{"id":1924,"date":"2013-10-23T11:39:46","date_gmt":"2013-10-23T11:39:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/astraea.net\/blog\/?p=1924"},"modified":"2013-10-31T11:49:18","modified_gmt":"2013-10-31T11:49:18","slug":"learning-with-your-nose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.astraea.net\/blog\/learning-with-your-nose\/","title":{"rendered":"Learning with your nose."},"content":{"rendered":"

It has always seemed that smells have been neglected in curricula.\u00a0 Yes, school children can be stinky, but that is a by product of a high density of sticky bodies.\u00a0 Adults can be stinky too.\u00a0 What has always been striking is how a smell can evoke a memory or an idea.\u00a0 That cranial connection signalled the potential for stimulating senses, other than simple cognitive resonance, to encourage learning.\u00a0 The BBC article<\/a> copied below explores the use of sensory stimulation to enhance the learning experience.<\/p>\n

Hacking our senses to boost learning power<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Some schools are pumping music, noises and fragrances into the classroom to see if it improves exam results \u2013 could it work?<\/p>\n

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What did your school smell like? Was it noisy or peaceful?<\/p>\n

It might not seem important, but a growing body of research suggests that smells and sounds can have an impact on learning, performance and creativity. Indeed, some head teachers have recently taken to broadcasting noises and pumping whiffs into their schools to see whether it can boost grades. Is there anything in it? And if so, what are the implications for the way we all work and study?<\/p>\n

There is certainly some well-established research to suggest that some noises can have a detrimental effect on learning. Numerous studies over the past 15 years have found that children attending schools under the flight paths of large airports lag behind in their exam results<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But general noise seems to have an effect too. Bridget Shield, a professor of acoustics at London South Bank University, and Julie Dockrell, now at the Institute of Education, have been conducting studies and advising politicians on the effects of all sorts of noises, such as traffic and sirens, as well as noise generated by the children themselves. When they recreated those particular sounds in an experimental setting whilst children completed various cognitive tasks, they found a significant negative effect on exam scores. \u201cEverything points to a detrimental impact of the noise on children\u2019s performance, in numeracy, in literacy, and in spelling,\u201d says Shield. The noise seemed to have an especially detrimental effect on children with special needs. `<\/p>\n

Shield says the sound of \u201cbabble\u201d \u2013 the chatter of other children, is particularly distracting in the classroom. Architects that fashion open-plan classrooms in schools would do well to take this on board. \u201cPeople are very distracted by speech \u2013 particularly if it\u2019s understandable, but you\u2019re not involved in it.\u201d This phenomenon is also known as the irrelevant speech effect, she says, adding that \u201cit\u2019s a very common finding in open-plan offices as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whether background sounds are beneficial or not seems to depend on what kind of noise it is \u2013 and the volume. In a series of studies published last year, Ravi Mehta from the College of Business at Illinois and colleagues tested people\u2019s creativity while exposed to a soundtrack made up of background noises \u2013 such as coffee-shop chatter and construction-site drilling \u2013 at different volumes. They found that people were more creative when the background noises were played at a medium level than when volume was low. Loud background noise, however, damaged their creativity.<\/p>\n

This makes sense for a couple of reasons, says psychologist Dr Nick Perham, at Cardiff Metropolitan University in the UK, who studies the effect of sounds on learning but was not involved in the study.\u00a0 Firstly, he says, sounds that are most distracting tend to be very variable. \u00a0A general hum in the background suggests a steady-state sound with not much acoustical variation. \u201cSo there\u2019s not much there to capture your attention \u2013 nothing distracting the subjects,\u201d he says. At the same time, the background noise might cause the subjects to be in a slightly heightened state of arousal, says Perham. You don\u2019t want too much or too little arousal. \u201cMedium arousal is best for good performance. So it might be that a general hum in the background gives an optimum level of arousal.\u201d With that in mind, Perham suggests there may be some benefit to playing music or other sounds in an art class or other situations where creativity is key.<\/p>\n

Many teachers all over the world already play music to students in class. Many are inspired by the belief that hearing music can boost IQ in subsequent tasks, the so-called Mozart effect<\/a>. While the evidence actually suggests it\u2019s a stretch to say classical music boosts brainpower, researchers do think pleasant sounds before a task can sometimes lift your mood and help you perform well, says Perham, who has done his own studies on the phenomenon. The key appears to be that you enjoy what you\u2019re hearing. \u201cIf you like the music or you like the sound \u2013 even listening to a Stephen King novel \u2013 then you did better. It didn\u2019t matter about the music,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n