Lesson plan
Interactive specialization
Interactive Specialization is a theory of brain development proposed by the British developmental cognitive neuroscientist Mark Johnson, formerly head of the Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development at Birkbeck, University of London, London and who is now Head of Psychology at the University of Cambridge. In his book Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience , Johnson contrasts two views of development. According to the first, the maturational hypothesis, the relationship between structure and function (i.e. which parts of the brain perform a particular task) is static, and specific cognitive skills come “on-line” as the cortical circuitry intrinsic to a particular task matures. Johnson likens this to a "mosaic" view of development. According to the second, the Interactive Specialization (IS) hypothesis, development is not a unidirectional maturational process, but rather a set of complex, dynamic and back-propagated interactions between genetics, brain, body and environment. Development is not a simple question of a brain being built according to a pre-specified genetic blueprint - rather, the components of the brain are interacting with each other constantly - even prenatally, when patterns of spontaneous firing of cells in the eyes (before they have opened) transmit signals that appear to help develop the layered structure of the lateral geniculate nucleus .…
Article summary
Interactive Specialization is a theory of brain development proposed by the British developmental cognitive neuroscientist Mark Johnson, formerly head of the Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development at Birkbeck, University of London, London and who is now Head of Psychology at the University of Cambridge. In his book Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience , Johnson contrasts two views of development. According to the first, the maturational hypothesis, the relationship between structure and function (i.e. which parts of the brain perform a particular task) is static, and specific cognitive skills come “on-line” as the cortical circuitry intrinsic to a particular task matures. Johnson likens this to a "mosaic" view of development. According to the second, the Interactive Specialization (IS) hypothesis, development is not a unidirectional maturational process, but rather a set of complex, dynamic and back-propagated interactions between genetics, brain, body and environment. Development is not a simple question of a brain being built according to a pre-specified genetic blueprint - rather, the components of the brain are interacting with each other constantly - even prenatally, when patterns of spontaneous firing of cells in the eyes (before they have opened) transmit signals that appear to help develop the layered structure of the lateral geniculate nucleus .…
Key claims
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Discussion questions
- Summarise the article in your own words. Which single claim would you verify first, and why?
- Which claim in this article is most likely to be revised as the sources update? How would you check its current status?
- If two sources disagreed about one of these facts, what would you need in order to trust one over the other?
Bibliography
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Key claims and bibliography are generated from the same tracked claims and sources as the article page.