A new study could hold the key to learning languages, teaching children colors or even studying complex theories.

The research, published in Cognitive Science, adds to the existing evidence that adults, children and students of all ages learn better when seeing an object before hearing its description. The study builds on past research by focusing on learning in «inconsistent» environments featuring different teaching styles or distracting noises.

«Understanding how the learning process occurs, and what factors affect it, may help instructors improve methodologies of education,» said Timmy Ma, a research associate at Dartmouth.

Learning environments can often complicate the learning process. For example, a student taking a course with both a teacher and a teaching assistant needs to adapt to the ways the different instructors teach the same subject. Even the varying ways teachers talk and behave can complicate learning.

For the study, researchers intentionally provided confusing information to mimic these types of inconsistencies to subjects that were tasked to learn the names of three fictional characters — «yosh,» «wug» and «niz» — using two types of learning methods.

The first method, «object-label learning,» is when a student sees an object first and then is provided with the label. This means seeing a color before being told its name. Or hearing a description of a physical force before being hearing its formal title.

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Materials provided by Dartmouth College. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.