epilepsy drug valproate makes it easier to learn absolute pitch

adult men who took valproate (VPA) (a HDAC inhibitor) learned to identify pitch significantly better than those taking placeb

Source: Frontiers | Valproate reopens critical-period learning of absolute pitch | Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience
added 2013-12-28T19:57:51Z by anders

baboons can learn scores of written words

Source: Baboons leave scientists spell-bound %u203A News in Science (ABC Science)
added 2012-04-13T14:25:22Z by anders

sleeping shortly after learning new information improves retention

At 24 hr retest, with all subjects having received both a full night of sleep and a full day of wakefulness, we found that memory was superior when sleep occurred shortly after learning rather than following a full day of wakefulness.

Source: PLoS ONE: Memory for Semantically Related and Unrelated Declarative Information: The Benefit of Sleep, the Cost of Wake
added 2012-03-25T22:15:45Z by anders

spacing effect

Reviews of material separated by a long period of time (“spaced”) yield more learning than reviews separated by a shorter period of time (“massed”);

Source: Distributed learning - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
added 2012-03-21T11:39:02Z by anders