Page 161 - Microsoft Word - The Future of Learning April 2017.docx

Due of our ability to form concepts and conceptual frameworks, we can make predictions about our world, using our brain’s pattern recognition capacity and apply those patterns non- consciously to new contexts that we can make predictions about. This emerging model for how the brain learns predicts that the speed and reliability of our neural sequencing will decrease over our lifetime, and the reason for this may be surprising.
This decrease in cognitive reliability is due to our brain’s desire for creativity, that continually results in the creation of additional concepts which in turn requires more neurons to morph into astrocytes or be created in the gyrus, to map and automate those new concepts...
...but in this emerging model there are consequences of this process
1. The more concepts or patterns we learn and map, the more intelligent we become BUT
2. Due to the increasing number of astrocytes interrogating our neural sequences looking for patterns, astrocytes sometimes interrupt that sequencing, resulting in ‘senior moments’ and temporary loss of access to a previously sequenced memory - the downside.
3. Our ability to learn via rote reduces as we age, as we create additional astrocytes or convert more neurons to astrocytes and our brain required those neurons to learn via rote.
Now, where was I? That’s right ... As a consequence of this process, this emerging model predicts that the more concepts and concept frameworks we map, the more creative we can be, but it also becomes more likely we will experience temporary ‘memory interruption’ and we should expect to experience increasing numbers of ‘senior moments’ as we age. We have not lost the memory, but rather, with the increased numbers of astrocytes interrogating our neural sequences (while we look for patterns), astrocytes interrupt those neural sequences that host our rote-learned memories that we learned long ago.
The smarter we get, the more senior moments we will tend to experience. Hence the adage ‘the absent-minded professor’. So, next time you have a senior moment, at least you know that this is mostly because you are getting smarter due to all the concepts that you have understood, mapped and automated.
Driving into the city is a good example of an automated concept we mapped many years ago. It is important that we let those processes happen non-consciously and that we do not try to consciously ‘remember’ how to navigate our way through the city. The automated process of driving a car will kick in, if we maintain our confidence in it. If we lose that confidence, then we start thinking we are losing our memory and start consciously thinking about how to get to the city. Our confidence in our automated concepts is significant as we age. If you or someone you know, suffers from this loss of confidence, remember that we can recall how to get to where we need to be, but only if we do not think about it consciously. It may help if the driver talks to others as they drive, or sing along to songs so they cannot attempt to think consciously about driving.
The reason humans have evolved these non-conscious, astrocytic-neural relationships is that our brain can only think consciously about one idea or concept at a time,175 so we can only multitask is if we carry out the other tasks non- consciously. No other species has developed this capacity for automaticity.
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175 If you are unsure about this, try adding and subtracting two numbers simultaneously.