The Shock Factor in Learning

How stimulation, stimulates, or disrupts, learning

Stimulation stimulates learning. Obvious. But does extreme stimulation increase this learning further? The research shows yes…and no. So, be careful with this.

The legend goes that an ancient Greek philosopher when he taught a student something particularly important, he would slap them across the head, in one account with a book. This was to embed the memory. This concept apparently was also used in the new frontiers in the USA – as settlers were moving west the farher, it goes, would take their first-born son to the edge of their property, and then slap him hard, so that he wouldn’t forget the boundary. I can’t find any evidence for this, but it is an interesting principle. And actually, one that I use myself.

No, I don’t slap my students across the head when I teach them something new, but I do do something amusing, or shocking, at the start of many of my public talks. Those who have seen me speak will know it well. I start many public talks with my “brain test”. In this I explain to the audience that they will do a short brain test. For this they must watch a short 30-second video. They must identify any patterns they see, take a note of any emotional shifts, and any physiological response. The audience normally looks at me with confusion, but I have grabbed their attention. I then proceed to show a shock video – these videos came out many years ago and were all the rage for a short period of time.

The one I show starts off with car slowly driving along a gently meandering country road, to the sound of slow relaxing music. Then, all of a sudden, a monstrous creature jumps out with a loud scream. This stimulates a shock reaction with many people physical recoiling and, often with women, also screaming themselves. This is quickly followed by laughter as the audience realises that I have tricked them into this.