High Cognitive Minds

In his book, Intelligence: a New Look, Hans Eysenck makes a point that has been stated by others, in the ongoing discussion about whether genetics or environment is more influential in giftedness. “ Children, as they grow up, increasingly choose their environment; the choice itself is driven by genetic factors. And they interpret their environment in terms of their genetic contributions.” One example that he selected, from the many possible, was the life of the mathematician, Michael Faraday, who came from a poor family and had almost no schooling except for what he managed to scrabble for himself.

Similarly, Dean Keith Simonton, in The Origins of Genius: “if the parents had not provided opportunities in the home for the desired stimulation, the children would probably seek out stimulation elsewhere.”

“...a child with certain inborn talents may soon put pressure on the environment to make it conform more closely to feed those talents. To the outside observer it may appear as if the environment is influencing the child’s development, but instead it is the child’s genetic disposition that is influencing the home circumstances. The research literature on child prodigies is replete with examples of future geniuses who insist on pursuing specific enthusiasms even in the face of parental discouragement.” Simonton’s example was Pascal, another mathematician from an unpromising background.

 That is a quite different position from one that was fairly common about twenty years ago:  “...giftedness cannot be understood solely as a cognitive trait, but rather must be understood as a complex interaction between a peculiarly supportive environment that the individual helps create, but over which the individual has only limited power.” Frances D. Horowitz, The Gifted and Talented: developmental perspectives

I suspect that research done since then has encouraged many writers to modify their view, but it still has enough support to influence ambitious parents of gifted children. And it isn’t a simple matter of whether a supportive environment is or isn’t a necessity. There is, today, some question about how much influence a highly enriched intellectual environment actually has on future achievements. I don’t think there’s any argument that an enriched environment is a benefit, regardless of whether the child is gifted or average. The confusion about its value probably lies in what effects it's expected to have.

That’s a subject for another post.

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“…the theory of critical differences, …a distinction which arises not because we are dealing with a new species of ability, but from the fact that when human capacities surpass certain levels of performance, the achievements to which they give rise may take on altered characteristics. ( David Wechsler, The Range of Human Capacities)

Jerome Kagan, David Henry Feldman, and John Gardner have all commented on the near-universal preference for viewing intelligence as part of a continuum. It’s much easier to believe that individuals merely have less or more of what everybody else has than to consider the possibility of “critical differences.”  The emphasis on IQ scores is a symptom of this desire for continuity, and is also a way to sweep other views under the rug.

Wechsler is partly correct and partly incorrect. It depends what capacities you’re looking at. A virtuoso pianist is using the same skills as a moderately talented amateur, but is so far superior that it amounts to a critical difference. This is just as true in many fields of endeavor. But when we turn to cognition, it may be more realistic to say that there is, indeed, a new species of ability.

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Unless we want to believe in some type of mystical causation or in pure chance, our basic assumption in trying to understand exceptional intellectual capacity must be that all cognitive functions, including the rarest and the most exceptional, are biologically based. If there is a causal mechanism for precocity, for high-level intellectual functioning, and for creativity, it must be a facet, or a combination of facets, of the brain’s structure and operations.

The difficulty in talking about this is the lack of studies specifically intended to reveal the biological basis of giftedness and intellectual creativity. It’s made even more difficult by the lack of studies which might show common mental traits among the gifted and the creative. It’s a dangerous area even to think about because there are so many ways to go wrong. Theories, more or less plausible, are possible, but not proof.

In the literature, both high levels of giftedness and of creativity are more often associated with various types of psychopathology than with fundamental  brain mechanisms. Many lists of identifying characteristics mix cognitive and personality traits without attempting to distinguish between them. To confuse the issue even further, several streams of pop psychology lead people to believe that certain personal characteristics are either indicative of giftedness or are forms of giftedness in themselves. These include Goleman’s theory of emotional intelligence, Gardner’s multiple intelligences, and Dabrowski’s oversensitivities as channeled by some giftedness advocates.

To put it plainly: giftedness is not a personality trait. Creativity is not a personality trait. Intellectual giftedness and creativity are collections of cognitive traits.  Both are accompanied by personality traits which may be a direct outcome of particular cognitive traits, and some of which are considered a possible prerequisite for the fulfillment of potential. The abilities which enable creativity in very different domains are all brain-based, some more visual or physical, but all depending, at least to some extent, on cognition.