Ericsson argues that the "Brain drives the brawn", in other words he believes that with increased athletic ability there comes great change in the brain (page 251). Shenk then takes this idea and elaborates on it. He argues that people who have superior skills in a certain area "draw more elaborate mental representation of what they want to do" (Page 252). Which of Shrenk's claims in his argument does this assertion support? How does this assertion support Shenk's claims in his argument? Relate answer to growth v. set mindset.
Joseph Hugener
Throughout his book, Shenk stresses the importance of the growth mindset. He wrote, ‘the more a person believes that abilities can be developed, the greater the success that person will eventually enjoy.’ (48). Athletes are excellent proof that one can use a growth mindset to see physical changes and changes in their abilities. While intelligence is more difficult to measure, sports abilities are more straight forward and measurable. As seen in Shenk’s example with the long distance runners from Kenya, a lot of practice and hours of deliberate training can truly alter one’s physical output. The ability to devote so much energy into improving an ability is catalyzed by motivation and a growth mindset. In this way, the brain really does drive changes in the body.
ReplyDeleteClaudio Del Percio conducted an experiment in 2010 to compare the brain waves of athletes versus non-athletes. Researchers observed pistol shooters as they fired 120 times and fencers as they balanced on one foot. The results were the same for both experiments, ‘The athletes’ brains were quieter, which means they devoted less brain activity to these motor tasks than nonathletes did… the brains of athletes are more efficient, so they produce the desired result with the help of fewer neurons’ (http://discovermagazine.com/2010/apr/16-the-brain-athletes-are-geniuses). How do their brains become more efficient? As soon as one begins to practice a new sport, their brains begin to change. This same article mentioned an experiment in which people were learning how to juggle. Within a week, the jugglers were already developing extra gray matter in some brain areas, and scientists found that their brains continued to change for months.
In the front of the brain is the prefrontal cortex and this region enables us to focus on a task and consider a range of responses. As one continues to practice something, this region gets quieter and quieter and his/her predictions become more accurate and faster. Therefore, he/she doesn’t need as much oversight from this region about how to respond. Practice strengthens the interaction between certain neurons in the brain, and similarly weakens others, hence the quieting of the prefrontal cortex. So, an athlete’s training not only changes their body structure, but the structure of their brains and this altered structure affects it’s function. When researchers examined the size of pro divers’ brains, they found something extraordinary. ‘the number of years each athlete competed as a diver nearly predicted how thick the subject’s brain would be’, indicating that practice really does lead to perfection. It’s as if each year a player plays a sport, a new layer of neurons is added to the top of their brains. (http://www.wired.com/playbook/2011/03/athletes-bigger-brains/all/1)
Shenk says in the evidence that people who have practiced a certain skill are able to ‘draw on more elaborate mental representations of what they want to do’. This is backed up by Ericsson’s claim that ‘expert performance is primarily mediated by acquiring mental representations that allow the experts to anticipate courses of action’ (252). This is quite literally what happens with many athletes. Scans of professional basketball players brains were taken as they watched movies of players taking free throws. When the movies were stopped just before the ball’s release, ‘pros in the group showed a lot of activity in those regions of the brain that control hand and arm muscles, but in the nonathletes those regions were relatively quiet… the basketball players were mentally reenacting the free throws in their minds, using their expertise to guess how the players in the movies would perform’ (http://discovermagazine.com/2010/apr/16-the-brain-athletes-are-geniuses/article_view?b_start:int=1&-C=). The pro athlete’s brains adapted to the higher demands of the athlete’s body.
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ReplyDeleteFrom an evolutionary standpoint, these findings are remarkable. It has been found that Endurance exercise boosts the levels of chemical messengers that promote growth and reorganization in the brain. This evidence, along with the examples above, show that the brain can be noticeably larger for highly competitive athletes. Over time, this could become an evolutionary adaptation, and researchers have already found this. Research has shown that ‘within a species, the animals with the bigger brains are the ones that run longer than the rest.’ (http://www.wired.com/playbook/2011/07/brain-size-evolution/). Research was done comparing the maximal metabolic rate of an animal with the dimensions of its brain, and that ‘as the size of a species’ brain increased, so did its MMRs’. Further testing showed that ‘a larger brain size independently predicted how well the animal would rate on the athletic endurance scale.’. This concept makes sense because ‘Aerobic exercise actually releases compounds that stimulate brain cell growth’ (http://sciencebasedrunning.com/2011/08/mammals/). So perhaps animals that are better at aerobic exercise naturally grow bigger brains. Unfortunately, this pattern does not hold true for humans, but maybe in years to come, evolutionary adaptations to the brain with arise from generations of athletes and those born with bigger brains will have an easier time joining the Olympics.
Michaela Margolis (mmargolis989@gmail.com)
Ericcson’s claims directly support Shenk’s idea for GxE because practice is a part of the environment that a person lives in because it is how an individual spends a good part of his/her time. The fact that it can influence the “human body, such as muscles, nerve systems, heart and circulatory system, and the brain” directly demonstrates that E (environment) can directly influence the type of person you are and could be (Shenk, 251). It could also be used as evidence for Shenk’s argument that any sort of significant achievement requires an “uncommon level of personal motivation” (Shenk, 120). Practice not only physically alters the body but also the mindset of the individual, requiring for more loyalty, commitment, and dedication on their part. Motivation is key in Shenk’s argument that all “great” people had to commit to their practice and have unwavering faith. Ericcson’s claims are more directly support for Shenk’s belief that Ted Williams was only a great baseball player because of his consistent practice and his “intensity” that he was practicing at “Shenk, 8). His practice is what molded his body and his mind into a cohesive baseball player that played magnificently.
ReplyDeleteOn the physical side of things, our brains and bodies have been “primed for plasticity; they were built for challenge and adaptation” (Shenk, 131). Both the body and the brain can change based on the challenges we provide them with. Referred to by Michaela, the brain is regionally specialized. Three main parts of the brain are the forebrain, midbrain, and hindbrain (Campbell, 1070). These regions are specified and deal with certain types of stimulation and learning. The frontal lobe is associated with reasoning, planning, parts of speech, movement, emotions, and problem solving. The parietal lobe is associated with movement, orientation, recognition, and perception of stimuli. The occipital lobe is associated with visual processing. The temporal lobe is associated with auditory processing, memory, and speech (http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/kinser/Structure1.html). Each structure in the brain has its own function, and there is the possibility that each can be altered depending the type of athletic practice and duration of practice an individual does. There has been a lot of evidence lately that athletics do have a positive influence over the brain. For example the brains of baseball players were found “seamlessly interact with the muscular system to perfect and deploy movements” (http://www.sciencenews.org/view/feature/id/337209/title/Brainy_Ballplayers).
The first way to explain this is using neural plasticity. Although the basic architecture of the brain is developed during embryonic development, the brain can be altered after birth. The brain can be remodeled “in response to its own activity” (Campbell, 1079). This is due to the connection of synapses in the brain. When there is activity at one synapse which correlates with that of another synapse, alterations may go under way to reinforce that specific synapse connection. The same can be said the other way around. When there synapses fail to correlate with other synapses, that specific synapse connection may become weaker (Campbell, 1079). Thus the strength of synapse connections in your brain can be directly affected by the activities that you do.
ReplyDeleteThe second way to explain how athletics can change the brain is through the idea that athletics stimulate many types of learning. The brain learns using a variety of methods. Some include habituation, associative learning, cognition, and spatial learning. By playing sports, many individuals require all of these types of learning and will thus provide more stimulation for their brain. In the study of the London Taxi drivers, there were seen to have a larger growth of the hippocampus of their brains the longer worked as a taxi cab driver (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/677048.stm). The hippocampus is usually associated with spatial recollection and the constant work as a taxi cab driver stimulates that part of the brain constantly. So, over time, it has enlarged, physically changing do to constant stimulation and use.
Yanfei Gao, feifeiyg@yahoo.com