Neuroscience of Learning & Change
There are, in essence, three ‘thinking’ processes occurring in the human brain (corresponding to three levels of the human psyche):
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rational, serial thinking (e.g. solving problems, making plans).
The wiring (neural tracts) goes from point A to B to C, always following this order; -
associative, habitual, net-worked thinking (e.g. driving a car, habits, emotional reactions).
The wiring is in networks and occurs through experience; -
visionary, creative, innovative, emmergent thinking (‘brain waves’, ‘aha experience’, patterns that give meaning). These processes are not pre-wired.
For some reason, at certain moments, different areas in the brain ‘light up’ simultaneously (synchronised oscillations) which creates a pattern that connects these different areas. Those patterns are unique to individuals, to situations, and to different moments in time. In those moments or sitations, places in the brain that were previously not connected, through the emergent pattern ‘lighting up’, get connected in a new way. We then see things in a new light, have a new perspective, or have a new creative/innovative/visionary idea.
Different engagement and training strategies are required to accommodate these different mind modes or ‘thinking processes’. Knowing what to do and doing what you know are two very different things. The first usually involves the linear mind mode while the latter involves habitual, networked processes.
Classroom style training is effective in helping people know more about what is involved in doing something well (linear thinking). It is estimated — for example — that only about 15% of learning from traditional classroom style training, results in sustained behavioural change within the workplace (habitual processes).
After the initial instance of “aha, I got it” (third mode emergent ‘thinking’), sustained learning necessitates hard-wiring into the brain which, in turn, requires longer term directed focus, attention, practice and repetition.
The brain is constantly making new connections and testing new or seemingly new data against existing established circuitry (networks of connected neurons) patterns. With every new mental experience (a thought, an insight, an imaginary picture or an emotion), a new ‘map’ of connections emerges.
The act of focusing attention stabilises the associated network of connections in the brain. Concentrating attention on a mental experience upholds the specific map of connections in the brain that ‘belongs to’ that experience. Over time, paying enough attention to any specific brain connection keeps the relevant circuitry open and dynamically alive. These circuits can then, eventually, become not just chemical links but stable, physical changes in the brain's structure. What was a new mental experience has become a hard-wired habit.
All processes in the brain occur in a holistic complex. Effective training addresses the complex as a whole. Such training involves using the technology that is actually affecting the habit-forming and habit-maintaining mechanisms in the brain.
