Brain Correlates of Automaticity and Learning Disability

Harvard scientists link verbal automaticity to cerebellar abnormalities and motor (or combined motor and verbal) automaticity to white matter abnormalities.

Urion, D.K., Huff, H.V. & Carullo, M.P. (2015). MRI in assessing children with learning disability, focal findings and reduced automaticity. Neurology. doi: 10.1212/WNL.0000000000001849

Consolidation of Learning

The application of learning requires rest and consolidation (and concurrently teaching exceptions to taught rules interferes with learning).

Tamminen, J., Davis, M.H. & Rastle, K. (2015). From specific examples to general knowledge in language learning. Cognitive Psychology. doi:10.1016/j.cogpsych.2015.03.003

Learning and Executive Control

Neuroscientists show that learning induces autonomy of sensorimotor systems and that the release of cognitive control hubs predicts rate of learning.

Bassett, D.S., Yang, M., Wymbs, N.F. & Grafton, S.T. (2015). Learning-induced autonomy of sensorimotor systems. Nature Neuroscience. doi: 10.1038/nn.3993