Stanford Study on Brain Waves Shows How Different Teaching Methods Affect Reading Development
“This research is exciting because it takes cognitive neuroscience and connects it to questions that have deep meaning and history in educational research,” said McCandliss. Professor Bruce McCandliss wrote this study with Yuliya Yoncheva who is a researcher at New York University, and Jessica Wise, a graduate student from the University of Texas at Austin.
The team that Professor Bruce McCandliss has put together uses a brain mapping technique which gives them the ability to capture brain responses to the newly learned words that are literally faster than the blink of an eye.
McCandliss said. “It’s like shifting the gears of the mind – when you focus your attention on different information associated with a word, you amplify different brain circuits.” and “We can direct attention to a larger grain size or a smaller grain size, and it can have a big impact on how well you learn.”
Stanford Brain Waves Study and Monitoring of Brain Waves Show The Importance of Phonics As A Foundation And It Has A Profound Impact on Learning
Professor Bruce McCandliss added the statement that, as the field of educational neuroscience grows, however, both brain researchers and educational researchers can improve their understanding of how instructional strategies can best be harnessed to support the brain changes that underlie the development of learning.
Findings showed that the study’s participants were subsequently able to read new words they had never seen before …
… as long as they followed the same letter-sound patterns they were taught to focus on and this occurred within a split second, the process of deciphering a new word triggered the left hemisphere processes.
Symposium at Stanford Looks at Therapeutic Benefits of Musical Rhythm
It has long been knows by musicians and mystics alike the power of rhythmic music …
… found from different cultures all around the world, ritual drumming and rhythmic prayer has been used in religious ceremonies to induce trance states.
Scientists have moved away from investigating the almost mystical implications of musical rhythm, according Gabe Turow, a visiting scholar in the Department of Music, since the counterculture movement of the 1960s.
But with a recent rebound in the interest in sleep, meditation and hypnosis research has spurred scientists to take a closer look at music.
And know there is a small but growing body of scientific evidence that shows that music and other rhythmic stimuli can alter mental states in predictable ways and even heal damaged brains.
Stanford Neurosciences Institute Getting into Brain Waves: History and Resources
Brain waves …
… the flowing electrical fields inside your brain have been of great interest to physicians and scientists since their discovery in animals in 1875 and humans in 1929.
These rhythms and the electrical fields are quite the enigma ever since they were discovered.
As a matter of fact, the first person to record brain waves, Hans Berger was so unsure of his result that it took him 5 years to publish his findings …
… and those findings remained controversial for more than a decade afterwards.
But since then many other studies that have investigated the cognitive processes, such as arousal and sleep …
… and have uncovered links to the synchronization and de-synchronization of brain rhythms and their benefits.
Scientific American Asks The Question: What is the function of the various brainwaves?
So it is common knowledge that the brain is an electrochemical organ made up of electricity and energy …
… and researchers have speculated that a fully functioning brain can generate as much as 10 watts of electrical power.
Others make a more conservative calculation and state, that if all 10 billion interconnected nerve cells released their power in a single moment …
… and if a single electrode was placed into the human scalp it would record something in the range of 5 millionths to 50 millionths of a volt.
So if you had enough scalps hooked together you would be able to light a flashlight bulb!
Electrical activity emanating from the brain is displayed in the form of brainwaves …
… and there are four categories of these brainwaves, ranging from the most activity to the least activity.
Beta, Alpha, Theta, and Delta as seen in the graphic below:
With this knowledge of brainwave states you will be able to enhance your ability to make use of the specialized characteristics of these states …
… these enhancements include being more mentally productive across a wide range of activities, such as being intensely focused, relaxed, creative and in restful sleep.