Psychology fundamentals and applications

Psychology

The Nature (or Nurture) of Learning

Nature or nurture? it's a question that psychologists, medical doctors, sociologists, and parents have been asking themselves since the beginning of time -- what part of a person's abilities, behavior, and personality are learned and which parts are due to biology. Recent tests with animals similar to humans, like monkeys, have certainly helped to shed light on the issue. Shwartz and Sharon (2002) discuss brain mapping techniques done with primates when they learn new skills as indicators of how the biology and learning connection are made. The authors show how tests in Michael Merzenich's lab shed light on the issue of nature vs. nurture by showing that learning to do new tasks was responsible for the creation of new connection in the brain. Effectively, Michael Merzenich and his assistants showed that when new items are learned, primate brains acquire new features. An important part of the research with monkeys that Merzenich and his assistants did also revealed that "paying attention matters" (Shwartz and Sharon, 2002, pg. 224). Thus, through studying the animals, Merzenich and his fellow scientists concluded that a link between nature and nurture does, indeed, exist.

But Susan Savage-Rumbaugh shows that there is more to the issue of learning than just biology through her work with Bonobos. Savage-Rumabugh articulates that she and other scientists raised the Bonobos in a culture that is both human and Bonobo, and the animals' capacity to learn is quite stunning. They can not only understand human language and execute human actions such as using a lighter, but they can also communicate with humans and adapt their Bonobo impulses to human standards. This capacity to learn defies what Merzenich was able to do with his monkeys; although they learned new abilities, they were still quite primate in nature, such as getting food out of a bowl. The Bonobos have learned to interact with a different species, suggesting that culture and necessity also has quite a bit to do with learning. Perhaps other animals also have this capacity for understanding, but they have not accessed it because it has not yet been required of them. Furthermore, viewing the Bonobos' and other animals' together, one can make the claim that learning is a highly specific process that requires not only biology -- or connections in the brain, but also culture or nurture.