Nuts and Bolts: SURPRISE!

Youalready know something about surprise in learning and memorycreation. Let’s say, for instance, that you drive the same routeyou always drive, every day, to and from work. It’s such a familiarroutine that some days you experience the slightly scary feeling ofarriving at the office without quite remembering how you got there.And some days — once in awhile — something unusual happens: forinstance, a car ahead of you jumps into your lane without warning,causing you to slam on brakes. You notice that.When you get to the office, you still remember that.

Severallines of thought converge on the role of surprise in learning. Onebiological explanation says novel stimuli activate the hippocampus,triggering release of dopamine; another says the brain is apattern-matching machine, with the basal ganglia jumping to attentionwhen something breaks a pattern. Cognitive psychology recognizes theimportance of the “discrepant event”: something that has anunexpected outcome engages the brain and encourages problem solvingand critical thinking. If you had a good science teacher, I’ll betyou remember things such as demonstrations showing that a Styrofoamball and a metal ball with the same volume will, when dropped, hitthe ground at the same time.

Whensurprised, we jump-to a little, pay more attention, give somethingsome thought. One of our best industry thinkers, Kathy Sierra, aresident of the brain-as-pattern-matching camp, puts it in simple,commonsense terms: “Thebrain spends far less time processing things that meet expectations,than it does on things that don’t.”

Notethat we’re talking here about what happens when the brain is nototherwise engaged. This isn’t the same as selective attention, inwhich a person chooses — or when instructions so direct — tofocus on one thing while filtering out others. The famous “gorilla”video examines selective attention. Read to the end and I’ll tellyou more.

Challenges

Sohow is this useful to us? Well, incorporating what we understandabout the role of surprise can help us overcome several commonchallenges in e-Learning design.

Challenge: Standard designtemplates, colors, and fonts.

You’veprobably seen (or developed) examples. Screen after identical screenwith gradient green bar at the top, 14 point Arial font, company logoat lower left … starts to feel a little like that morning drive towork, doesn’t it? The learner gets lulled into clicking along, andeven if an interaction occasionally interrupts the clicking, it canfeel like same old-same old. Don’t change onscreen navigation —that should be consistent — but consider what you might do tootherwise break the lull. A real interaction or other break in theflow can be useful. Or just popping up a hot pink screen with areview question in a different font can pull attention back to theprogram. Try to argue against the standards. If you’re workingunder design constraints, can you get away with one screen out of 25looking different?

Challenge: Compliancetraining

I’mspeaking here particularly of the common sense or annual-refreshervariety. Even when you argue against it, you’ll sometimes end upwith learners well beyond the novice stage, with an understandablyho-hum attitude toward the subject matter. (Frequent flyers: Do youpay attention every time the flight attendants review the preflightpassenger safety information?) Borrow from the classroom-trainingpractice of using a “grabber,” either in opening or within theprogram: try a little-known fact, a case with an unexpected twist oroutcome, or a venture down a less-than-routine path. Or present anopening set of questions with surprising answers. Or offer anemployee whose response is completely different from what thescripted “leadership training” steps might have suggested. Orhave something go better than expected. Do somethingnew and different. Back to the airline safety information example,think about the Southwest Airlines flight attendants who combat thepassenger inattention with surprise: they sing the information. Orrhyme it, or dance along to it. Or imitate the pilot doing it. Younotice.

Challenge: The learnerstands alone.

Oneof the challenges with e-Learning, particularly standalone programs,is that there is usually no human at the ready to answer questions orclarify material. Sometimes that causes us to err on the side ofcaution: we try so hard to make sure things flow in a tight sequenceand linear, logical way (“smooth transitions!”) that we forgetthe value of an occasional abrupt shift, or unexpected information,or change of scenery.

Some caveats

First,there’s a difference between surprising the learner and causing himor her to fail. Interesting questions and unexpected turns shouldpique curiosity, not humiliate. Second, the event, idea, or outcomecan’t be so discrepant that the learner dismisses it out of hand.But otherwise, if we need learners to re-focus or give thought to aparticular idea, breaking the pattern may be just the ticket.

(Specialthanks to Bert Bates and Kathy Sierra for their thoughts onsurprise-enhanced learning.)

Want more?

Hawkins,J. & Blakeslee, S. (2005). OnIntelligence.St.Martin’s Griffin Holland.

Fenker,D. & Schotze, H. Learning by Surprise. ScientificAmerican.December 17, 2008.

Gallagher,M. (2006). Different Roles for Amygdala Central Nucleus andSubstantia Innominata in the Surprise-Induced Enhancementof Learning.TheJournal of Neuroscience, April5, 2006, 26(14):3791-3797

Niepel,M., Rudolph, U., Schutzwohl, A., & Meyer, W. Temporalcharacteristics of the surprise reaction induced by schema-discrepantvisual and auditory events. Cognition& Emotion 8(5): 433-452.

Interestedin more general, less-technical, but fascinating information on brainbiology? Try Jill Bolte Taylor’s MyStroke of Insight(Viking, 2008), also available in a wonderful TED talk version athttps://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html.

Selectiveattention is something of the inverse of our discussion here, inwhich learners are instructed to tightly focus on particular datawhile filtering out the rest, often to the exclusion of importantinformation. This happens elsewhere in the brain. Check out “TheGorilla Experiment” video athttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJG698U2Mvo