The Accelerated Learning program will develop quantitative and integrative neuroscience-based approaches for measuring, tracking, and accelerating skill acquisition while producing a twofold increase in an individual's progress through the stages of task learning.
Warfighters must master a diverse set of physical and mental skills, often in a very compressed period. Measures of learning in this military environment often rely on qualitative and subjective assessment, with little opportunity to correct or redirect learning in midcourse. Recent discoveries in neuroscience, modeling and analysis techniques laid the foundation for neuroscience-based noninvasive strategies with potential to dramatically accelerate transition from novice to expert in key military tasks. The Accelerated Learning program will develop quantitative and integrative neuroscience-based approaches for measuring, tracking and accelerating skill acquisition while producing a twofold increase in an individual's progress through the stages of task learning. Accelerated Learning will identify the neural basis of expert performance by integrating behavioral data with neurophysiological measures to track the progression of novices on the training path to expertise.
Accelerated Learning will develop reliable, quantitative methods to track task progression based on noninvasive measures of brain activity, including neurophysiologically driven training regimens, neurally optimized stimuli and stimulatory or modulatory interventions. Complementary components to help attain this goal include development of neurally based techniques to maintain acquired skills, prediction of skill acquisition based on real-time neural activity, preferential brain network activation, and strategies for understanding relationships between cognition and emotion in skills learning.