Mind and Brain
Presented by: Sarah C. Bradshaw
Contributing Sciences
• “The fields of neuroscience and cognitive
science are helping to satisfy this
fundamental curiosity about how people
think and learn.”
Neuroscience
• is the study of all aspects of nerves and the
nervous system, in health and in disease. It
includes the anatomy, physiology, chemistry,
pharmacology, and pathology of nerve cells;
• the behavioral and psychological features that
depend on the function of the nervous system;
• and the clinical disciplines that deal with them,
such as neurology, neurosurgery, and psychiatry.
http://www.answers.com/topic/neuroscience?cat=health
Neuroscientist Questions
• “ How does the brain develop?
• Are there stages of brain development?
• Are there critical periods when certain
things must happen for the brain to develop
normally?
• How is the information encoded in the
developing and the adult nervous systems?
• How does experience affect the brain?”
Cognitive Science
• Cognitive science is the study of the mind.
• It is an interdisciplinary science that draws upon
many fields including neuroscience, psychology,
philosophy, computer science, artificial
intelligence, and linguistics.
• The purpose of cognitive science is to develop
models that help explain human cognition -perception, thinking, and learning.
http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=9257
Caution
• “…one must be careful to avoid adopting
faddish concepts that have not been
demonstrated to be of value in classroom
practice.”
– “…concept that the left and right hemispheres
of the brain should be taught separately to
maximize the effectiveness of learning.”
Caution
• Also, “ the notion that the brain grows in
holistic “spurts” within or around which
specific educational objectives should be
arranged.”
– “…there is significant evidence that brain
regions develop asynchronously.”
Three Main Points
• “1) Learning changes the physical structure
of the brain.
• 2) These structural changes alter the
functional organization of the brain; in other
words, learning organizes and reorganizes
the brain.
• 3) Different parts of the brain may be ready
to learn at different times.”
Some Basics
• “ A nerve cell, or neuron, is a cell that
receives information from other nerve cells
or from the sensory organs
• then projects it back to the part of the body
that interacts with the environment.”
Some Basics
• “Information comes into the cell from
projections called axons.”
• “The junctions through which information
passes from one neuron to another are
called synapses.”
http://whyfiles.org/250alcohol_brain/index.php?g=3.txt
Synapses
• “Synaptic connections are added to the
brain in two basic ways:
– The synapses are overproduced, then
selectively lost
– Synapses addition
Synapses Overproduction
• “…a fundamental mechanism that the brain
uses to incorporate information from
experience.”
Synapse Addition
• “….the process of synapse addition operates
throughout the entire human life span…”
• “…this process is not only sensitive to
experience, it is actually driven by
experience.”
Experiences and Environment for
Brain Development
• “Alterations in the brain that occur during
learning seem to make the nerve cells more
efficient or powerful.”
– Studies conducted on “complex-environment”
and caged animals show:
• That the “complex-environment” animals were
smarter because they had an “increased capacity in
the brain that depended on experience.”
Experiences and Environment for
Brain Development
• Also, rats that are caged, but provided with
a changing environment that encouraged
“play and exploration” were better problem
solvers.
• “…the interactive presence of a social
group and direct physical contact with the
environment are important factors…”
• Can the Brain Change
Without Learning?
•
Page 119
Role of Instruction in Brain
Development
• Language and Brain Development
– “Language provides a particularly striking
example of how instructional processes may
contribute to organizing brain functions.”
Language
• “Very young children discriminate many
more phonemic boundaries, than adults, but
they lose their discriminatory powers when
certain boundaries are not supported by
experience with spoken language.”
Language
• “ Native Japanese speakers, for example, do
not discriminate the “r” from the “l” sounds
that are evident to English speakers, and
this ability is lost in early childhood because
it is not in the speech they hear.”
Website
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fcb8nT0
QC6o&feature=related
Memory and Brain Processes
• “Memory is neither a single entity nor a
phenomenon that occurs in a single area of
the brain.”
Memory Process
• Declarative memory
– “... memory for facts and events…”
• Procedural or nondeclarative
– “…memory for skills and other cognitive
operations…”
Memory
• The book states that “when a series of
events are presented in a random sequence,
people reorder them into sequences that
make sense when they try to recall them.”
Test
• I am going to give you a list of words
• Then, I am going to ask you a question
about the list
• (this was a study discussed in the book)
• “Sour, candy, sugar, bitter, good,
taste, tooth, knife, honey, photo,
chocolate, heart, cake, tart, pie”
• Was the word sweet in the
list?
Hmmm…..
• Ever discussed a shared event with a friend
and one of you remembers something and
the other argues that it never happened?
– This is due to the brain “using inferencing
processes to relate events.”
Or….
• Page 125
Memory
• “… classes of words, pictures, and other
categories of information that involve
complex cognitive processing on a repeated
basis activate the brain.”
• “ Memory processes treat both true and
false memory events similarly and, activate
the same brain regions, regardless of the
validity of what is being remembered.”
Conclusion
• “1) The functional organization of the brain
and the mind depends on and benefits
positively from experience.”
• 2) Development is not merely a biologically
driven unfolding process, but also an active
process that derives essential information
from experience.”
Conclusion
• 3) Research has shown that some experiences
have the most powerful effects during specific
sensitive periods, while others can affect the brain
over a much longer time span
• 4) An important issue that needs to be determined
in relation to education is which things are tied to
critical periods and for which things is the time
exposure less critical.”