experience vs. innateness

[Ping Li]

Dear INFO-CHILDES Colleagues,

In light of this list's recent debate on Chomsky's position on sensorimotor
experience, I'd like to draw your attention to a short article by Charles
Nelson  "Neural Plasticity and Human Development" (Current Directions in
Psychological Science, Vol. 8, No. 2, 1999, pp.42-45). In this article,
Nelson reviews many studies that suggest that the development of neural
tissues and the like could occur at various points in life as a RESULT of
learning experiences, and that such development could occur at anatomical,
neurochemical, or metabolic levels (see also a recent article by my
colleague C. Kinsley here on the interaction between motherhood, neural
growth, and learning and memory; Nature, Vol. 402, 137-138, 1999). Nelson
goes on to argue that the perennial "innate"-versus-"learned" debate in
developmental psychology is fallacious. Because the nervous system changes
in response to the demands of the learning environment, especially early in
life, it is more important, Nelson suggests, for us to examine the
interaction between experience and brain development (e.g, "the role of
experience in sculpting neural systems"), than to argue about whether
aspects of behavior are innate or learned. His example/illustration on face
recognition (p.44) could easily apply to language. Let me quote the last
sentence of his article: "In doing so, we may be able to shed some of the
contentious history that has plagued our discipline for years (e.g., nature
vs. nurture; innate vs. learned), and embrace new theoretical and empirical
approaches to human development and brain function."

Sincerely

Ping Li
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Ping Li, Ph.D.                          Email: ping at cogsci.richmond.edu
Department of Psychology                http://www.richmond.edu/~pli/
University of Richmond                  Phone: (804) 289-8125 (office)
Richmond, VA 23173                             (804) 287-6039 (lab)
U.S.A.                                  Fax:   (804) 289-1905
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