The Genius in All of Us

Benefits of bilingualism (or multilingualism)

The NYTimes today has a story about the educational trend towards bilingual education in the U.S.

The article is all about the the obvious practical benefits -- interacting with more people in our shrinking world. Not one word in the story mentions the extraordinary cognitive benefits that have been documented.

In François Grosjean's book, Life With Two Languages, Grosjean shows that bilinguals can reach a stage in semantic development 2 or 3 years earlier than monoligual peers. (Thanks to Sharone Bergner).

In Rafael M. Diaz's article, "Thought and Two Languages: The Impact of Bilingualism on Cognitive Development," Diaz concludes that bilingual students learn greater cognitive flexbility and improved powers of concept formation. (Thanks to David Rider of Xavier University in Louisiana).

According to behavioral psychologist Dean Keith Simonton: "Research has shown that intensive exposure to two or more different languages helps build the cognitive basis for creativity. After all, concepts will be coded in multiple ways, enriching the associative interconnections among various ideas. The process here is not unlike the possible role of hybridization in the generation of new biological species."

David Brooks gets intelligence right -- but genetics wrong

In today's NYTimes, David Brooks has a thoughtful, intelligent column about how mainstream science is gaining a more nuanced understanding of intelligence, and getting past crude measures like IQ. He gets a lot of stuff right. Unfortunately, Brooks gets tripped up near the beginning of his column by the Big Fallacy of "heritability." Brooks writes:

"Intelligence is partly hereditary. A meta-analysis by Bernie Devlin of the University of Pittsburgh found that genes account for about 48 percent of the differences in I.Q. scores."

This is just not correct. It's an entirely understandable mistake on Brooks' part, because so many journalists and even scientists are making it. But what statistical studies like Devlin's miss is that genes actually do not pass any complex traits down on their own. The expression and regulation of genes, biologists now understand, is entirely dependent on their interaction with the environment. You cannot separate one from the other. There is no "nature vs. nurture."

Don't take my word for it. Listen to Michael Meaney, Director of the McGill Centre for the Study of Behaviour, Genes and Environment:

"There are no genetic factors that can be studied independently of the environment, and there are no environmental factors that function independently of the genome. Phenotype emerges only from the interaction of gene and environment. The search for main effects is a fool's errand. In the context of modem molecular biology, it is a quest that is without credibility."

Or take a look at this chart and look at all the influence-arrows going in both directions:

 

The point of the chart is to show how genes are not simple information dispensers, but are dynamic actors in the life of every cell. They don't dictate -- they interact. And how they interact can be affected by just about anything under the sun. Again, Michael Meaney:

"Everything we have learned about molecular biology has shown that gene activity is regulated by the intracellular environment. The intracellular environment is a function of the genetic make-up of the cell and the extracellular environment [which is] also influenced by the environment of the individual."

None of this is yet reflected in how we talk about genetics publicly, thanks in part to this stream of statistical studies that supposedly show what percent of various traits we inherit.

Brooks and the rest of us are victims of the continual and extreme misreading of population studies that seem to show what portion of intelligence comes from genes vs. what portion comes from the environment. When you actually sit down to understand how genetics works, you realize how misleading these studies are. By echoing a strict "nature vs. nurture" sensibility, these heritability estimates are statistical phantoms; they purport to represent something in populations that simply does not exist in actual biology.

If all this has you a little confused, its ok. It should. The ramifications of gene-environment interdependence are so sweeping, it will take a while to come to grips with them. It changes everything we think we understand about "innate," and "hereditary." It opens up a whole new understanding of what human beings are truly capable of. But first we have to describe it correctly. We don't even have right metaphors for genetics to discuss it sensibly in ordinary conversation. That's what I'm spending a good amount of time on now in my book.

Study shows I'm smarter than my brothers

As the eldest of three, I'm delighted to hype a robust new Norwegian study (explained very well here in the New York Times) showing pretty conclusively that the I.Q.'s of oldest siblings are, on average, three points higher than their younger siblings. I've been telling Mom and Dad this for years -- but they won't listen!

In all seriousness, the study is profoundly important for one big reason. It's not because this huge population study (241,310 people) reveals anything about particular individual families (in our family, the youngest is the smartest). And it's not because it helps us understand how birth order might affect intelligence. Rather, it's simply because it's definitive scholarship helps chip away at the myth that we are all born with a certain intelligence. Intelligence, like all complex behavioral traits, clearly has strong genetic influences, but is ultimately a process, not a thing; like personality, it's a consequence of millions of tiny influential events from the realms of nutrition, parenting, play, sibling relationships, schooling, media exposure, and random happenings. The process starts at conception and never stops.

(This is my first post in while -- I'm still in the middle of wrestling with some of the actual content in the book, but hope to return soon to more regular posts.)

Executive function: critical and trainable

Scientific American's website reports on a new study demonstrating that IQ is far less relevant to math success than two specific brain skills -- working memory and inhibitory control, which are part of the suite of skills known as executive function.

Regular followers of this blog won't be surprised to learn that these skills are trainable. 

"It's often thought that kids don't do well because they're dumb, and there's nothing we can do about it," the site quotes Penn State professor and lead study author Clancy Blair. "But not only is executive function pivotal for academic success, it's amenable to training, and this training might make a big difference in a child's ability."

There's also a clear educational mandate here: "Preschool curricula that focus on development of these skills and self-regulation are needed in a big way," Blair says. "There is a federal push to learn our numbers, our letters and our words, but a focus on the content, without a focus on the skills required to use that content, will end up with children being left behind."

Is IQ actually AQ? (Mistaking Achievement for "Intelligence")

Have we been mistaking achievement for "intelligence"?

I've just gotten my hands on a copy of Andrew Elliott and Carol Dweck's mammoth Handbook of Competence and Motivation. Following the lead chapter from the editors is an utterly fascinating contribution from Yale psychologist Robert Sternberg, who, in just a few pages, seems to completely shatter the popular myth of I.Q. and intelligence testing. Being an academic text, the writing is a little dry; still, it may be the most important thing I've yet read on the subject.

According to I.Q. advocates and to popular understanding, intelligence tests are able to discern each individual's raw, natural intelligence -- which academic psychologists refer to as g for "general intelligence." So-called g is supposedly an innate, unchanging cluster of intellectual abilities that each of us simply possesses -- it is the hand we're dealt. This pure intelligence is not what we've learned, but simply how well our brains work. Furthermore, it seems to correlate so well with later job performance and life success, people have come to believe that each person has a specific amount of inherited intelligence that truly drives his/her level of success.

To reinforce the idea of pure intelligence tests, the testing community has gone to great efforts to distinguish between these so-called "ability tests," which reveal our innate intelligence, and "achievement tests," which examine the knowledge and skills we've been able to develop.

But what if those distinctions simply don't exist? What if every intelligence test measures a certain combination of skills and knowledge, revealing only what we've learned up to that point in our lives? And what if this correlation is more of a mirage than a true indication of cause-and-effect?

These are Sternberg's staggering -- and yet rational -- claims. "There is no qualitative distinction between various kinds of assessments," writes Sternberg. "The main thing that distinguishes ability tests from achievement tests is not the tests themselves, but rather how psychologists, educators, and others interpret the scores on these tests."

"Conventional tests of intelligence and related abilities," he says, "measure achievement."

Furthermore: "These skills develop as results of gene-environment covariation and interaction. If we wish to call them intelligence, that is certainly fine, so long as we recognize that what we are calling intelligence is a form of development competencies that can lead to expertise."  [We will discuss gene-environment covariation in another post].

In other words, it's not at all fine, because that is not at all how we use the word "intelligence." Intelligence is defined in the dictionary and in popular understanding as "the ability to acquire and apply knowledge" -- our natural ability. Distinct from knowledge and learned skills, it is what is built-in to our brains.

Sternberg argues that no current tests actually measure such built-in intelligence, and that intelligence testers are instead relying on a dangerous circular logic:

"Some intelligence theorists point to the stability of the alleged general (g) factor of human intelligence as evidence for the existence of some kind of stable and overriding structure of human intelligence. But . . . [w]ith different forms of schooling, g could be made either stronger or weaker. In effect, Western forms and related forms of schooling may, in part, create the g phenomenon by providing a kind of schooling that teaches in conjuction the various kinds of skills measure by tests of intellectual abilities."

In other words: we are teaching certain skills in our schools -- skills which do correlate reasonably well with Western job performance -- and then measuring how well kids learn these skill. Then we pretend that the results reveal a person's raw intelligence, when all they actually reveal is how well a child learned those skills. All we're really learning from intelligence tests is that some kids do better than others in school. We are not, as intelligence testers claim, uncovering the innate cause of these differences.

Is Sternberg saying there's no such thing as innate intelligence?
No. But he is saying that such intelligence is "not directly measurable," that it is not one general ability which can be scored, and that it is not inherently limiting. The evidence shows that skills and abilities are inextricably interwoven, and that all skills are modifiable. "The main constraint in achieving expertise is not some fixed prior level of capacity, but purposeful engagement involving direct instruction, active participation, role modeling, and reward."

What about the famous correlation between intelligence test scores on the one hand and job performance/life success on the other?
It's a mirage. The correlation does exist, says Sternberg, but not because one causes the other; rather, it's because they both measure the same abilities. Or as Sternberg puts it:
     "Such correlations represent no intrinsic relation between intelligence and other kinds of performance, but rather overlap in the kinds of competencies needed to perform well under difference kinds of circumstances. The greater the overlap in skills, in general, the higher the correlations."

Sternberg then points to a series of studies demonstrating that practical expertise does not correlate well with analytical ("intelligence") tests but do correlate very nicely with job performance and life success.
-- The Yup'ik Eskimo children of Alaska have "extremely impressive competencies and even expertise for surviving in a difficult environment, but because these skills are not ones valued by teachers" they tend to do very poorly in school. (Grigorenko et al, 2004).
-- In Brazil, street children who are extremely successful in running street businesses, and highly expert in math skills necessary for those affairs, do very poorly in abstract, pencil-and-paper math propblems. (Nunes, 1993 and 1994).
-- In Berkeley, California, there is "no correlation" between housewives' impressive abilities in comparison shopping math and scores on pencil-and-paper math tests. (Lave, 1989).

The essential point being that whatever our innate abilities -- which clearly exist but are still far from being understood and specified -- they do not limit us in a way that I.Q. scores imply. Ultimately, life success is a function not of inherent abilities, but of highly developed skills.

Labels and limits

Maia Szalavitz has an interesting piece in yesterday's Washington Post about the national mania for diagnosing kids:

"Increasing numbers of children are given increasingly specific labels, ranging from psychiatric and neurological diagnoses such as Asperger's and attention-deficit disorder to educational descriptors including "gifted" and "learning disabled."

-- The main problem being that these labels tend to overwhelm parent, child and teacher with a fixed and false set of expectations. She cites Stanford's Carol Dweck, author Alissa Quart and psychiatrist Bruce Perry all insisting that abilities are not fixed.

"Recent research in neuroscience bolsters the idea that people can and do change. Says Perry: 'The brain is like a muscle: The areas that are used grow and improve while those which aren't, don't.'"

Kids diagnosed with a disability need to understand that there are no fixed limits on what they can achieve. "It's incumbent on parents," says Dweck, "to explain that 'Well, you may be wired a little differently; this might make it more difficult for you; you might have to work harder and use different strategies,' as opposed to 'This means you can't learn.' "

And at the other end of the spectrum, kids labeled as "gifted" need to understand that success will only come with effort and a willingness to take risks. "Children who believe in permanent traits like fixed intelligence," Dweck explains, "are actually vulnerable because when something goes wrong they think they don't deserve the label anymore."

Springsteen (inadvertently) weighs in on my last post...

Ok, this is a little eerie. Just a few hours after writing the previous post, I found myself on the exercise bike watching an old TV interview with Bruce Springsteen. (For me, that's as riveting as any Sopranos episode.) I was startled when Bruce came out with this:

"I wasn't quite suited for the educational system. One problem with the way the educational system is set up is that it only recognizes a certain type of intelligence, and it's incredibly restrictive -- very, very restrictive. There's so many types of intelligence, and people who would be at their best outside of that structure [get lost]. Most of the schools, they're aiming to build you up and get you into the machine."

(He goes on to say a lot about what drove him early on, and what fueled his drive to become better and better and better at what he does. All very relevent to this project. I'll draw on those statements another time.)

Am I so utterly obsessed with Springsteen that when I heard him talk fleetingly about this stuff several years ago, I unconsciously decided to write a book about it, then followed through on that promise years later and -- on the precise day that I was exploring this one particular facet -- somehow unconsciously prodded myself to rummage through my old VHS tapes for the old interview so I could again stumble upon these words? If you know me and my family, you're nodding yes.