We’ve all heard “practice makes perfect” – but the brain doesn’t work quite that neatly.
A fascinating study in Nature Neuroscience (March 2018) looked at brain activity in monkeys learning a brand-new task using a brain-computer interface. The researchers found something, as they put it, completely unexpected: at first, the brain doesn’t create new neural activity patterns at all. Instead, it cobbles together existing ones, repurposing what it already has to make a quick, makeshift fix.
The result? A suboptimal version of the new skill.
Only over time, through repeated practice, does the brain reshape itself, creating the neural pathways needed for real proficiency.
If you stop and think about it, this makes evolutionary sense. It’s faster to reuse what you’ve got than to create something new from scratch.
In other words, the brain may well not be as flexible over the timescale of a few hours as we have imagined.
Proficiency from optimal neural activity takes a longer.
So, if you’re supporting people to learn new skills, don’t expect instant mastery.
Give them space, practice opportunities, and, of course, constructive feedback to guide the practice.
That’s how you help the brain move from “quick and dirty” to “skilled and fluent”.
What could you do this week to build in more practice (and patience) for the learners you support?
