Clifford Morris
Intelligences are both nature, nurture and symbol systemsHoward Gardner, Thomas Hatch & Bruce Torff (1997). A third perspective: The Symbol Systems Approach to Intelligence: A Novel Perspective on the Genes and Culture Controversy. In R. J. Sternberg & E. Grigorenko (Eds.), Intelligence, Heredity, and Environment (pp. 243-268). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Editorial Overview
Over the past 40 years, I have spent numerous hours with parents, be they my own parents of 16 children or, more often than not, with parents of students formally registered under my daily classroom charge. During such interactions, I have often been asked by these mothers and fathers to assist them as they attempt to interpret their offspring's intellectual makeup. At times, many of them tend to wonder if the intellectual behaviours of their own boys and girls stemmed solely from a heredity-genetic set of factors, or if their youngsters are smart children due to their environmental-cultural environment.This type of question has been often asked with no clear definitive answer ... that is, until now.
Recently, three cognitive developmental scientists, Howard Gardner, Thomas Hatch and Bruce Torff attempted to answer that question. They presented a novel theoretical perspective as to the ongoing genes-and-culture controversy. In an edited book by Robert J. Sternberg and Elena Grigorenko titled Intelligence, Heredity, and Environment, they co-authored a most informative chapter titled A Third Perspective: The Symbol Systems approach wherein they argued that our children are cognitively "at promise" or smart not because of their heredity or genetic makeup alone, not due to environment or cultural training alone, but as a result of a constant and complex series of interactions among these two competing forces. These three interacting forces lead to the attainment of cognitive competencies or even greatness throughout their lives. Gardner, Hatch and Torff label this constant and complex interaction the Symbol Systems Approach.
As one interested in all of the immediate above, here then is my review of that chapter.
Before I review the chapter's 26 pages, a few words about the first author, Howard Gardner, and his earlier associations with symbol systems as a series of "signs." In his 1983 claim-to-fame book, Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences, Gardner initially utilized symbol systems, or "signs" as a dominant criteria to test his candidate intelligences. This was what he said at that time.
He believed (and continues to believe) that each of his intelligences depended for their expression upon both "internal" and "external" factors (see Gardner, 1999a, 1999b). By "internal" factors, he meant "computational devises", or "organs of the mind." While the overt manifestations of these symbol systems were public and thus readily observable, of greater relevance was the inferences of inner mental processes needed to manipulate these visible or apparent 'symbols.' Gardner's "external factors" represented the existing 'symbol systems', prosthetic devices, or external amplifiers, that enabled the inherent skill-to-be to express itself in the real world of everyday living. To give just four example, maps, language, logical expression and arithmetic well represented consequential constituents of respective intelligences. At the time, Gardner viewed symbol systems as a main key to an intelligence with each intelligence operating at a different system. He believed that it was being able to encode symbols such as numerals, gestures, art forms (i.e., pictures, words or / and marks), musical patterns as well as a host of other symbolic forms which made human beings distinctly different or 'human.'
Now, back to the topic at hand, a review of the chapter. This chapter, in my opinion, is a must read for all who seek additional information as to why they are intelligent, in particular, for the teacher-as-cognitivist interested in the ongoing debate on nature versus nurture. The chapter is clearly outlined, well organized and a most interesting read. At the outset, the reader is presented with a clear and clever overview of the chapter's main debate -- are we who we think we are because of our genetic and biological disposition, or are we best viewed as developed products from our current cultural environment. These two cognitive camps, so-to-speak, so polar-opposite in theoretical approaches, are well outlined and clearly presented. In the one camp, fight the hereditarians (or Hs) who eagerly trace "their intellectual heritage to the British empiricist, such as Locke and Hume" (p. 243). In the opposing camp prance the environmentalists (or Es); their arguments are based, in the main, on "over a century of anthropological fieldwork" (p. 244), stressing the "enormous differences among individuals raised in different cultures, differences that can be noted even from an early age" (p. 244).
Although the three authors contend that both intellectual camps "have seemed to gain in persuasiveness over the years" (p. 244), there nevertheless remains "a standoff" (p. 245). The Hs and the Es have "marshaled increasingly convincing argument" (p. 245) over the years. The authors solve this ongoing intellectual dilemma by developing a "desiderata" as their new perspective. The symbol systems perspective becomes their 'desiderata.'
The three authors perceive this symbol systems approach not as another or third and independent approach to the debate but as an encompassing approach that attempts to "bridges" the gap between human behavior as stemming from our genes and from our culture. As initially outlined above, the authors utilize the term 'symbol' to represent any element which conveys meaning within a community or culture, elements such as "a mark, a pattern, [or] a circumscribed act' (p. 246). Throughout the remainder of the chapter, the authors depict this approach to best "encompass the concerns of those [Hs] of a biological/ hereditarian persuasion as well as the perspectives of those [Es] who embrace an environmental/cultural point of view" (p. 263). To achieve this objective, two of Gardner's eight intelligences are discussed, namely the musical intelligence and the spatial intelligence.
In discussing the symbol systems approach to musical intelligence, the authors initially comment on the "neurobiology of music" (p. 257), then they discuss "early musical development and the intuitive musical mind" (p. 253). They conclude with a commentary entitled "disciplinary expertise and instruction in music" (p. 254). Similarly, in discussing the symbol systems approach to spatial cognition" (p. 256), they firstly comment on the "biological bases of spatial ability" (p. 257), then onward to the "development of spatial abilities" (p. 259), and finally concluding with a commentary on the role of "spatial ability and education" (p. 261). Throughout such practical deliberations, credence is never allocated to either approach. As the chapter's initial subheading states, both the hereditarians and the environmentalists are triumphant. In other words, "both [sides] have won the debate" (p. 245).
In all of their commentaries, the authors indeed do justice to the complicated balance between the Hs and the Es. To cite just one example for here, in their commentary on the role of education and spatial ability, they clearly state that "while the roots of graphic and artistic mastery can be traced to our species membership, actual achievement of competence in a spatial realm presupposes a long and rigorous apprenticeship in the procedures of particular symbolic systems" (p. 262). Neither camps becomes the victor. Instead, the reader is presented with a standoff. As I cannot match their prose, this quote perhaps best summarizes their overall viewpoints. The "symbol systems approach can serve a useful purpose in bringing certain scientific literature into contact with one another, in raising consciousness about certain conundra that have not yet been adequately explained, and in suggesting a continuing useful role for psychology at a time when it stands in danger of being cannibalized by other disciplines (Gardner, 1992)" (p. 264).
To summarize my above review, this chapter is a must read for all those interested in cognitive development and human behavior, especially parents and classroom teachers who constantly seek an end to the standoff between the relative contributions of hereditary (genetic) or environmental (cultural) approaches. The chapter is intellectually demanding not just in the sense that it requires careful reading and analyzing but in that its comprehension depends on the reader's pre-existence familiarity with the role that nature and nurture play in intelligences.
Writing as a long-time reader of such theories of the mind, I found the chapter to be well written, clearly scribed and most thoughtfully presented; it travels with considerable ease, smoothness, and sophistication while discussing two distinctly and opposing theoretical approaches, genetics and culture, so very important in understanding our overall intellectual make-up.
References
Gardner, H. (1983/1993). Frames of mind: The theory of multiple intelligences. New York: Basic Books.
Gardner, H. (1999a). The disciplined mind: What all students should understand. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Gardner, H. (1999b). Intelligence reframed: Multiple intelligences for the 21st century. New York: Basic Books.
Gardner, H., Hatch, T., & Torff, B. (1997). A third perspective: The symbol systems approach. In R. J. Sternberg & E. Grigorenko (Eds.), Intelligence, Heredity, and Environment (pp. 243-268). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Revised: Thursday, 25 May, 2006
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