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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
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-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
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-again 8sleep.com
-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
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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
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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
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-cover content some of which overlaps
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-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
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-there are also some sample PDFs of
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-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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