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Body & Soul

Repeat after me .. 20000 times

I vaguely remember hearing somewhere that for a person to be able to do something automatically they have to repeat it 20000 times so the 'unconscious brain' ( for want of a better description ) gets the hang of it.

Can any one shed any light on this

Ta

M

interele Sat 27/09/08 20:56

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terambulan
Sat 27/09/08
23:32

I don't think anyone could repeat anything 20,000 times consciously except normal needs like breathing/blinking etc. Having to count would defeat the object.

Jugglering
Sun 28/09/08
00:08

In order to ingrain onto the neuron paths in the brain a particular way of doing something that is not covered by any of the automatic responses, you do need to do that action repeatedly... I doubt very much if it is 20,000 times though....

Sports people, actors, dancers etc often use the technique of *thinking through* a particular problem or new action (like learning a new dance routine or gymnastic display) by simply going through the new action step by step in their head.... learning takes place when new connections are made between brain nerve cells..... and these connections can be made even if one is not actually physically going through the routine. Anyone who has learned his or her multiplication tables by rote will still be able to recite these donkeys years later without any real calculation or memory skills.

ummmm
Sun 28/09/08
00:10

Jugglering.....you talk *****

ummmm
Sun 28/09/08
00:11

absolute sh!te

Jugglering
Sun 28/09/08
00:24

Hardly *****.... well documented actually !

http://www.happychild.org.uk/acc/tpr/amz/1198r ept.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neural_network

http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/ab stract/124/1/67

cazzz1975
Sun 28/09/08
08:56

well said jugg, repetition even works with muscle as well, in order to get my golf swing into muscle memory (so I can perform it the same way everytime) I have to practise it a lot, I have never counted it though.

beso
Sun 28/09/08
13:20

Certainly in the case of singing the mental repetiton of the song is extremely effective. I frequently accurately vocalise songs I have only ever sung in my head.

However I have found when I was learning to sing that I only need to understand a technique intellectually and I incorporated it into my voice without a single practice either mentally or out aloud.

I believe this is due to the fact that the muscles involved in vocalisation controlled by the cranial nerves which exit the brain without passing through the spinal cord.

Moreover singing is a kind of trance where the auditory stimulus is passed through the mathematical processing parts of the brain and sent to the vocal tract. Once the neuron connections are made in maths processing area the ability is manifested without having to repeat the motor processes as would be expected in a typical physical skill.

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