Shenk explains that achievement later on in life is a direct result of environmental factors experienced as a child. For example there is a direct correlation between the number of words spoken in a household and later achievement (p 46-47). Shenk also explains that one of the biggest reasons for Yo-Yo Ma’s success was because he was raised in an environment where music was emphasized (p 94-95).
Do you believe that these environmental factors only have a strong effect on humans at a young age or can they have an effect even when they have matured? Does this mean that humans are able to understand difficult concepts from a very young age? If yes, then is it possible to teach these concepts (for example calculus) to a very young child? We have discussed ideas such as imprinting in animals where the young become familiar with their parents but only during a certain time span (Chapter 51). Can this idea be applied to humans?
Sid Dash
sdash27@gmail.com
The Argument
Do you believe that these environmental factors only have a strong effect on humans at a young age or can they have an effect even when they have matured? Does this mean that humans are able to understand difficult concepts from a very young age? If yes, then is it possible to teach these concepts (for example calculus) to a very young child? We have discussed ideas such as imprinting in animals where the young become familiar with their parents but only during a certain time span (Chapter 51). Can this idea be applied to humans?
Sid Dash
sdash27@gmail.com
The Argument
In a GxE model, the environment is constantly playing a critical role interacting with our genes to determine our traits. We can classify traits into two broad categories: mutable (e.g. intelligence) and immutable (e.g. eye color). At a young age, environmental factors have an especially important role because both mutable and immutable traits are being determined by GxE interactions. However, in a mature human, while not impossible to change, most "immutable" traits are not receptive to change (GxE interactions affect eye color, but a human's eye color does not change as they mature). Meanwhile, mutable traits are still receptive to environmental factors, and thus have an effect. With work, intelligence was shown to be able to improve. For example, Terman's study as mentioned on p. 91 shows children who were deemed to be "unintelligent" but were able to surpass the "intelligent" individuals. Environmental factors play a more decisive role at a young age, but they never stop influencing our traits.
ReplyDeleteAs demonstrated by the various child prodigies, an exceptional amount of technical understanding can be displayed by a child at a very young age. From piano to chess to mathematics, children could could understand difficult concepts given the correct teaching. The specific example given, calculus, is a a technique requiring very little creativity, and therefore can be taught to children at a very young age (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIskwrC3U7E). However, the skills required to be an adult creator are very different than that those to be a child prodigy, as creation is not as teachable of a concept to children.
(It follows from this difference between the skills of a child prodigy and an adult creator that teachers are beginning to advocate a greater focus on creativity and a lesser focus on technique in high-performing children, a view expressed in Richard Rusczyk's "The Calculus Trap" [http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Resources/articles.php?page=calculustrap])
Imprinting is not an accurate way to describe this type of learning in humans. Imprinting deals with a learning a behavior response during a fixed sensitive period; this behavioral response is then immutable for the rest of the young animal's life. Intelligence IS variable over time, and can be influenced by oneself outside of a fixed sensitive period.
(Edit: Brandon Axe brandona0701@aol.com)
DeleteWhile environmental factors may have an effect on humans when they have matured, they have the strongest effect on humans on a younger age, simply because young adolescents would have lived with the factors for a longer part of their life. For example, Shenk’s example of Suzuki on page 136 perfectly describes his realization that “early musical training has an overwhelming advantage over late training and that it was a gateway to an enlightened life”(p.136). This was because younger pupils would not have any bad habits to start with that older pupils would have to spend time to get rid of, and would have more time to practice and master all the fingerings and techniques of each piece in a shorter time, since they would have less distractions than their older peers. Products of early exposure to environmental factors are: Yo Yo Ma and Mozart with their skill in perfect pitch and excelling in the musical world with their talents, Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo born during the era of the Renaissance, a time period of huge culture change and promotion in the arts and the sciences, and Kenyan runners with their necessity to run as their main form of transportation as well as it playing a large role in finding a partner.
ReplyDeleteWhile early exposure affects these child prodigies and great thinkers tremendously in their achievements, they still play a role in people’s lives even when they are matured. For example, the Olympic athlete Apolo Ohno (now 29 years of age), only began speed-skating when he was 12 years old. Twelve years of age is a late time to start a sport, especially for someone to reach the level of an Olympic athlete by the age of twenty, but Ohno showed that nothing could get in the way with his early achievements of winning the 1997 U.S. Senior Championships, and making the American Olympic team by 2002 (http://www.apoloantonohno.com/news). As Brandon mentioned, Terman’s study supports this argument in that Apolo Ohno may not have been expected to compete at the Olympic level as a young child, but has surpassed the ‘exceptional kids’(p.91) and emerged as a ‘superachiever’(p.91).
Humans do have the capability to understand difficult concepts at a very young age, like calculus, with “heavy parent involvement, steady practice, memorization, and lots of patience”(p.136). In fact, Terence Tao is currently working as a professor of mathematics in UCLA, an is a great example of a child prodigy in mathematics. He mastered calculus at a young age when he won a bronze, silver, and gold medal respectively at the International Mathematical Olympiad, at ages 11, 12, and 13, assuming one would need to know calculus in order to place well in the competition. His early exposure to math from his mother’s occupation as a math teacher in Hong Kong certainly played a role, and supports Shenk’s GxE theory. (http://www.math.ucla.edu/~tao/preprints/cv.html)
While human babies become attached to their parents through the large role the mother and father play in their baby’s survival, it is not as extreme as the act of imprinting for other animals such as greylag geese. Imprinting, by definition from the Campbell textbook, is “the formation at a specific stage in life of a long-lasting behavioral response to a particular individual or object”(Campbell 1126) and “is distinguished from other types of learning by having a sensitive period,…when certain behaviors can be learned”(Campbell 1126). Greylag geese respond to the first object they encounter with certain characteristics, and learn from that object, which is usually their mother. During their sensitive period, the young hatchlings learn how to feed, fly, communicate, etc, from their mothers in order to survive on their own. Humans, on the other hand, do not have a sensitive period; we may learn certain survival skills any time in our lives (although we prefer to learn them as early on as possible), and we may choose to learn from other people/things other than our parents.
Tracy Lai (tracymlai@hotmail.com)
PART ONE
ReplyDeleteEnvironmental factors have a strong impact on humans at any point in their life, but they have the strongest impact when the person is still young. However, there can be environment factors that prove to be life-changing and very influential in a person’s life. Young children are very capable of learning complicated things at a young age like calculus or chess and they can even become great athletes and competitors by the time they are five years old. Imprinting in animals differs greatly from the human relations. For example, geese will imprint on the first thing or person they see once they hatch. However, humans know who their parents are from conception and children have a strong bond with their mother automatically. Also, the critical period for Graylag geese to imprint is very short, just a few hours. Humans don’t have a critical period per say like the geese, however we have our own time boundaries in which maximum achievement occurs or most language development occurs.
A lot of research has been done on language and how languages are easier to learn until you are seven years old. All environmental factors like being assimilated into the culture and the language you wish to learn can be very helpful for a person trying to learn that new language. Your parents speaking the language with one another and with you help as well. Psychology researchers have found that most language development takes place before a person becomes seven years old and that it’s harder to learn more languages later. However it is not impossible and extremely difficult either. For example, Joseph Conrad’s (a writer) third language learned was English. However, he wrote an entire novel called the Heart of Darkness in English. Even though Conrad learned English around the age of 20, he became very fluent in it, according to Wikipedia.
One website called buzzfeed.com lists 10 child geniuses and their talents: Elise Tan Roberts (Had an I.Q of 156 at 2 years old and was inducted into Mensa-society for geniuses); Allen Gregory (wrote novels at 7 and mediated peace talks); Gregory Smith (studied four doctorates by age 16), etc. This website shows that children are very capable of learning hard concepts at early and young ages. It is easier to find a child prodigy than it is to find an adult genius. A large part of this may be due to the fact that a young child isn’t exposed to so many different things all at once and that they’re still naïve that they can focus all of their attention on one thing. Whereas, the older you grow, the more you learn about the world, the less innocent you are, and the more distracted you get.
I am in accordance with Brandon in regards to his last paragraph. Imprinting is brief and fixed once it occurs and once a goose or an animal imprints, they are following their imprinted target for the rest of their life and it cannot be changed. However, human intelligence and skills are variable and are constantly affected by the environment. I also like Tracy’s point that as an older child, a person has already formed bad habits that are hard to get rid of and that younger children have less obligations so they have more time for practice and perfecting their techniques and correcting their mistakes.
Nikitha (lakshmi_nikitha_1@yahoo.com)
PART TWO....
ReplyDeleteShenk tells us that a lot of Yo-Yo’s success as a musician was that he was surrounded by music from a very early age. “From the cradle, Yo-Yo was surrounded by a world of music” (94). Yo-yo’s sister was also a piano player while Yo-Yo was learning piano, his older sister was already a child prodigy. So from the get-go, Yo-Yo had a lot of good influence and exposure to the piano and to music. Even Mozart’s situation was very similar. “Mozart was bathed in music well before his birth” (61) and his father was an Austrian musician himself. His father focused a lot of attention on developing Mozart into a great musician and he taught him the best techniques and style that he learned from very advanced people who were skilled in the art of playing the piano. Wolfgang Mozart would sit beside his sister “at the harpsichord and [mimic] notes that she played” (62). The examples of Yo-Yo and Mozart serve to show that the young child prodigies become such well-accomplished individuals at such an early age because they were exposed to such an environment and they had the proper environmental factors to stimulate them and aid their success.
Imprinting involves a sensitive period of time also known as the critical period. “During the sensitive period, the young imprint on their parent and learn the basic behaviors of their species, while the parents learns to recognize its offspring” (1126). This occurs in several species of animals like the Graylag geese, gulls, and cranes as well. The sensitive period lasts around one to two days usually. Even the process of imprinting includes the dynamic process and exchange between the environment and genes. Campbell states that “the tendency to respond [to imprint] is innate in the birds; the outside world provides the imprinting stimulus, something to which the response will be directed” (1126). This is talking about how the ducks or animals somehow already know innately that they have to imprint on some object once they are born. Who they imprint on and when they do it is influenced by environmental factors. So the animals are given the genes to imprint but the process of imprinting involves the interplay of genes and the external environment itself. Imprinting is a process that reflects the biological theme of Interdependence of Nature. The animals depend on external cues from the environment to do know what to do so there is interaction with the environment and the organism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Conrad
http://www.buzzfeed.com/allengregory/10-child-geniuses-you-should-know-abou
Nikitha (lakshmi_nikitha_1@yahoo.com)