Arguments for The 3 steps model of inside-out, least effort based learning

The 3 steps model of inside-out, least effort based learning is an agile way to achieve the optimum learning results in any professional or scientific field, under any environmental circumstances, in any age.

Its efficiency lies in two basic assumptions that comply with two basic laws of nature: the first is its adaptability (agility) and the second one is its economy (do something with the least effort). Let’s see it in more details.

A.?????Adaptability/Agility

In order any method to be effective, it must be both specific, in terms of being able to address some very distinct in nature issues and simultaneously to being able to cope with a broad array of different aspects and dissimilar in context situations.

That agility is incorporated in all the 3 steps, starting from the very first, bodily orientated, part.?For example, the optimum number of sleep hours, the specific breathing or not exercises, the meals and sensory training can all be tailored to the specific individual needs and environmental circumstances.?

The second step is about learning the general context of a subject, in order to facilitate the understanding and retention of the new material. So, the specific and highly individualized learning task can be facilitated by an equally highly individualized learning context provided by an expert.

Finally, in the third step, the near or/and the distant environment of the learner will promote his needs or aspirations by making adjustments in a way that will facilitate his learning. In other words, the changes in his environment will function as an external substitute for his inner voice or his will and any effort to recall and engage in learning procedure. The suitable environmental modification can take any possible form, making it a highly agile learning method.

B.?????Economy

In the nature, one of the most prominent principles that govern the behavior of all the living creatures is to do the most with the least effort. The organism in order to sustain its survival has to ensure that the energy it spends in his effort to find resources of energy?(food) does not exceed the amount of energy he will obtain. Otherwise, it won’t survive. And this is so hardwired, that it permeates all the aspects of human behavior, even the learning process.

Let see some arguments for this ‘economical’ point of view and how it relates to any learning process.

Socio-Historical arguments: First of all, to follow the proper historical thread of thought, there is an archaic sense in all human kind that the nature, the power of nature in the sense of weather conditions, dictates the human destiny. All the early human civilizations, recognized it and tries to influence it by certain rituals e.g. dances by Indians in case of drought, sacrifices of animals or even humans in attempt to cease the wrought of catastrophic natures powers e.g. earthquakes. As the civilizations evolves, the power that our environment exerts upon human lives shifts from the nature to gods and from the gods and demons to one god. If I will do something bad, unethical or mad, I’m possessed by evil or demons. On the contrary, any good or positive is achieved with the help or bless of god. Gradually, with the advent of the science, the responsibility of our behavior ended up within us and our free will, a will that is based on reason, logical thinking that governs (or should govern) our behavior. Any deviation from the logical thinking or behavior, is now not the results of bad spirits or devil’s acts, but derives from ourselves, from our minds. So now the responsibility of our acts shifted from the environment, in the form of nature or gods, to ourselves. Consequently, under the modern scientific doctrine, any deviation from the logical or ethical behavior is the result of some kind of malfunction of the brain, the seat of our logical thinking. In this thread of thought, the insanity or not proper way of behaving is the product of our chemical imbalances in our brain and the only way to ‘’cure’’ it is by restoring this balance by the same means, by chemicals (drugs).

The argument here in favor of the effort based learning procedure is that despite all the technological and scientific progress, we have failed to reduce any maladaptive or unproductive human behavior. In my opinion, this is the result of ignoring the power that the environment exerts upon our behavior, on the one hand, and putting too much emphasis on our inner ability, our free will to, to govern our acts, on the other. As I will later explain in more details, the principle of economy doesn’t allow any individual to put too many resources that are needed in any conscious thought we make. Our evolution found out a much more practical and economical way to deal with our everyday behavior, that is by being ‘’guided’’ by environmental cues.

Scientific arguments: ?The scientific fields that try to explain, to manipulate and to foresee human behavior either inside or outside of the strict learning context, are numerous. The more well-known are the fields of Psychology, Psychiatry, Pedagogics, Sociology, Arts, Philosophy e.t.c.

The most prominent scientific schools of thought on human behavior, on individual level, are those of cognitive psychology and behaviorism. These two approaches, although not the only, emphasize two opposite points of view. The cognitive psychology, with its philosophical roots, places the causes of human behavior and learning in the individuals’ brains, while the behaviorisms put them in the environment. All the other psychological, neuroscientific or psychotherapeutic approaches are somewhere between these two poles.?Following an historical order, we have to stress that in the modern era, the first scientifically disguised approached that pinpoint the irrational and unconscious part of human behavior is psychoanalysis. It claims that all the previous experiences, specifically those of early childhood, determine our subsequent way of perceiving and interacting with our environment. Its methodology, assumptions and practical application gave birth to criticism and subsequently to an approach broadly speaking quite opposite to it, the behaviorism. In its classical form, behaviorism focuses only on the individual’s environment and how it conditions his behavior by reinforcing /or extincting through the consequences it has, thus determines what behavior will be expressed by the individual. Again as a reaction to this mechanistic and out of the person point of control, cognitive approach emerged. In the cognitive point of view, the individual does not passively (unconsciously) reacts to its environmental stimuli but processes more or less consciously the incoming information as a computer, through his mental abilities.?Learning is defined as a change in mental representations while there is always the potential to choose (free will) how to react or behave under any environmental circumstances.?

The argument here again for the effort based learning lies somewhere between the two. Under specific circumstances we have the ability to pause and reflect upon our behavior but this attitude has a high toll to pay in terms of energy and time invested. On the other hand, the environmental consequences are for ‘’free’’, and if provided in a consistent way, have very good chances to affect in an ‘unconscious’ and effortless way the individuals’ behavior.

The more anatomically based explanation of the effort related learning is that whenever we reflect on something consciously, that implies a two way cerebral activation: First, we have to inhibit our previous, well known and established automated patterns of reaction and second, we have to activate all the possible cerebral circuits in order to come upon a new, prototype pattern of action. This is much more demanding in terms of time and energy consumption than just to react in a previous, well known and established way. Moreover, by doing the same thing repeatedly, the cortical activation diminishes and restricts to the posterior, sensory parts of brain.??

Clinical arguments:??In this last section, I will try to demonstrate through examples of my own clinical experience, how any attempt to change any individuals’ behavior, can’t be achieved without taking into account this ‘’energy –dependent’’ principle. The later, can also be used as a very useful clinical tool to interpret any difficulty or ‘’resistance’’ of any patience to change the patterns of his problematic behavior.

My first point here is that in the case of patients with traumatic brain injury, the most significant prognostic factor is the engagement and the adaptability of their environment (significant other, family, friends, colleagues e.t.c.). Moreover, the more severe are their behavioral problems, the more vital is the role of their environment. One other significant prognostic value is theirs prior to the brain injury personality and occupation. The more resilient and athletic the patient was before injury, the greater the degree of recovery. Another very interesting finding is that the greater the negative symptoms, the more significant is the role of behavioral motivation from its environment. Finally, many patients, although they know what are their problematic behaviors and what they have to do to compensate for them, they do not take the initiative to do so by themselves (spontaneously).

All the above symptoms are very difficult to be explained and to fit to any current psychological/medical or learning theory. Neither radical behavioral or cognitive point of view (thesis that all the human behavior stems from the environmental or inner causes, respectively) can in a satisfactory way account for the above mentioned clinical manifestations. But from the effort based learning theory point of view, these all are crystal clear. The less inner drive (negative symptoms), the more effort is needed to initiate any action by themselves. In a very significant clinic account, a wife of a very apathetic patient reported that after an epileptic seizure, her husband became again ‘’normal’’. This also holds true when the environmental stimuli get very intense e.g. very loud noises or very low temperature. The same principle seems to apply to patients with obsessive/compulsive disorders, depression, phobias, addictions etc. Though they are aware of what they should not do, in most cases this is not enough, so they ask for help from their environment (friends, family, mental professionals, environmental modification, technological appliances). The more difficult is the case, the more profound external cues are needed to be applied.

Conclusions: There are numerous arguments for the effort based learning approach. The importance of such an approach is that you don’t have to be either on the outside or inside locus of control (our behavior depends on the environment or myself respectively) but can be somewhere in between or on both poles. Depending on the availability, we can either relay on our free will, which implies conscious mental effort and thus is very costly in the long term or rest on the externally provided cues which governs our behavior with the minimal cost (mainly unconscious).?In practical terms, the above means that if you consider something very important, for whatever reasons, you can invest all your mental effort on it in order to process it in the best possible way. But, in the long term, the only way for this big mental effort to have a permanent effect on our behavior, is rendering it effortless, being executed in a subconscious, automatic way. And that can be achieved only by environmental cuing.????