Learning: New vs. Old

Last week, I wrote about the effects of emotion on learning (read the post here). This week I've been reading about the effects of 'new versus old' on learning. In other words, does something that is novel or something that is familiar sink into the memory better and correspond with better learning?

Well, it turns out, that both have an impact, but through different mechanisms in the brain. According to a 2012 article by van Kesteren and colleagues, a novel experience or piece of information is first processed by medial temporal lobe structures in the brain. Experiences that fit with an existing "schema" are, in contrast, mediated by the medial prefrontal cortex. Repetition of either type of experience or information eventually leads to new connections being formed in the cortex of the brain (yet a third region). This latter process is termed consolidation. Failure to repeat the experience or information results in discarding, or forgetting.

So, what's a schema? A schema refers to a pre-existing set of ideas, information, or experiences centered around a given topic. The example van Kesteren gives in the article is one of the Plastic Duck. Imagine that you walk into your bathroom and encounter a plastic duck, not the one you typically take into your bubble bath with you, but a slightly different one. Because you already associate plastic ducks with bath time, this new information fits in with your schema (and thus would be processed by the medial prefrontal cortex). If, on the other hand, you walked into a bakery and saw this same plastic duck, this would not relate to your pre-existing schema for bakeries (and, thus, this information would be processed by the medial temporal lobe).

All of development, whether it happens when you're five months old or fifty years old, is a process of learning. So, as a person fascinated by human development, I find this research useful. What I take away from this article is that learning is a process reliant upon both new and old information. Any time we want to teach someone a new fact or a new skill, we do best to provide some aspect of novelty, but one that builds on a foundation of what they already know.

Thumbnail image "Duck Farming is Big Business, Flanders, NY" from New York Public Library, Digital Collection