to do it so what that
+illustrates is that it's the combination
+of imagined and real world experiences
+real motor movements real perceptual
+experiences combined with motor
+movements combined with what you imagine
+in your mind's eye that really gives you
+the most depth and flexibility over your
+mental
+visualization and in doing so we can
+really stamp down a third principle of
+mental training and visualization which
+is that your mental training and
+visualization will be far more effective
+if you are performing the exact same or
+very similar mental and physical tasks
+in the real world okay so first
+principle is mental training and
+visualization needs to be simple and
+brief and repeated second is that mental
+training and visualization is not a
+replacement for
+realworld motor training or cognitive
+training it's an augment it's an
+addition that can really help and the
+third principle of mental training and
+visualization is that you need to
+combine mental training and
+visualization with real world behaviors
+and experiences that are very very
+similar now as a brief but I think
+really relevant aside one of the things
+that also makes mental training and
+visualization more effective is when we
+assign cogni ative labels to what's
+going on when we visualize so what I
+mean is that people are much better at
+manipulating faces and vases in their
+Mind's Eye of course only once they've
+drawn them out physically with their
+hand as I mentioned before then they are
+manipulating abstract objects like
+impossible figures in part because by
+labeling them faces and
+vases people are able to capture a lot
+of other neural Machinery that's related
+to faces and bases in fact we have
+entire brain areas on both sides of the
+brain devoted to the processing of faces
+called fusiform face area we have other
+areas in our brain that are involved in
+processing of 3D objects but faces are
+of particular value there's a there's a
+value to understanding what a face is as
+opposed to a non-face and there's a
+value to understanding what a particular
+face is in fact the simplest way to put
+this is that the human brain is in many
+ways a face recognition and expression
+of faces recognition machine it of
+course does other things but it is
+exceptionally good at that unless you're
+a profession in which the relationships
+between 3D objects and your ability to
+manipulate them is exceedingly important
+you're not going to have a lot of neural
+real estate specifically devoted to that
+some people will be better at it some
+people will be worse but when it comes
+to faces unless you have a condition
+like propath agnosia which is an
+inability to recognize say famous faces
+and distinguish them from non-f famous
+faces or if you have some sort of face
+recognition deficit which about anywhere
+from one perhaps to 3% of people out
+there have they're just terrible at
+recognizing faces and by the way there's
+about half a percent of people out there
+that are what are called super
+recognizers that can recognize faces in
+a large crowd they can recognize
+specific faces even from just partial
+profiles by the way these people are
+extremely valuable to Securities
+agencies and security agencies are very
+good at finding these people um machines
+are quickly
+getting better or at least as good as
+super recognizers but the best super
+recognizers are still better than the
+best Ai and machine algorithms out there
+but the point is that in your mind's eye
+you are better able to manipulate
+specific objects or to see things more
+clearly and with more specificity when
+it has a label that you recognize from
+your real world experience as opposed to
+abstract or fictional labels okay again
+stamping home the idea that what you
+experience in the real world really
+serves to support your mental imagery
+and therefore the key importance of
+experiencing and doing things in the
+real world and supporting that with
+mental training and visualization and
+not just relying on mental training and
+visualization and the tangent here
+that's a little bit of fun and I don't
+think we've ever talked about before on
+this podcast is that of UFOs
+unidentified flying objects you know
+there's a lot of people out there who
+think that they've seen UFOs I guess
+technically they have because a UFO is
+an identified flying object and if it's
+unidentified at least to them then it is
+indeed a UFO I guess the question is
+whether or not uh or the disput rather
+is whether or not those UFOs are
+actually flown by aliens or controlled
+by aliens I think that's where the
+dispute lies but you can imagine how if
+somebody sees an object in their
+environment and decides Ah that's a UFO
+okay remember these faces vases or these
+impossible figures if they say oh that
+thing is a UFO as opposed to something
+else they see in other words the face
+not the vase well that stamps it down as
+a memory in their visual system and
+related systems and then in their Mind's
+Eye they are seeing the UFO they're not
+seeing the other thing that it could
+possibly be okay so it stamped down a
+very specific memory so the point here
+is that mental training and
+visualization relies on not just the
+physical Contours and the exact spatial
+profiles and the speed of movement of
+particular things that we experience in
+the real world it also heavily depends
+on the cognitive labels and the
+decisions we make about the things that
+we see and this will become very
+important as we build up toward our
+fourth principle of mental training and
+visualization which is that our
+cognitive labels that is what we decide
+is happening when we do mental training
+and visualization turns out to be very
+important now this is not simply to say
+that you can decide okay I want to learn
+how to play piano and so I'm going to
+tell myself that a particular chord I
+imagine in my mind's eye is identical to
+the real world chord just because I
+decide it is the brain doesn't work that
+way it's not possible to just lie to
+yourself and learn better as a
+consequence of the lies you tell
+yourself
+however what this tells us is that it is
+very very important that your mental
+training and visualization accurately
+recapitulate the real world training
+that you're doing so we are going to
+stamp down a fourth principle of
+effective mental training and
+visualization based on what we know from
+the scientific literature is that your
+mental training and visualization should
+assign labels to what you're doing that
+can be matched to real world training
+and experiences now these can be
+somewhat abstract so for instance if
+you're trying to learn a particular
+aspect of the golf swing okay so let's
+say that you're working on your golf
+swing seems to be there are a lot of
+people out there working on their golf
+swing and you're going to do some mental
+training and visualization in order to
+improve your golf swing we already know
+again let's just March through them that
+your mental training visualization needs
+to be brief and simple it needs to be
+the same or in fact it will be we can
+say the same as your real world golf
+swing in other words it will take you
+exactly the same amount amount of time
+to perform that golf swing in your
+mind's eye as it would in the real world
+incredible right again something that
+maybe is taking a little bit of time to
+sink in but once it does you're going to
+be like wow the brain is really an
+incredible machine and that third
+principle that you still have to do golf
+swings in the real world in addition to
+the mental training of golf swings and
+fourth that if you want that mental
+training and visualization to really
+improve your golf swing you're going to
+have to name or apply an identity to the
+specific golf swing or aspect of the
+golf swing that you're practicing so
+this could be abstract you could call it
+mental training and visualization of
+golf swing 1A and you could imagine your
+mind's eye you know the perfect golf
+swing over and over and over and over
+but then when you're in the real world
+you're also going to have to call that
+either out loud or just to yourself golf
+swing 1 a okay as opposed to a putt
+which might be 1B so naming and giving
+an identity to a real world skill and
+applying the same name or identity to
+the mental version of that the
+visualization of that can enhance the
+mental training and visualization in
+significant ways so when we apply
+identities or names to these mental
+trainings and visualizations and again
+provide that they are brief and repeated
+and so on WE greatly enhance the amount
+of neural Machinery in the brain and
+body that we are able to recruit when we
+go to perform those real world golf
+swings and golf putts and here just
+replace golf swing and golf putt with
+anything that you're trying to learn
+you're able to recruit a lot more neural
+machinery and greatly increase the
+probability of proper execution so
+before we go any further I want to share
+with you a couple of incredible aspects
+of mental visualization that really can
+be harnessed and applied toward mental
+training and visualization some of these
+were done by Roger Shepard and his
+graduate students in postdocs some were
+done by Steve klin and by others what
+these experiments really show is that
+mental training and visualization is
+capturing many many of the exact same
+features of real world behavior and
+perceptions not all of them but many of
+them so for instance if I tell you to
+close your eyes and
+imagine a ceiling that has tiles that
+are black and white checkered tiles you
+know one black tile one white tile for
+instance we know based on experiments
+where we measure eye movements Behind
+Closed eyelids that people tend to move
+their eyes up when they imagining things
+above them such as a ceiling whereas if
+I tell you to imagine things down on the
+floor like you're taking a hike and
+you're looking for rattlesnakes actually
+just recently I experienced because it's
+spring here in California rattlesnake
+along a hiking trail it's really quite
+beautiful although I um have to confess
+I enjoyed keeping my distance uh I don't
+like snakes uh very much I don't dislike
+snakes but I prefer not to interact with
+them unless I have to if I have you
+imagine that rattlesnake depending on
+your relationship or thoughts about
+rattlesnakes number of things will
+happen in your brain of course
+activation of the limic system or not
+for instance but what I know is that
+regardless of how you feel about
+snakes most of you will move your eyes
+down when imagining a snake okay it
+might be subtle it might be fast but
+statistically that result shows up as
+opposed to when I imagine or I ask you
+to imagine something above you you tend
+to move your eyes up in addition to that
+if I tell you for instance to imagine an
+elephant and a mouse next to one another
+you presumably have some real world
+understanding about the relative sizes
+of elephants versus mice elephants
+generally are bigger than mice thank
+goodness mice are smaller than elephants
+if I ask you to tell me about the
+details of that Mouse's face so for
+instance can you see its
+whiskers the processing time required
+for you to do that is much longer than
+the processing time required if I say
+tell me what the position of that
+elephant's trunk is now why would that
+be so okay the position of the
+elephant's trunk wasn't something that I
+told you it wasn't dictated by me it's
+in your mind's eye maybe you don't even
+know and you have to go searching for it
+but what we do know is that if I tell
+you to look at a small object in your
+mind's eye versus a larger object so for
+instance the mouse versus the elephant
+it takes longer for you to do that in
+other words just as with the map
+experiment the distance between things
+on a map is conserved in your mind's eye
+as a linear relationship takes longer to
+go far distances between things on a map
+in your mind than it does to go shorter
+distances it's also the case that it
+takes you longer to look at the details
+of a small object versus a large object
+because why because you are zooming in
+in your mind's eye again all of which
+speaks to the equivalence of mental
+imagery with real world imagery and
+perception and as I mentioned earlier
+and as we'll see in a moment this also
+extends into the motor domain it takes
+you longer to perform Complex Motor
+sequences in your mind's eye than it
+does simple motor sequences just as it
+would in the real world and if you're
+saying of course of course of course
+well then great then we've really
+underscored the point which is that when
+you imagine things it is not exactly the
+same but it is very very much the same
+as actually doing or perceiving those
+things in the real world and the fifth
+principle of effective mental training
+and visualization
+is this notion of equivalence of mental
+imagery versus Real World perception and
+behavior these are the experiments as
+you recall where if people are told to
+look for clouds in their mental
+visualization they tend to look up or if
+they're looking for something on the
+floor they tend to look down even Behind
+Closed eyelids now this can be applied
+toward building an especially effective
+mental training and visualization
+protocol if you deliberately move your
+eyes in the direction of the thing or
+things that you are trying to
+recapitulate in your mind in your
+visualization that is you don't
+necessarily have to include this step
+but mental training and visualization is
+going to be more effective if you do
+because with consciously generated eye
+movements again even Behind Closed
+eyelids you are bringing about more of
+the neural circuitry that one would
+experience if you were to perform that
+particular cognitive task or motor task
+in the real world which as I mentioned
+before in principle number three you
+need to be doing anyway sep separately
+from your mental training and
+visualization so what we're talking
+about here is thus far five principles
+of mental training and visualization
+that are well established from the
+scientific research literature in fact I
+haven't mentioned this quite yet and
+I'll refer to some other references but
+there's a wonderful systematic review of
+a large number of studies that have
+looked at mental training and
+visualization what's effective what's
+less effective across a bunch of
+different disciplines that include
+education medicine music psychology and
+sports we will provide a link to this
+paper in the show captions but the title
+of the paper is best practice for motor
+imagery a systematic literature view on
+motor imagery training elements in five
+different disciplines as the title
+suggests it's mainly for motor imagery
+training but it extends into music which
+of course involves motor training and
+execution but as well as education this
+review establishes a number of different
+important things I'm going to read off
+some of the um key or uh highlight
+takeaways for instance I described
+principle one of effective mental
+training and visualization which is that
+the visualization be brief and it be
+simple and it be repeated may ask um how
+many times that very brief 5 to 15
+second exercise of going through some
+routine should be repeated well
+different Studies have used different
+ranges of let's call them repetitions in
+a given training session but the number
+that seems to be most effective is
+somewhere between 50 and 75 repeats per
+session that brings about the question
+of how long one should rest between each
+repeat this gets a little tricky
+depending on what you're trying to do uh
+remember that we have this of threshold
+of about 15 seconds for completion of
+the entire motor sequence let's say what
+you're trying to do like a golf swing
+takes you 5 Seconds to imagine in your
+mind's eye from the point where you
+let's just say have the ball on the te
+you bring the the golf club up you might
+reposition your your feet just a little
+bit you know that kind of a little
+wiggle that golf golfers do and then the
+swing if that whole thing takes five
+seconds in your mind's eye and roughly 5
+seconds in the real world well then
+you'd be able to repeat it of course
+three times in 15 seconds that would be
+one repetition even though you're doing
+it three times so it's one 15sec Epoch
+as it's sometimes called EPO Epoch and
+then you would rest for an approximately
+equivalent amount of time 15 seconds or
+so and then repeat and rest 15 seconds
+or so and then repeat rest 15 seconds
+and then repeat again three golf swings
+within that 15 seconds rest 15 seconds
+three golf swings within that 15 seconds
+rest 15 seconds truth told these Epoch
+and these rest periods do not need to be
+exact you could imagine for instance
+that you get three repetitions of the
+Swing within 14 seconds well then do you
+do another one or do you wait until the
+end of that 15 seconds I encourage you
+not to obsess too much about those sorts
+of points rather you want to do as many
+repeats as you can in about a
+15-second Epoch and then rest for about
+15 seconds and then repeat for a total
+of 50 to 75 repetitions which might not
+sound like a lot to some of you might
+sound like an awful lot to others of you
+to me it sounds like a lot you know 50
+repetitions of something in where you're
+trying to concentrate in your mind's eye
+on getting something accomplished over
+and over over again in exactly the same
+way might seem like a lot we know based
+on the learning literature that your
+ability to successfully perform
+something in the real world will lend
+itself to better performance of that
+thing in the imagined world within your
+mind's eye that's also one of these sort
+of does but if you're trying to get
+better at something that you've never
+performed before you really should know
+that the mental training visualization
+is probably not the best augment to that
+real world training until you're able to
+perform it successfully in the real
+world at least some of the time mental
+training visualization can be effective
+however at increasing the accuracy or
+the frequency at which you can do that
+real world Behavior so if normally
+you're only getting the correct swing or
+you're only hitting the the golf ball
+correctly say 10% of the time mental
+training and visualization can really
+help bring that number up but it is
+important that you are able to
+successfully complete that motor task in
+the real world similarly for performance
+of cognitive tasks so say for instance
+um speaking a new language you might ask
+well gosh what what in the landscape ape
+of speaking a new language can be
+restricted to 5 to 15 seconds where I
+could repeat it anywhere from you know
+one to three times in a given Epoch and
+then rest and then keep repeating 50 to
+75 times Well there I would encourage
+you to pick something that you are able
+to do perhaps very slowly so to speak a
+particular sentence but with some
+challenge in getting the accent and the
+enunciation right but you've completed
+it successfully before and you want to
+get more smooth or more fluid with it
+likewise for you know playing piano
+guitar again you have to translate to
+the specific cognitive and or motor
+activity that you are seeking to improve
+at but those epochs lasting 5 to 15
+seconds are really the Cornerstone of an
+effective mental training and
+visualization practice and the repeated
+nature of it 50 to 75 repetitions in a
+given session is also another
+Cornerstone of an effective mental
+training and visualization practice uh
+so says this review and some of the
+other papers that I'm going to get to in
+a few moments now now one of the other
+key components of a successful mental
+training and visualization practice is
+how often you perform that mental
+training and visualization practice and
+again number of different Studies have
+looked at this through a number of
+different lenses meaning anywhere from
+two to eight times per week it does
+appear that performing these sessions
+anywhere from 3 to five times per week
+is going to be effective we could
+perhaps even say most effective because
+most of the
+uh let's just call it the strongest data
+really point to repeating these 50 to 75
+Trials of the same thing three to five
+times per week so you can come up with a
+number that's reasonable for you to do
+consistently and you might ask do you
+have to continue to perform the mental
+training and visualization forever and
+the good news is the answer to that
+question is no it does seem that once
+you have what's called Consolidated the
+Motor Performance or the cognitive
+performance of something it can be
+further supported or reinforced that is
+Consolidated in the neural circuits that
+are responsible for performing that
+mental or physical task so in other
+words once you are performing that
+cognitive or motor task in a way that's
+satisfactory or perhaps just improved
+perhaps you're not 100% but it's
+improved in the real world you don't
+need to continue to do mental training
+and visualization to to maintain that
+real world performance so that's a good
+thing in fact the ideal situation would
+be than to pick a different sequence or
+thing that you're trying to learn and do
+mental training and visualization for
+that uh I perhaps might have misspoke
+there although I don't want to edit this
+out I misspoke in the sense that again I
+said for the thing that you're trying to
+learn remember mental training
+visualization is going to be most
+effective for building up the number of
+accurate trials or the your ability to
+do something with a greater frequency of
+something that you're already capable of
+doing or have done at least once in the
+real world okay this is not to say that
+mental training and visualization can't
+be used to acquire new skills it can in
+principle but it has been shown to be
+most effective for enhancing the speed
+and the accuracy of skills that one has
+already demonstrated some degree of
+proficiency at in the real world I think
+that's important to point out because we
+often hear mental training visualization
+and this equivalence of perceptual and
+motor experiences in our Mind's Eye to
+the real world and we think oh all we
+have to is Imagine doing something and
+we will get better at it and
+unfortunately that's not the case the
+good news is however if you can do
+something once even very slowly in the
+real world and then you bring it to the
+mental imagery and visualization domain
+you can get much faster at it in a way
+that really does translate back to the
+real world I'd like to just take a brief
+moment and thank one of our podcast
+sponsors which is insid tracker insid
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+work is the only way that you can
+monitor the markers such as hormone
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+if you recall principle number three or
+what I'm calling principle number three
+of effective mental training and
+visualization which was that you have to
+be able to perform the thinger that
+you're trying to get better at through
+visualization and imagery in the real
+world that should raise the question of
+what is The Rao of real world training
+versus mental training that's going to
+be most effective ah well here there are
+some really interesting data uh not just
+in the review that I mentioned but in a
+couple of the other papers that we're
+going to talk about in a few minutes but
+what I've done is I've synthesized the
+information across those papers and they
+really all point to the fact that real
+world training is more effective than
+mental training and mental training is
+more effective than no training now the
+mental training more effective than no
+training is kind of a duh except that
+there are people for instance people who
+are injured who are trying to maintain
+or replenish some motor skill or ability
+to move in a particular way or who have
+had traumatic brain injury and are
+trying to recreate experiences in a way
+that's safe for them while in a somewhat
+restricted format so for instance if
+you've damaged a limb or you're
+experiencing chronic pain and you need
+to take a layoff from some physical
+activity there are now many studies
+looking at stroke patients at um
+patients that have been in accidents TBI
+also people who are suffering from more
+conventional limb and connective tissue
+injuries that if they do mental training
+it obviously is not going to put them at
+risk of doing those same movements as it
+would in the real world right but that
+it can actually accelerate or at least
+maintain skill performance so this is
+pretty exciting if you think about it
+what this means and the reason it
+underscores this mental training is
+better than no training is that should
+you find yourself in the unfortunate
+circumstance of being injured or unable
+to perform a given Behavior
+Imagining the sequence of behavior that
+you'd like to maintain or even build up
+over time provided you've done that
+motor sequence before in the real world
+well the mental training and
+visualization can really help keep that
+online or even help you improve over
+time in fact I have a colleague in the
+psychology department at Stanford who
+told me an anecdote and admittedly it's
+just an anecdote of a student who was
+recruited to Stanford um both for their
+academic prowess but also for their
+abilities in tennis and was injured in
+their first year and at first thought
+this was devastating but did a cognitive
+reframe around the idea that that let's
+call it extended layoff from actual
+tennis was going to afford them the
+ability to do more mental training than
+they would otherwise even though they
+were um quite sad to not be able to do
+actual physical training for tennis and
+when they came back from that injury
+they did indeed manage to improve beyond
+the initial non-injured State they were
+in before the injury which is pretty
+remarkable but as this colleague pointed
+out to me they were very careful to
+include a lot of mental training and
+visualization during that quote unquote
+layoff period so again mental training
+better than no training physical
+training better than mental training but
+when we say physical training better
+than mental training what we're really
+talking about is when you allocate a
+certain amount of training hours for a
+given skill per week okay so how would
+this look what these Studies have done
+is they've said okay if people have the
+option of doing the real world training
+for 10 hours a week versus mental
+training for 10 hours a week which group
+performs better it turns out it's the
+ones that do the physical training for
+10 hours per week however we also know
+that combinations of physical training
+and mental training can bring about
+results that are greater than either one
+of those alone how would that work well
+I wish I could tell you that if you did
+nine hours of physical training per week
+plus one hour of mental training that
+your performance would be better than if
+you did 10 hours of physical training
+and that's not the case okay this is why
+we can reliably say physical real world
+training and again this could be in the
+cognitive domain is always going to be
+more effective on an hour by hour basis
+compared to mental training so if you
+can do real world training and perhaps
+we should be calling it real world as
+opposed to physical but if you can do
+real world training compared to purely
+mental training that's going to be the
+best use of your time this is really
+important it doesn't underscore
+everything that we're talking about
+because here's the really cool thing if
+you do 10 hours per week of real world
+physical training again could be running
+could be music could be math could be
+whatever it is you're trying to learn
+shooting basketballs hitting golf balls
+and you add one hour or even half an
+hour of mental training to that real
+world training well then the results are
+significantly greater than you would
+experience with physical training alone
+and of course it would be greater than
+you could achieve with mental training
+alone because we already established
+that real world training is more
+powerful in learning skills and
+retaining skills than is mental training
+okay if any of that was confusing let me
+just say it one more time just to be
+ultra clear if you have the option to do
+real world training for a cognitive
+Andor motor skill versus mental training
+always go with real world training
+however if you can add to a maximum
+amount of real world training by doing
+some mental training and you follow the
+principles that we've been discussing
+here which are gleaned from the
+scientific
+literature well then you are going to
+get significantly greater results in
+terms of speed accuracy and consistency
+of performance of those real world
+behaviors and cognitive
+abilities and of course if you are
+unable to do physical training for
+whatever reason injury travel whatever
+the case may be well then doing mental
+training is still far far significantly
+greater than doing no training at all
+okay so total layoffs it turns out are a
+bad thing if you want to get better at
+something and indeed if you want to
+retain certain skills both cognitive and
+motor now a couple of other things to
+keep in mind as you're thinking about
+how to build up skills through a
+combination of physical and mental
+training well remember back to the
+beginning of the episode where we talked
+about neuroplasticity and the fact that
+self-directed adaptive plasticity which
+is really what we're talking about here
+in this entire episode things that
+you're trying to learn in a deliberate
+way that is as you recall a two-part
+process requires focused attention both
+when you're doing it in the real world
+and when you're doing mental training
+and it requires rest and sleep and in
+fact you would be very wise to try and
+get a good night's sleep both on the
+days when you do physical training again
+also called real world training and
+mental training you may also be asking
+can you do them on the same day and this
+gets into some Nuance in the literature
+but by my read of the literature here's
+the
+takeaway if you are doing the maximum
+amount of physical training that you can
+do according to your schedule preventing
+injury and all those sorts of important
+constraints and you're going to add
+mental training and imagery it doesn't
+really matter when you do it you could
+do it immediately after your physical
+training you could do it on a separate
+day but you do want to place it at a
+time in which you can try and get good
+sleep that night so for instance Believe
+It or Not Studies have been done where
+people are doing mental training at
+times when they should be sleeping that
+is going to offset some of the
+degradation and performance that you
+would normally see but it's generally a
+bad idea you should do your real world
+training and your mental training
+whenever it is that you can and then you
+should try and get as much quality sleep
+as you possibly can on the night
+following that physical Andor mental
+training okay this is true pretty much
+every night of your life right if had my
+way that is if I had a magic wand which
+obviously I don't I would ensure that I
+and everyone else in the world get
+sufficient amounts of quality sleep
+every single night but that's just not
+realistic there are going to be times
+where that's simply not going to happen
+for whatever reason and I always say if
+you're not going to get sufficient
+amounts of quality sleep for whatever
+reason try to make it for a fun reason
+or a good reason but I think getting
+sufficient amounts of quality sleep 80%
+of the nights of your life is a
+reasonable goal and one that's worth
+driving toward and we have lots of
+episodes now three really on mastering
+sleep on perfecting your sleep and uh
+episode guest episode with the great
+Matthew Walker uh who wrote the book why
+why we
+sleep incredibly important book all of
+those as well as our toolkit for Sleep
+describe ways to improve your sleep so
+you can refer to those episodes if
+you're having challenges with sleep and
+want to improve on sleep and things like
+non-sleep deep rest which can support
+your ability to sleep and your ability
+to learn so sleep is still vitally
+important not just for ensuring
+neuroplasticity occurs following real
+world training but also following mental
+training and again when you place that
+mental training is not so critical at
+least it doesn't appear to be based on
+the literature so if anyone out there
+has knowledge of any peer-reviewed
+studies stating that mental training
+should be done either before or after
+some hours away from Real World Training
+please send that to me or put it in the
+show um excuse me put it in the comments
+on YouTube and I'll see it there because
+I do read all the comments but I'm not
+aware of any any such data or analysis
+and by the way if you are interested in
+understanding the relationship between
+motor skill acquisition and retention
+and this first night phenomenon of sleep
+the first night after training versus
+sleep on the second night Etc there's a
+really wonderful paper that was
+published by none other than the great
+Matthew Walker when I believe he was a
+graduate student maybe he was a postto
+when he did this in Robert stick Gold's
+Lab at Harvard uh the title of the paper
+is sleep and time course of motor skill
+learning uh this is a paper published in
+2003 uh still an incredibly important
+paper I will provide a link to it in the
+show note captions it really highlights
+um some of the key aspects of when
+people sleep and how critical sleep is
+on the night following and the nights
+following that training in order to
+really consolidate certain types of
+learning and what phases of sleep relate
+to the consolidation of motor learning
+Etc a really wonderful paper and of
+course but just one of Matthew and
+Robert stick Gold's incredible papers on
+sleep and learning remember at the
+beginning of the episode when I
+mentioned that many people are good at
+mental training and visualization but
+people are not well sex differences have
+been explored and age related
+differences have been explored in terms
+of people's ability to mentally
+visualize and train up specific skills
+and while initially there were some sex
+differences identified really the bulk
+of the subsequent literature that is the
+majority of quality peer-reviewed
+studies on this aspect of mental
+training visualization point to the fact
+that there are no significant
+differences between males and females in
+terms of their ability to mentally
+visual visualiz nor their ability to use
+that mental visualization toward
+improving cognitive or motor skills uh
+that point was uh covered in some detail
+in the review I mentioned earlier best
+practice for motor imagery a systematic
+literature review on motor imagery
+training elements and five different
+disciplines this review also looked at
+age related effects and perhaps the only
+thing that really popped out from this
+literature review in terms of age
+dependent differences that point to
+changes in protocols that you might make
+is that for individuals 65 or older a
+common comination of physical and mental
+training may actually allow them to gain
+and consolidate skills better than were
+they to do physical training alone now
+whether or not that's due to some lower
+upper limit of physical training that
+they can do because of their age or
+whether or not that's something specific
+to do with older versus younger neural
+circuits isn't clear but what this
+review also makes clear is that for the
+vast majority of people out there so
+teens people in their 20s and their 40s
+and so on physical training more
+effective than mental training we said
+that before combination of physical and
+mental training more effective than
+physical training alone provided the
+mental training is on top of the maximum
+amount of physical training that one
+could do and of course mental training
+more effective than no training at all
+okay so we talked about sets and Reps we
+talked about you know 5 to 15sec EPO
+with about 15sec breaks in between or
+rest between sets if you will repeated
+for 50 to 75 trials done three to five
+times per week some of the conditions of
+keeping it really simple The Importance
+of Being able to actually perform those
+sequences in the real world and so on
+what we haven't discussed is first
+person versus third person and eyes open
+versus eyes closed so what are we really
+talking about here well first person
+mental training and visualization would
+be where you are imagining doing
+something and you are seeing yourself
+doing something from the inside out as
+opposed from the outside in Imagine for
+instance wearing a head cam okay or a
+body Cam and doing something with your
+hands or being in virtual reality and
+having the sense that whatever you see
+in front of you and that's moving and
+that you're doing that's you so what I
+mean by this is a mental training or
+visualization protocol for instance if
+you were at the piano or at a guitar
+where you're actually looking down at or
+sensing the feeling of your hands but
+you're not actually moving your hands
+okay as opposed to seeing yourself from
+outside of your body so looking at
+yourself say standing next to you or
+from across the room you're looking at
+yourself playing the piano or playing
+guitar or swinging a golf club or doing
+a tennis serf okay first person versus
+third person and what the data tell us
+is that first person mental training and
+visualization is generally more
+effective than third person mental
+training and visualization which perhaps
+raises another chorus of does out there
+but it needn't have been the case right
+I mean you could imagine that seeing
+yourself doing something and doing it
+perfectly because you've done it
+perfectly once before hopefully would
+allow you to build up that skill more
+quickly because you have that third
+person perspective where you can really
+see every aspect and every element of
+what you're trying to
+perform Well turns out that the first
+person mental training and visualization
+is significantly more effective than
+that third person mental training and
+visualization so if what you're trying
+to learn lends itself well to this
+firsters mental experiencing of self as
+you perform the cognitive Andor motor
+skill I suggest you do that as opposed
+to the third person version now what if
+what you're trying to learn doesn't lend
+itself well to firstperson visualization
+for instance what if you're trying to
+learn a specific cognitive skill that
+doesn't involve any overt modor Behavior
+to be observed well in that case it's
+very clear that closing your eyes
+ideally and trying to perform that
+specific cognitive task or the statement
+or the you know uttering of a particular
+sentence in another language or doing
+some sort of computation or problem
+solving of some sort in your head well
+that itself of course is first person
+because it's inside your own body as
+opposed to and I don't know that anyone
+would actually do this but looking at
+yourself from a third person perspective
+in your mind's eye and seeing yourself
+perform that cognitive challenge
+whatever that challenge may happen to be
+okay now we have to address eyes open
+versus eyes closed and this is where the
+literature gets pretty interesting I
+always thought for some reason I don't
+know why but I presumed that mental
+training and visualization should always
+be done eyes closed but it turns out
+that's not how a lot of studies of
+mental training and visualization have
+been done and in fact many of them have
+arrived at really impressive protocols
+which are essentially the protocols that
+I've distilled out and I'm listing out
+during today's episode having people
+either watch videos of themselves
+performing a given skill and imagining
+themselves in that role and again it's
+them so again during the mental training
+visualization they're watching a movie
+of themselves so they're somewhat in the
+third person perspective I guess we
+could technically say they are in the
+third person perspective but they're
+watching thems so in doing that we know
+based on neuroimaging studies that when
+we watch videos of ourselves doing
+things we experience that more from a
+first-person perspective than if we
+watch videos of other people doing
+things use your imagination here folks
+so if you're somebody for instance who's
+trying to get better at a particular
+skill this could be not just sport but
+also public speaking watching videos of
+yourself doing that can be very
+effective but of course we have to come
+back to the first principle of effective
+mental training and visualization which
+is that whatever it is that we're trying
+to build up or consolidate as a skill
+needs to be brief and repeated so what
+we're really talking about here is
+watching a video of ourselves on Loop or
+listening to a audio or audio video
+recording of ourselves on Loop for
+whatever aspect uh that we're trying to
+build up or improve upon now for people
+that for instance are trying to get
+better at dealing with public speaking
+and there isn't a particular skill or
+utterance of particular sentences or
+words that they're trying to accomplish
+but rather they're trying to learn to be
+more relaxed or to articulate better in
+the public speaking scenario there would
+be one of the few instances in which I
+suggest more General theme and not exact
+recapitulation of some specific words
+that you're going to say perhaps it
+could be a sequence of you walking out
+onto stage toward the podium or out from
+the podium and facing the audience and
+looking in multiple directions up and
+down to see people in every corner of
+the room and just repeating that on Loop
+in your mind's eye or watching yourself
+do that on video and making yourself
+calm in your internal State as you're
+doing that this is more of mental
+autonomic training because what you're
+really trying to do is control your
+autonomic nervous system the nervous
+system aspect that controls how alert or
+calm you are as opposed to a specific
+skill however you could also translate
+this to you know dance steps or to motor
+sequences for playing an instrument and
+so on so the point here is that it's not
+as if there is zero utility to third
+person mental training and visualization
+there can be but firsters mental
+training visualization is going to be
+more effective as I mentioned before and
+if you're are going to use third person
+mental training visualization ideally
+you would be looking at yourself either
+on video or listening to yourself in
+audio Andor video that is going to be
+more effective than closing your eyes
+and trying to imagine yourself from a
+third person perspective in your mind's
+eye okay so just to make it really
+simple first person better than third
+person visualization if you're going to
+go with third person visualization try
+and go with real third person
+visualization where you're actually
+seeing and or hearing yourself on a
+screen and again this was somewhat of a
+surprise surprised to me I always
+thought that mental training and
+visualization was done with eyes closed
+I thought okay you close your eyes you
+imagine this you imagine that that's
+actually not the case for many many
+studies some of which are considered
+real Hallmark studies within the field
+of mental training and visualization and
+the different neural circuits that it
+recruits and along those lines there's a
+really interesting study it came out not
+that long ago this was just a summer of
+2022 I'd like to discuss in a little bit
+of detail because it really hammers home
+a number of the principles that we've
+talked about the title of the article is
+mental practice modulates functional
+connectivity between the cerebellum and
+the primary motor
+cortex going to tell you the essential
+features of this study first of all
+primary motor
+cortex sometimes called M1 is a
+relatively small but vitally important
+strip of neurons in or near the front of
+your
+brain the neurons there are called upper
+motor neurons they communicate through a
+set of neural connections with what are
+called lower motor neurons the lower
+motor neurons sit what's called the
+ventral Horn of the spinal cord so along
+the spinal cord you have sensory inputs
+coming from skin and muscle and what's
+called propri receptive feedback that
+tells you where your limbs are in
+relation to each other and to yourself
+and so on you also have motor neurons
+that live in the spinal cord they're
+actually the ones that send little wires
+that we call axons out to the muscles
+release acolan onto those muscles and
+allow those muscles to contract lower
+motor neurons are the ones that actually
+generate movement however they are
+largely responsible for reflexive
+movements or already learned movements
+and they require some input from things
+like Central pattern generators and some
+other circuits within the spinal cord
+and brain stem but it's those M1 primary
+motor cortex neurons that are called
+upper motor neurons because they control
+lower motor neurons through directed
+action
+okay so when I say primary motor cortex
+I'm really talking about those upper
+motor neurons M1 the cerebellum is an
+area in the back of your brain if you
+were to look at a brain You' see two
+little loes back there that are highly
+foliated foliated means that lots of
+lots of f and lots of bumps and grooves
+back there and it actually means mini
+brain it looks like a kind of a mini
+brain stuffed in the back of the brain
+in certain animals the cerebellum is
+much larger than the rest of the brain
+in humans the cerebellum is relatively
+small compared to the rest of so-called
+neocortex the outer shell the human
+brain the cerebellum is involved in
+Balance it's also involved in eye
+movements it's also involved in timing
+and motor learning and the key thing to
+understand is that the cerebellum
+communicates with the primary motor
+cortex and it can do so through what's
+called inhibition and it has outputs
+that inhibit the activity of neurons in
+the motor cortex and elsewhere and that
+has a profound influence on the
+execution of motor Behavior and the
+learning of particular motor behaviors
+now I don't want to get into too much
+detail around all this but what you need
+to know is that the cerebellum
+communicates with M1 primary motor
+cortex M1 is primary motor cortex those
+are the upper motor neurons that are
+going to control the lower motor neurons
+and are going to control physical
+Behavior an execution of physical
+movements the communication between
+cerebellum and primary motor cortex is
+inhibitory although it can activate
+motor cortex too and this gets into a
+little bit of technical detail but there
+can be inhibition of inhibition so if
+you take something that's a break and
+you inhibit that break what you end up
+with is more excitation okay so the
+takeaway here that's key and everyone
+should be able to understand even though
+you may or may not be following this
+whole cerebellum primary motor cortex
+thing is that when we gain a new skill
+or we get more proficient at a skill so
+faster more accurate there tends to be
+more net excitation of the cerebellum to
+motor cortex communication and that is
+accomplished by reducing inhibition so
+that's where it gets a little bit
+confusing to some but in this paper what
+they did is they explored people's
+ability to improve on a very specific
+but very simple motor sequence it's one
+that you're already familiar with it's
+that t sequence that I talked about
+before where the thumb is digit one
+index finger number two middle finger
+number three ring finger number four and
+pinky finger number five and it's a one
+two 1 3 1 4 1 15 1 two 1 3 1 14 one 15
+and they had people actually perform
+this and they measured their speed and
+accuracy and then they had them do a
+practice session that was either an
+intentional task so one group just
+looked at an attentional queue and had
+to maintain uh focus on that attentional
+and another group did mental practice
+they basically did 50 imagined trials so
+just in their Mind's Eye of this 1 two
+13 1 1415 rep on repeat okay 50 trials
+much in the same way as what I
+referenced as the ideal protocol earlier
+okay 50 rounds of that then they got
+tested again on the motor task in the
+real world and there were also
+recordings of the cerebella to primary
+motor cortex communication so there were
+a bunch of different results in this
+study I think are interesting but the
+ones that are most important are that
+quote we found that mental practice
+enhanced both the speed and accuracy of
+this 1 two 13 1 145 performance in the
+real world when people did these 50
+imagin trials there are many results out
+there different papers that parallel and
+essentially say the same thing as what
+is said in this paper remember there
+have been studies of mental training
+dating back to the
+1880s but what this paper really does it
+looks at the neur machinery and the
+changes in the neurom machinery and what
+they found using transcranial magnetic
+stimulation both in the context of
+stimulating but also recording activity
+and connectivity between cerebellum and
+primary motor cortex is that mental
+training
+enhanced the net excitation of
+cerebellum to motor cortex communication
+that is it reduced the inhibition in a
+way that allowed motor cortex to
+generate these movements with more
+accuracy and more speed what's also
+interesting about this paper is that it
+showed that the Improvement in
+performance of this task was not related
+to activation of the motor pathways
+themselves so it's not the case that the
+cerebellum activation or inhibition
+changed the patterns of excitation going
+directly to the spinal cord because
+those Pathways actually exist through a
+couple of intermediate stations what it
+really showed is that when people do
+mental training and here you could say
+Okay 50 trials that's a lot of Trials
+but it's not actually that many trials
+is pretty fast learning if you think
+about do a task in the real world do 50
+Trials of the imagined task do the trial
+in the real world again significant
+Improvement in speed and accuracy
+through now what are becoming to be
+established neural circuit connections
+between cerebellum and primary motor
+cortex okay so this study is one of
+several but not a tremendous number of
+studies out there that are starting to
+really pinpoint the underlying neural
+circuits that allow mental training and
+visualization to really improve motor
+skill performance but again and please
+hear me on this in this study and in the
+vast majority of other studies that have
+shown significant Improvement in Motor
+Performance in the real world by use of
+mental training and visualization there
+was an ability of each and everyone in
+the study to perform the specific motor
+sequence in the real world that then
+they were able to enhance with mental
+training and visualization now thus far
+we've been talking mostly about
+performance of motor sequences and one
+of the things to really understand about
+performance of motor sequences both in
+the real world and in the Imagine
+context is that it involves the doing
+that's what we call a go action and not
+doing certain things what do I mean by
+not doing well for many tasks out there
+even ones as simple as the 1 two 13 1
+1415 task that we talked about a moment
+ago there is the need not just to tap
+those fingers in the correct sequence as
+quickly as possible but also to be
+accurate about it to not do 1314 or 13
+and four at the same time so there's
+both a go component an action component
+and a withhold action component and the
+ability to withhold action is strongly
+constrained by the time domain in other
+words the faster that we need to perform
+a given motor sequence the more likely
+we are to perform incorrect components
+of the motor sequence as well okay so
+one of the key things about mental
+training and visualization that's really
+remarkable is that it can also be used
+and has been shown to improve not just
+go aspects of Motor Performance and
+cognitive performance but also
+noo aspects of Motor Performance and
+skill learning now the go noo thing is
+something I've discussed before on this
+podcast in reference to the so-called
+basil ganglia basil ganglia are
+subcortical so they're below that bumpy
+surface of the human brain that we're
+most accustomed to seeing when we look
+at it from the outside and the basil
+ganglia are strongly involved in Go
+versus noo type tasks and learning now
+there are only a few studies that have
+really looked at the learning and the
+Improvement of noggo components of motor
+learning but these no-go components are
+really really important in fact if we
+were to look at what's involved at
+Improvement in a golf swing or shooting
+free throws or getting better at piano
+or getting better at math or language
+speaking I think it's fair to say that
+at least half and probably as much as
+75% of motor learning is about
+restricting inappropriate movements or
+utterances or thoughts if what you're
+trying to learn is purely cognitive okay
+I think that's an important point that
+brings us back to our initial learning
+when we come into this world that
+developmental plasticity which as you
+recall we have a lot of interconnected
+aspects of our brain and nervous system
+early in life remember the example of
+the kid trying to eat and getting the
+spoon of food and Bowl on their head Etc
+and then over time getting more accurate
+at bringing food to their mouth and
+eating in a in a clean way things most
+but not all people accomplish in at some
+point in the course of their lifetime
+well there haven't been many but there
+have been a few very interesting studies
+looking at how mental training and
+visualization can improve the no-go
+aspect of motor learning and I think
+this is important to highlight because
+it really mirrors What's Done in the
+real world as opposed to just the finger
+tapping type things which are mostly go
+tasks again there's a little bit of a
+no-go component there but there are
+specific tasks that people have
+developed for the laboratory that really
+closely mimic action learning and
+cognitive learning in the real world and
+one of the more um important of those is
+What's called the stop signal task now
+the stop signal task is something that
+I'll explain to you I'll also provide a
+link in the show note caption so you can
+try it it's actually a lot of fun to try
+this because it really gives you a sense
+of just how challenging some of these
+laboratory tasks are let me just
+describe it for a moment the stop signal
+task was really developed and
+popularized by Gordon Logan and William
+Cowen Gordon Logan is at Vanderbilt
+University and has done a lot of really
+important work uh but one of the
+important aspects of his work is looking
+at Motor Performance and skill
+acquisition and the development of the
+stop signal task I'll describe the stop
+signal task for you now in Broad Contour
+you or another research subject would
+sit in front of a screen there are two
+keys on that keyboard or two keys among
+the other keys on that keyboard one
+which is designated left the other which
+is designated right and then on the
+screen you'll be Pres presented for
+instance with a left facing or a right
+facing Arrow so in the initial trial
+what would happen is that Arrow would
+pop up on the screen and your job is to
+press the left key when the right facing
+arrow is presented you press the right
+key okay pretty straightforward but
+there's a limited amount of time in
+which you can do this and the idea is
+that you're going to need to do this
+within approximately 500 milliseconds of
+the presentation of that Arrow or else
+it's going to tell you that you missed
+that trial now of course if you press
+the wrong key so if the arrow goes goes
+left and you press the right key then
+you would be told you got that one wrong
+okay so this is a reaction time test and
+not one that's particularly novel what's
+novel and what Logan and Cowan developed
+was that in the stop signal task every
+once in a while not every trial but
+every once in a while that arrow is
+presented and then with some delay
+ranging from anywhere from 100
+milliseconds to maybe 350 milliseconds
+there would be a red circle or a red X
+also presented which is a stop signal
+and your job is to not press the key
+that corresponds to the direction of
+arrow in fact not press any key at all
+now you can imagine how if the stop
+signal shows up with a longer delay
+after the presentation of the arrow
+there's a higher probability that you
+will have already generated the key
+pressing movement okay so at the link
+that we provided in the show note
+caption you can actually do these two
+tasks and what you'll find is that you
+and most people will be able to do this
+Arrow to Reaction Time pressing of the
+left to right key somewhere in the
+neighborhood between 300 milliseconds
+and maybe as long as 500 millisecond
+delay you'll get an average of how
+quickly you respond and then of course
+if you choose to and I would hope you
+would choose to go on and do the stop
+signal task you will be told trial by
+trial whether or not you are hitting the
+right keys because if you are you'll be
+allowed to progress to the next trial or
+if you are told to stop
+that is you get the stop signal and you
+press the key anyway you'll be told that
+you made an error because you did not
+stop now again with very short delays
+between the presentation of the arrow
+and the stop signal you are going to be
+much better at inhibiting or preventing
+yourself from the behavior at the no-go
+aspect of motor execution that is what
+you will find is that if the stop signal
+is presented very shortly after let's
+say 100 milliseconds which is very very
+brief amount of time after the
+presentation of the arrow there's a good
+chance that you're going to be able to
+withhold the key pressing behavior
+however if the delay is anywhere from
+200 to 350 milliseconds after the
+presentation of the arrow chances are
+that you're going to press the button
+even when you shouldn't have on at least
+some of those trials okay and if you try
+and game the system and wait a certain
+amount of time after the presentation of
+each Arrow there will also be times in
+which the stop signal does not appear
+and you fail to hit the button in the
+appropriate amount of time so it's a fun
+little task it doesn't cost any or is
+that maybe a couple of minutes of your
+time and if you do have time to go to it
+I think um it will give you a much
+deeper flavor for the sorts of
+experiments that we're talking about
+here and that you find that these stop
+signals are actually pretty hard to
+generate when you're trying to learn
+some new motor behavior and that
+actually illustrates a bigger Point here
+if today you sense that we've been
+talking about studies of you know
+tapping fingers and you know stopping
+button presses and that those examples
+are highly artificial and don't really
+translate to the real world
+well keep in mind that the tasks that
+are used in these studies really Target
+the specific neural circuits that is the
+same neural circuits that you would use
+for the performance of essentially any
+motor task now of course other motor
+tasks like ones where you involve your
+feet or cognitive tasks where you have
+to think really hard about specific
+information and search for that
+information assemble it in particular
+ways of course involve other neurons and
+neural circuits that we haven't
+discussed today but the core components
+of these go and no-go tasks or the stop
+signal task really capture the core
+elements of most all of cognitive endoor
+motor learning in some way that's
+fundamentally important okay so they
+have real world
+relevance the paper that I'd like to
+just briefly describe to you is entitled
+motor imagery combined with physical
+training improves response inhibition in
+the stop signal task okay so that title
+is a little bit uh wordy but now you
+know what the stop signal task is and
+what this paper essentially found was
+that if people did physical training so
+the sort of experiment that I just
+described versus mental training where
+they sat eyes open and imagined their
+responses to those arrows and stop
+signals but they didn't actually
+generate any key presses versus a
+combination of the physical training so
+the actual pressing of the buttons or
+withholding pressing of the buttons as
+the case may be plus mental
+training over the course of about 5 days
+using the Contour described of the key
+principles of mental training and
+performance we talked about I'll get to
+the specifics in a moment but it really
+obeyed most all of what we've talked
+about if not all of it so repetition
+simple repeated over about five days and
+so on and so forth what they found was
+that the mental training and physical
+training group so mental and real world
+training groups performed significantly
+better in the stop signal reaction time
+that is they were able to withhold
+action when they needed to withhold
+action more frequently and with more
+accuracy vended either the physical
+training or mental training groups alone
+so this
+actually spits in the face of what we
+said earlier which is that physical
+training is always better than mental
+training and mental training is always
+better than no training and it's
+important to point out here that both
+the physical training and the mental
+training groups experience significant
+improvements in their reaction time and
+accuracy at the stop signal task but in
+the case of this study which is
+exploring the withholding of
+inappropriate
+behaviors the combination of mental
+training and physical training
+outperformed either physical or mental
+training alone so while earlier we said
+that if you have a certain amount of
+time in order to train something up
+physical training is always going to be
+better than mental training well here we
+have somewhat of an exception where if
+the thing you're trying to learn
+involves withholding mistakes as opposed
+to trying to generate the right
+behaviors per se well then you are
+probably better off doing a combination
+of mental training and physical training
+let me state that a little bit
+differently if you're finding that
+you're screwing up something not because
+you can't initiate that particular motor
+Behavior but you're doing the wrong
+thing at the wrong time you're not able
+to withhold a particular action well
+then in that case mental training in
+combination with physical training
+becomes especially important so for you
+coaches for you students out there keep
+that in mind when trying to learn how to
+withhold particular action sequences
+because they're not serving you well in
+the real world using a combination of
+real world training and physical
+training is actually better for you on
+an hour per hour basis than is physical
+training alone a couple of key details
+about this study should you decide to
+implement these protocols in this study
+they did approximately 30 Trials of the
+thing that they were trying to get
+better at now they did those in the real
+world so in this case the stop signal
+task involved actually pressing those
+buttons and then they had a test phase
+of about 144 go trials and about 48 stop
+trials okay so this is important if you
+are a coach or you're a student or
+you're just going to self-direct this
+kind of learning in your self-directed
+adaptive plasticity it's important that
+you mix in both go and no-go trials okay
+it wasn't always the case that there was
+a stop signal
+generated the other thing that was
+really impressive about the study is
+that the changes occurred very quickly
+so the training was performed five times
+over five days so once a day for five
+days again back to to this three to five
+times per week principal
+and the improvements were really
+significant in some cases in fact if you
+decide to puruse this paper uh you can
+go to um table two and you can see you
+know in some cases a near doubling in
+the reduction in reaction time through a
+combination of mental and physical
+training compared to physical training
+alone or mental training alone again
+however both physical training and
+mental training groups alone saw
+significant improvements but the
+combination of mental training and
+physical training was far greater than
+you saw with either one of those alone
+so that's all nicely Quantified for you
+in this paper so again I really like
+this paper despite it not involving a
+huge number of subjects I think it is a
+key paper because it really points to
+such an important element of motor
+learning and training which is this
+action withholding component this no-go
+component that here is captured so
+nicely in the stop signal task so before
+we round up our discussion about motor
+training visualization I wanted to just
+briefly touch on some of the studies
+that have explored why certain
+individuals are better or worse at motor
+training and visualization and what that
+might correlate with at the beginning of
+today's episode I briefly mentioned
+aphantasia which is this phenomenon
+where some people just simply can't or
+seem to have extreme Challenge
+generating visual imagery been a number
+of studies exploring how fantasic as
+they're sometimes called although
+nowadays it's um not considered polite
+if you will to refer to people according
+to their condition so for instance
+propas agnosia is a condition in which
+people are unable to recognize
+particular faces and in the past these
+people were referred to as propac
+agnostics okay as if their condition
+defined them right um nowadays it's not
+considered polite to do that rather we
+say the person has propath agnosia or
+suffers from propath agnosia Al other
+words suffer then also has become a
+little bit touchy I'm going to do my
+best to just try and be as clear as
+possible here and explain that people
+who have Fantasia can have a Fantasia to
+varying degrees so they can either have
+a complete absence of ability to
+generate mental imagery or they have a
+poor or kind of rudimentary ability to
+generate visual imagery in their Mind's
+Eye it was thought that people who have
+aphantasia are not capable of what's
+called synesthesia synesthesia or when
+people have perceptual blending and this
+is not while under the influence of any
+kind of psychedelic or other kind of
+drug perceptual blending of an atypical
+kind or rare kind I actually have some
+friends I two friends that have
+different forms of synesthesia One
+Associates different keys on the piano
+or musical notes with specific colors in
+a very very onetoone specific way so
+they'll tell you that E flat on the
+piano is a particular tone in their mind
+of of Amber
+Hue okay and that I forget what other
+key is associated with a particular
+shade of red and so on and so forth are
+these people better at piano are they
+more perceptive of colors in their
+environment not necessarily so this is
+just a perceptual blending it doesn't
+necessarily lend itself to any improved
+ability now you could imagine why people
+would hypothesize that people have a
+Fantasia especially it's its extreme
+form would not be capable of or have
+synesthesias but turns out that's not
+the case there are a couple of really
+interesting papers again we will link
+these in the show note captions um one
+is entitled what is the relationship
+between aphantasia synesthesia and
+autism and the other one is aphantasia
+the science of visual imagery extremes
+and I really like the review aphantasia
+the science of visual imagery extremes
+for those of you that are interested in
+understanding aphantasia with more depth
+the study addressing the relationship
+between aphantasia cesia and autism
+found that aphantasia is indeed linked
+to weak visual imagery but that
+aphantasia can also be synesthesics and
+vice versa what was also interesting
+about this study is they address the
+question of whether or not people who
+have a Fantasia that is a challenge or
+inability to generate mental or visual
+imagery tend to have features associated
+with autism or residing somewhere on the
+autism spectrum and I'm not trying to
+use ambiguous language here but the
+whole set of language and nomenclature
+around autism and autism spectrum is
+also undergoing revision now because we
+are now coming to understand that
+autism and nowadays it's generally not
+considered correct to call people
+autistics in that sense but autism is
+considered one set of positions along a
+spectrum that includes things like
+Aspergers Etc but that may also include
+other aspects of cognition and even
+personality so these are starting to be
+viewed not just as a spectrum or one
+Continuum ranging from you know
+non-autistic to autistic but a lot of
+variation and subtlety in between and
+even crossing over with other aspects of
+U personality Psychology and
+Neuroscience okay so I'm not trying to
+be vague here I'm trying to be accurate
+rather by saying the whole description
+and categorization of autistic
+non-autistic Etc is undergoing vast
+revision right now but the important
+point I think from this paper is that
+indeed
+it was found that people who have
+aphantasia tend to exhibit more of the
+features that are associated with the
+autism spectrum now how those things
+relate to one another in terms of their
+clinical relevance isn't clear and of
+course it is entirely unclear as to
+what's the chicken and what's the egg
+there so you could imagine no pun
+intended for instance that people that
+are on the autism spectrum might be less
+proficient at generating visual imagery
+because they are exceedingly proficient
+at other things you could also imagine
+that people are placed onto the autism
+spectrum as it's sometimes referred to
+or are associated with particular
+features on the autism spectrum because
+in a causal way of the aphantasia and of
+course it's extremely important to
+highlight that not all people that
+consider themselves or that people
+consider Autistic or that are on the
+autism spectrum or Aspergers or any
+variation thereof necessarily have
+aphantasia just as it is that not all
+people that are on the autism spectrum
+completely lack or even lack what's
+called theory of mind which is the
+ability to sort of empathize And
+subscribe feelings and motivations of
+others when viewing the actions and
+perceived feelings of others okay so
+what I just described hopefully doesn't
+come across as just a bunch of words
+soup what I'm trying to pinpoint is that
+there does seem to be a relationship
+between one's ability to generate visual
+imagery and certain constellations of
+cognitive emotional perception and
+behavior and vice versa okay in a future
+episode I promise to cover synesthesia
+and autism and some of the related
+cognitive and motor aspects of autism
+and things like Aspergers I'm going to
+feature an expert guest or actually
+several expert guests in this area
+because it is a rapidly evolving and
+somewhat controversial field meanwhile I
+think it's important to at least
+consider how mental training and
+visualization might relate to to certain
+aspects of cognition and our ability to
+visualize things not just in terms of
+other people's behavior which is one of
+the common ways that people probe for
+autism and Asbergers versus non-autistic
+and non- Asbergers and so on the So-Cal
+theory of Mind task in effect asking
+whether or not children or adults can
+really get in the mind of others that's
+a typical task developed by Simon Baron
+Cohen but also whether or not children
+and adults are capable of generating
+mental imagery in a really Vivid way or
+whether or not they have minor or even
+extreme Challenge in doing so and
+perhaps the most direct way to explain
+why I included this aspect of the
+discussion of mental training and
+visualization as it relates to different
+cognitive phenotypes or neurocognitive
+phenotypes such as autism Asbergers Etc
+is because if you think about motor
+skill execution or cognitive skill
+execution and the relationship between
+mental training and visualization and
+motor skills or cognitive skills that's
+all pretty straightforward when you're
+talking about finger tapping and go noo
+tasks and learning piano and things of
+that sort but in many many ways our
+learning of social cognition our
+learning of how to behave in certain
+circumstances what's considered normal
+or
+atypical neurotypical and neuroatypical
+if you will a lot of that is not just
+generated from the inside out but it
+also involves observation and
+visualization of what are considered
+appropriate and inappropriate definitely
+placed in quotes by the way folks I'm
+not placing judg judement I'm just
+saying appropriate and inappropriate for
+a given context behavior in other words
+social learning and social cognition is
+every bit as much a learned behavior and
+pattern of cognitive and motor patterns
+as is tapping fingers or withholding
+keypresses in a go noo task it's just
+that it transmits into a domain that
+involves smiling versus frowning versus
+asking a question versus staying silent
+versus sitting still versus fidgeting
+what's appropriate and when what's
+inappropriate and when all of that is
+what we call social cognition and has
+direct parallels to everything we've
+been talking about up until this point
+so today we did a deep dive which is
+often the case on this podcast into
+mental training and
+visualization during the course of the
+episode I try to lay down one by one the
+key components of an effective mental
+training and visualization practice
+everything ranging from making sure that
+the practice involve brief EPO repeats
+of specific sequences of motor Endor
+cognitive behavior that those be
+relatively simple so that you can
+imagine them even if you're somebody
+who's not good at doing mental training
+and visualization and I should mention
+that if you do mental training and
+visualization repeatedly over time you
+get better at mental training and
+visualization there's a what's called
+metaplasticity here so it's not just
+about engaging neuroplasticity of
+particular circuits it's also about
+getting better at engaging plasticity so
+plasticity of
+plasticity I also describe the key
+Importance of Being able to actually
+execute specific movements and cognitive
+tasks in the real world if you want the
+mental training and visualization to be
+especially effective and we talked about
+the importance of naming things we
+talked about the importance of creating
+not just one but many parallels between
+real world training and mental training
+and visualization and really on the
+whole what we established was that
+cognitive Andor motor learning really is
+something that you should do in the real
+world as much as possible but if you
+can't due to injury or whatever
+conditions using mental training is a
+reasonable substitute but not a complete
+substitute and if you can't do real
+world training for whatever reason
+injury or otherwise that mental training
+is going to be better than no training
+at all and of course we established that
+at least for withholding action in order
+to get better at a skill a combination
+of physical training and mental training
+is going to be best but that if you're
+trying to learn a new skill and you're
+having challenges with performing that
+skill because of an inability to do the
+skill in the first place or on a
+consistent basis will then on an hour
+by- hour basis you're best off investing
+your time into the physical training
+only incorporating mental training and
+visualization if you are able to do that
+on top of the maximum amount of real
+world training that you're capable of
+doing and of course we talked about the
+actual neural circuits and a bit about
+how the actual neuroplasticity occurs
+early in the episode I mentioned
+long-term depression well in describing
+the improvements in no-go tasks those
+stop signal tasks a lot of what's
+observed during those tasks is
+Improvement or rather an increase in
+long-term depression of specific neural
+connections so my hope is that in
+learning about those basic neural
+circuits and plasticity mechanisms and
+in learning about the critical
+importance of focus and attention during
+learning both real world and imagined as
+well as the importance of sleep and deep
+rest for really consolidating learning
+and the different tools the various
+steps or principles of effective mental
+training and visualization that you now
+have a fairly coherent or maybe even a
+very coherent picture of how to develop
+the best mental training and
+visualization protocols for you I
+realize that everyone has different
+goals everyone has different time
+constraints if you are somebody that's
+interested in developing a mental
+training and visualization protocol so
+if you're a coach or teacher or simply a
+learner or you're trying to self-direct
+your own adaptive plasticity I want to
+emphasize that the key components that
+we discussed today are essential to
+include but I wouldn't obsess about
+whether or not a given Epoch is 15 or 20
+seconds or even 25 seconds I wouldn't
+obsess over whether or not you got 30
+repetitions in and then your mind
+drifted or whether or not you could do
+the full 50 to 75 or whether or not even
+in your mind's eye you made some errors
+what's been shown over and over again in
+this literature is that performing
+mental training and visualization
+repeatedly and in a very restricted way
+that makes it easier to perform those
+trials over and over and over again and
+with a high degree of accuracy almost
+always really we can fairly say in a
+entally every study where it's been
+explored has led to improvements in real
+world performance of both cognitive
+Andor physical tasks so if you're trying
+to learn anything at all I do encourage
+you to explore motor training and
+visualization because basically all the
+studies out there in fact I couldn't
+find one exception where some degree of
+improvement wasn't observed when people
+use motor training and visualization on
+a consistent basis even just the three
+to five times per week these simple
+repeats over and over so I don't want to
+over complicate or make it sound like
+mental training and visualization has to
+be performed in a very precise way or
+that it has to be done perfectly each
+and every time quite to the contrary
+what is clear is that mental training
+and visualization is a very effective
+way to improve real world performance if
+you're learning from and or enjoying
+this podcast please subscribe to our
+YouTube channel that's a terrific zeroc
+cost way to support us in addition
+please subscribe to the podcast on both
+Spotify and apple and on both Spotify
+and apple you can leave us up to a
+five-star review if you have questions
+for us or comments about the podcast or
+guest you'd like me to feature on the
+hubman Lab podcast please put those in
+the comment section on YouTube I do read
+all the comments please also check out
+the sponsors mentioned at the beginning
+and throughout today's episode that's
+the best way to support the hubman Lab
+podcast not so much on today's episode
+but on many previous episodes of The
+hubin Lab podcast we discuss supplements
+while supplements aren't necessary for
+everybody many people derive tremendous
+benefit from them for things like
+improving sleep for hormone augmentation
+and for improving Focus the uberman Lab
+podcast is prject to have partnered with
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+learn more about the supplements
+discussed on the hubman Lab podcast
+please go to live momentous spelled o
+us.com huberman again that's liv.com
+huberman if you're not already following
+hubman lab on social media I am huberman
+lab on LinkedIn Facebook Twitter and
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+cover content some of which overlaps
+with the content of the hubman Lab
+podcast but much of which is distinct
+from content on the huberman Lab podcast
+so again it's hubman lab on all social
+media platforms also I know many of you
+are interested in summaries of podcasts
+and what we call toolkits which describe
+ideal toolkits and protocols for sleep
+or ideal toolkit and protocols for
+neuroplasticity or for deliberate cold
+exposure etc for that reason we've
+established What's called the neural
+network newsletter this is a completely
+zeroc cost newsletter that you can sign
+up for by going to hubman lab.com go to
+the menu scroll down to newsletter and
+you sign up by providing your email we
+do not share your email with anybody and
+there are also some sample PDFs of
+existing hub podcast protocols again
+ranging from neuroplasticity to sleep
+and other topics that we've covered in
+brief one to three page summaries thank
+you once again for joining me for
+today's discussion all about the science
+and effective implementation of mental
+training and visualization and last but
+certainly not least thank you for your
+interest in science
+[Music]
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