John Medina Quotes & Sayings

For example, from nouns to verbs to aspects of grammar, we each store language in different areas, recruiting different regions for different components. — John Medina

The brain pays more attention to the gist than to the peripheral details of an emotionally charged experience...present information in a logically organized, hierarchical structure. — John Medina

Many families actively discourage the expression of tough emotions like fear and anger. Happiness and tranquility, meanwhile, make it to the top of the list of "approved" emotions. There is no such thing as a bad emotion. There is no such thing as a good emotion. An emotion is either there - or it is not. These parents seem to know that emotions don't make people weak and they don't make people strong. They only make people human. The result is a savvy let-the-children-be-who-they-are attitude.
-They do not judge emotions.
-They acknowledge the reflexive nature of emotions.
-They know that behavior is a choice, even though an emotion is not.
-They see a crisis as a teachable moment. — John Medina

Here's something you can try at home if you are eight months pregnant or if you have a baby younger than 5 months old. If the infant has already arrived, place him on his back. Then gently lift up both of his legs, or both of his arms, and let them drop back to the bed of their own weight. His arms will usually fling out from the sides of his body, thumbs flexed, palms up, with a startled look on his face. This is called the Moro reflex. — John Medina

Emotionally charged events are better remembered - for longer, and with more accuracy - than neutral events. — John Medina

Over the long term, however, too much adrenaline produces scarring on the insides of your blood vessels. These scars become magnets for molecules to accumulate, creating lumps called plaques. These can grow large enough to block the blood vessels. If it happens in the blood vessels of your heart, you get a heart attack; in your brain, you get a stroke. — John Medina

You've got seconds to grab your audience's attention and only minutes to keep it. — John Medina

Imaging studies have shown that exercise increases blood volume in a region of the brain called the dentate gyrus. That's a big deal. The dentate gyrus is a vital constituent of the hippocampus, a region deeply involved in memory formation. — John Medina

How People Learn. If you want people to be able to pay attention, don't start with details. Start with the key ideas and, in a hierarchical fashion, form the details around these larger notions. Meaning before details. — John Medina

What you do and learn in life physically changes what your brain looks like - it literally rewires it. — John Medina

The more handles one creates at the moment of learning, the more likely the information is to be assessed at a later date. The handles we can add revolve around content, timing, and environment. — John Medina

That doesn't last. By their first birthday, Kuhl found, babies can no longer distinguish between the sounds of every language on the planet. They can distinguish only between those to which they have been exposed in the past six months. — John Medina

Larks report being most alert around noon and feel most productive at work a few hours before they eat lunch. They don't need an alarm clock, because they invariably get up before the alarm rings - often before 6:00 a.m. Larks cheerfully report their favorite mealtime as breakfast and generally consume much less coffee than non-larks. Getting increasingly drowsy in the early evening, most larks go to bed (or want to go to bed) around 9:00 p.m. — John Medina

Kids come into the world before their brains are fully developed. The result? Parenthood. — John Medina

Souls should, by definition, also teach about the metaphysical dimensions — John Medina

The more personal an example, the more richly it becomes encoded and the more readily it is remembered. — John Medina

Public speaking professionals say that you win or lose the battle to hold your audience in the first 30 seconds of a given presentation. — John Medina

The brain doesn't pay attention to boring things, — John Medina

Based on research into the Picture Superiority Effect, when we read text alone, we are likely to remember only 10 percent of the information 3 days later. If that information is presented to us as text combined with a relevant image, we are likely to remember 65 percent of the information 3 days later. — John Medina

One of the greatest predictors of successful aging, they found, is the presence or absence of a sedentary lifestyle. Put — John Medina

The brain acts like a muscle: The more activity you do, the larger and more complex it can become. Whether that equates to more intelligence is another issue, but one fact is indisputable; What you do in life physically changes what your brain looks like. You can wire and rewire your brain with the simple choice of which musical instrument---or professional sport---you play — John Medina

What to say instead: "You really worked hard" What should Ethan's parents have done? Research reveals a simple solution. Rather than praising him for being smart, they should have praised him for working hard. On the successful completion of a test, they should not have said, "I'm so proud of you. You're such a bright kid." That appeals to a fixed, uncontrollable intellectual trait. It's called "fixed mindset" praise. His parents should have said, "I'm so proud of you. You must have studied a lot." This appeals to controllable effort. It's called "growth mindset" praise. — John Medina

WE DO NOT SEE with our eyes. We see with our brains. — John Medina

Emotionally arousing events tend to be better remembered than neutral events. While — John Medina

The problem in today's economy is that people are typically starting a family at the very time they are also supposed to be doing their best work. They are trying to be productive at some of the most stressful times of their lives. What if companies took this unhappy collision of life events seriously? They could offer Gottman's intervention as a benefit for every newly married, or newly pregnant, employee. — John Medina

You may think that grown-ups create children. The reality is that children create grown-ups. They become their own person, and so do you. Children give so much more than they take. — John Medina

Americans 2 years of age and older now spend an average of four hours and 49 minutes per day in front of the TV - 20 percent more than 10 years ago. And we are getting this exposure at younger and younger ages, made all the more complex because of the wide variety of digital screen time now available. In 2003, 73 percent of kids under 6 watched television every day. And children younger than 2 got two hours and five minutes of "screen time" with TVs and computers per day. — John Medina

Empathy works so well because it does not require a solution. It requires only understanding. — John Medina

Music has been a part of the cultural expression of virtually every culture ever studied. It may even extend into prehistoric times. A 35,000-year-old flute made from bird bone has been discovered, — John Medina

Having a first child is like swallowing an intoxicating drink made of equal parts joy and terror, chased with a bucketful of transitions nobody ever tells you about. — John Medina

People usually forget 90 percent of what they learn in a class within 30 days. He further showed that the majority of this forgetting occurs within the first few hours after class. — John Medina

Assigning work projects based on an employee's strengths may be critical to your group's productivity. You may discover you had a Michael Jordan on your team but couldn't see it because you were only asking him to play baseball. — John Medina

Try creating an interruption-free zone during the day - turn off your e-mail, phone, IM program, or BlackBerry - and see whether you get more done. — John Medina

Because we don't fully understand how our brains work, we do dumb things. We try to talk on our cell phones and drive at the same time, even though it is literally impossible for our brains to multitask when it comes to paying attention. — John Medina

Many couples will fight in front of their children but reconcile in private. This skews a child's perceptions, even at early ages, for the child always sees the wounding but never the bandaging. Parents who practice bandaging each other after a fight, deliberately and explicitly, allow their children to model both how to fight fair and how to make up. — John Medina

There are four nutrients you will want in your behavioral formula, adjusting them as your baby gets older: breast-feeding, talking to your baby, guided play, and praising effort rather than accomplishment. Brain research tells us there are also several toxins: pushing your child to perform tasks his brain is not developmentally ready to take on; stressing your child to the point of a psychological state termed "learned helplessness"; and, for the under-2 set, television. — John Medina

The brain cannot multitask — John Medina

The typical human brain can hold about seven pieces of new information for less than 30 seconds! — John Medina

Is jumping out of an airplane inherently stressful? The answer is no, and that highlights the subjective nature of stress. The — John Medina

The messages that do grab your attention are connected to memory, interest, and awareness. — John Medina

Multitasking, when it comes to paying attention, is a myth. — John Medina

(preschoolers demand some form of attention 180 times per hour, behavioral psychologists say), — John Medina

people don't pay attention to boring things — John Medina

John Bransford, a gifted education researcher, has spent many years studying what separates novice teachers from expert teachers. One of many things he noticed is the way the experts organize information. "[Experts'] knowledge is not simply a list of facts and formulas that are relevant to their domain; instead, their knowledge is organized around core concepts or 'big ideas' that guide their thinking about their domains," he cowrote in How People Learn. — John Medina

Do one thing at a time — John Medina

We must do a better job of encouraging lifelong curiosity. — John Medina

The brain cannot multitask...The brain naturally focuses on concepts sequentially, one at a time...This attentional ability is, to put it bluntly, not capable of multitasking. — John Medina

When the children reached school age, 21 percent scored 130 or more points on a standard IQ test, a level considered gifted. If their mothers had no morning sickness, only 7 percent of kids did that well. — John Medina

if you get a certain breed of dog or buy a certain model of car, you suddenly start noticing the same dog or car everywhere you go. — John Medina

As always, there are exceptions. Adults with training can still learn to distinguish speech sounds in other languages. But in general, the brain appears to have a limited window of opportunity in an astonishingly early time frame. The cognitive door begins swinging shut at 6 months old, and then, unless something pushes against it, the door closes. By 12 months, your baby's brain has made decisions that affect her the rest of her life. — John Medina

The brain remembers the emotional component of an experience better than any other aspect. — John Medina

The more attention the brain pays to a given stimulus, the more elaborately the information will be encoded - and retained. — John Medina

We are human because we can fantasize. — John Medina

Though we have been stuffing them into classrooms and cubicles for decades, our brains actually were built to survive in jungles and grasslands. A lifetime of exercise can result in a sometimes astonishing elevation in cognitive performance, compared with those who are sedentary. — John Medina

Emotions get our attention. — John Medina

The Mozart Effect comes to mind: the popular idea that listening to classical music makes students better at math. — John Medina

Author Elizabeth Stone once said, Making a decision to have a child - it's momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body. — John Medina

Kids praised for effort complete 50 percent more hard math problems than kids praised for intelligence. — John Medina

The brain processes meaning before detail. Providing the gist, the core concept, first was like giving a thirsty person a tall glass of water. And the brain likes hierarchy. Starting with general concepts naturally leads to explaining information in a hierarchical fashion. You have to do the general idea first. And then you will see that 40 percent improvement in understanding. — John Medina

Create a Chocolate Factory There may be as many different types of playrooms as there are families, but every one of them should have the following design element: lots of choices. A place for drawing. A place for painting. Musical instruments. A wardrobe hanging with costumes. Blocks. Picture books. Tubes and gears. Anything where a child can be safely let loose, joyously free to explore whatever catches her fancy. Did you see the movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory? If so, you may have been filled with wonder at the chocolate plant, complete with trees, lawns, and waterfalls - a totally explorable, nonlinear ecology. That's what I mean. I am focusing on artistic pursuits because kids who are trained in the arts — John Medina

People view their own behaviors as originating from amendable, situational constraints,but they view other people's behavior as originating from inherent, immutable personality traits. — John Medina

The trick for business professionals, and for educators, is to present bodies of information so compelling that the audience does this (encoding) on their own, spontaneously engaging in deep and elaborate encoding. — John Medina

After years of investigating aging populations, researchers' answer to the question of how much is not much. If all you do is walk several times a week, your brain will benefit. Even — John Medina

The most common communication mistakes? Relating too much information, with not enough time devoted to connecting the dots. — John Medina

The laboratory, the gold standard appears to be aerobic exercise, 30 minutes at a clip, two or three times a week. Add a strengthening regimen and you get even more cognitive benefit. — John Medina

If you wanted to create an education environment that was directly opposed to what the brain was good at doing, you probably would design something like a classroom. If you wanted to create a business environment that was directly opposed to what the brain was good at doing, you probably would design something like a cubicle. And if you wanted to change things, you might have to tear down both and start over. — John Medina

These inferences are the signature characteristic of something called Theory of Mind. We activate it all the time. We try to see our entire world in terms of motivations, ascribing motivations to our pets and even to inanimate objects. The skill is useful for selecting a mate, for navigating the day-to-day issues surrounding living together, for parenting. Theory of Mind is something humans have like no other creature. It is as close to mind reading as we are likely to get. — John Medina

The brain cannot multitask. Multitasking, when it comes to paying attention, is a myth. The brain naturally focuses on concepts sequentially, one at a time ... To put it bluntly, research shows that we can't multitask. We are biologically incapable of processing information-rich inputs simultaneously ... Studies show that a person who is interrupted takes 50 percent longer to accomplish a task. Not only that, he or she makes up to 50 percent more errors. — John Medina

Don't start with the details. Start with the key ideas, and in a hierarchical fashion, form the details around these larger notions. — John Medina

The perfect storm of occupational stress appears to be a combination of two factors: (1) a great deal is expected of you, and (2) you have no control over whether you will perform well. — John Medina

The more parents talk to their children, even in the earliest moments of life, the better their kids' linguistic abilities become — John Medina

In one of the strangest types of synesthesia - there are at least three dozen - people see a word and immediately experience a taste on their tongue. — John Medina

If you don't have a lot of energy, and you are called upon to give to your youngest several times a minute (preschoolers demand some form of attention 180 times per hour, behavioral psychologists say), you quickly exhaust your reservoir of good will toward your spouse. — John Medina

What's obvious to you is obvious to you. — John Medina

To put it bluntly, research shows that we can't multitask. We are biologically incapable of processing attention-rich inputs simultaneously. — John Medina

One of the greatest predictors of performance in school turns out to be the emotional stability of the home. — John Medina

If you are trying to get information across to someone, your ability to create a compelling introduction may be the most important single factor in the later success of your mission. — John Medina

Get into the habit of rewarding the intellectual exertion your child puts into a given task rather than his or her native intellectual resources. — John Medina

The brain appears to be designed to (1) solve problems (2) related to surviving (3) in an unstable outdoor environment, and (4) to do so in nearly constant motion. I call this the brain's performance envelope. — John Medina

There are two ways to beat the cruelty of a harsh environment: You can become stronger or you can become smarter. — John Medina

This rarely happens in a visit to the pediatrician's office, but it should. The good doctor would ask you about the health of your baby and give your little bundle of joy a routine examination. Then she'd look you in the eyes and ask some truly intrusive questions about your social life. "Do you have many friends?" the pediatrician would inquire. "What social groups do you and your husband belong to? How important are these groups to you? How diverse are they? How much contact time do you and your husband have with them?" The doctor doesn't ask about these things because your social life is none of her business. The problem is, it is plenty of the infant's business. — John Medina

Couples who regularly practice empathy see stunning results. It is the independent variable that predicts a successful marriage, according to behaviorist John Gottman, who, post hoc criticisms notwithstanding, forecasts divorce probabilities with accuracy rates approaching 90 percent. In Gottman's studies, if the wife felt she was being heard by her husband - to the point that he accepted her good influence on his behavior - the marriage was essentially divorce-proof. (Interestingly, whether the husband felt heard was not a factor in divorce rates.) If that empathy trafficking was absent, the marriage foundered. Research — John Medina

Money increases happiness only when it lifts people out of poverty to about $50,000 a year in income. — John Medina