ScienceDaily: Can 'random noise' unlock our learning potential?

“Though many of us may seek a quiet place in which to study, 'noise' may play a key role in helping some people improve their learning potential.

Edith Cowan University (ECU) has investigated the effects of transcranial random noise stimulation (tRNS) in a variety of settings and found the technology could have many applications. Despite its name, tRNS doesn't utilize noise in the everyday, auditory sense of the word. Rather, it sees electrodes attached to the head so a weak current can pass through specific parts of the brain. Study lead Dr Onno van der Groen said the study showed tRNS has promise as a tool to assist people with compromised learning capabilities.

"The effect on learning is promising: it can speed up learning and help people with neurological conditions," Dr van der Groen said. "So, people with learning difficulties can use it to enhance learning rate, for example.

"It's also been trialed on people with visual deficits, such as after stroke and traumatic brain injury. "When you add this type of stimulation during learning, you get better performance, faster learning and better attention afterwards as well."”

Some Insights From This Article

• Transient noise or ‘background’ noise can serve to actually help certain people with learning and attention. Specifically in this article, people with learning difficulties were found to have better performance studying and learning with background noise.

• Many of us listen to music while studying, some prefer absolute silence. For me I definitely find playing some quiet ambient music (lyricless) helps me tune out the things around the world and put my mind into the ‘mood’ to study.

What is your ideal study environment?

Full article is here!

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