Episode 43 Exploring Interactive, Indirect Experience, Direct Experience, Rhythmic Melodic Ways of Processing

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Exploring Interactive, Indirect Experience, Direct Experience, Rhythmic Melodic Ways of Processing

Episode 43 of the Personal Brain Trainer Podcast

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Transcript:

Erica: Welcome to the personal brain trainer podcast. I'm Dr. Erica Warren.

Darius: And I'm Darius Namdaran and we're your hosts. Join us on an adventure to translate the scientific jargon and brain research into simple metaphors and explanations for everyday life. We explore executive function and learning strategies that help turbocharge the mind.

Erica: Come. Um, learn to steer around the invisible barriers so that you can achieve your goals. This podcast is ideal for parents, educators, and learners of all ages. This podcast is brought to you by Goodsensorylearning.com, where you can find educational and occupational therapy lessons and remedial materials that bring delight to learning. Finally, you can find Dr. Warren's many courses@learningspecialistcourses.com. Come check out our newest course on developing executive functions and study strategies.

Darius: This podcast is sponsored by Dyslexiaproductivitycoaching.com. We give you a simple productivity system for your Apple devices that harnesses the creativity that comes with your Dyslexia.

Erica: Hey, Darius, how's it going? What are we going to be talking about today?

Darius: Well, I think we're going to do the third part in this three-part series that we've been focusing in on your twelve processing modes. What do you call it again?

Erica: Twelve ways of processing.

Darius: Twelve ways of processing. How dyslexic of me, I say the same thing in different ways every time. Twelve ways of processing. And we got the final four. It was quite interesting because I was looking over the last two, and it seems to me that the pattern emerging when I look at it is the first four that you shared were visual processing, auditory processing, tactile, and kinesthetic. And those are very much senses, very sense orientated, visual, auditory, tactile, kinesthetic. And then the next four that we talked about last time was sequential, simultaneous, reflective, verbal. This is very much around information as a whole rather than sensory information. It's like more abstract information, the sequential, simultaneous. And then in this block, we're really talking about experiential type processing. So why don't you explain the next four to us and, um, we can explore maybe that characterization.

Erica: Well, yeah, it's funny that you say that because I agree. The first four was definitely a block of sensory, and I thought they also worked really well with working memory. And the second block, as you were saying, worked very well with information processing. So two of those were from information processing model that I studied in graduate school. The other two were Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligences that I brought in that I felt were really important for processing. And these last four, I hear what you're saying about experiential. Two of them definitely are experiential, but the other two a little bit different. But let's jump into them. So we've got interactive, indirect experience, direct experience, and rhythmic melodic ways of processing today. And I guess we'll start with interactive. So interactive processors love to brainstorm their ideas with others. So it's not necessarily that verbal piece of it, which we talked about last week. It's the fact that they really enjoy the interactive process, they enjoy learning with company. So it's more the company than it is the opportunity to think aloud. And when I initially created the inventory that I used to assess people's best ways of processing, I was surprised that there wasn't a higher correlation between those that were verbal processors and those that were interactive processors. I personally felt that they'd probably go hand in hand, and I found that that really wasn't the case. I mean, there are definitely those that are verbal processors that are not interactive processors. They really just need to hear themselves think and it's not the interaction and they don't even want to interact. They just want to think out loud, right? And then there are those that are very interactive, but they really do not want to speak, they just want the company. And I've had students, for example, that they just don't want to do their homework alone in a room if their parent is in the kitchen and they're sitting at the bar, so to speak, just having that company, even though their parent doesn't have to say a uh, word, they just want the company of others.

Darius: Have you heard of these YouTube videos where they go live and it's kind of study with me and all it is a video of someone sitting there at the desk studying and that's it for like 4 hours. And then there's a whole bunch of other people who join the live and are just working away at the same time. And the only thing that the person says is oh, that's 25 minutes, maybe good time for a quick break, I'll see you in five minutes. And they go off and have a quick break and then everyone else has a quick break and comes back and maybe some people are putting in some comments and so on in there and on the 1 hour they look at the comments and go, oh yeah, that is interesting, or whatever. And they have a chat type break and then just carry on and all they're doing is this quiet working away.

Erica: That is so brilliant. I love that. Well, and there seems to be this new, huge thing within communities of um where businesses are opening up spaces that are group spaces. So for example, if you have your own private practice, but you don't want to really work alone, you can become a member of these spaces and you just go there and you work. And there are all these other people that are working, and they have different tables, and they have little breakout rooms that you can go into that are more soundproof. But I know that I was collaborating with somebody on a project at one time and we always met through Zoom in one of those locations. But what he loved about it is that he was in Atlanta and there were like ten different ones that he could go to. So every time he was in a different one and he would interact with different people, and they had coffee and they had other little pleasant trees and it was his way of being able to save money. He didn't have to have an office space. He really used that as like, uh, to have an office. But then as he was chatting with me, people would go by, and he'd wave. And it's great because for those that work alone, they can actually find a community.

Darius: And so what's interesting here is that I did that seven years ago. I was in a co working space when I started Bullet Map Academy, and then I took on a team of freelancers that worked for me full time in the Philippines. And we met every day on Zoom five years ago and kept doing it on a weekly basis, daily basis. And some of the times what we do is we'd switch on Zoom and just work and just have Zoom on and we would just work and then we wouldn't say anything to each other, but we would just be there chatting and so on. And then occasionally we go, hey Joanna, have you got such and such? Oh, yeah, I've got that. I'll send that over to you. Just like you're sitting at a desk in an office. And we would do that for maybe 2 hours together, especially if we were working on a video project together, creating a course, and that would start our day. And then we go off and do our alone time. And so we segmented our day into saying, right, this is our together time, we're working alongside each other, but we're not just talking all the time, but we also know that there will be someone there. And if we need Zeus, I'll speak to Zeus when we're working together. And then afterwards it's really focused time for another, uh, block of time. So you've got the whole range.

Erica: And I would imagine that there were those in your team that really thrived with the interaction and those that probably didn't like it as much. Did you notice that at all?

Darius: Yes, and I think that's quite helpful, where we had a couple of hours each day when we did that, not 8 hours in a day. And so I think if you've got sort of like a period of time and it's ring fenced, then you can go into that mode and you can learn that mode. And it's interesting, you're talking about interactive processing here, interactive learning, and often in these co working spaces, you think, oh, I'm just wanting to be social. And there is you just want to be social, and I love that. But it's interesting that some people actually need the interaction to process the information and progress what they're digesting, mentally digesting and internalizing. And it's so true. So we've got indirect experience and direct experience.

Erica: What are they so indirect experience is more of a vicarious learning where you're watching demonstrations, you're not actually doing it, but you're watching somebody else do it. And for some people, that's more than enough. And then there are those that actually need to do it. So they don't want to watch a demonstration, they just want to do it. So they might have to do it along with you. So for example, for direct experience learners, I might have two whiteboards if I'm working with them in person, where when I'm doing my demonstration, they're following along at the same time. So it's very interesting. Some people are both indirect and direct experience, where they like to watch a demonstration and then do it, whereas others are one or the other or neither. But I find that the direct experience learners really like to get out into the world. They really want to learn how all of these concepts apply. They love to go places like the museum, or they love the aquarium. There are all these different places that they can go to and learn, or just even just going into the city. If you live near a city, like I live near New York City, there are all sorts of things that you can learn about and have that direct experience. And it's funny, whenever I give my profile to families and there's a person that's a direct experience learner, I usually say, I bet this person in your family really likes to do things and is probably dragging you all over the place. Is that true? And they always laugh and they're like, oh my gosh, yes. He or she always wants to go and do things in person. And that doesn't really work for me, but I just let them go do their thing because they just really need that idea of really experiencing things themselves. So in the workforce it might look more like an apprenticeship or, uh, on the job training, watching a video might not be enough for them.

Darius: So thinking about these four together as a set, that leads us on to rhythmic melodic. And it reminds me of the song, uh, by Neil Diamonds, what a Beautiful Sound. You're talking about direct experience, the city and so on. But then in that song, he's like, what a beautiful sound. And he's talking about the traffic going by and the rhythm of different things happening in the city and so on. And he's experiencing that direct experience of the city, but through sound and the rhythms of the sound and the melody of it, for me, encapsulates an experience, but having that experience of the city through sound, through music, and then expressing it as a song. I love that song. Do you know the song?

Erica: Probably, but it's not coming up for me.

Darius: Right.

Erica: What's the gist of the song?

Darius: Well, it starts off like what a beautiful sound coming up from the street. It makes me feel good. I don't know the lyrics complete me. I can feel the beat of the traffic and that sort of thing. So he can hear the rhythm of the traffic, he can hear the rhythm of the rain, he can hear the sounds of the shops and so on. And for some people, that would just be just noise, but for him, it's music and he turns it into the music in the song itself as well, to try and mimic it. And it's like an insight into a, uh, musician's, uh, mind. Because in the last episode I was talking to you about my daughter and how we used to say to her, look, it's time for your inside voice right now, because she would just sing all the time. And we would say to her, why are you singing? And she goes, well, of course I'm singing, uh, there's music. And I'm like, but there's no music playing right now. And she said, well, there's music in my head. And I say, Is there music in your head, like playing all the time? And she's like, yeah. And I said, Is it the same music all the time? And she's like, no. And I said, uh, does the music change depending on what's happening? Yeah. And so, like, if she's going into a quiet mode or zone or whatever, the music soundtrack of her mind goes down into something low key. And then when she starts running up and down and dancing and so on, then the music goes up and then she starts singing it and adding words to it. And basically, she just had this nonstop soundtrack of life going on all the time. And can you imagine what it was like for her when she discovered Spotify? She just stuck into Spotify, and she would say to me, dad, what music did you have when you were young? And I was like, well, there was Dire Straits and there was YouTube and so on. And she would go, right, she'd listen to it. And she'd end up knowing more about my genre of music than me because she just listened to everything nonstop.

Erica: Wow, that's really interesting. Well, and I can remember a musician taking my profile and being really upset that they weren't a rhythmic, melodic learner.

Darius: Oh, fascinating.

Erica: Is that interesting? And I said, well, it doesn't have to do with your musical ability, it's just a matter of whether you think to a rhythm or a beat. Well, there are many ways it can manifest. So it might manifest that you just kind of have a rhythm or a beat going on, or that you can use a rhythm or a beat to affect your work productivity. So you can always speed up your productivity, or some people can by speeding up the beat. And sometimes I just make recommendations to people to listen. Maybe it's something as simple as a beat that if you feel you want to work a little faster, you can just increase that beat. And it could be a drumbeat, it could be a metronome, it could be music. A lot of it is exploring what type of music helps you to learn. Now, understand that there are those that find music to be extraordinarily difficult to listen to when they're trying to think or study that in fact, it's distracting. But for people that are rhythmic, melodic learners, well, some of them, because they're like again, we're going back to this is another one that has two types. There are those that are rhythmic melodic learners where music or a song helps them to memorize things. Like, for example, learning the quadratic equation to pop goes the weasel is a very common math strategy. So you can do that type of thing. And I teach the multiplication tables to melodies, which is really helpful. It's just skip counting for children and so that can be extraordinarily helpful. But there's also those people that just need that beat to keep them going. And then there are those that like music to block distractions. But for them, the world is a distraction. For me, I can block out world distractions, but for, uh, some people they can't. And what it does is it almost becomes a white noise. It becomes an expected noise. So that allows them to go into concentration mode. So it's so interesting. I mean, they're two completely different camps. Because, for example, if a rhythmic, melodic learner that needs music to block distractions has a mother that cannot think when music is on, there's likely going to be a conflict because the mother will not be able to fathom how their child could possibly concentrate with music on.

Darius: It's really hard in our household because my wife is like that. She just can't cope with music being played. It just agitates her, unless it's a piece of music she knows really, really well and that she's really listening to music in that zone. And it can work on something and listen to it at the same time, but walking around, doing life, cooking, whatever, talking, no, not music in the background. And it's really hard because I need the music in the background. So I get the criticism of you've always got your headphones in and you're like, well, you always say no to the music. So I've got to have one headphone in playing the music because that's what I need. Thank goodness for headphones now, especially Bluetooth ones. And I can just tap it when she starts speaking, et cetera. So, yeah, it is quite surprising, that difference.

Erica: Yeah, I have the same thing in my relationship. So John really likes to have music playing all the time. And even when he works, he's got a podcast going. And I say he has a PhD in podcasts because this guy just goes through stuff, listens constantly to things. And when he's home, he wants to have music playing. And he's always saying, Alexa, play music. And right after it turns on, I just say, turn it off because no, I can't think. But it's amazing to me, he's one of those ones that even heavy metal. He just loves it. And it's like, oh, it's just agitating noise. For me, there are times where I like music, but I like very specific types of music. So I'll never forget this student that I had. He was in high school, and he really needed music to study. And I said, what do you listen to? And he said, heavy metal. And I said, I don't believe it. And it's rare for me to say something like that, but I was just upfront and honest. I said, I'm struggling with that. Well, can we do an experiment? And he said, sure. And I said, okay, I have an Amazon Echo here, so let's turn on some of the music that you like. And it was so loud and so obnoxious, and he was doing, I think, calculus, and he had his homework sitting in front of him and I watched this guy breeze through his calculus, and I was going out of my mind, but he proved it to me. I was like, uh, you're totally right. Thank you for teaching me that. Because for me, I have no idea what was going on at all of what you were doing.

Darius: I remember law school, my girlfriend at the time, she was just like a grade, top of the line, ace to everything. And she would just listen and study to music loud all the time. And I go and study with her sometimes and I'm like, really? You do this? And she's like, yeah. I haven't quite got to the point where I can actually study and listen to music, but I do like listening to music in different settings. It was Huberman podcast. He talked a bit about these beats. There are certain beats.

Erica: Binaural beats.

Darius: Binaural beats, that's right. And they're different. There's binaural and tri neural and different right.

Erica: They're different frequencies.

Darius: Different frequencies.

Erica: They even call them colors, like there's brown music. Yes, they're different frequencies. And yeah, a lot of people claim that it really helps to improve their productivity. I've tried listening to some of them and I'm like, oh my gosh, it sounds like someone just left the TV on. Remember when we were kids and at like 03:00 in the morning, you just got like.

Darius: Yes, shhhhhhh.

Erica: And that's what it is. And I'm like, oh my gosh, that's so agitating. How could anybody find that? And I've tried to listen to it and it just like, no, that doesn't work for me. But for some people it's supposed to. Uh, profoundly helpful.

Darius: It does. And is it true that people with ADHD often use those techniques as well? Is that a generalization or what are your thoughts?

Erica: I don't know. We'd have to do a study. I mean, I personally would say probably not often.

Darius: It would be interesting with some of.

Erica: My students, but I haven't had a lot of students embrace it.

Darius: Yeah. So we've got these sorts of last four interactive, indirect experience, direct experience, rhythmic, m melodic, in my case would be these are all experiential interactive. Experiencing the learning with another person or bouncing off another person.

Erica: I could see how you could say that that's kind of right. It impacts their experience.

Darius: Well, it's derived that processing is derived from an experience of interacting, uh, with someone.

Erica: Right.

Darius: And then from an experience of indirectly of watching someone or an experience of directly interacting with it.

Erica: Right. All three of those involve people, community.

Darius: Yeah, they, uh, do. That's true. Yes. And experience with those people and through interacting with those people.

Erica: Right. So I see how you kind of clumped those together.

Darius: And I was kind of including rhythmic melodic, as well as clumping it through. Because rhythmic melodic is not just auditory processing, taking the information. It's also kind of like that what a beautiful sound coming up from the street. It's that processing through this experience of music. Is that what you're describing? Because here's what I maybe I've got it wrong. Because what I took this to mean I had an experience like this once. You know, Beethoven would hear his symphonies all at once. He didn't hear them in time sequence. He would hear them simultaneously, all at once. And then his role was to unravel it into a timeline. I think it was Beethoven, or was it Mozart? One or the other. And I remember in a dream once, it was a strange experience. I was walking by all these plants and bushes and so on, and my mind could move into the middle of the bush or the tree. And then I heard a song, music, but I actually heard the whole song all at once, all the notes all at once. But it wasn't a cacophony, it was a song, but it was just simultaneously. And I was like, oh, my goodness. This is maybe what Beethoven would be experienced when he's like, except he remembered it when he came back. When I came away from sleep, I could remember the experience of hearing the whole song at once. And what's interesting, because I've been writing this book called The Butterfly Princess on and off for the last 15 years, 20 years, since the children were young. And one of the characters in The Butterfly Princess, the main character, her role is she was given the gift of being able to hear a person's song. And so what she did in her world, she would be able to hear the song of different plants and animals and people. And part of her job was to arrange people and animals and plants. And she became a gardener, like a farmer. And she would place them not according to their function or, I, uh, want 1000 pigs together, or whatever, but according to their song and sort of arrange them like a symphony and did the same with people. And in that story, often people forget their song or don't know what their song is, and they need someone else to hear the song that is coming from them. I'm talking very metaphysically here, um, aren't I? They hear their song coming from them because they can't hear it, and then they sing it back to them and then they hear their song. And sometimes this is this interactive experience. Sometimes you're with people in a community and they say, this is who you are. This is how you are, Darius. And you go, yeah, that is me. Yeah. And then when you go off the path of being who you are, they're the ones who go, Is that you? Is that your song? Is that your way of being? Is that really you? And you're like, you know, you're right. It's not my way of being. I went off on one there. It might be someone else's way of being. And so when I think about rhythmic, melodic processing of the world, I suppose I'm thinking about I know people who actually the world is like singing to them. There's music emanating from these encounters, and they experience the world as music musically.

Erica: Yeah, I think you're right. And I think that's one type of rhythmic, melodic learner, they kind of think to a rhythm or beat. They walk to a rhythm, a beat. They often have a melody in their mind, and they can use those as ways to remember things by associating things with melodies. But then there are those other types, that other type which really utilizes music to block distractions. But I think what would be really fun to do is just maybe let's talk a little bit about how we can accommodate each one of different types of learners. So let's look at interactive learners. So in order to accommodate an interactive learner, sometimes we have to step out of our own comfort zone. Because if we're not an interactive learner, right, we're not going to naturally know how to accommodate them. But yeah, these people just really, really like the company of others.

Darius: You know those awkward moments when lecturers say, right, let's all get into groups and let's discuss a certain point. I don't know. I went to university a second time about 15 years ago, ten years ago, and, um, we had three-hour long lectures and they were punctuated by a few breaks. And then the lecturers would try and make them interactive because they were trying to do all of these different things and integrate them all and make sure there were visuals and auditory and then interactive and all these different kinds of ways of trying to keep us engaged. I often found that they fell short.

Erica: Well, it's funny that you said that it was awkward that breaking into these groups was awkward, an awkward moment. And what, uh, that says to me is perhaps that didn't accommodate your best ways of learning because that awkward moment for you would have been the opposite for me. I would have been like, yes, an interactive group. I love that kind of interactive work. So what's beautiful about teachers that do offer a variety of modalities is it enables them to hit all of the students in the class. Maybe not all at the same time. Some of them might be like, Yay, we're back to the lecture. Others might be, Yay, we're in the interactive group. But I think offering a variety of ways of processing is vital to meeting the needs of the majority of the students.

Darius: I agree. I actually like those times myself. I'm, uh, quite an interactive learner, which is one of the reasons why we're doing this podcast. Because we're interacting with one another and discovering from learning from one another's experiences and sharing it with other people who are listening in and having an indirect experience, aren't they, of executive function. And what I noticed in these is that, uh, often people want to make them interactive moments, but they're not necessarily facilitated well enough. So my point is we as educators can say, oh, let's create and accommodate this type of learning and create an interactive moment. But then it becomes awkward, not because people don't like the interactive or are not capable of it, but because it's not being facilitated or set up for success. People are just thrown together maybe, or yeah, you'll figure it out, or whatever. And so sometimes it takes a degree of intentionality and care to facilitate it. Have you heard of the flipped classroom model where there's a technique where they've really gone to town on this? There was my first experience of the flipped classroom model, but people yeah, what's your experience of the flipped classroom model?

Erica: I've had a number of students that have had that where they watch the lesson for homework and then they do the homework in class with the teacher. And I think it's interesting.

Darius: Well, there's a university and I can't find which one it was, but I met the person who was in it on a conference once. And the university had organized themselves round the Flip classroom model about nine years ago. But it was really intentionally done and done well because the flip classroom model can be a complete disaster if you don't do it well. Okay. And here, I think, are the essential ingredients that they've found in this. So first of all, they would record the lecture and tell the participants to watch the lecture in advance. When they came in the door, everyone immediately got given a uh, two-minute quiz. Those that got the two-minute quiz correct were put into a room, an interactive room where they would sit at tables with one another. And those who got it wrong, didn't watch the video, were put into a dark room with the video to just watch. It because they were not going to be any good in the experience. And that's rule number one. If people haven't done the homework, interactive nature is utterly useless because they're just acting and talking like a beginner. What was that? What was that? And you're like, hold on a minute, I did all the hard work here, I want to actually progress. Stop holding me back. So they get all shoved into one room on their own and they learn pretty d*** quick that this is going to be really boring if they don't actually do the work first. Number one, right? And the quiz is not a hard quiz. It's super simple questions that just test whether you actually watched the video and that was it. It's not like it's not an exam. Yeah, it's just approve, filter who watched it and who didn't then. And I love this so much, I would like to do this. So the professor, the lecturer, the expert would present a scenario where they would have to apply their knowledge to that scenario as a group. And it would say, right, you've just been learning about this principle in physics, let's say, okay, and mechanics or whatever, and you have now got these materials in the middle of the table, and you've got this particular problem, and there is no one right answer. You just need to solve this, okay? What you're going to do four different groups and you're all given exactly the same challenge to do, and this is the important bit, exactly the same, because often when they split up into interactive, teachers say, all right, you discuss this question, you discuss that and feed me back what you thought. And we'll have a broad spectrum no, exactly the same. Because halfway through, let's say, if the session is 1 hour long, half an hour through, 20 minutes through, everyone is told to stop, and they stand up and they share a little bit about how they're solving that problem to the other groups. And the other groups going, gosh, that's really interesting how they did it like that. Oh, that's interesting. And then they say, thanks for sharing. Everybody walks around, you've got five minutes. You just walk around, and you look at what the notes they've got or what they've created or done or their application in some way, and then they sit back down, they go, Great, carry on. You're allowed to use everyone else's ideas and adapt them and incorporate them and get from that feedback and then go. And then at the end of the 1 hour or whatever, everyone shares their solution to the problem. And what's happened is they've learnt, collaborated, and applied it to real life with the assistance of the tutor, who isn't there to say, oh, Mark, you, or whatever, they actually get in and hop between groups and go, what about this? How about this? And, oh, you're going off a bit. You didn't quite understand what I was saying in the lecture here. And it gives them that feedback. And I thought to myself, wow, that's beautiful.

Erica: I would love to know what university that is.

Darius: Yeah, I should dig that out and find out.

Erica: But I think what you really illustrated was a combination of interactive, indirect, and direct experience. Absolutely.

Darius: Yes.

Erica: Well, we could throw out a few other ones that we've talked about in the past, but I think that was the wealth of that particular example. So I really appreciate that. And I think if we were looking to accommodate an indirect, experienced learner, we would give those kind of prerecorded how to do something videos. YouTube is amazing. For indirect, experienced learners. I use YouTube constantly and I can learn anything from how to cook to how to garden to how to repair my plumbing. It's just amazing what you can learn just from or even how to remove a background on a video, which I just learned yesterday in a YouTube video. So, uh, it's amazing how for some people, just watching it is more than enough. They don't have to do it. So if you were a direct experience learner, you might be pressuring them, for example, to just do it. Just do it. Do it yourself. No just try it, try it they don't necessarily need to do that that might be enough for them just watching it and then they've got it. Now, some people can internalize it because perhaps, I don't know, we'd have to talk to each indirect, experienced learner but perhaps they visualize doing it themselves when they're watching it. So maybe that's enough. And it's interesting because the research definitely suggests that if you fully visualize, really go deeply into a visualization and visualize doing something, that it is just as powerful as actually doing it. So they had some research. I think we've talked about this in the past where athletes visualized working out, and they discovered that it was just as beneficial as actually working out. And I remember you telling a story of how, uh, you learned how to juggle and that you were in the group that had to visualize, and your group had the most success because they visualized, which would be a visual way of doing it. But I guess you can. Technically, some indirect experience learners may integrate great visualization but that is another way of processing.

Darius: Well, the interesting thing about my experience of visualization and ties into the indirect experience element of it because for the sake of the listeners. This is a fascinating little experience I had when I was at university. These psychologists were doing this test and you know how they get student to come in and pay them to participate? Well that's what they did with me, and the goal was to juggle, and they were going to try and teach you to juggle in 20 minutes flat and that was it, you got 20 minutes to learn how to juggle. None of us could juggle with three balls. And so what they did was they showed you a video for two minutes. They got you to practice in some way for two minutes, and then they got you to physically practice for two minutes. And so with the first ball, they got you to watch how you threw a ball the first time. And then everyone practiced for two minutes at the end. And what they did in the intermediating, two minutes was different. So one group got to watch the video again and watch it for a second time. Another group got to just go straight and practice. And they got two-minute sessions of practicing physically with direct experience. And then the third group, my group, that intermediate one, they had to sit there and visualize what they had just watched before they actually do it. And to cut a long story short, they did that with the first ball, and then the second ball, two balls. And then when we were in the last six minutes of the experiment, they got us to visualize throwing three balls. And in the middle of throwing the three balls, he stopped us all within the first 15 seconds because we all had our eyes closed. And he said, I want you to imagine the first ball, the red one in your right hand. Throw it up in the air. See it going past it's halfway? If you got it halfway, great. Throw the second ball, the blue one. Are you ready? Yes. It's floating up, and it's coming up to halfway. And the first ball is slowly coming down. And I want you to throw the third ball now. And then throw the third ball. And then he paused at everyone, and he said, okay, open your eyes. Hands up. Who dropped the ball? And everyone put their hand up, and they dropped the ball. And he says, It's your imagination. Why did you drop the ball? You just programmed yourself to fail. You dropped the ball. You don't need to drop the ball. You can slow down the ball. You can take your time, and you can make it go exactly where you want it. So that's what we're going to do right now. We're going to do it exactly where you want it. We were all in shock, and we closed our eyes. And this is just in a few seconds because it's not much time. And we threw the ball up, and it slow motion. He says, slow it down. If you're stressed, throw it up, et cetera. And what he did was he used his experience to talk us through the process. And I'm emphasizing the experience side of the indirect. And then we got given the three balls. And to our shock, six out of the eight people in our group were immediately juggling with three balls without dropping the ball. And that was 20 minutes after we walked in the door. I could juggle with three balls and the other groups; they weren't jugging very well at all.

Erica: Yes, it really is uh, such a great illustration of the power of visualization and really which is visual I put that in the realm of uh sensory visual. But I think and it also shows the power of when you combine ways of processing. So you were combining really indirect, direct and visualization and um, auditory.

Darius: So what was happening in that moment was he was talking us through it.

Erica: Right?

Darius: We were hearing it's a red ball, it's coming up through the air, it's getting to the apex. Have you got it? Yes. So he's talking us through it. We're using our imagination. So we've seen it on the video. We've heard it on the video. We are hearing it, we're imagining it. We are then picking up the balls and feeling it and having the experience of it.

Erica: They got the tactile piece as well.

Darius: Yeah.

Erica: Very multi-sensory.

Darius: It's sequential as well. So he's very sequenced it. It's really clearly sequenced. One ball, we're just going to do one ball. We're now going to do two balls; we're going to do three. So if we go through all twelve, that'd be interesting. Let's just do it as a little twelve. See how many boxes it ticks. Visual processing?

Erica: Yes.

Darius: Auditory processing? Yes. Tactile processing? Yeah. There was ah, well kinesthetic. Yeah, definitely kinesthetic because you're moving sequential because of the way they taught it. There was this simultaneous side of things because when they're watching the video, they created the training video quite cleverly because they say this is juggling, this is all three balls going all at once and then they slowed it down so you could see it all and say you've got your head round it. Yeah. You're going to be able to do this reflective, logical.

Erica: Yeah. He gave you time to reflect upon how you're doing things. Is he hit every single one except for rhythmic melodic? Yeah, he did. And in fact there is a certain rhythm to juggling so you could throw that one in there so it would be very multisensory. But the thing that's most fascinating is the people that were most successful were the ones that were visualizing. I always say visualization is the secret weapon to learning.

Darius: Oh, it absolutely is. Yeah.

Erica: Absolutely phenomenal. But just to get back into some recommendations for the direct experience learners, you want to let them directly experience things. So if you're doing it, letting them do it, do what you're doing simultaneously at the same time or just getting comfortable, taking them to places, real world experiences where they can really have that full body experience and so that they can.

Darius: I know we mentioned Stan Gloss in the last episode. It's a Stan Gloss streak this week because Stan Gloss, in one of his interviews about Dyslexia, was talked about how important it is to prototype with your children if they've got an idea. Don't talk round about it too much. It's like grab a cardboard box, start cutting things out, start making things, build it out of Lego, improvise clay, whatever you prototype. And in a way, that's a direct experience thing. It's like they're processing by actually doing it.

Erica: Yeah. And then finally, the rhythmic, melodic, how do we accommodate them? Well, for those that need melodies to help them to memorize, getting them comfortable, going there, and there are a lot of resources online where people have put all sorts of things to melodies. And then for those that really need music to block distractions or binaural beats, exploring with them to see what helps them in the arena of music, because there are those individuals that don't even know their rhythmic, melodic, they haven't really experienced it. So if you work with students, exploring with them, um, what each of these different ways of processing can do for you, because I guess we are wrapping up all twelve ways of processing today. Yeah. The real key is being open, understanding each of the different ways of processing, and being flexible enough to even allow students to go to places that don't necessarily work for you and enjoy the idea of finding a new processing area that may not have worked for you, but could possibly open up some new doors for you if you were to try it.

Darius: And, um, let me finish off with a chat GPT reference here. Okay? I've got to include chat GPT somewhere here. I haven't mentioned it once, have I? I've restrained myself. But rhythmic, one thing kids could do, or people could do with rhythmic, is to put in a piece of text of something and say, turn this into a limerick. And it's really good at creating limericks out of the words that you've done and creates the rhythm to it. Do you know what I mean? And to create that rhythmic kind of within the words can be amazing. It's really lovely sometimes. And you can have an interaction with it where you go, no, that's not quite right. You need to do a bit more like this, and it changes it. And so you're speaking in the rhythm, and you can even speak back to it in a limerick if that's your way of doing it. So it's interesting, interactive and rhythmic melodic, working there at the same time. So, Erica, it's been fantastic. I've really enjoyed this podcast mini kind of trio, triplet of overview of the different, uh, ways of processing. Thank you.

Erica: Yeah, you've got it. Until next time, you thank you for joining our conversation here at the Personal Brain Trainer Podcast. This is Dr. Erica Warren and Darius Namdaran.