Failure is the best teacher, scientists say
“Failure is the best teacher” now has solid, scientific proof. Researchers from the University of California discovered that we can turn failures into positive experiences, if we stop and analyze our mistakes.
The brain uses two ways to learn something new: avoidance and reward-based learning.
Avoidance learning is punishment learning that trains the brain to avoid repeating mistakes. While the other is reward-based learning, a positive experience in which the brain feels rewarded for reaching the right answer. These responses trigger different areas of the brain.
The MRI study asked 28 participants (each around 26 years old) a series of questions. One trial engaged avoidance learning by taking money from the participants when they get an answer wrong. The second trial engaged the reward-based learning by giving them money if they get the right answers. In the third trial, participants were allowed to review their answers and understand what they got wrong.
The MRI results show that trial three also activated the reward-circuit or the ventral straitum, the same area activated for reward-based learning.
This process is similar to what the brain experiences when feeling regret: “With regret, for instance, if you have done something wrong, then you might change your behavior in the future,” the authors said in the study published in the journal Nature Communications.
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