Studying demands a lot of attention and focus. It also takes time to completely grasp what you’re studying and people sometimes love to slip their study time into their commute time.

They pull out their notebooks or tablets to fill in the time with studying. It seems really productive to use your commute time to learn school materials and it’s quite reasonable too, especially when you have an exam ahead and you just want to review materials.

For some people, studying in public transport such as bus or train is as effective as studying in their classroom or their home. For others, it’s the complete opposite.

The environment that public transport gives sometimes can be noisy and it can also be unsettling because of the bumpy movements — not to mention the passengers with their unpredictable behavior.

It’s definitely hard when you are trying to focus on your study with all of the distraction from the environment. However, some people manage to stay focused and somehow ignore their surroundings. Whether you are a person that can concentrate in a crowded bus or someone that could barely do simple math in a quiet tram, there is a study that examines the influence of environmental context on our ability to recall our memory and there are also real-world applications in it that we can all benefit to answer the question: does studying in public transport really work?

Surroundings Do Matters

Imagine that you are studying in a crowded and noisy public bus. While you are attempting to focus on reading your textbook, the loud conversations of passengers and the rumbling noise of the bus engine constantly distract you from ever letting your brain to sink in the knowledge that you have learned in that very moment.

In the world of psychology, this is where overshadowing occurs, when the presence of disturbing stimuli hinders your ability to encode or understand the information.

From the example above, the blaring noises from the ambience of the bus are the stimuli that can highly interfere your ability to focus on your study.

Overshadowing is when two or more stimuli are present, and one stimulus produces a stronger response than the other because it is more noticeable*

Here is another example that I found:

Say you want to teach your dog to sit. If you lure your dog to a sitting position by dangling a treat over her, while at the same time saying “sit,” guess which stimulus is causing your dog to sit? In this case, smelling the treat overshadows hearing the word “sit” because the treat is more salient than your voice*.

In the case of studying, when you are trying to recall what you have memorized and the environment during recall doesn’t match the environment where you originally memorized it, you will have a hard time to retrieve the information from your brain.

This means that the place, sounds, and other factors in the environment play a huge role in how we remember things.

The overshadowing hypothesis is one of the several theories attempting to explain the relationship between context and recall.

It emphasizes the importance of eliminating certain cues that might hinder other desirable cues. But the question still persist, how then some people can concentrate in a place where the external distractions are high?

Outshining The Shadows

While the overshadowing hypothesis says that distracting elements can hinder your brain’s ability to understand what you’re studying, there is another hypothesis that sounds pretty cool (I mean, there are many cool names of terms in psychology. One of my favorites is the Dunning-Kruger effect named after the psychologists that found it).

It’s called the outshining hypothesis.

Basically, it means that when there is an activity or an item that captures more attention than the other activities or items in your surroundings, the activity or the item that grabs your attention more will have a stronger impact on your memory. So, it “outshines” the other things that is in your environment. Let me give you an example:

Alex is a student who is preparing for an important exam. Because he has no other time to study, he decides to use his train commute to cram for the exam.

However, the train is usually filled with a lot of distraction, with people talking, announcements being made, and the constant movement of passengers.

It’s a sea of distraction for most people. But for Alex, the outshining effect comes into play. With his ability to concentrate on his study, Alex’s attention to his study outshines the distracting elements on the train. He is able to maintain a high level of attention towards his study, even in the midst of the crowded train.

In this case, the importance of studying for the exam outshines the influence of the environment. The external stimuli, like the noise and movements, become less noticeable and have less impact on Alex’s ability to store and understand the study material.

There are several ways for Alex to have a laser-focus ability like that but one of my favorite ways to learn in such condition is active recall. Personally, I like it because I used it very often back when I was studying for the college entrance test and I used it almost anywhere and anytime because it was that good. I used the method usually in a form of flashcards but sometimes when I’m lazy I just ask myself questions about the things that I want to memorize — or in other word, self- quizzing myself.

Active recall doesn’t require external cues and it is relatively easy to do it. There is a meta-analysis that categorize ten learning methods and active recall is among the most effective way to study. If you want to know the underlying concept on how to do it, I suggest you guys to watch Ali Abdaal’s video explaining the concepts thoroughly while also making it easy to understand so you can straight implement it into your study sessions. He’s a prominent youtuber and podcaster in the productivity niche and he’s also a former doctor graduated from Cambridge University, overall, a great person — or if you prefer to read there is an article in his blog about it.

So, Should I Study?

Everyone has different cognitive capabilities. Some people are like Alex who can ignore his surroundings while others are very sensitive. And I think there are also people who can’t study in a quiet library and prefer studying in a not-so-crowded coffee shop. You need to experiment with yourself and see what works for you and what’s not, it’s crucial to do that. So, it’s up to you whether you want to incorporate your study session on your way to school or not. Just make sure you find the most comfortable way for you to study. And one final thing: 

smell the roses, enjoy your ride and your study wherever it is. Stay safe with your ride and good luck with your study!