No, you're not a visual, auditory or kinesthetic learner

Students are heading back to school. The most diligent are probably planning ahead to set themselves up for success in the new academic year.

Psychology researchers Isabel Gauthier and Jason Chow, from Vanderbilt, would caution that one thing students can leave off their to-do list is talking to instructors about their preferred learning style. The idea that some of us are visual learners, some better with oral instruction and so on is what Gauthier and Chow call a “neuromyth.” There is no evidence that supports the idea that teaching to a preferred mode improves student performance.

Gauthier and Chow’s own research comes at this topic in a different way. They study how well people recognize various objects. Most recently they’ve found that if someone is good at recognizing objects by sight, they’re likely also good at doing so by touch – and even at matching birdsong, laughter or computer beeps and boops by listening. You can test your own perceptual abilities in their article.

This week we also liked articles about the benefits of diverse engineering teams, the challenges of using DNA to identify the remains of fire victims and ways in which AI is changing how music gets made.