Science-Based Mental Training Visualization for Improved Learning | Huberman Lab Podcast - 2023

Title : Science-Based Mental Training Visualization for Improved Learning | Huberman Lab Podcast Author(s): Andrew Huberman Link(s) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RYyQRQFgFk

2 main requirements for self-directed adaptive (i.e. adult) plasticity:

• Focused, dedicated attention.
• Good sleep the night afterwards (and around ~2-3 more nights).

Babies have uncoordinated motor movements (e.g. they cannot easily put the spoon in their mouth) not because they lack sufficient neural connections - but because they have too many connections between too many neurons.

What happens during the development of a motor skill (as a baby, adolescent or an adult) is that you are eliminating incorrect movements to arrive to the correct movements (this process is called long-term depression - the other type of neuroplasticity relevant here is called long-term potentiation which is a building up process where connections are increased).

Mental training and visualization is not a replacement for real-world cognitive and motor behaviour - however it can be enhance the speed and stability of that learning.

Many people can visualize auditory or visual simple things for ~15 seconds. Most people however cannot imagine long extended scenes involving lot of sensory stimuli.

First principle of mental training and visualization - to use it to the best effect, keep visualizations brief, ~15-20 seconds, and pretty sparse i.e. not including lots of elaboration/motor steps/visual/audio sequences. They should be repeatable over and over again with high accuracy.

Roger Sheppard's research showed that people can visualize simple objects very fast, but it took longer for them to visualize rotations of such objects - how long it takes someone to rotate a given image scales directly with the complexity of the image. (Steve Koseling?)'s experiment : Show a map to people - have people imagine moving from one location to another on the map by giving them paths involving landmarks. The time taken for people to move from one location to another scaled linearly with the actual physical location of the landmarks on the map. That is, the processing speed of imagined and real experiences are the same - when we imagine something, we imagine the real thing happened - the brain behaves the exact same way.

Second principle of mental training and visualization - it is not as effective as real behaviour and thinking, i.e. the ideal situation for learning is to combine real training with mental training.

Apriori, you cannot imagine a bi-stable image (e.g. vase or 2 faces image), that is, until you trace the image in the real world with a pen on a piece of paper you can do it. This implies that the combination of real motor movements combined with what is imagined with the mind's eye gives the most depth and flexibility for your mental visualization.

Third principle of mental and training and visualization - Mental training and visualization is far more effective if you perform the exact same/very similar mental and physical tasks in the real world.

In your minds eye, you are better able to manipulate specific objects and see it more clearly when it has a label you can recognize from real-world experience.

Fourth principle : Our cognitive labels, i.e. what we decide is happening when we do mental training and visualization is very important. You need to apply a name/identity to the mental visualization, e.g. name a specific golf swing as 1A, and applying the same name to it during actual training.

Fifth principle : Equivalence of mental imagery and real-world perception and behaviour.

Ideally, rest for ~15 seconds after each ~15 second visualization, and repeat for 50-75 times. For language learning, try something like speaking a sentence which you want to improve the accent upon. Overall doing this for 2-3 times per week minimum, or 3-5 per weeks for maximum effect. This does not have to continue forever - once the skill has been consolidated, mental training and visualization is not needed to maintain it.

Mental training and visualization should be done for skills where the user has some level of proficiency, instead of a totally new skill.

10 hours of real world training + 1 hour of mental training is better than 11 hours of real world training - the general ordering is real world training > mental training > no training. Specifically in cases like injuries, mental training is way better than no training.

First person perspective is better than third person perspective, and third person perspective is better when you see/hear yourself. Note that many studies were not done with eyes closed.