Carly Godden: This podcast was made on the lands of the Wurundjeri people,
Carly Godden: the Woi-wurrung and the Bunurong. We'd like to pay respects
Carly Godden: to their elders, past and present and emerging.
Carly Godden: From the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences at the University
Carly Godden: of Melbourne. This is PsychTalks.
Nick Haslam: Hello and thanks for joining us again for another episode
Nick Haslam: of PsychTalks. I'm Professor Nick Haslam, a social psychologist. Normally,
Nick Haslam: I'd be accompanied by Associate Professor Cassie Haywood, an applied psychologist.
Nick Haslam: But unfortunately, she's not able to come here today. In
Nick Haslam: this episode, we're putting the microscope on cognitive development. In particular,
Nick Haslam: we'll focus on what's called executive functions, how these executive
Nick Haslam: functions evolve and what their impact on us is exactly.
Nick Haslam: And to help us, we're joined by Professor Iroise Dumontheil.
Nick Haslam: Hello and welcome to PsychTalks, Iroise.
Iroise Dumontheil: Thanks for having me.
Nick Haslam: So just to start off, can you say a little
Nick Haslam: bit about your background? How you came to be in Melbourne?
Iroise Dumontheil: Yes, I'm French originally, but I spent a lot of
Iroise Dumontheil: my university time in the UK, except for a few
Iroise Dumontheil: periods of Postdoc in Stockholm in Sweden, which I enjoyed
Iroise Dumontheil: very much, and after 20 years or so in London,
Iroise Dumontheil: I migrated to Melbourne last year.
Nick Haslam: So, Iroise, your work is deeply rooted in an area
Nick Haslam: called developmental, cognitive neuroscience and educational neuroscience.
Iroise Dumontheil: Yes, so developmental cognitive neuroscience is the study of brain development. So,
Iroise Dumontheil: we use new methods of brain imaging to look at
Iroise Dumontheil: the brain structure and brain function and how these changes
Iroise Dumontheil: during development allow the development of cognitive capacities. So being
Iroise Dumontheil: able to remember more things, attend better and things like that.
Iroise Dumontheil: While educational neuroscience is trying to link this research to
Iroise Dumontheil: educational research and teaching practices to see whether what we
Iroise Dumontheil: are learning from developmental cognitive neuroscience can be informative for
Iroise Dumontheil: education
Nick Haslam: Sounds very cutting edge. And I imagine researchers in these
Nick Haslam: fields study a whole range of different brain functions. But
Nick Haslam: one concept that stands out in your own work is
Nick Haslam: executive functions. Could you explain what these functions are and
Nick Haslam: how they develop during childhood and adolescence?
Iroise Dumontheil: Yes, so cognitive control or executive function- so executive, it's
Iroise Dumontheil: a bit like the CEO in a company. They coordinate
Iroise Dumontheil: other aspects of cognition like perception, attention, action to achieve
Iroise Dumontheil: your goals. And they're particularly important when we're faced with
Iroise Dumontheil: situations where your routine behaviours (automatic thoughts) are not sufficient,
Iroise Dumontheil: so what you do normally does- is not enough. So,
Iroise Dumontheil: for example, if you're driving home but your usual route
Iroise Dumontheil: is blocked by roadwork, then you need to cancel your
Iroise Dumontheil: normal route, or inhibit it and instead plan an alternative route.
Iroise Dumontheil: And so executive functions that have been studied in particular
Iroise Dumontheil: include working memory, which allow us to keep information in
Iroise Dumontheil: mind and manipulate it. For example, if you're trying to
Iroise Dumontheil: calculate how to split the bill at the end of
Iroise Dumontheil: the dinner, you have to kind of think of how
Iroise Dumontheil: many people are there, and I can think about all
Iroise Dumontheil: these numbers. Or inhibitory control, which allow us to stop
Iroise Dumontheil: an automatic or dominant behaviours or thoughts like you keep
Iroise Dumontheil: wanting to eat some cake. Or cognitive flexibility, which is the
Iroise Dumontheil: ability to shift between goals or rules or tasks. So,
Iroise Dumontheil: like a kid will speak differently to their friend or
Iroise Dumontheil: to their teacher to their parent or grandparent and developmental
Iroise Dumontheil: cognitive neuroscience research in the last 25 years or so
Iroise Dumontheil: have shown that executive functions and the brain networks that
Iroise Dumontheil: support executive functions continue to mature well into adolescence.
Nick Haslam: I wish you hadn't mentioned cake. So these executive functions
Nick Haslam: why are they so crucial for educational outcomes?
Iroise Dumontheil: Because they allow us to think and behave in novel contexts.
Iroise Dumontheil: And usually everything we learn is new. So, in a
Iroise Dumontheil: broad way, executive functions help children pay attention also to
Iroise Dumontheil: what the teacher is saying not be distracted, remember to
Iroise Dumontheil: do their homework and manipulate abstract thoughts. So, all this
Iroise Dumontheil: enables them to be in the right place mentally, to
Iroise Dumontheil: learn at school. But also, when we learn new things,
Iroise Dumontheil: it's a novel situation. We have to kind of figure
Iroise Dumontheil: out what to do, how to maintain that in our mind.
Iroise Dumontheil: And that's all really relevant for the educational context.
Nick Haslam: Right. So kids can't just sit in a classroom and
Nick Haslam: be sponges, in other words.
Iroise Dumontheil: No, they have to attend. So if they are looking outside,
Iroise Dumontheil: listening to their friend, they are not going to be
Iroise Dumontheil: listening to what the teacher is saying. And so, they
Iroise Dumontheil: are not going to learn that particular concept at that time.
Iroise Dumontheil: Research suggests that teachers have to repeat the same thing
Iroise Dumontheil: at least three or four times because one time the
Iroise Dumontheil: kid is looking for something in their bag, another time
Iroise Dumontheil: they are talking to their friend, and one time they
Iroise Dumontheil: heard the teacher.
Nick Haslam: Makes sense. So how about STEM disciplines like science and
Nick Haslam: mathematics in particular?
Iroise Dumontheil: Yes. So if we take the example of arithmetic because
Iroise Dumontheil: often we talk about maths. But really, in cognitive neuroscience research,
Iroise Dumontheil: we look at arithmetic, which is like a simpler, more
Iroise Dumontheil: limited part of maths. There is evidence that when children
Iroise Dumontheil: first learn arithmetic, facts like four plus six equals 10
Iroise Dumontheil: or four times six equals 24. They use the frontal
Iroise Dumontheil: parts of their brain, which are very much involved in
Iroise Dumontheil: executive functioning. Well, when these facts become well learned, so
Iroise Dumontheil: they are more automatized, then we see increased activation in
Iroise Dumontheil: the parietal regions at the back of the brain. So
Iroise Dumontheil: we have to have this shift between when something is new,
Iroise Dumontheil: we use a frontal cortex. When something is kind of automatized,
Iroise Dumontheil: it's the back of the brain. But then, if you
Iroise Dumontheil: ask an adult to calculate, you know 35 times 12,
Iroise Dumontheil: then they will need to decompose this multiplication into different bits,
Iroise Dumontheil: and they will need to keep that information in mind.
Iroise Dumontheil: So they will need them working memory to to solve it.
Iroise Dumontheil: So working memory helps us manipulate new concepts, new facts
Iroise Dumontheil: and integrate them with existing knowledge we already have. And
Iroise Dumontheil: that's really what is the key component of learning. And
Iroise Dumontheil: what education is striving to do is to make connections
Iroise Dumontheil: between old and new knowledge and executive functions really allow
Iroise Dumontheil: us to do that because we're keeping in mind the
Iroise Dumontheil: new bit, the old information and consolidating them and linking
Iroise Dumontheil: them together. And those links is what helps us remember
Iroise Dumontheil: it long term.
Nick Haslam: Are there differences between individuals and groups?
Iroise Dumontheil: Yeah, so like most human traits, there are a lot
Iroise Dumontheil: of individual differences in executive function abilities. Some of them are,
Iroise Dumontheil: you know, who have a genetic origin, Um, but also
Iroise Dumontheil: environmental origins. For example, one of my students, Roisin Perry.
Iroise Dumontheil: She's analysing a cohort trying to look at markers of
Iroise Dumontheil: socioeconomic status, how different markers might predict development of executive function.
Iroise Dumontheil: And a lot of research has been done looking at
Iroise Dumontheil: very early childhood and low SES children tend to be
Iroise Dumontheil: less ready to start school. But we were looking at adolescence.
Iroise Dumontheil: So how long would this influence continue to last, and
Iroise Dumontheil: she found that markers like parental occupation and very low
Iroise Dumontheil: family income influence developmental trajectory of executive functions into adolescence
Iroise Dumontheil: as well.
Nick Haslam: So, do these environmental effects on executive functions matter for
Nick Haslam: academic achievement?
Iroise Dumontheil: So, there is evidence that children of higher working memory
Iroise Dumontheil: tend to do better in arithmetic and even adolescents. Again,
Iroise Dumontheil: we've found that those kids who had better working memory
Iroise Dumontheil: at age 11/12 tended to do better in the UK
Iroise Dumontheil: in these GCSEs. So the age 16 standardised test in maths,
Iroise Dumontheil: science and English, even when you control for earlier academic achievement.
Iroise Dumontheil: So how much information you can keep in mind and
Iroise Dumontheil: manipulate over the course of adolescence continues to affect how
Iroise Dumontheil: well you're doing at school.
Nick Haslam: So given those really interesting individual differences, what should teachers
Nick Haslam: do if the students they've got in their classroom vary
Nick Haslam: a lot in the maturity of their executive functions and,
Nick Haslam: of course, other aspects of their cognitive development as well?
Nick Haslam: How can they enhance learning for all at once? How
Nick Haslam: can you personalise education?
Iroise Dumontheil: This is a very big question, so and that's one
Iroise Dumontheil: of the key aims of educational neuroscience. How can we
Iroise Dumontheil: help teachers with that first identify the strengths and weaknesses
Iroise Dumontheil: of certain children and how to help them according to
Iroise Dumontheil: their strength and weaknesses? And teachers are already very aware
Iroise Dumontheil: of the fact that children in a single classroom vary
Iroise Dumontheil: hugely in their abilities in different domains, whether that's literacy, numeracy, science, art,
Iroise Dumontheil: music and sport. But because of individual differences in executive function,
Iroise Dumontheil: some children may be more easily distracted by things like
Iroise Dumontheil: decorations in a classroom or by a chatty school friend.
Iroise Dumontheil: Or they might not be able to remember four instructions.
Iroise Dumontheil: So an example we give is like if the teacher says,
Iroise Dumontheil: "Put your English book down, take your math notebook, a
Iroise Dumontheil: blue pen and come sit on the floor." Some kids
Iroise Dumontheil: are just lost after the two first instructions, and it
Iroise Dumontheil: might be like wandering around looking like they're lost or
Iroise Dumontheil: not attending. But it was actually too much information, or
Iroise Dumontheil: they might not be able to solve mental arithmetic problems
Iroise Dumontheil: at the same age as others. And all this will
Iroise Dumontheil: impact their learning because if they keep missing out on
Iroise Dumontheil: some information, gradually, you can get behind. So, what we're
Iroise Dumontheil: trying to think about is how we can help teachers
Iroise Dumontheil: be more aware of these particular executive function differences and
Iroise Dumontheil: how that might impact children in the classroom. So, for example,
Iroise Dumontheil: you know, not gives as many instructions. And sometimes if
Iroise Dumontheil: you have a routine that helps children because again, when
Iroise Dumontheil: it's automatic, you don't need your executive functions in the
Iroise Dumontheil: same way. But a bigger question for education is whether
Iroise Dumontheil: we want education to permit every child to reach their
Iroise Dumontheil: full potential or for all children to achieve a minimum
Iroise Dumontheil: goal standard level. And these two goals lead to quite
Iroise Dumontheil: different approaches and to teaching groups of children with varied abilities.
Iroise Dumontheil: And it's not really a question for developmental, cognitive neuroscientist
Iroise Dumontheil: or educational neuroscientist to answer. It's a society question, but
Iroise Dumontheil: it will affect what advice we might give on how
Iroise Dumontheil: to help children and how to teach in the classroom.
Nick Haslam: So are these advances that you're making finding their way
Nick Haslam: into teacher training yet or that down the track a bit?
Iroise Dumontheil: There is a push to do that, but it's very hard. First,
Iroise Dumontheil: teacher training is not very long. Well, it depends. Different
Iroise Dumontheil: countries do it very differently. And in some countries like Finland,
Iroise Dumontheil: it's a masters. You have a kind of very long training,
Iroise Dumontheil: and they cover actually a lot of that. And they
Iroise Dumontheil: do very well in PISA and things like this. In other countries,
Iroise Dumontheil: it's very condensed. In one year, you do learn bits
Iroise Dumontheil: about teaching, and you actually also practise- start practising teaching
Iroise Dumontheil: so you don't have time to actually put too much extra.
Iroise Dumontheil: But there is really a push and kind of, working
Iroise Dumontheil: with Faculty of Education teacher training to see how much
Iroise Dumontheil: we can actually insert into the teacher training, removing maybe
Iroise Dumontheil: some facts actually, what we call "neuro myths". So things
Iroise Dumontheil: about learning styles or using 10% of our brain, if actually we can
Iroise Dumontheil: kind of get rid of some of that and replace
Iroise Dumontheil: them with maybe more, not necessarily cognitive neuroscience based but
Iroise Dumontheil: developmental psychology knowledge about learning development that would be useful
Iroise Dumontheil: for teachers. But it's going to be a slow, a
Iroise Dumontheil: slow progress.
Nick Haslam: You've done a lot of work on what you call
Nick Haslam: cognitive training. So what forms does that take? And does
Nick Haslam: it show promise in improving educational outcomes? What does the
Nick Haslam: evidence say?
Iroise Dumontheil: Well, one form of cognitive training is a sort of
Iroise Dumontheil: brain training games that became really popular maybe 10 years ago.
Iroise Dumontheil: But they're still very present in the app world, and
Iroise Dumontheil: they all claim to benefit your cognition. So that's kind
Iroise Dumontheil: of one form of it. And because executive functions were
Iroise Dumontheil: associated with so many outcomes and, you know, educational achievement
Iroise Dumontheil: but also mental health, researchers thought that if we exercised
Iroise Dumontheil: executive function with this type of games, then by repeatedly
Iroise Dumontheil: playing these games that tax your executive function, make it
Iroise Dumontheil: work hard, for example, remembering, you know, number of words, locations,
Iroise Dumontheil: objects in a gamified way to make it more engaging.
Iroise Dumontheil: Then we would improve executive function and then down the
Iroise Dumontheil: line we would improve arithmetic, academic outcome, mental health outcomes,
Iroise Dumontheil: et cetera. Unfortunately, meta-analysis of this type of research indicate that,
Iroise Dumontheil: for example, in the case of working memory, performance on
Iroise Dumontheil: the games themselves improve. Performance on other types, similar working
Iroise Dumontheil: memory tasks improves, too, and that's what we call near transfer,
Iroise Dumontheil: so you can improve working memory. But unfortunately, there is
Iroise Dumontheil: no what we call far transfer, so improving work memory
Iroise Dumontheil: doesn't lead to improvement in reasoning or maths. So this
Iroise Dumontheil: is very disappointing, but because that would have been great
Iroise Dumontheil: if kids are doing badly in maths because they've got
Iroise Dumontheil: poor work memory, we train this work memory using games,
Iroise Dumontheil: and then they do better in maths. And what it
Iroise Dumontheil: suggests is that the learning and the brain, the way
Iroise Dumontheil: the brain supports learning is in specific ways. So we
Iroise Dumontheil: learn about maths, maybe working memory for maths facts, manipulating
Iroise Dumontheil: numbers so we don't have these domain general working memory
Iroise Dumontheil: capacity that once we improve, it improves everything. So we're
Iroise Dumontheil: finding it's hard to generalise skills to other domains.
Nick Haslam: So, the brain is not just one big, powerful computer?
Iroise Dumontheil: No, it has these specialised connections that support specific type
Iroise Dumontheil: of thinking.
Nick Haslam: Can you say more about your own research work on
Nick Haslam: learning games?
Iroise Dumontheil: Yes, so we have colleagues at the Centre for Educational
Iroise Dumontheil: Neuroscience at the University of London in the UK. We
Iroise Dumontheil: were interested in trying a different approach because these games
Iroise Dumontheil: weren't working and it rested on two elements. So first,
Iroise Dumontheil: because general training did not help, we embedded our learning
Iroise Dumontheil: game within the specific context of maths and science to
Iroise Dumontheil: have this specificity. And second, in addition, to have some
Iroise Dumontheil: repeated practise, we engaged children's metacognition. And so meta cognition
Iroise Dumontheil: is our ability to think about our thoughts. It means
Iroise Dumontheil: that we can reflect on what we're doing and how
Iroise Dumontheil: we're doing it. So it's kind of thinking about thinking.
Iroise Dumontheil: If we're about to do a task that we think
Iroise Dumontheil: is going to be difficult, then we will engage more
Iroise Dumontheil: cognitive control, more executive functions to focus more. If we
Iroise Dumontheil: feel we haven't memorised our lesson well enough, we'll go
Iroise Dumontheil: over it again. So this is kind of this insight
Iroise Dumontheil: into our thoughts and behaviour. Or if we feel we're
Iroise Dumontheil: driving too fast and the road is slippery, we'll slow down.
Iroise Dumontheil: There is some evidence that if you prompt children to
Iroise Dumontheil: reflect on their performance, they'll engage executive functions in a
Iroise Dumontheil: more mature manner. A current hypothesis in the field of
Iroise Dumontheil: brain training and cognitive training is that if we incorporate
Iroise Dumontheil: metacognitive reflection in those training programs, kids will become more
Iroise Dumontheil: flexible in the way they're engaging executive function as a
Iroise Dumontheil: function of how hard the task is and that will
Iroise Dumontheil: lead to improvement in performance because they'll be able to
Iroise Dumontheil: reflect that, "This is hard. Now I need to think more.
Iroise Dumontheil: I can apply these tips and tricks that I've been practising."
Iroise Dumontheil: And it might also improve the far transfer so they
Iroise Dumontheil: might be able to apply their learning in a different context.
Iroise Dumontheil: So that's kind of the background. So our project focus
Iroise Dumontheil: on the fact that there are many concepts in science
Iroise Dumontheil: and maths that are counterintuitive. So as an example in science, dolphins.
Iroise Dumontheil: They're not fish, but they have fins and they live
Iroise Dumontheil: in the water, so they kind of look like fish.
Iroise Dumontheil: In maths, children learn that five is bigger than three,
Iroise Dumontheil: but then they learn negative numbers and minus five is
Iroise Dumontheil: now smaller than minus three. So they really have to
Iroise Dumontheil: kind of keep going over things that are a bit counter,
Iroise Dumontheil: what they've just learned before. So our intervention had two components.
Iroise Dumontheil: One was to make children aware of the fact that
Iroise Dumontheil: there are so many concepts in maths and science that
Iroise Dumontheil: are counterintuitive. Where the first response that comes to your
Iroise Dumontheil: mind is incorrect. So, for example, if I ask you
Iroise Dumontheil: what do cows drink?
Nick Haslam: I want to say milk, but I thought I stopped
Nick Haslam: and thought.
Iroise Dumontheil: Exactly. So the second way was to encourage children to
Iroise Dumontheil: stop and think when they're solving maths and science problems,
Iroise Dumontheil: to give them time to inhibit their incorrect, intuitive response
Iroise Dumontheil: and favour the correct reasoning. So we called our intervention
Iroise Dumontheil: "stop and think" to really use a bit more time
Iroise Dumontheil: to think about the correct answer.
Nick Haslam: Good advice for life in general, I reckon. "Stop and think." So,
Nick Haslam: did this approach work? Could you show far transfer?
Iroise Dumontheil: So first we were interested, whether we had any improvement
Iroise Dumontheil: in maths and science. So, this was run as a
Iroise Dumontheil: really large trial. What we call randomised control trial, in
Iroise Dumontheil: the UK in 7/8 year olds and 9/10 year olds.
Iroise Dumontheil: And it was the teacher was running the intervention. And
Iroise Dumontheil: what we found was that after 10 weeks training, there
Iroise Dumontheil: was improvement around two months of progress in science and
Iroise Dumontheil: one month in math. And these were assessed with standardised
Iroise Dumontheil: math and science test, not specifically the counterintuitive problems that
Iroise Dumontheil: we had covered in the training. So that suggested some
Iroise Dumontheil: near transfer to other types of maths and science problems.
Iroise Dumontheil: And we also found that the 9-to-10-year-olds were the ones
Iroise Dumontheil: who benefited the most. Maybe because they have better metacognition
Iroise Dumontheil: or better inhibitory control, and that enabled them to make
Iroise Dumontheil: the most of the training. In terms of far transfer,
Iroise Dumontheil: it was interesting, anecdotally, that some teachers reported that some
Iroise Dumontheil: children transferred to "stop and think" approach to other school
Iroise Dumontheil: subjects like reading. And I think that's quite interesting. And
Iroise Dumontheil: we don't know whether it's the intervention itself because it
Iroise Dumontheil: was metacognition or because it was the teacher doing the intervention.
Iroise Dumontheil: And so that was like within the whole class, they
Iroise Dumontheil: could kind of keep talking about it. And maybe the
Iroise Dumontheil: teacher could say, "Oh, look here, you should stop and
Iroise Dumontheil: think about your answer as well when you're, you know,
Iroise Dumontheil: reading comprehension, you're understanding that text. What's the question? You
Iroise Dumontheil: have to go back and find the answer." Again, the
Iroise Dumontheil: first thing comes to mind might not be the correct answer.
Nick Haslam: That's super encouraging then, and it's very impressive that a
Nick Haslam: 2.5 month intervention can lead to an additional two month benefit.
Nick Haslam: So very promising indeed. Do you think we will see
Nick Haslam: mainstream education becoming increasingly gamified based on work like this
Nick Haslam: or do you think cognitive training will be used more selectively? Primarily,
Nick Haslam: let's say, for kids who are having particular problems with
Nick Haslam: executive functions?
Iroise Dumontheil: I think mainstream education is already quite gamified. So, for example,
Iroise Dumontheil: my son's primary schools, both previously in London and now
Iroise Dumontheil: in Melbourne. They had children use mathematics and English apps
Iroise Dumontheil: in the classroom, and then they also encourage their use
Iroise Dumontheil: at home. And so, rather than being domain general like
Iroise Dumontheil: the cognitive training we were talking about, these apps are
Iroise Dumontheil: specific to numeracy and literacy, so they would likely be
Iroise Dumontheil: more beneficial than the general apps I was talking about before.
Iroise Dumontheil: And one key advantage of this type of program going
Iroise Dumontheil: back to the issue of individual differences in children is
Iroise Dumontheil: that quite often like a lot of brain training games,
Iroise Dumontheil: they are what we call adaptive, so they get harder,
Iroise Dumontheil: the better you do. And so there's this concept in
Iroise Dumontheil: developmental psychology that's called the zone of proximal development, and
Iroise Dumontheil: the idea is that you learn most when you're doing
Iroise Dumontheil: something right at the level where it's quite difficult but
Iroise Dumontheil: you can still do it, some of it. If it's
Iroise Dumontheil: too easy, you don't learn. If it's too hard, you
Iroise Dumontheil: don't learn, either. You get quite frustrated, and you can't,
Iroise Dumontheil: you don't want to do it anymore. So if done well,
Iroise Dumontheil: this adaptive program so you know you don't want the
Iroise Dumontheil: progress to be too slow or too fast. It means
Iroise Dumontheil: that children can really practise at a sweet spot of
Iroise Dumontheil: difficulty for them and that would maximise their learning. So
Iroise Dumontheil: that's really an advantage in terms of having these apps
Iroise Dumontheil: instead of the whole class and the teacher is saying
Iroise Dumontheil: what's two times eight and some children know that very
Iroise Dumontheil: well and others don't. Then they can do that by
Iroise Dumontheil: themselves at the right level. However, I'm quite conflicted about
Iroise Dumontheil: these apps because of the lack of research carried out
Iroise Dumontheil: on them. So there are many different apps out there.
Iroise Dumontheil: Only a few of them have been designed by researchers
Iroise Dumontheil: and built on our cognitive psychology, cognitive neuroscience research, but
Iroise Dumontheil: also I'm conflicted because in general, you know there is
Iroise Dumontheil: a move to try and minimise screen time in children,
Iroise Dumontheil: and if we let them do this work on screen
Iroise Dumontheil: at school, and at home. And then it's really hard
Iroise Dumontheil: to say, Don't spend too much time on your screen
Iroise Dumontheil: because they're like, "Oh, well, I'm doing my maths." So
Iroise Dumontheil: I think we still need more evidence
Nick Haslam: Beyond cognitive training, what other sorts of interventions can improve
Nick Haslam: learning outcomes in schools? I know you've researched effects of
Nick Haslam: physical exercise and mindfulness. What's the current state of evidence
Nick Haslam: about that sort of intervention?
Iroise Dumontheil: Yes, so basically, you can have a whole range of
Iroise Dumontheil: different ways to try and improve mental health, cognition. And
Iroise Dumontheil: mindfulness was another approach where educational practice went ahead of
Iroise Dumontheil: the research. In the UK, for example, a lot of
Iroise Dumontheil: schools started trying to implement mindfulness training. Um, when not,
Iroise Dumontheil: you know, any research had been done at the time. So,
Iroise Dumontheil: I've done myself very small-scale research on this trying to
Iroise Dumontheil: understand whether mindfulness meditation training may work in the same
Iroise Dumontheil: way in adolescents and in adults, and whether it might
Iroise Dumontheil: improve executive function, particular attentional control and resisting to emotional distractions.
Iroise Dumontheil: So this is because if you know, some of you
Iroise Dumontheil: might not have done mindfulness meditation before, but you might
Iroise Dumontheil: be told you need for five minutes to focus on
Iroise Dumontheil: your breath, and then your mind wanders because it always wanders.
Iroise Dumontheil: And then you have to bring it back to the breath,
Iroise Dumontheil: notice it and bring it back to the breath. So,
Iroise Dumontheil: you have to be able to control what you're tending towards. So,
Iroise Dumontheil: I was interested in this in the aspect of executive
Iroise Dumontheil: control training. What we found is that both adolescents and
Iroise Dumontheil: adults showed improvement in attentional control, and adolescents only also
Iroise Dumontheil: showed less brain activity in response to emotional distractions. So,
Iroise Dumontheil: we found some positive effects on these two measures, but
Iroise Dumontheil: they were small effect. And it's not the fact that,
Iroise Dumontheil: you know, everything improved. Interestingly, adolescents actually preferred a relaxation condition,
Iroise Dumontheil: which was a control condition because they felt that maybe
Iroise Dumontheil: had more immediate effects. So, this is very small scale.
Iroise Dumontheil: But in the UK, they run a very large trial
Iroise Dumontheil: called the Myriad Trial. And what they did was that
Iroise Dumontheil: secondary school teachers were trained to incorporate mindfulness meditation training
Iroise Dumontheil: in the social and emotional curriculum at the schools, and
Iroise Dumontheil: the key outcome measures they use were risk for depression, social,
Iroise Dumontheil: emotional and behavioural functioning and wellbeing. And so, whether you
Iroise Dumontheil: have kind of emotional problems, really, how well- more mental health focused
Iroise Dumontheil: maybe than what we did. And the results after two
Iroise Dumontheil: years showed no beneficial effect of the intervention compared to
Iroise Dumontheil: teaching as usual. And in fact, some of the secondary
Iroise Dumontheil: outcomes were worse after mindfulness training than teaching as usual.
Iroise Dumontheil: So this is really showing that training all secondary school
Iroise Dumontheil: children in one go, this kind of what we call
Iroise Dumontheil: universal intervention, and mindfulness is not the right approach. It
Iroise Dumontheil: might still be that some individual teenagers might still benefit,
Iroise Dumontheil: but not kind of the fact that we should do
Iroise Dumontheil: it for everything.
Nick Haslam: How about physical exercise?
Iroise Dumontheil: One of my former PhD students, Dr Fotini Vasilopoulos, was
Iroise Dumontheil: very interested in physical education and, you know, healthy body
Iroise Dumontheil: is also very important. We talk about healthy body, healthy mind,
Iroise Dumontheil: and many westernised society currently experience high obesity rates and
Iroise Dumontheil: including in childhood. And that's really a big issue. So
Iroise Dumontheil: there is interest in physical activity per se and also
Iroise Dumontheil: in whether physical activity might benefit not just the body
Iroise Dumontheil: but also cognition. So Fortini ran a meta-analysis of physical
Iroise Dumontheil: intervention in primary school children and what she found is
Iroise Dumontheil: that they were they had beneficial impacts. But again, there
Iroise Dumontheil: was some specificity. So, for example, what we found is
Iroise Dumontheil: that vigorous physical activity in aerobic physical activity. So you're
Iroise Dumontheil: kind of working quite hard, you kind of have to
Iroise Dumontheil: breathe harder, led to improvement in executive functions. While physical activity
Iroise Dumontheil: combined with academic instructions, for example, they have these activities
Iroise Dumontheil: when you ask the children to do three plus five
Iroise Dumontheil: and then they had to calculate it and then they
Iroise Dumontheil: have to make the corresponding number of jumping jacks. So,
Iroise Dumontheil: they have, like, some sport but they are also doing some
Iroise Dumontheil: maths at the same time. That benefited maths achievement. So,
Iroise Dumontheil: depending on what you might want to train, you might
Iroise Dumontheil: want to do a different type of intervention. However, the
Iroise Dumontheil: quality of the studies varied quite a lot, so, there's
Iroise Dumontheil: still low certainty of the evidence, low strength of this evidence.
Nick Haslam: So impressive that you're looking at all these different dimensions
Nick Haslam: even in your own work, not just as a field. So,
Nick Haslam: looking ahead, where do you see the field of educational
Nick Haslam: neuroscience heading? What do you think the next decade of
Nick Haslam: research is going to lead towards?
Iroise Dumontheil: Well, educational neuroscience is still in its early days, really. So,
Iroise Dumontheil: if you think about how biological discoveries took decades, if
Iroise Dumontheil: not a century, to impact medical practise, then you know
Iroise Dumontheil: there's a long road ahead, so you can think- I
Iroise Dumontheil: think it's a good analogy to think about it that way.
Iroise Dumontheil: So progress, I think, will be made through continued and
Iroise Dumontheil: increased partnership between teachers and educational researchers, psychologists, cognitive neuroscientists. However,
Iroise Dumontheil: teachers have got very little spare time to do more
Iroise Dumontheil: training work or to work with teenage researchers, and that's
Iroise Dumontheil: really a limit. I think I'd love to work with
Iroise Dumontheil: more teachers and say, you know, what do you need?
Iroise Dumontheil: What's your problem? But having this two way street and
Iroise Dumontheil: working with teachers, they just don't have time. I'm involved
Iroise Dumontheil: in the society, called the International Mind, Brain and Education
Iroise Dumontheil: Society and trying to link up these different field of
Iroise Dumontheil: research and practise to try and improve our understanding and
Iroise Dumontheil: how we can apply it. So gradually we'll be building
Iroise Dumontheil: evidence for which educational practise works best and why so
Iroise Dumontheil: some of them may be existing educational practise, but we need-
Iroise Dumontheil: we want to understand "Why does this one work better
Iroise Dumontheil: than another one?" And ground that in our understanding of
Iroise Dumontheil: the learning brain.
Nick Haslam: Such important work. Thanks so much for talking to us today, Iroise.
Nick Haslam: And good luck with your work.
Iroise Dumontheil: Thanks for having me.
Nick Haslam: You've been listening to PsychTalks with me, Nick Haslam. We'd
Nick Haslam: like to thank our guests for today. Professor Iroise Dumontheil.
Nick Haslam: This episode was produced by Carly Godden with production assistance
Nick Haslam: from Mairead Murray and Gemma Papprill. Our sound engineer was
Nick Haslam: Jack Palmer. Thanks for tuning in to PsychTalks, and we
Nick Haslam: still have more to come in this series. So, see
Nick Haslam: you again soon. Bye for now.