Thinking Out Loud Can Aid Learning
Have you ever been caught talking to yourself? Be honest. I have. Before you emphatically say ‘No’ and whisper under your breath that I must be nuts at least hear the context in which it has occurred. I often rehearse instruction that I am going to be doing by saying it out loud as if I’m actually there doing it. I find that hearing it out loud helps me solidify my message more than just saying it inside my head. It gives me a chance to see and feel the emotion that I want to use to present my message and then think about how my audience may interpret that. I can then tailor and rehearse my message further.
Maybe I am cuckoo or maybe there’s something there that could at least help learning. There have been numerous studies on the potential benefits to learning of talking out loud, including this one that dates back to 1962.
A recent study finds that there is a memory advantage to saying words out loud versus saying them in your head. Words said aloud are better remembered than just thinking the words. Some clarity may be in order. This happens as a result of the Production Effect. By producing something with the words (i.e., saying them out loud) it helps fend off distractions that would make you forget the words faster while also enhancing the encoding process, thereby making the memory of those words stronger.
“Talking out loud’ is probably not the best descriptor of this process. See it that way and you could be forgiven for thinking that someone that does that isn’t working with a full deck. Instead, let’s refer to it as ‘thinking out loud’. After all, from a learning point of view, that is why you are saying what you are thinking out loud — so that you’ll have a better chance of remembering it in the long-term.
Thinking out loud, when the mind isn’t wandering, could also reveal that you have a high level of cognitive functioning. Cognitive function refers to intelligence for those of you that aren’t that intelligent. Thinking out loud while the mind is wandering may be the kind of self-talk you want to avoid doing in front of your grown kids, lest you find yourself on the waiting list of a nice senior’s home.
There are two types of self-talk that you would be most familiar with: instructional and motivational. Motivational self-talk is the kind you could imagine an athlete engaging in as a way to mentally prepare for competition (e.g., “Let’s go!”, “You’ve go this!”) or to get back on track when something distracting has happened during competition (e.g., “You need to stay strong here and push through this discomfort!”). Instructional self-talk is like talking yourself through a task. I’d put my rehearsal method in this category. Studying would fit here too.
If you are going to try this as a way of improving your studying habits, do note that reading your whole textbook or all your notes out loud won’t give you the same benefits. There needs to be order and purpose. Make sure that the reading out loud you are doing is active, not passive.
As a completely sane person looking to use this strategy to help your learning, you’ll want to 1) think out loud, not just talk out loud, which may involve 2) asking why and 3) summarizing. The asking why works especially well with topics that you are not yet that familiar with. It helps you learn to develop expertise in that topic as a ‘why’ question followed by an answer followed by another why question followed by another answer and so on and so on can really help you drill down into that topic. And summarizing is effective because any time you attempt to explain something in your own words, you get an immediate picture of how well you really do understand that thing.
Okay good people, go forth and mutter.
