Transcription
Have you ever wondered why some people seem to improve faster, even though you're putting in just as much time and effort into your practice as they are? It's tempting to chalk this up to talent, but there's a study that puts this question to a very specific test. Two groups of people practiced the exact same skill the exact same number of times, and when they came back the next day to see how much they'd actually improved, one group had gained nearly twice as much as the other. So, what was actually different between these two groups? Not much, actually. Just one subtle change that you can integrate into your own practice today.
Hi, I'm Noa Kageyama. I'm a performance psychologist and Juilliard-trained violinist, and I translate research from the performance science literature into practical strategies to help you practice smarter and perform your best when it matters most. In this video, I wanted to share a study that gave two groups of people the exact same amount of time to learn a brand new skill, but changed one small detail in how one of the groups practiced it. We'll see exactly what that difference was and why it had such a big impact on one group's improvement from one day to the next. And I'll share a few specific things you can do to apply the study findings to your next practice session.
So, here's how the study worked. A team of researchers at Johns Hopkins asked three groups of participants to learn a brand new motor skill. Basically, participants held a small device between their thumb and index finger, and by squeezing it with different amounts of pressure, they could move a cursor on a screen to a series of targets in a specific order as quickly and accurately as possible. Kind of like a mouse that worked by squeezing instead of moving it around a desktop surface. Everyone practiced the exact same way for their first session, but then the researchers began to change things up.
Six hours later, two of the groups came back for a second practice session. One of the groups practiced the exact same task again. The second group practiced a version of the task that had been subtly modified. Every so often, the amount of pressure needed to move the cursor would shift ever so slightly, forcing them to constantly readjust. And the third group, the control group, didn't come back for any additional practice at all. 24 hours after their first practice session, everyone came back for one final test to see how much they'd actually improved.
So, what sort of performance differences were there between the groups? Well, the group that practiced the modified version of the task, the one where the pressure kept changing on them, improved by nearly twice as much as the group that simply repeated the original task. Meanwhile, the group that repeated the same practice a second time ended up statistically no better than the group that didn't at all. So, doing an extra practice session got them essentially nothing. How's that possible? Was it really just the addition of subtle variations in the second practice session that was the secret to all that improvement?
Well, the researchers wondered that, too. So, they ran a few more versions of this experiment to explore this further. In one, a different group experienced that same subtle variation, but much earlier, just 30 minutes after first learning the task instead of 6 hours. But, when the gap was cut down to 30 minutes, the same subtle variation that had nearly doubled improvement after a 6-hour gap did very little. They also tried having participants experience the modified version of the task first before ever practicing the original skill, or go through the modified version of the exercise in both rounds of practice. And in both cases, there was no extra benefit there, either. So, it wasn't just about experiencing some kind of change.
What actually mattered was coming back to a skill that had already had time to settle, a 6-hour gap in this study, and then adding a slightly different challenge to the skill. The researchers explain this with two related processes, consolidation and reconsolidation. When you first learn something new, that memory is fragile. It takes a few hours to set or consolidate before it's fully stable. That's part of why the 6-hour gap mattered so much here. But, here's the interesting part. Once a memory has consolidated, it isn't necessarily set in stone. Every time when it and use it again, it briefly becomes editable. A bit like reopening an old Word document that's been sitting in some forgotten folder on your computer. For short window, that memory can be modified, edited, or as in this study, strengthened before it sets again in a slightly new form. That process is what's known as reconsolidation.
So, the idea is that this second practice session didn't just add more repetition. It opened up a specific temporary window where the original skill could actually be revised and reinforced. But, only because it had already been given time to consolidate, and only because something in that second exposure was different enough to prompt a real update. In the case you're wondering, participants had no idea any of this was happening. Afterward, none of them reported noticing that the amount of pressure required kept shifting on them. So, the challenge can be pretty subtle.
So, how might we apply this to our own practice? Thing number one, tempting though it may be to schedule all of your practice into just one part of the day, try splitting it up into at least two separate blocks with several hours between them. In this study, that gap was 6 hours, enough time it seems for that first round of learning to settle before coming back to it. This study doesn't make it clear exactly what that ideal gap might be, but the underlying idea of giving your brain some time to consolidate new skills before you come back for round two is worth trying the next time you're working on something new.
Thing number two, when you come back for that second session, resist the urge to just repeat the passage exactly the way you played it the first time. Instead, introduce some small new challenges. If you have access to multiple pianos, play on a different piano. Use a different reed. Use your second bow. Play with a wider dynamic range or a different type of vibrato. Add subtle new nuances to the phrasing. Vary the tempo. Play more expressively. Or any other such variations that are subtle, but different enough that you feel a little more challenged than you did in your earlier practice session.
Thing number three, be flexible. The people in this study who benefited the most were the ones who adjusted quickly and accurately to the changing demands of the task. The ones who struggled to adjust didn't get nearly as much out of it. It can be easy to get attached to the specific mechanics of a skill, like needing the bow tension to be exactly so, or having to feel like everything in your body is aligned and balanced in just the right way. All of which is great to figure out and aim for, of course, but developing flexibility and the ability to adapt to different performance demands is also really valuable. And in this study, it was embracing change and flexibly adjusting to constantly changing task demands, rather than getting fixated on trying to repeat exactly what had worked before, that seemed to be a big part of why learning was so enhanced.
And speaking of adapting on the fly, if you've ever struggled to play like yourself on stage, it's tempting to think the fix is just more practice. I thought that for years, too, until I worked with a sports psychologist and realized it was actually a separate set of mental skills, addressing nerves, focus, and confidence, for instance, that helped me finally play like myself when If that sounds familiar, I put together a free 4-minute quiz, The Mental Skills On It, to help you pinpoint what psychological skills to focus on and how to strengthen them. The link's in the description below.