Learning from a Biological Perspective: Giftedness, Skill, and Neural Darwinism

1. Læring Hermundur Sigmundsson Department of Psychology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology

2. Learning from a biological perspective

3. Development ’Development is about creating something more from something less’ (Smith & Thelen, 2003 p. 343

4. The lecture • Theories • Begavelsen (Giftedness) • Skill/ability • White matter/grey matter • Probabilistic Epigenesis • Neural Darwinism • Which consequences has this theories for our understanding of giftedness • Conclusion

5. Begavelsen (Giftedness) • 2% med høyest IQ • Different from a skill? • Innate? Like a talent • Mathematic, language • Gifted with learning difficulties • Perform a skill at a level usually not reached until later years • Three year-old reading

6. Begavelsen (Giftedness)

7. Begavelsen (Giftedness)Reynir Petur - savant

8. Begavelsen (Giftedness) • Francis Galton (1869) used the term first • Exceptional talent in some areas. Gifted person is one with a gift, a special talent • Lewis Terman, early 1900, high IQ. Long term study of gifted children • Leta Hollingwood, believed that the potential to be gifted was inherited. She felt that providing a nurturing home and school environment were also important

9. Begavelsen (Giftedness) • Mange begavede barn og savante har en forsterket utvikling av høyre hjernehalvdel, språkrelaterte problemer og autoimmune forstyrrelser • Intens motivasjon – mye sterkere indre driv enn gjennomsnittsbarnet

10. Begavelsen (Giftedness) • Begavede barn rapporter vanligvis at familien spilte en positiv, og ikke en negativ rolle I deres utvikling • Kontrollgrupper? • Familier med begavede barn er barnesentrerte, familielivet ofte fullt og helt konsentrert om barnets behov

11. Begavelsen (Giftedness) • Det er sannsynlig at foreldrene først ser et tegn på usedvanlige evner, og deretter responderer ved å vie sin tid til utviklingen av barnets ekstraordinære evner • Ressurssterke barn vokser typisk opp I et ressurssterkt familiemiljø med et høyt nivå av intellektuell eller kunstnerisk stimulering(Winner, 2005)

12. Begavelsen (Giftedness) • Winner (2005). I vår kultur vil de fleste forsvare det nativistiske synet på begavlse dvs. at begavelse anses som et produkt av medfødte, eksepsjonelle evner • Erickson m.fl. (1993) hevder at begavelse (på alle områder) er et produkt av målrettet, hardt arbeid, eller bevisst øvelse og trening

13. Begavelsen (Giftedness) • Winner (2005). • Vi bør bruke større ressurser på å utdanne våre aller mest begavede elever • Vi bør gripe inn for å sikre de begavede elevene et lykkelig og mentalt sunt liv • For at elvene skal sikres emsjonell velvære, trenger de utfordringer som er tilpasset deres nivå • Ellers vil de ikke bare kjede seg (som kan føre til at de underpresterer), men også bli sosialt isolert og føle seg forskjellig fra de andre

14. Skill • Skill refers to an action or a task that is carried out voluntary – with a clear goal or intentions • The term skill refers to the level of proficiency on a specific task or limited group of tasks (Fleishman, 1966, p. 148) • Action capacities (Csikszentmihalyi, 2008) • Quantitative changes – new skills • Qualitative changes - being better at specific skill

15. Ability • Ability refers to a more general trait of the individual which has been inferred from certain response consistencies (e.g. correlations) on certain kinds of tasks (Fleishman, 1966, p.147/148) • Schmidt (1991) argue that abilities are underlying, inherent, relative stable properties, while skills are trainable • One example – the visual system (Stein & Walsh, 1997) – developmental disorder

16. Sjakk – Magnus Carlsen

17. Musikk – Arve Tellefsen

19. Probabilistic Epigenesis Maturation Growth, Experience Learning

20. Edelman

21. Sebastian Seung `I am my connectome` Guys` brain are like waffles – they keep their lives compartmentalized in boxes Girls` brains are like spaghetti – everything in their life is connected to everything else

22. The anatomical asymmetry in planum temporale of musicans

23. Edelmans theory • Edelmans theory on ‘neural Darwinism’ argues that the process of learning can be explained as a process of selection that takes place inside the neural system. The theory emphasizes how stimuli and practice increase connections within specific areas of the brain • Practice of a task strengthens the neural network that are used for that particular task

24. Task specificity • It is possible to argue that Edelman’s theory supports the perspectives of ‘task specificity’ of learning (Sigmundsson, 2005; Haga, 2008) • By saying that training is specific, we mean that every particular skill is specific and should be trained specifically (Larkin & Hoare, 2002) • Motor skill learning- by training specific tasks – neuro-motor and perceptual – motor subsystems involved in that specific task may be tuned in (Sporns & Edelman, 1993)

25. (Henderson & Sugden, 1992; Haga et al. 2008) Implications Motivation Repetition Trying and practising Copying Learningprocess Generalisation Automatisation Acquiring and refining the skill Understanding the skill

26. Generality and Specificity Generality: Concentration, focus, interest How do we create that? Specificity: You develop what you train How do we learn/train in the best way?

27. Giftedness • Ability • - Neural network • Concentration • Focus, interest • Motivation • Action capacity • - Specificity: • You develop what you train

28. Conclusion • Gottliebs theory • Edelmans theory

29. Conclusion • Skill development • Task specificity • Empirical support for task specificity

30. Conclusion • Giftedness – ability or skill • Task specificity

31. (Csikszentmihalyi, 2008) Conclusion – learning principles The level of difficulty is set so that the child can manage the task, and the difficulty of the task is gradually increased as a results of the child success