Watching a brain at work

Brain Imaging Identifies Best Memorization Strategies
Exploring exactly why some individuals' memory skills are better than others has led researchers at Washington University in St. Louis to study the brain basis of learning strategies that healthy young adults select to help them memorize a series of objects. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), the researchers uncovered brain regions specifically correlated with the diverse strategies that subjects adopt.

Well, some of this is hype. At most, the study identified best strategies for an impractical task that may never be used beyond the laboratory. And some of this is inept reporting. Would a competent reporter let a phrase like the researchers uncovered brain regions creep into news that does not involve open the skull?

But the basic information is worth knowing: Some of the strategies were verbal, some were based on imagery. The fMRI displayed differences in location of the brain activity that appeared to match the strategies. There were differences between people and differences within the same person on different occasions. Somebody could use fMRI as an objective measure of learning strategies. No doubt somebody will.