Constructive Nature of
Intelligence
Dickman 3
Pages 77-92
Chapter
8
• How did you master the complexities of verbal
language between birth and age five?
– Womb experiences many soundsneural
predisposition for pattern recognition
– Every human brain possesses the ability to detect
and organize patterns to be used in their advantage
(behavior)
– Development of language involve discerning patterns
between sounds, semantics and syntax from
different sound sources
– Patterns = meaning from internal and external
sources of information
The Constructive Nature of
Intelligence
• Pattern makingfrom prior knowledge
• Sensoryfirst there is stimulation by the
environment; this stimulation is received by the
senses
• Socialsocial interaction is the primary source of a
rich environmental experience that facilitates
remembering
• Emotions influence the construction of meaning
(arousal of attention and motivation)
• Refined—what is constructed and remembered is
reconstructed and refined as new information comes
in = accommodation (acommodationPiaget)
• A double bindnew patterns at times do not agree
with old patterns and either you disregard the new
patterns or the old patterns
“The process of learning is the extraction of patterns from confusion –
not from clarity and simplicity.” Hart (1983)
• Knowledge is power – power to survive
• Patterns that you have in your brain are
constructions amassed during your
entire life
• How brain came to possess this capacity
to establish patterns?
– Mobility is a defining property of human
experiences and the central reason for having
a brain (Sylwester, 2000)
– Difference between immobile and mobile
organisms =
vs
or
– Mobile organisms require options and options
require making decisions . Making decisions
require (good) information
• For example, there are different movement patterns in the
brain based on the type of food that they eat and the type of
ways of gathering the food.
– There is dramatic increase in neural activity in those
children who begin to crawl
Taking care of Business
– Things unknown become known when connected to
things known (prior knowledge)
– Integration of information is the business of the
entire brain
– So the P, S, E, C and D intelligence are part of the
Constructive intelligence
Physiological Construction
1. Using senses to make sense
(every part of the brain)the
more sensory information, the
betterfor meaning
2. Different sites have different
preferences:
amygdalaemotions
cerebellumprocedural &
automatic exercises
hyppocampusindexes related
to words, facts
and phrases
frontal cortexassessment of
information
3. Neurons firing and wiring together
establish alliances that
acknowledge useful information –
with practice, these patterns get
strongerpaths
4. Memorable patterns are made of
information that is attended,
processed and practiced
Social Construction
1. Based on genetic patterns +
own experiences
(interactions)
2. Evolutionsocial communities
3. Brain expects opportunities
to obtain valuable information
4. “Mirror Neurons”=coalition of
neural networks that act when
the animal observes another
doing the behavior
5. “Not one of us is as smart as
all of us”
Emotional Construction
1. Emotions will decide what the brain
will attend tothe comptroller
2. Your brain cannot attend to
everything
3. Emotional networks attend and
prioritize information
4. Emotions also influence the
organization, storage, & retrieval
of information
Reflective Construction
1. Role of the brain is that of an
architect envisioning the
merits and potential of
information patterns
2. Such reflection occurs in the
frontal lobe by weighting the
new information to prior
knowledge
3. It is basically the patterns
formed when forming
hypothesis, making
predictions, conducting
experiments and
formulating theories of how
things work
Dispositional Construction
1. Dispositions are tendencies of behavior that
are born of both genetic programming and
environmental experiences
2. There are individual differences
3. Dispositional intelligence is the financier
that determines the investment to be
made in knowledge construction as well
as the likely return to be realized for
such investment
4. Humans have the power to shape dispositions that habitually directs behavior
Constructed Knowledge Summary
The reflective architect
The constructive pattern maker
The dispositional
Financier
The social supplier
The emotional
comptroller
The physiological construction site