Thursday, October 19, 2017

Education Increases Novel Learning Throughout Our Lives

Our brains are amazing muscles that continually learn and get faster and more accurate with repeated practice. Attending school and obtaining higher education has long-lasting impact on our incomes and our minds. Now according to new research it also impacts our cognitive abilities in a way that increases our novel learning.

According to a resent study the more we learn, the more our novel learning goes up (Buerra-Carrillo, Katovich, Bunge, S. (2017). Novel learning is something we don't already know but can understand and provide some type of solution. People with higher education have an advantage over others when it comes to learning.

Think of when you have a business problem. There may not be a perfect previous solution out there as the problem is unique and needs to be worked out in a novel way. Your novel learning abilities create higher levels of ability to solve problems.

While the study showed that this effect was consistent across different ages. While the advantages on each task are significant the overall advantage over one's life would be huge. Each small decision creates compounded benefits over time.

If your reasoning and cognitive processing abilities rise then you are likely to be able to make better decisions at work and understand things better than others. This helps you earn more money and achieve more of your goals.

While no one can definitively tell you what programs to go into and how long you should study they can say that the process of studying does actually train the brain to do better. The benefits of higher education moves beyond the collection of useless facts and into stronger ability to do something with new knowledge.

Guerra-Carriolo, B. Katovich, K. & Bunge, S. (2017). Does higher education hone cognitive functioning and learning efficacy? Findings from a large and diverse...PLos One, 12 (8).

Feel free to reprint with appropriate attribution-Dr. Murad Abel


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