This was the question answered by psychology
professor Alison Gopnik Monday night at Auckland University – part of the Sir Douglas Robb lecture series for 2012. Obviously, I was interested. Spend five
minutes with my boy and you will find yourself wondering – how does this kid's
mind work?
Five minutes with a fifteen month old:
He's playing the drum – no, he's heading for
the door – but wait, he's seen the shoes, he's picking those up and carrying
them back to the toy box, they go in the toy box – next: he sees a cup someone
has left on the shelf, he reaches for it, can't get it, grizzles for a bit –
moves on to the raisin box he discarded ten minutes earlier, eats some, throws
it back down – heads to the laundry, pulls some clothes out of the dryer,
brings those into the lounge, puts them in a pile, changes his mind, carries
the pile back to the laundry, back in the drier – no, out of the drier, on the floor
– back to the toy box, take out a car, drive that along the floor and up the
wall, drive it to the couch – climb on the couch – there's a book here, open
it, look at a couple of pages, throw it down – try to open the curtains above
the couch, can't quite do it, gets annoyed – climbs off the couch, falls down,
thinks about crying...doesn't hurt, gets up – sees the raisin box again....
I could go on, but I can see you're getting
tired. So what is all this in aid of? Well, Alison Gopnik believes babies
are like scientists, constantly testing theories and hypotheses, often again
and again, in order to learn how the world works.
This makes a lot of sense when you watch
Zephyr at play. This morning he was transferring chunks of playdough on the end of a butter knife from his
table to a stool across the kitchen. It was a serious matter. I came and sat
with him and showed him how I could make a star with a cookie cutter. He was
not in the least bit impressed, as clearly this was not part of his current
experiment. (Side note: I do wish he would reach a conclusion with his 'what
happens when I throw things from the highchair' experiment).
According to Gopnik, there are two ways to
learn: exploit or explore. Kids use exploration to learn. This form of learning
does not require an end goal; Zephyr was not hoping to find out how well
playdough travels or how its consistency changes when it is left in small
pieces in the sun (although these are all things I inadvertently discovered
while cleaning the floor afterwards). Instead he was simply exploring, doing,
trying, and seeing what happens. Kids learn from everything they do.
Adults use exploitative learning; they learn
in order to reach a goal, such as reading a recipe so you can bake your own
bread, or watching a tutorial so you can use Photoshop. Because we have already
done our experimenting as children, we block out anything we feel we already
know about. This can mean when concentrating on the task at hand, we can fail
to notice quite important changes in our surroundings.
Learning by exploring does not require the
use of the frontal cortex, the area of the brain responsible for control and
impulse. Which is handy, because this part of the brain does not fully develop
until the early 20s, and for babies, it is barely in use at all.
Gopnik talked about an experiment involving
some adults who were monitored inside MRI machines as they watched Clint
Eastwood's The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Apparently, their brain activity was
very similar to that of a baby taking in the world around them. Gopnik
concluded that being a baby was very similar to watching an engrossing movie,
which is a nice hypothesis and one that makes sense when you think of how
interested and alert little babies are when you place them in a stimulating
environment. However, I do wonder just how engrossing that particular film was
to the participants.
Another way to see the world like a baby is
to travel. Gopnik spoke about how it is possible to feel like a child when you
are thrust into an unusual environment. Suddenly all your senses are open and
the world feels exciting and brand new. What else makes you feel this way?
Being in love.
Surprisingly, cigarettes can bring you
closer to a child's view. Apparently nicotine imitates the chemicals that allow
you to pay attention, expanding and opening your view of the world, even if
your time in that world is short as a result. Caffeine also helps. A cup of
coffee has the effect of inhibiting the inhibitor chemicals, meaning you “see” a broader scope of the world even when focusing on a certain task.
So, Gopnik concluded amusingly: Being a baby
is like having three espressos and smoking a pack of Malboros while being in
love and in Paris for the first time. A beautiful image – and as she was quick to
point out, a fairly valid reason for all those night wakings!
So, hey, I done used my brain and watched a lecture and it was good.
