Hi All,
I'll keep this brief!--I have been brainstorming ways to best organize my term paper, and I thought blogging about it may help by creative process! Sooooo....here is my hypothesis: Organisms with greater diversity of emotions are more likely to have higher ordered intelligence. My reasoning lies in the assumption that emotions were the major evolutionary prerequisite for a theory of mind (TOM), which is a major component of social intelligence, ultimately leading to evolutionary by-products such as proficiencies in math, language, and abstract thinking. TOM has been established as a prerequisite for social intelligence and emotion interpretation have been previously identified as a component of TOM; however, never before has the diversity of emotions been addressed in the context of TOM and subsequently intelligence. The burden is on me to provide evidence which supports this. One type of evidence is to provide association between a organisms emotional diversity and perceived intelligence. I can do this by inferring emotional diversity by using markers such as facial expression diversity (eg a snake has relativity not expression compared to an great ape. Therefore the ape would be expected to have greater emotional diversity). However, this assumes there is no purpose for emotion if you cant express it, which may not necessarily be true ( ex fear. you don't need to express fear in order to act on it and escape from a predator). Considering this, I'll need to couple these observations with cognitive neurobiological data. Also, I can use other non facial ques such as complexity of speech or body language since since emotion can be expressed via these means as well. Throughout all of this I will need to provide parameters of intelligence and frame my argument in a evolutionary context.
Any ideas how to better organize this?
Pass them on!
Until next time,
Ryan
Sunday, March 22, 2015
Saturday, March 21, 2015
Creativity? Rethinking the definition...
Hi All,
Well this post will be a little philosophical...so please excuse me! I've been rethinking the definition of creativity since the recent class discussions we have had. I pose the question: Is it possible to be creative without background in a subject? The reason I ask this is because I wounder if an idea can come from nothing, or are all novel ideas just combinations of unrelated concepts? If it is truly the later then could a computer theoretically be creative? If not then what ideas do come from a combination of previous ideas. Consider the invention of the wheel. I'm assuming that a individual who conceived the wheel had the concept of a circle and a stone rolling down a hill. The combination of these ideas would lead someone to think of a wheel. However, are their any alternative interpretation of this combination? E.g could this individual have been lead to an alternative solution given both ideas of the stone and circle? I'll give the example of Darwin's discovery of evolution. Numerous other zoologist's have analyzed the diversity of life and have come to different conclusions than Darwin; however, it was Darwin's solution which was the most reasonable and novel compared to his peers. Therefore perhaps there is a interpretation/analysis component to creativity. You not only need to combine ideas put organize them in a logical fashion. Hence, it may be that intelligence can influence creativity. The question is: what allows individuals to have superior powers at combining seemingly unrelated ideas together? Perhaps those who can store more information can therefore have a greater repository to draw ideas from. Then could it be that hippocampus size has influence on creativity? No doubt there are brain structural features associated with the construct of creativity, perhaps elucidating them would help us generate a more refined definition of creativity.
Give me your thoughts!
Until next time,
Ryan
Well this post will be a little philosophical...so please excuse me! I've been rethinking the definition of creativity since the recent class discussions we have had. I pose the question: Is it possible to be creative without background in a subject? The reason I ask this is because I wounder if an idea can come from nothing, or are all novel ideas just combinations of unrelated concepts? If it is truly the later then could a computer theoretically be creative? If not then what ideas do come from a combination of previous ideas. Consider the invention of the wheel. I'm assuming that a individual who conceived the wheel had the concept of a circle and a stone rolling down a hill. The combination of these ideas would lead someone to think of a wheel. However, are their any alternative interpretation of this combination? E.g could this individual have been lead to an alternative solution given both ideas of the stone and circle? I'll give the example of Darwin's discovery of evolution. Numerous other zoologist's have analyzed the diversity of life and have come to different conclusions than Darwin; however, it was Darwin's solution which was the most reasonable and novel compared to his peers. Therefore perhaps there is a interpretation/analysis component to creativity. You not only need to combine ideas put organize them in a logical fashion. Hence, it may be that intelligence can influence creativity. The question is: what allows individuals to have superior powers at combining seemingly unrelated ideas together? Perhaps those who can store more information can therefore have a greater repository to draw ideas from. Then could it be that hippocampus size has influence on creativity? No doubt there are brain structural features associated with the construct of creativity, perhaps elucidating them would help us generate a more refined definition of creativity.
Give me your thoughts!
Until next time,
Ryan
Destroying Psychology Books!
Hi All,
Interesting title right....? Well that's exactly what we did in my last PSY327 class in the name of creativity! To preface this post, let me begin by giving you all some background. Our instructor introduced us to the show craft corner showdown, which pits experienced craftsmen and women against each other in the context of who-can-make-the-best-craft duel. The only constraints applied were the materials they could use as well as a ungenerous ten minute time limit. Our instructor thought it would be a good exercise to replicate this in the context of our class--by using none other than old psychology text books, yarn and paper clips ! I must admit ripping Freud's face apart was very hard considering my adornment for him. Either way--we began the challenge by brainstorming in groups what the most creative structure would be make considering our materials and our limited diversity of materials.
Immediately, we thought of making a paper bouquet of flowers using the different the colors of paper. We then transitioned to considering making making a boat, with the yarn being the rope of the boat sail. Then we thought of designing a house. However, I then thought, we are only suggesting things within one category--physical structures in our outside world. What were other categories?? Then I thought--how about structures that are abstract or ones that we don't typically see. Then I thought--A BRAIN. We could make a brain from the crumbled psych books, make the sulci and gyri from the yarn and hold it together with the paper clips! It would also be metaphorical since we would be making a model brain from the materials used to understand a brain (psych textbooks). We committed to this idea due to its novelty and went forth to make it with 20 minutes left!
We finished--even with enough time to add a brain stem! I was impressed with our teams collaboration and creative process under pressure. Only one other groups project stuck out to me--the ones who made a costume from the psych books! This functional approach to creativity was interesting and absolutely demonstrated the groups divergent thinking. All in all this activity was a fantastic experience and left me thinking, what exactly are the ideal conditions to facilitate creativity? Give me your thoughts!
Until my next post,
Ryan
Interesting title right....? Well that's exactly what we did in my last PSY327 class in the name of creativity! To preface this post, let me begin by giving you all some background. Our instructor introduced us to the show craft corner showdown, which pits experienced craftsmen and women against each other in the context of who-can-make-the-best-craft duel. The only constraints applied were the materials they could use as well as a ungenerous ten minute time limit. Our instructor thought it would be a good exercise to replicate this in the context of our class--by using none other than old psychology text books, yarn and paper clips ! I must admit ripping Freud's face apart was very hard considering my adornment for him. Either way--we began the challenge by brainstorming in groups what the most creative structure would be make considering our materials and our limited diversity of materials.
Immediately, we thought of making a paper bouquet of flowers using the different the colors of paper. We then transitioned to considering making making a boat, with the yarn being the rope of the boat sail. Then we thought of designing a house. However, I then thought, we are only suggesting things within one category--physical structures in our outside world. What were other categories?? Then I thought--how about structures that are abstract or ones that we don't typically see. Then I thought--A BRAIN. We could make a brain from the crumbled psych books, make the sulci and gyri from the yarn and hold it together with the paper clips! It would also be metaphorical since we would be making a model brain from the materials used to understand a brain (psych textbooks). We committed to this idea due to its novelty and went forth to make it with 20 minutes left!
We finished--even with enough time to add a brain stem! I was impressed with our teams collaboration and creative process under pressure. Only one other groups project stuck out to me--the ones who made a costume from the psych books! This functional approach to creativity was interesting and absolutely demonstrated the groups divergent thinking. All in all this activity was a fantastic experience and left me thinking, what exactly are the ideal conditions to facilitate creativity? Give me your thoughts!
Until my next post,
Ryan
Wednesday, March 11, 2015
IQ in Admissions Decisions
Hi All,
This past week we has a debate concerning IQ in college admissions decisions. This class generally felt predisposed to say that IQ test's were not good parameters to measure students by since IQ tests are biased. However, the SAT along with professional exams like the LSAT and MCAT are all indirect measures of IQ. So, using this reasoning it seems that we commonly use indirect measures to asses applicant IQ (even the interview process may indirectly measure reasoning abilities).
So instead of using these variable measures, why not use a well documented process like a IQ test? Hence why I am on the side of administering IQ tests to college applicants. In terms of jobs, I would be hesitant to do the same since all success in jobs may not be implicit on IQ. However, in academia most success is implicit on IQ.
Questions that I have: Should IQ participants with lower IQ's be allowed to retest? How would you determine minimums for various college programs and jobs? What will happen tot he individuals who don't qualify for a college program? How will scholarships be determined under this new paradigm? Let me know your thoughts!
Until my next post,
Ryan
This past week we has a debate concerning IQ in college admissions decisions. This class generally felt predisposed to say that IQ test's were not good parameters to measure students by since IQ tests are biased. However, the SAT along with professional exams like the LSAT and MCAT are all indirect measures of IQ. So, using this reasoning it seems that we commonly use indirect measures to asses applicant IQ (even the interview process may indirectly measure reasoning abilities).
So instead of using these variable measures, why not use a well documented process like a IQ test? Hence why I am on the side of administering IQ tests to college applicants. In terms of jobs, I would be hesitant to do the same since all success in jobs may not be implicit on IQ. However, in academia most success is implicit on IQ.
Questions that I have: Should IQ participants with lower IQ's be allowed to retest? How would you determine minimums for various college programs and jobs? What will happen tot he individuals who don't qualify for a college program? How will scholarships be determined under this new paradigm? Let me know your thoughts!
Until my next post,
Ryan
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