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1. Explain the three diff erent views:

a. Maturati onalist

New sensory, motor, and cognitive functions are related to the maturation of particular areas of the
brain (cerebral cortex).

By predicting the neuroanatomical development of the brain, you can predict at what age a
particular region can become functional.

b. Behaviouristi c (skills-learning)

The brain regions in infants that get activated by the onset of new perceptual or motor skills are
similar to the brain regions involved in complex skill acquisition in adults.

Regions during adult learning are activated because of previous expertise with that stimulus during
infant development.

c. Constructi vist (interacti ve specializati on)

During infant brain development (cerebral cortex), all the regions in the brain interact with one
another.

Response from one region of the brain is partly determined by its connectivity with other regions.

Regions of the brain interact and compete with one another to acquire their role in new
computational abilities.

d. Are they nature or nurture?

The maturationalist view is a nature-related view because it is concerned with the maturation of the
brain and how when regions develop, so does the behaviour related to those regions (success at a
new behavioural task is completely dependent on the brain maturation of that specific region).

The skills-learning view (behaviouralist) is a nature-and-nurture-related view.

The interactive specialization view (constructivist) is nurture (probably the most plausible
viewpoint). The environment has an effect on gene expression and cellular differentiation.

2. How do these views play out in changes in the brain development

Maturationalist view:

 When a region becomes damaged, it results in a loss of function associated with that region
of the brain.
 Plasticity is a specialized mechanism activated after brain injury
 Changes in intraregional connectivity
 Deterministic epigenesis: Unidirectional pathway from genes to structural brain changes to
psychological function
 When new structures become active, the already mature structures continue to support the
same function they did before
 Mosaic cellular development
 Poor behavioural performance of tasks in infants show fewer active regions.
  Brain imaging only focuses on regions expected to be active by development of a certain
behaviour (other changes will go undetected)

Skills-learning view:

 Particular regions show activity during learning, other regions show activity when the skill is
already learned
 Static-brain cognition mapping
 Plasticity does not reduce during development, but early developmental plasticity shares
characteristics with plasticity in adulthood
 After brain damage:
o General skill circuits have long-lasting consequences
o Particular skill circuits result in isolated impairments

Interactive specialization:

 New behaviour during infancy in associated with changes in activity over several regions
(reorganization of interactions between different brain regions).
 Probabilistic epigenesis: Cognitive functions are products of interaction between different
brain regions.
 Changes in interregional activity
 Regulatory development: Cell-cell interactions determine development
 Regions become more selective in adulthood
 Plasticity is the state of having a region’s function not fully specialized yet (can still develop
finely tuned responses)
 After brain damage, the remaining regions are altered to compensate for the loss of the
damaged region (especially regions in the other hemisphere)
 Whole brain imaging reveal wider area of processing in infants (in adults its more
specialized and localized)
o Infant face processing activates left and right ventral visual pathways.
Comprehension of words is widespread over the cortical areas.
o Adult face processing activates right ventral pathway. Comprehension of words
narrows to the left temporal leads.

1. What type of new insights are already applied in educati on?

 Early language learning

o Learning a second language early does not compromise the first language.
 Testing effect
o Learning improves more when tested
 Number sense
o Enumeration and comparison are emphasized
o Finger-counting
o Analogies in fractions (pie slices)
o Number lines to visualized zero and negative numbers
 Phonics instruction
o Especially in dyslexics
 2. Advantages and disadvantages of applying these insights in educati on

Advantages:

 Supports claims from behavioural studies

 Provides a more sensitive measure of learning (pick up changes in the brain before the
manifest in behaviour)
o Teachers can provide specific instruction to children early on
 Explains why an intervention worked/was effective by looking at BOLD changes in the brain
(fMRI scans)
 Neuroscience could prove that compensatory processes play a role in improvement
o Right prefrontal BOLD activation predicts later reading gains in dyslexics

Disadvantages:

 Neuroscience claims were already made by behavioural data (no new information)
 No information on how founded biomarkers can be used to improve teaching methods
 Gap between neuroscience and education is too wide
 Interventions are best when it enhances alternative skills rather than improving deficits
o Compensatory vs restitutive approaches
 Behavioural change cannot be confirm/denied by neuroscience
o To see performance improvement, you test performance not the brain
 Neuroimaging is expensive and could reflect false positives
 Psychology diagnoses disorders better than neuroscience
 ERPs:
o Underpowered, unsystematic, false positives, no strong conclusions
o Cannot make predictions on an individual level