Saturday, March 10, 2012
Is Genius Inborn Or Does It Come From The Environment Surrounding Us?
Shenk talks about Mozart and how he was able to surpass the musical limits of other kids his age due to the resources he had around him which included his family members and their musical backgrounds. He began composing and playing music as soon as he was able to at the age of three; however, he would only copy music he had heard previously. It wasn’t until a later age that he started to implement his own themes and style (60-64).
In the case of Mozart, could this form of learning be considered imprinting? Also, determine what kind of learning this is, operant or conditional. Include what imprinting is and how you came upon your conclusion. Are there any other instances where this kind of learning happens? (Regan Frieling, regan1995@yahoo.com)
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ReplyDeleteMozart’s training with music would not be considered imprinting. As defined by the Campbell textbook, imprinting is “the formation at a specific stage of life of a long lasting behavioral response to a specific individual or object”. The classic example used to explain this phenomenon is Lorenz’s geese. These newly born geese hatched and recognized Lorenz as their maternal figure rather than their biological mother as Lorenz made sure he was the first one they saw. These geese continued to follow Lorenz for a long time as they would a mother goose. In Mozart’s case, he was pushed into music at an early age and mostly likely associated it with his sister and, especially, his father. But this behavior wasn’t initiated early enough to be considered imprinting, as compared to the geese, nor did adult Mozart simply play the works of other composers as he did when he was a child. He composed his own original pieces using his own style.
ReplyDeleteMozart’s learning would be operant rather than classical. Classical conditioning is best illustrated with Pavlov’s dog. The gist of the experiment was that Pavlov would ring a bell and give the dog food. He kept repeating this and eventually found that the dog would start salivating in anticipation for the food whenever a bell rings. With this as the example, we can see that classical conditioning is when an organism gives a particular response to specific stimuli. In humans, this would be like sending subliminal messages, where a phrase or idea becomes associated with a specific action or stimuli and then is recalled by the person when said stimuli is present. But since Mozart wasn’t taught by the ring of a bell as far as we know, it couldn’t have been classical. Operant learning, specifically positive reinforcement, was the type of learning Mozart received. Positive reinforcement is when a “particular behavior is strengthened by the consequence of experiencing a positive condition” (mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/proj/nru/opcond.html). The example used on the Maricopa Center for Learning and Instruction (mcli) website was a rat receiving food when pressing against the bars of its cage. The food is the positive condition and the behavior of pressing the cage is encouraged. According to Shenk, Leopold Mozart noticed his son’s interest in music and decided to “shrug off his official duties in order to build an even more promising career for his son” (63). Leopold used many of his resources as a widely renounced music teacher to promote Wolfgang’s musical interest. Therefore, his talents as a musician were fostered using positive reinforcement.
The best example of this kind of learning other than Mozart is Yo-Yo Ma. He was considered a child prodigy and performed for John F Kennedy when he was seven. But this talent didn’t come from talent alone. As his mother explained “From the cradle, Yo-Yo was surrounded by a world of music” (Shenk 94). Once again the early exposure of music plus the positive reinforcement operant learning due to his musical family promoted incredible talents. Considering in both examples the families were musical performers and composer, it’s very likely that genetics also played a part in the learning dynamic along with environment.
Alvin Varghese (alvin.varghese@hotmail.com)
imprinting definition on page G-19 of Campbell textbook.
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