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I'm not sure I buy this. Wouldn't this suggest that natural athletes are better students? My limited sample size suggests that most of the best students I've

I'm not sure I buy this. Wouldn't this suggest that natural athletes are better students? My limited sample size suggests that most of the best students I've known have not been athletes. Most have been musicians, though. I admit this could be correlation rather than causality. I fully admit that teasing out correlation and causality is very difficult in situations like this.

candre717 13y ago
The article said nothing about playing music but rather listening to music. The difference is like saying I can learn through osmosis as opposed to I can learn through deliberate study and practice. If the article actually compared the benefits of fitness to the benefits of playing music - now that could speak to your question.
- mmuro 13y ago
  It does: What about playing an instrument? Don’t you have to use right and left brain for a stringed instrument? Yes. That has clear cognitive functions that do crossover. Especially learning to play and read the music at the same time. But exercise is number one, diet number two and then social interaction. These are the important things for brain function.
lcedp 13y ago
Meaning if you want get better at math... practice math, not crosswords and not running. Crosswords make you better (primarily) at crosswords. Running - at running. But the idea is that math + physical activity suppose to make your better (at math inclusively) then math + crosswords.
- mathattack 13y ago
  I do buy this. It would be interesting to see them quantify math * 2 versus math + running.
  - ncphillips 13y ago
    It's been done, and math + running wins. Check out Tony Schwartz the Power of Full Engagement. In it he talks about how you can't just go go go at the thing you want to get good at, you have to take breaks and do completely unrelated things, like running. If you don't, you'll burn out.
    - mathattack 13y ago
      This makes intuitive sense. One of the best bug-fighting techniques is walking away for a little bit.
    - flagnog 13y ago
      way back in the dark ages, before the Playstation and XBox and Nintendo, I conducted my own empirical studies using coin-operated arcade games. I found that after a couple of hours, my reflexes plateaued, then degraded. I had to go do something else for a couple of hours before I could come back and do better.
      - rmk2 13y ago
        Another really easy way: I have a simply memory game on my phone, 6x4 fields. If it is too late or if I am tired, I will make more mistakes and take longer to memorise things. On the other hand, I can turn and solve it much more quickly when I am fresh and well-rested. Also, if I play a number of them at a time, they start to run together, again resulting in worse results.
  - dagw 13y ago
    I wouldn't be surprised if math * 1 beats math * 2 for reasonable levels of math. There is only so much math your brain can absorb in a day before you start losing focus, making mistakes and generally stops being able to think efficiently.
    - mathattack 13y ago
      Playing the devil's advocate... I admit there are diminishing returns, but would they really be negative? Let's say the first hour is 100% productive, the 2nd is 60%. Perhaps the third is 30% and the 4th 20%? But would they really undo the good of hours one and two? The research quoted in a lot of the Deliberate Practice literature suggests we can only focus intensely for 4 hours a day. Then it's a question of wasted time, or harmful time.
FootballMuse 13y ago
Perhaps they do, but I wouldn't restrict it to just being "better students" or not. "elite athletes...perform better than the rest of us in yet another way. These athletes excel...in how fast their brains take in and respond to new information -- cognitive abilities that are important on and off the court." [1] [1]: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/03/130318151634.htm http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/03/130318151634.ht...
- mathattack 13y ago
  This seems more intuitive. Better athletes being quick on their feet figuratively as well as literally. This (and confidence) may be a reason that athletes make good salespeople. And it could explain why so many are traders. I've seen much less as research professors or computer programmers. This could also be because the time commitments required in school for these topics is inconsistent with what's required to do sports competitively. I'm not saying that exercise is bad. I'm positive that it's good. It's just my perception that those who exercise more in their youth tended not to be the best students.
  - nicholassmith 13y ago
    "It's just my perception that those who exercise more in their youth tended not to be the best students." There's also the perception when you're younger (or at least distinctly for me and the people I grew up with), that being smart was 'boring' and being sporty was better, so they wouldn't apply themselves in lessons because it wasn't cool. I imagine a lot of them were plenty smart, but they might not have let on.
    - mathattack 13y ago
      Some of us nerds thought staying inside was more fun. Why waste all that time playing basketball when you could get ahead in the chemistry lab?
      - nicholassmith 13y ago
001sky 13y ago
student=/=intelligence Fallacy right there.
daraul 13y ago
The article does also point out that 'specific' games aren't apt to increase your brain function, which I took to imply that the idea that any one type of game is not the key. In that regard, it would also be similar to the exercise comparison in that any single exercise is likely to have very limited impact, but a rounded exercise routine provides much stronger benefits.
agumonkey 13y ago
In my little experience music requires many layers of unintuitive abstractions, that, when reached, give you that feeling not very far from the one when you get your aha! moment in mathematics, physics or any revelation~. edit: maybe being good at both is a sign of an innate skill for abstraction, or maybe it's another way for a student to dive into a subject and grow new abstractions and reinforce his brain.
- mathattack 13y ago
  This is a topic I've been getting very interested in lately. The correlation between music and math/technology success is high. I used to think it was that "disciplined people who like to be inside do both". Now I think there may be some causality. Learning music is an intro to binary math. (2 half notes in a whole note. Two quarter notes in a half note.) I haven't seen a good empirical study to try and split this apart.
  - agumonkey 13y ago
    The time subdivision is barely the tip of the visible surface to me[1]. The music itself, the superimposed flows of time relationships and frequency relationships (melody, rhythm, harmony), is something very wide and when you're finally able to parse and follow along it's a very soothing mental experience. It's really separating a whole into different views, and recombining them (almost) on the fly, not very different to data transformation. Also, in my case, the conservation of momentum in sticks, when trying to play jazz drum parts was really close to physics. You can't sustain complex and fast movement like these if you don't think deeply about your limb/joints and in more abstract ways and when you do so, it flips everything upside down (you almost rotate your sticks backward) Music is invisible at first, the journey between unconscious appreciation and the 'parsing' stage is long, and full of counter intuitive realizations, which to me, is the same whatever domain your try to understand. Another parallel is the way we interface with these. There's the remote long round trip way and the direct tangible way. For computers : large systems requiring pauses in your knowledge acquisition, think ~minutes build times (this is the main view on computers, lisp OSes and smalltalk browsers are unknown to many) vs REPLs. In music there's music theory[1], lots of wasteful (borderline absurd) ceremony and delay before reaching to the music itself, and just following along, failing and trying again (here I think the most used one is the direct, you buy an instrument and "play" without real understanding, opposite of computers). Hoping I wasn't too blurry. [1] Have you seen Chris Ford Functional Composition talk ? https://www.google.com/search?q=chris+ford+functional+composition https://www.google.com/search?q=chris+ford+functional+compos... (youtube/skillsmater hosted) He manage to layer music theory ideas in a very simple manner in one hour, with direct rendering of what they are. Much more efficient than what I could experience or see in music classes younger (I understand that kid psychology is different especially in groups). It's really not very profound and actually it won't teach you music, just reference ideas needed to then impregnate the whole subject through your won learning process (I believe it's a 10000hour thing).
mpg33 13y ago
I don't think the article is stating that athletes are smarter....but that exercise is good for the brain. From what I have noticed after exercising, especially cardio-related exercise, I tend feel better and am able to concentrate better than usual.
- mhurron 13y ago
  A healthy body promotes a healthy mind. Basically if you want your stuff to work right, you need to keep it in good working order.
aplusbi 13y ago
Student athletes have less time and energy to devote to school work. Speaking from personal experience, it's pretty hard to do homework when you have 2-3 hours of practice after school everyday. First, you lose 2-3 hours of time every day and second you get home exhausted.
dagw 13y ago
Based on my equally limited sample size (based largely on looking around while working on my Masters in math) I disagree with you findings. Lots of people in the math departments where physically active, certainly more so than where musical (although a there was a fair bit of overlap).
jcl 13y ago
It suggests that regular exercisers are better students, not that better athletes are. In particular, just because some exercise is good, it doesn't necessarily mean more is better.

candre717 13y ago

The article said nothing about playing music but rather listening to music. The difference is like saying I can learn through osmosis as opposed to I can learn through deliberate study and practice. If the article actually compared the benefits of fitness to the benefits of playing music - now that could speak to your question.

mmuro 13y ago
It does: What about playing an instrument? Don’t you have to use right and left brain for a stringed instrument? Yes. That has clear cognitive functions that do crossover. Especially learning to play and read the music at the same time. But exercise is number one, diet number two and then social interaction. These are the important things for brain function.

lcedp 13y ago

Meaning if you want get better at math... practice math, not crosswords and not running. Crosswords make you better (primarily) at crosswords. Running - at running. But the idea is that math + physical activity suppose to make your better (at math inclusively) then math + crosswords.

mathattack 13y ago
I do buy this. It would be interesting to see them quantify math * 2 versus math + running.
- ncphillips 13y ago
  It's been done, and math + running wins. Check out Tony Schwartz the Power of Full Engagement. In it he talks about how you can't just go go go at the thing you want to get good at, you have to take breaks and do completely unrelated things, like running. If you don't, you'll burn out.
  - mathattack 13y ago
    This makes intuitive sense. One of the best bug-fighting techniques is walking away for a little bit.
  - flagnog 13y ago
    way back in the dark ages, before the Playstation and XBox and Nintendo, I conducted my own empirical studies using coin-operated arcade games. I found that after a couple of hours, my reflexes plateaued, then degraded. I had to go do something else for a couple of hours before I could come back and do better.
    - rmk2 13y ago
      Another really easy way: I have a simply memory game on my phone, 6x4 fields. If it is too late or if I am tired, I will make more mistakes and take longer to memorise things. On the other hand, I can turn and solve it much more quickly when I am fresh and well-rested. Also, if I play a number of them at a time, they start to run together, again resulting in worse results.
- dagw 13y ago
  I wouldn't be surprised if math * 1 beats math * 2 for reasonable levels of math. There is only so much math your brain can absorb in a day before you start losing focus, making mistakes and generally stops being able to think efficiently.
  - mathattack 13y ago
    Playing the devil's advocate... I admit there are diminishing returns, but would they really be negative? Let's say the first hour is 100% productive, the 2nd is 60%. Perhaps the third is 30% and the 4th 20%? But would they really undo the good of hours one and two? The research quoted in a lot of the Deliberate Practice literature suggests we can only focus intensely for 4 hours a day. Then it's a question of wasted time, or harmful time.

FootballMuse 13y ago

Perhaps they do, but I wouldn't restrict it to just being "better students" or not. "elite athletes...perform better than the rest of us in yet another way. These athletes excel...in how fast their brains take in and respond to new information -- cognitive abilities that are important on and off the court." [1] [1]: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/03/130318151634.htm http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/03/130318151634.ht...

mathattack 13y ago
This seems more intuitive. Better athletes being quick on their feet figuratively as well as literally. This (and confidence) may be a reason that athletes make good salespeople. And it could explain why so many are traders. I've seen much less as research professors or computer programmers. This could also be because the time commitments required in school for these topics is inconsistent with what's required to do sports competitively. I'm not saying that exercise is bad. I'm positive that it's good. It's just my perception that those who exercise more in their youth tended not to be the best students.
- nicholassmith 13y ago
  "It's just my perception that those who exercise more in their youth tended not to be the best students." There's also the perception when you're younger (or at least distinctly for me and the people I grew up with), that being smart was 'boring' and being sporty was better, so they wouldn't apply themselves in lessons because it wasn't cool. I imagine a lot of them were plenty smart, but they might not have let on.
  - mathattack 13y ago
    Some of us nerds thought staying inside was more fun. Why waste all that time playing basketball when you could get ahead in the chemistry lab?
    - nicholassmith 13y ago

001sky 13y ago

student=/=intelligence Fallacy right there.

daraul 13y ago

The article does also point out that 'specific' games aren't apt to increase your brain function, which I took to imply that the idea that any one type of game is not the key. In that regard, it would also be similar to the exercise comparison in that any single exercise is likely to have very limited impact, but a rounded exercise routine provides much stronger benefits.

agumonkey 13y ago

In my little experience music requires many layers of unintuitive abstractions, that, when reached, give you that feeling not very far from the one when you get your aha! moment in mathematics, physics or any revelation~. edit: maybe being good at both is a sign of an innate skill for abstraction, or maybe it's another way for a student to dive into a subject and grow new abstractions and reinforce his brain.

mathattack 13y ago
This is a topic I've been getting very interested in lately. The correlation between music and math/technology success is high. I used to think it was that "disciplined people who like to be inside do both". Now I think there may be some causality. Learning music is an intro to binary math. (2 half notes in a whole note. Two quarter notes in a half note.) I haven't seen a good empirical study to try and split this apart.
- agumonkey 13y ago
  The time subdivision is barely the tip of the visible surface to me[1]. The music itself, the superimposed flows of time relationships and frequency relationships (melody, rhythm, harmony), is something very wide and when you're finally able to parse and follow along it's a very soothing mental experience. It's really separating a whole into different views, and recombining them (almost) on the fly, not very different to data transformation. Also, in my case, the conservation of momentum in sticks, when trying to play jazz drum parts was really close to physics. You can't sustain complex and fast movement like these if you don't think deeply about your limb/joints and in more abstract ways and when you do so, it flips everything upside down (you almost rotate your sticks backward) Music is invisible at first, the journey between unconscious appreciation and the 'parsing' stage is long, and full of counter intuitive realizations, which to me, is the same whatever domain your try to understand. Another parallel is the way we interface with these. There's the remote long round trip way and the direct tangible way. For computers : large systems requiring pauses in your knowledge acquisition, think ~minutes build times (this is the main view on computers, lisp OSes and smalltalk browsers are unknown to many) vs REPLs. In music there's music theory[1], lots of wasteful (borderline absurd) ceremony and delay before reaching to the music itself, and just following along, failing and trying again (here I think the most used one is the direct, you buy an instrument and "play" without real understanding, opposite of computers). Hoping I wasn't too blurry. [1] Have you seen Chris Ford Functional Composition talk ? https://www.google.com/search?q=chris+ford+functional+composition https://www.google.com/search?q=chris+ford+functional+compos... (youtube/skillsmater hosted) He manage to layer music theory ideas in a very simple manner in one hour, with direct rendering of what they are. Much more efficient than what I could experience or see in music classes younger (I understand that kid psychology is different especially in groups). It's really not very profound and actually it won't teach you music, just reference ideas needed to then impregnate the whole subject through your won learning process (I believe it's a 10000hour thing).

mpg33 13y ago

I don't think the article is stating that athletes are smarter....but that exercise is good for the brain. From what I have noticed after exercising, especially cardio-related exercise, I tend feel better and am able to concentrate better than usual.

mhurron 13y ago
A healthy body promotes a healthy mind. Basically if you want your stuff to work right, you need to keep it in good working order.

aplusbi 13y ago

Student athletes have less time and energy to devote to school work. Speaking from personal experience, it's pretty hard to do homework when you have 2-3 hours of practice after school everyday. First, you lose 2-3 hours of time every day and second you get home exhausted.

dagw 13y ago

Based on my equally limited sample size (based largely on looking around while working on my Masters in math) I disagree with you findings. Lots of people in the math departments where physically active, certainly more so than where musical (although a there was a fair bit of overlap).

jcl 13y ago

It suggests that regular exercisers are better students, not that better athletes are. In particular, just because some exercise is good, it doesn't necessarily mean more is better.