Getting it right (or avoiding negative plasticity)
Do you notice that when you don’t get it right in a BFP exercise the very first time, you are given four ways of making sure you get it right?
- Repetition: you get a second attempt to hear the item (but no points)
- Given the solution: if you have failed at the second attempt you are immediately given the answer (and no points!)
- Change of level: and if you keep on getting it wrong then you are taken back a level to get more practice and and certain success? (Though it doesn’t feel too good, does it?)
- The practice button: in some exercises you can practice as much as you like.
Get it right is the message….whenever we learn something, our amazing plastic brain builds new neural connections. (And don’t forget that this program is designed by a neurologist: a neural surgeon, and a specialist in neural plasticity!)
The reason for giving you the correct answer or making sure you are working at a level where you can get it right, is that for the purposes of the BFP task you need to try to discriminate accurately or remember sequentially, or replicate in memory exactly what you have heard seven times out of ten, or whatever criteria is set by the exercise. You need to learn errorlessly as far as possible!
So if we struggled and learned the ‘wrong’ answers in the BFP we would build connections in the brain and leave traces in memory that are muddled or ‘wrong’ (negative plasticity). In the kind of exercises provided by the BFP, struggling with errors is not going to help us get it right next time!
So we are given the practice button or given the answer or taken to a level that we can get right …. without error….. I am errorless at three items in working memory in “Sound Replay” and occasionally four, but so far my frail working memory seldom recalls five items! That’s average for my age group.
I was reading some research recently about children and mathematics performance. Children who were given a math problem and asked to work it out did not perform as well as children who were also given a worked answer as a demonstration…..
