Passive learning imprints on the brain just like active learning

It's conventional wisdom that practice makes perfect. But if
practicing only
consists of watching, rather than doing, does that advance
proficiency? Yes,
according to a study by Dartmouth researchers.

In a study titled "Sensitivity of the Action Observation Network to
Physical and
Observational Learning" published in the journal Cerebral Cortex in
May 2008,
Dartmouth researchers determined that people can acquire motor skills
through
the "seeing" as well as the "doing" form of learning.

"It's been established in previous research that there are
correlations in
behavioral performance between active and passive learning, but in
this study we
were surprised by the remarkable similarity in brain activation when
our
research participants observed dance sequences that were actively or
passively
experienced," says Emily Cross, the principal investigator and PhD
student at
Dartmouth. Cross, who earned her degree in June, is currently a post-
doctoral
fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Cognitive and Brain Sciences in
Leipzig,
Germany.

Cross and her collaborators used a video game where players have to
move in a
particular sequence to match the position of arrows on the screen,
similar to
the popular Dance Dance Revolution game. The researchers measured the
skill
level of participants for sequences that were actively rehearsed
daily, and a
different set of sequences that were passively observed for an
equivalent amount
of time. Brain activity when watching both kinds of sequences (as well
as a
third set of sequences that were entirely unfamiliar) was captured
using fMRI,
functional magnetic resonance imaging. The study focused on the Action
Observance Network (AON) in the brain, a group of neural regions found
mostly in
the inferior parietal and premotor cortices of the brain (near the top
of the
head) responsible for motor skills and some memory functions.

"We collected fMRI data before and after five days of both visual and
physical
training," says Cross, "and there was common AON activity when
watching the
practiced and observed dance sequences."

This research contributes to a growing body of study about how people
learn and
how best to help people with brain injuries. Cross explains that
future studies
might consider how such overlap between physical and observational
learning at
the brain level can improve upon rehabilitation therapies for
individuals
affected by physical or neurological injury.

Source: Dartmouth College
http://www.physorg.com/news135253078.html