cognitive enhancement - theory of multiple intelligence

Theory of Multiple Intelligence

How smart are you?How smart are you?

How How are you are you smart?smart?

Poetry App reciating M usic Learn ing a C om puter P rog ram A F riend in N eed

C entral P rocessing U nit

Who is the smartest?

How is Intelligence Defined?

Poetry

Ghandi Einstein Andrew Lloyd

Weber

Frank Lloyd Wright

Bill Gates

IQ Piaget Information

Processing

Symbol Systems

Appreciating Music

Learning a Computer Program

A Friend in Need

M.I.: Suggests it’s time to consider the direct connection between cognitive abilities and the development of the nervous system.

Genetics – First consideration in the biology of intelligence.

» If DNA really does contain the code of everything we can and shall become, then shouldn’t our cognitive abilities be contained there as well?

» Although genetics can help to determine eye and hair color, it is less reliable when asked to determine more abstract traits.

» Genetics can be used to determine “at-risk” potentials for disease.

» If it can determine at risk potentials, it should lead us toward “at promise” potentials as well.

» But in its current state genetics can tell us this but no more.

Development of the nervous system offers us our most reliable form of information.

The first question to consider in the neurological perspective is:

Does the nervous system develop in a static pre-determined form, or is all or part placid in its

development?

Canalazation

Strict genetically programmable sequence

Plasticity

Adaptability is only possible at certain stages in development

5 Principles of Plasticity

Maximum effect is in early life - Meaningful effects:only available from first days to first few years.

Presence of critical periods - Intervention: only successful during critical periods.

Flexibility varies across different regions of the brain

- Regions such as the frontal lobes are more malleable than the sensory cortex which develops during the first days of life. An entire hemisphere of the brain can be destroyed and the individual will still learn to speak. Suggests that large areas of the brain remain uncommitted and available for diverse use during early childhood.

Factors that mediate development - An organism will fail to develop normally unless it undergoes certain experiences.

Long-term effects of injury or intervention sometimes does not show up until later life.

- Injury to the frontal lobes may not be visible for several years.

SizeSize

Other Biological Factors Worth Considering

• Size of the brain in rats can be increased through stimulation.

• Specific stimulation can cause growth in isolated areas.

• Environmental situation can increase the size of nerve cells & the quality of synoptic connections.

Bigger – Not always betterBigger – Not always better


• During certain periods of development the brain produces excess cells while the neurons are creating synoptic connections.

• Total excess cells are between 15% and 85%

• Possible period of plasticity

• May be the time when a child is accomplishing the feat of learning language.

How is the brain organized?How is the brain organized?


• Modular

• Molecular

Important to recognize that learning occurs by the brain selecting pre-existing pathways to synoptic connections.

Experiences with the environment and learning can exploit those pathways and lead to new ways of behavior

Poetry App reciating M usic Learn ing a C om puter P rog ram A F riend in N eed

C entral P rocessing U nit

Poetry

Appreciating Music

Learning a Computer Program

A Friend in Need

Biological considerations lead to the choice between the two paradigms of intelligence

What constitutes an intelligence in M.I. Theory?

Criteria of an Intelligence

Potential Isolation by

Brain Damage

The extent to which a particular faculty can be

destroyed or spared in its relative autonomy.


The Existence of

Idiot Savants,

Prodigies or other

Exceptional Individuals

The extent to which their skills or disabilities are out of

proportion to other abilities.


Can the basic information processing function be isolated and identified in

their neurological

form?

An Identifiable Core Operation or Set of Operations


A Distinctive Developmental History Along

with a Definable Set

of Expert “End-State”

PerformancesCan degrees of

expertise be identified throughout

a developmental timeline?


An intelligence becomes more

plausible if it can be traced

to its evolutionary antecedents.

An Evolutionary History and Evolutionary Plausibility


Support From Experimental Psychological

Tasks

The extent to a cognitive test can isolate the ability.


Support From Psychometric

Findings

The extent to which a specifically designed test can

support a domain of intelligence.


Susceptibility to Encoding in a Symbol

System

Has a culture been able to harness the raw capacities to

be exploited in a symbolic system?

How are you smart?

The Multiple Intelligence Profile

Musical Intelligence

The ability to discern meaning and importance in sets of

pitches rhythmically arranged.

Development of musical competenceDevelopment of musical competence

Pitch – (melody)

Rhythm – (beat)

Timbre – (quality of a note)

Although musical intelligence can be broken down into these components, they are useless without an emotional quality

It is the variation of the core components that a physiological response is created that communicates the emotion.

The composer exemplifies Musical The composer exemplifies Musical IntelligenceIntelligence

Composer can be identified by the fact that they constantly hear tones in their head.

The idea seizes the attention and imagination and the composer begins to work on it.

The basic idea is always the same, the composer only modifies it. (It is received in its complete form)

Tonal experience is combined with emotion to meld together in the creation.

The end result is an expressed emotion that is beyond words.

The brain and musical intelligenceThe brain and musical intelligence

Evidence shows that music and language are processed in separate areas of the brain.

Music in the right and language in the left.

Music has the ability to be recognized within human beings in a variety of ways. This bolsters the idea that the nervous system offers multiple ways of exploiting music (singing, playing instruments, dancing, listening).

Two contrasting ways of processing music

Figural Approach – The child attends chiefly to the global features of music (soft, hard, fast, slow). The approach is strictly intuitive.

Formal Mode – Can conceptualize the musical experience in a principled manner. Can understand music on a measure-by-measure basis.

Crisis points in musical competenceCrisis points in musical competence

• The transfer from Figural to Formal can temporally wipe out any intuitive sense of music.

• By adolescence the youth must choose to devote themselves.

Logical Mathematical Intelligence

The roots of the highest regions of logical mathematical thought can be found in the actions of

young children upon objects in their material world.

Development of logical mathematical thought

Stage # 1 (Infant) - Objects only exist if they are present.

Stage # 2 (Pre-school) - Objects can be arranged in groupings. Cannot recognize specific number in group. Reciting numbers is a linguistic skill.

Stage # 3 (School Age) - Can look at two sets of objects and can make a quantifiable comparison.

Stage # 4 (Early Adolescence) - Can substitute mental pictures of sets with the use of symbols and words. Algebra and logical reasoning.

Math enters abstraction

Mastery of words and symbols gives way to abstraction.

The mathematician is primarily interested in the use of numbers in the abstract sense, not in the discoveries of the physical world.

The gifted mathematician is more interested in the reasoning of an equation than the sequence of numbers.

Is guided by intuition.

Senses a line of reasoning and then sets off to prove it.

The scientist and math

The scientists is motivated to explain physical reality.

To use reasoning to explain how things work.

Also guided by intuition.

Must be willing to withstand the pressure to go against traditional thought.

May have been captivated by a physical object as a small child.

Math and the brain Math and the brain

Activity can be found in both hemispheres.

Great deal of flexibility where functions are carried out.

Presence of calculating idiot savants.

Isolation in specific areas of the brain is less defined than in other intelligences.

Cultural Pressure on Logical Mathematical Intelligence

Western society is based on

challenging statements made

without proofAlthough this form of thought is highly

rewarded, it is done at a cost to

the personal intelligences.

Spatial Intelligence

The ability to manipulate objects in space.

More detailed definitions include:

The ability to recognize an object when viewed from different directions.

The ability to image movement of an object.

The ability to sense and retain geometric form.

The ability to distinguish between two and three dimensional forms.

The ability to perceive balance or tension in a piece of art.

Development of spatial intelligence

Sensory Motor - An infant’s ability to move around in space.

Concrete Operational - Ability to manipulate an object.

Formal Operational - The adolescent’s ability to understand geometry.

The brain and spatial intelligence

Located in the posterior portions of the right hemisphere.

Important to note that the properties of spatial intelligence are not limited to a visual experience.

The Chess Master and The Artist

• The advanced player is stimulated by patterns.

• Has memorized thousands of patterns.

• Draws on memory of positions together with intuition to make the next move.

• Cannot remember the positions of pieces that are out of place.

• Individual positions contain strategies of past games.

• The chess master can play multiple games while blindfolded.

• The artist must possess a keen understanding of the outside world.

• A driving motivation to master every aspect of physical form.

• Can remember and make use of the works of others.

• Needs a vast storehouse of memorized form in order to create.

• Creation comes from the melding of memorized form and access to feelings needed to be expressed.

Chess MasterChess Master ArtistArtist

Body-Kinesthic Intelligence

Control of one’s bodily motions and capacity to handle objects.

Linguistic Intelligence

Linguistic intelligence is the most shared intellectual domain

across the human species.

The ability to visualize and then re-create movement.

To know what is coming next so that the movement seems effortless.

The combination of fundamentals of skill and emotion to generate high achievement or art.

The individual must practice and be proficient at creating a movement, but the great ones can communicate a personal message through their actions.

Examples:

•Dancers

•Athletes

•Artists

•Instrumentalists

•Mechanics

•Surgeons

•Actors

•Comedians

If I could have told you what it was, I

would not have danced it. Martha Grahm

Similar to music, actions created in dance and sports can activate signals in the brain that communicate emotion.

Bodily-Kinesthic Intelligence may be based on an involuntary response to mimic like the sour taste reaction one feels after watching another bite into a lemon.

Architecture can be felt in the body when observing a building that is supported by a weak base.

Mimicking is the gift of the comedian. Considered a low priority in western culture. People who learn this way are considered arrogant or a class clown.

Poetry Exemplifies Linguistic Intelligence

The poet must be superlatively sensitive to the meaning of words.

The sense of a word in one line can not upset the balance of words with similar meaning within the poem.

The words must combine to capture the emotion or image that the writer is trying to convey.

Linguistic intelligence is measured in one’s command of:

Phonology -

Syntax -

Semantics

Pragmatics -

The major uses of language

Rhetorical - The ability to use language to convince others of your point of view.

Monic Potential - The ability to use language to remember vast amounts of information.

Explanation - Using language to pass on information.

Meta-linguistic - Using language to describe language.

The development of the writer

First masters the technical skills of language using the rules of Phonlogy, Syntax, Semantics & Pragmatics.

Develops the ability to store a vast amount of human experience to memory.

Set out to master the style of other accomplished writers.

Comes to intuitively know the proper use of form.

Combines the learned technical skills with the store-house of human experience in memory to create the desired outcome.

Culture and language…who benefits from its command?

Pre-literate society - Language is used as a way to remember. Those who master this skill were rewarded.

The Greeks - Power was given to those who could orally recite verse.

Traditional cultures place an emphasis on rhetoric, oral language and word play.

Western culture is concerned more with writing and gleaming information from reading.

Personal Intelligence

Interpersonal – The ability to notice and make sense of the actions of others.

Intrapersonal – Access to one’s own feelings.

Development of personal intelligence

Infant - Tie to caregiver is critical.- First realizes separate identity.- Effected by others’ emotions.

Age 2-5 years - Starts to master symbol systems.- Engaged in role play.- Striving for autonomy.- Needs commonly to establish identity.

School aged - Fully socialized, can tell right from wrong.- Forms friends on their own.- Rates themselves by what they can do.


Middle childhood - Recognizes the motivations of others.- Deeply interested in friendships.- Cliques for boys can be primate hierarchy

structured.- Premature self-judgment is a risk.- Inability to relate to others can be viewed

as a failure.

Adolescent - Sensitive to the motivation of others.- Looks to others for support.- Point at which inter and intra combine to

create the self.- Pressures surrounding this action are

less acute in societies that offer fewer choices.


Adult - Self actualized individual who knows their own frailties while retaining the ability to inspire others

- Capacity to recognize how their presence reacts with the world.

The self in different societies

Particle Society

Field Society

Exercise # 1

Application of the theory

How Does Culture Effect An Individual’s Profile of Intelligence?

The notational symbol systems a society

chooses to emphasize shapes the intellectual

profile of its citizens

Musical Intelligence Not Supported By Culture

0

20

40

6080

100

120

140

160

180

Birth Pre-school

SchoolAged

Adult

LinguisticMusicalMathPersoanlSpatialBodily

Based on western culture emphasizing Linguistic & Logical intelligence’s.

100 = Average of population

Musical Intelligence Supported By Culture

020406080

100120140160180200

Birth Pre-school

SchoolAged

Adult



Musical intelligence supported by curriculum or mentor

Comparison of same individual in different cultures as an adult

020406080

100120140160180200

Not

Supp

orte

d

Supp

orte

d



Which profile is capable of contributing more to society?

Less is more

Can culture intervene to modify the

intelligence profile?

“Remember Plasticity”

5 Principles of Plasticity

- Injury to the frontal lobes may not be visible for several years.

Long-term effects of injury or intervention sometimes does not show up until later life.

- An organism will fail to develop normally unless it undergoes certain experiences.

Factors that mediate development

- Regions such as the frontal lobes are more malleable than the sensory cortex which develops during the first days of life. An entire hemisphere of the brain can be destroyed and the individual will still learn to speak. Suggests that large areas of the brain remain uncommitted and available for diverse use during early childhood.

Flexibility varies across different regions of the brain

- Intervention: only successful during critical periods. Presence of critical periods

- Meaningful effects:only available from first days to first few years.

Maximum effect is in early life

Function of PlasticitySuzuki Model for Teaching Music

0

20

4060

80100

120140

160180

200

Birth 3 years


Plasticity Periods Taking advantage of “Plasticity Period” in both Musical and Personal intelligence

Choices for the school of the future

Basic set of competencies Core body of knowledge Greatest number of people

achieve knowledge Same Curriculum for all Same methods of teaching Standardized assessments Based on IQ thinking

Recognizes individual differences in profiles

Committed to several core disciplines

Learning tasks focused on relevant topics

Guided choice in electives Assessments are individual Apprentice relationships are

supported

Uniform School Individual-center school

New roles in the “Individual-centered school”

Assessment Specialist

Student-curriculum broker

School-community broker

Sources for an alterative approach to testing

The necessity for a developmental perspective.

The emergence of a symbol-system perspective.

Evidence for the existence of multiple intelligence.

A search for creative capacities.

The desirability of assessing learning in context.

Locating skill and competence outside the head of the individual.

General Features of a new approach to assessment

Emphasis on assessment other than testing.

Assessment as simple, not oral, and occurring on a reliable schedule.

Ecological validity.

Instruments that are “intelligence-fair”.

Uses of multiple measures.

Sensitivity to individual differences, developmental levels, and forms of expertise.

Application of assessment for the student’s benefit.

The Narrational Doorway

Presenting a story or narrative account about the concept in question

Five Doorways For Learning

Logical-quantitative Doorway

Approaching the concept with numerical considerations or deductive and

inductive reasoning process

Foundational Doorway

Explores the philosophical and terminological facets of a concept

Esthetic Doorway

Emphasizing sensory features that appeal to learners who favor an artistic stance.

Experiential Doorway

Hands on approach that deal directly with the materials the embody or convey the

concept.

Project-centered curriculum

•Projects are designed that incorporate a variety of thinking styles

•Assessments are made on a continuous basis

•A “processfolio” is kept on each student to monitor progress and changes in thinking throughout the program

•Students are encouraged to swap roles

•Final assessment is based on ability to “perform or demonstrate” concepts within relevant context

Final exercise

Designing individual-centered project curriculum

cognitive enhancement - theory of multiple intelligence

Education