Tuesday, March 20, 2012
The Argument: IQ
In The Genius In All Of Us, David Shenk describes intelligence as "something you were given, not something you've earned" (p.39). He also says that the IQ is "merely a population-sorting tool" (p. 39). Many biologists and psychologists have conducted studies with the goal of finding a correlation between environmental factors and one's level of intelligence. Multiple psychologists such as Mandel Sherman and Cora B. Key have discovered that "children develop only as the environment demands development" (p.41). With a biological perspective, would you agree that there is no limit to one's IQ? What aspects of our everyday lives have led us to adapt such a complex muscle (brain)? Do genetics play a significant role in the growth of our intelligence? Why or why not? (Kalista Noegroho, Kalista.dara@gmail.com)
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With a biological perspective, I would say that there's no limit to one's IQ due to plasticity of the brain. The process of plasticity involves growing neurons, which has multiple axons, for sending out information and dendrites, for receiving information, and where they meet are called synaptic contacts. A process called synaptic pruning deletes old connections while stronger ones determined by usage are kept and strengthened with more synaptic contacts. Therefore as long as people are in an environment that demands development and has constant stimulation, there is no threshold as to one's IQ score because synapses can keep developing and increasing one's mental processing strength.
ReplyDeleteTo us, school is our stimulating environment where we are required to think in terms of a lot of different subjects that may activate certain parts of the brain more than others. For example, english and history classes may stimulate the left side of the brain called Wernicke's area and math classes dealing with logic stimulates the right side of the brain. (http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/node/1869) Centuries ago, when we were still hunting and gathering, we needed to remember a lot of survival skills and that may have stimulated an increase in synapses in the brain and over a long period of time, develop into a more complex muscle. I think the main influence of genetics on the growth of our intelligence is the speed of production of synapses. Some people may be able to develop synapses faster than others and some people may be able to develop synapses faster than others in certain parts of the brain, location-wise and long term/ short term-wise.
A good example is a study about twenty years ago of putting twenty-year-olds through intense juggling practice. A month later of training, there was "an increase in the corresponding grey matter in the brain" which is mostly neurons, cell bodies, dendrites, and axons. The grey matter is also related to an increase in the IQ scores of the subjects. So clearly, the increased amount of grey matter in the brain leads to an increase in score on cognitive tests such as IQ tests. The IQ scores of a person is a good example of continuity and change, there is so much one can do to change their IQ, the presence of a stimulating environment is an important example.
(mindy shaw, mindyshaw95@yahoo.com)