Despite a rise in the use of "learning by doing" pedagogical methods in praxis, little is known as to why these methods may improve learning outcomes. This is surprising given that an increased mechanistic knowledge of learning by doing-based improvements has the potential to speed up the development of evidence-based teaching practices. Here we use neuroscience methods and a gesture-enriched foreign language (L2) vocabulary learning paradigm to adjudicate between opposing predictions of two neuroscientific learning theories . We demonstrate that sensory brain regions associated with the processing of gesture-related stimulus information causally contribute to performance benefits following gesture-enriched L2 vocabulary learning . Sensory brain responses benefitted both short- and long-term learning outcomes, as well as the learning of both concrete and abstract words. These findings suggest that responses within specialized visual sensory cortices precipitate sensorimotor-based learning benefits . Such a mechanism could play a role in comparatively effortless native language learning and may be key for accelerating L2 proficiency in adults .
Despite a rise in the use of "learning by doing" pedagogical methods in praxis, little is known as to how these methods improve learning outcomes. Here we show that visual association cortex causally contributes to performance benefits of a learning by doing method. This finding derives from transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and a gesture-enriched foreign language (L2) vocabulary learning paradigm performed by 22 young adults. Inhibitory TMS of visual motion cortex reduced learning outcomes for abstract and concrete gesture-enriched words in comparison to sham stimulation. There were no TMS effects on words learned with pictures. These results adjudicate between opposing predictions of two neuroscientific learning theories : While reactivation-based theories predict no functional role of visual motion cortex in vocabulary learning outcomes, the current study supports the predictive coding theory view that specialized sensory cortices precipitate sensorimotor-based learning benefits .
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why these methods may
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This is surprising given that an increased mechanistic knowledge of learning by doing-based improvements has the potential to speed up the development of evidence-based teaching practices. Here we use neuroscience methods
Here we show that visual association cortex causally contributes to performance benefits of a learning by doing method. This finding derives from transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)
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to
performed by 22 young adults. Inhibitory TMS of visual motion cortex reduced learning outcomes for abstract and concrete gesture-enriched words in comparison to sham stimulation. There were no TMS effects on words learned with pictures. These results
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. We demonstrate that sensory brain regions associated with the processing of gesture-related stimulus information causally contribute to performance benefits following gesture-enriched L2 vocabulary learning . Sensory brain responses benefitted both short- and long-term learning outcomes, as well as the learning of both concrete and abstract words. These findings suggest that responses within specialized visual
: While reactivation-based theories predict no functional role of visual motion cortex in vocabulary learning outcomes, the current study supports the predictive coding theory view that specialized
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. Such a mechanism could play a role in comparatively effortless native language learning and may be key for accelerating L2 proficiency in adults