Maintaining attention for a long time on a task consumes many cognitive resources and declines throughout the activity. It has been shown that cognitive performance fluctuates throughout the day and is affected, among other factors, by circadian rhythms, with peaks of optimal performance and valleys in which said performance is lower. Taking this into account can help us understand how to concentrate on studying and make our study method effective.
These fluctuations also vary with each person’s chronotype, that is, with individual preferences in the sleep-wake continuum. The interaction between time of day and chronotype is called the “synchrony effect.” Are you fresh as a cucumber at 7 a.m. and ready to face any adversity, or do you prefer the late afternoon or evening hours to concentrate and perform better?
If we take into account what time of day we are most productive and when we are most focused, we can take advantage of this to tackle the most difficult task and the most complicated content. This will make it easier to find an effective study method.
The role of interest and motivation
However, there are tasks that, due to their high workload, level of motivation, or the expectation of a reward, are more resistant to the influence of this synchronicity effect. If we are morning people and have no choice but to study at night, we can motivate ourselves and reward our efforts. For example, by thinking about what we will do after passing the test, or by taking short 5-minute breaks every 30 or 40 minutes.
Listening to music in the background is not an effective study method: it also consumes cognitive resources (taking away from the main task of studying) and will capture our attention, taking it away from the subject matter; especially if we like the song. What other things can we keep in mind and how can we concentrate better to study?
The role of memory in studying
Studying does not only depend on attention. The other side of the same coin is memory. Although memorization has been denigrated in recent times, while “learning to learn” is promoted, it is also true that this process of “learning” requires us to sit for hours and put our memory machinery into motion.
The basic principles of our memory system were described more than 100 years ago by the German philosopher Herman Ebbinghaus. These principles are still valid and require some attention if we want our performance to be optimal. Let’s look at the most basic ones.
The forgetting curve and the role of review
On the one hand, we must be aware that even if we are able to concentrate on studying, the information we study will be forgotten over time. And as Ebbinghaus and other authors describe, forgetting follows a curve where the decline is greater at the beginning and then gradually slows down. That is, we will forget the largest amount of information shortly after having studied it. This is a reality that we must live with.
However, Ebbinghaus himself offered a possible solution, which is none other than “review.” By coming into contact with the same information at various points in time after the study session, we will be able to reduce the forgetting curve to the point of retaining practically all the material.
The best results would be obtained by reviewing the material after one hour, 24 hours, one week, and finally one month. Although these time parameters are surely unacceptable, the idea to be highlighted is that we need to work on the same information on several occasions to obtain an effective study method and a more efficient learning, that is, a long-term retention of the information.
The importance of attitude
On the other hand, retention can be improved if the student takes an active role in preparing the information, which brings us back to the topic of attention. Answering questions and actively working with the material helps to remember it. And the process is enhanced if a reasoned explanation is developed for each of the questions answered.
And although what has been said previously is necessary, it is not enough, because there are multiple variables that condition our memory. One of the most important is the role of sleep. Our brain must be well rested when we study, when it encodes information, which is why we must respect the hours of sleep.
But memories are also consolidated during rest. While we sleep, our brain starts the processes necessary to forget information (we don’t need to remember the day we went shopping last week), while facilitating the consolidation of new materials.
Make the most of your study hours
All of the factors we have described are what make it so that even though we spend hours sitting in front of a task, those hours are not always profitable. The performance of our brain is subject to different conditions.
Chronotype, individual differences in capacity, intensity and duration of attention, mnemonic ability, forgetting curve: all these factors affect our cognitive processes and we must take them into account to make our study time more efficient.
Carmen Noguera Cuenca, Professor of the Department of Psychology/Basic Psychology. Research Group HUM-891 Research in Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Almeria and José Manuel Cimadevilla, Professor of Psychobiology, Health Research Center, University of Almeria
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original.
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