Art and Organism

1
Art and Organism
Teaching and Learning
2

• Teaching and learning begin and end in the heart

Teaching and learning are creative acts combining
reason and affect
3
An ETHOLOGICAL Approach to TEACHING and LEARNING

• The Causes and consequences of behavior are both
  proximate and ultimate
• There are four Complementary questions we can ask
  of biology to provide insight (DEEP ETHOLOGY)
• There is an epigenetic cascade of interacting
  biological and environmental influences

4
TEACHING is an act of COMMUNICATION

• Transmits MEMES the cultural equivalent of
  biological units of information GENES.
• Acts of Communication?
• ...painting, that is to say the material thing
  called painting is no more than the pretext,
  than the bridge between the mind of the painter
  and that of the spectator. (Eugene Delacroix
  1850)
• It takes two to speak the truth-- one to speak,
  and another to hear. (Thoreau1849)

5
What is communication?

• Classical definitions in Biology
• an action on the part of one organism (or cell)
  that alters the probability pattern of behavior
  in another organism (or cell) in a fashion
  adaptive to either one or both of the
  participants Wilson, 1975
• Any sharing of information Smith, 1984
• The transmission of a signal from one animal to
  another such that the sender benefits, on
  average, from the response of the recipient
  Slater, 1983

6
Possible outcomes of communication

• Mutual benefit true communication
• Sender benefits manipulation/deceit
• Receiver benefits eavesdropping
• Neither benefits Highly unlikely

7
Levels of Communication

• Vegetative
• Tonic
• Phasic
• Signal Level (biosocial psychosocial
  influences)
• Symbolic (develops through social experience)
• Language (abstract)

8
(No Transcript)
9
CAUSES and CONSEQUENCES

• Behavioral patterns are presumed to have CAUSES
  and a CONSEQUENCES
• It is helpful to distinguish endpoints on a
  continuum from PROXIMATE to ULTIMATE causes
• Scientific investigations are informed by an
  accurate Description of the behavioral pattern we
  are concerned with and by the questions and
  methods of several biological disciplines
• Development
• Ecology
• Evolution and
• Physiology

10
DETERMINISM

• Variables determining behavior are rarely
  exclusively
• Biological (genetic or nature) or
  Environmental (nurture)
• They are
• Epigenetic reflecting the cascade of interacting
  genetic and environmental variables (Open and
  Closed Genetic Programs)

11
Epigenetic Cascade

• The genetic program both forms and is formed by
  the context in which it unfolds
• The progress of the organism follows in part the
  path created by preceding events.
• se hace camino al andar (the road is made by
  walking.
• Antonio Machado)

12
DECIPHERING DETERMINISM

• . . . grant me the serenity to accept the things
  I cannot change,
• courage to change the things I can,
• and the wisdom to know the difference.
• (from Reinhold Neibuhrs adaptation of a 14th c
  English prayer)

13
DECIPHERING DETERMINISM

• Although real wisdom is beyond science
• . . . the aim of science is not to open the
  door to everlasting wisdom, but to set a limit on
  everlasting error.
• (from Bertolt Brechts Life of Galileo)

14
DESCRIPTION

• MORPHOLOGY The structures from cells to
  systems to body form that act in the world
• Anatomy, cytology . . .
• The structural phenotype
• Objective description of behavior emphasizing the
  parts of the body involved

15
Development

• The progressive change in the nature of the
  organism often occurs in phases.
• Ontogeny The delicate stages requiring great
  stability occurs in a protected environment (egg,
  womb)
• Experience The flexible stage that must adjust
  to the vagaries of a less protected environment
  (the world with which one must cope)

16
(No Transcript)
17
(No Transcript)
18
the vitarka mudra
19
(No Transcript)
20
(No Transcript)
21
(No Transcript)
22
(No Transcript)
23
Development

• All changes in organisms (including their
  development) can be traced back to the activation
  or suppression of genes.
• Genomics Between the activation of a gene and
  the consequences for the organism, there are
  typically many steps, most of which involve
  protein synthesis.
• Proteomics There are far more proteins than
  genes. Activating a gene initiates a cascade of
  effects some of which are collateral effects,
  side-effects.

24
Ecology

• The environment, internal and external
• Ecosystem geology, climate . . .
• Social family, tribe, population . . .
• EPIGENESIS genes and the ENVIRONMENT interact,
  resulting in the manifest form (morphology) and
  behavior of the living organism
• THE ENVIRONMENT is the editor of traits
  (natural selection) selection pressure

25
(No Transcript)
26
ECOLOGY

• The environment in which the organism is born
  develops, prospers, and dies.
• Context of life internal (the milieu interieur)
  and external (climate and geology)
• Determines Fitness

27
ECOLOGY revisited

• The environment in which the organism is born
  develops, prospers, and dies.
• The environment drives adaptive change in
  organisms. Adaptations are traits that
  contribute to fitness (direct and indirect)
• It also epigenetically structures what we can and
  cannot know or understand, in a sense we are
  inseparable from the environment we are in it
  and it is within us, the interstices of our
  brains . . . It is the matrix in which we are
  embedded . . .
• It informs our brains of what is or is not (or
  can or cannot) be real.
• There is manifest reality (what we see) and
  latent reality (what lies beneath the surface and
  cannot be directly known).
• Art enlarges our capacity to understand the
  latent possibilities of our worlds

28
Evolution

• Evolution is about being in the right place at
  the right time
• Blind variation, selective retention
• Darwins observations
• 1. Species overproduce young
• 2. Populations in nature remain stable
• 3. Resources are limited
• 4. Individual young are variable
• 5. Variability can be inherited
• Inferences
• Struggle for survival among individuals
• DIFFERENTIAL SURVIVAL and REPRODUCTION (natural
  selection)
• Changes accrue over many generations

29
EVOLUTION

• Involves transmission of biologically relevant
  information across generations.
• Genetics Genes are biological units of
  inheritance. The program by which they are
  translated into manifest phenotype can be
  open or closed with respect to the influence
  of the environment. Most traits are polygenic,
  most genes are pleiotropic.
• Memetics Memes are cultural units of
  inheritance such as words, ideas fashions . . .
• Epigenetics interaction of genes and environment

30
(No Transcript)
31
Physiology

• Neurobiology
• Endocrinology
• The nervous systems work with the endocrine
  system to help the organism cope with its NEEDS
  most of which are created by the changing
  internal and external environments
• INPUT INTEGRATION OUTPUT

32
PHYSIOLOGY

• The proximate causation of behavior.
• Requires a stabile milieu interieur maintained
  by homeostasis the dynamic balance of multiple
  systems
• Neurology Central and peripheral nervous
  systems
• Endocrinology The glands and hormones that can
  be stimulated by the nervous system but also feed
  back to affect the nervous system

33
HIERARCHY OF INDIVIDUAL HUMAN NEEDS FOR EDUCATION

• PHYSIOLOGICAL (we need to maintain homeostasis
  and protect the stability of our milieu
  interieur, we must tolerate, compensate for, or
  overcome environmental change, dysfunctions and
  diseases of cells, tissues and organs)
• SAFETY (we need to meet challenges to the
  integrity and stability of the whole organism)
• SOCIAL (we need to be in the company of others
  for enhanced protection from physical or
  predatory threats, to locate or produce food, for
  resource defense, to facilitate the efficiency of
  division of labor, for a richer learning
  environment, and for reproduction)
• SOCIAL ESTEEM (we need to have our superiority in
  life_enhancing attributes the group values
  recognized, partly because our social group is
  likely to protect us or our access to needed
  resources)
• SELF ACTUALIZATION (we need to attain our maximum
  biological or cultural potential, a state
  characterized in humans by a unique and ineffable
  epiphenomenal harmony with one's self and
  environment)
• after Maslow

34
CONSTRAINTS ON LEARNING

• Stimuli. Constraints on stimuli.
• Response. Constraints on the response.
• Species and sex differences in reinforcing
  effects.
• Response/reinforcer interactions. (feedback)
• Diversity of reinforcing effects.
  Drive-reduction, need met
• Context, the physical or cultural ecology of an
  experience (metaphor, stress, comfort zone))
• Competing behavior elicited by irrelevant aspects
  of the context.
• Developmental. Age changes sensitive periods,
  windows
• Adapted from Hinde 1973

35
THINKING ABOUT TEACHING
36
Development
Cognitive dissonance (mismatches of percepts and
concepts) activates stress circuits.
Assimilation and accommodation relax stress
circuits
37
Learning Retention
38
Development

• Learning as a biological phenomenon
• "...observations of natural learning tend to
  encourage the view that learning consists, not of
  a unitary general capacity, but of a collection
  of specialized abilities which have evolved
  independently in particular species in order to
  do specific jobs."

39
(No Transcript)
40
ETHOLOGICAL SYSTEM
41
HIERARCHICAL TAXONOMY OF TEACHING

• I. AUTONOMOUS TEACHING AUTO-TEACHING
• II. MODELING SOCIAL TEACHING ALLO-TEACHING
  forms
• 1. Mere presence
• 2. Peer facilitation
• 3. Modeling
• III. INTERACTIVE TEACHING. Teaching in the
  traditional sense the teacher's actions vary
  according to student reactions.
• IV. MEDIATION individuals act to foster
  generalizations beyond the immediate needs of
  observers (transcendence) by selectively
  emphasizing specific aspects of stimuli, their
  relationships, their temporal or spatial
  contexts typically by intervening between
  stimuli and student to transform the student's
  experience (MLE)

42
HIERARCHICAL TAXONOMY OF TEACHING

• I. AUTONOMOUS TEACHING AUTO-TEACHING
• Self-teaching, unaffected by the presence of
  observers, but may or may not be inhibited by
  their presence involves curiosity and
  observation, including feedback about one's own
  behavior. The behavior of autonomous teachers
  (or the influence or artifacts of their behavior)
  may be observed by others. May include the
  internalization of forms of social teaching.

43
HIERARCHICAL TAXONOMY OF TEACHING

• II. MODELING
• The teacher models the student imitates. The
  behavior the model undertakes may be performed
• 1. with no regard for the presence of an observer
  / prospective student (indifferent modeling)
• 2. at a lower threshold due to the presence of
  any observer (Observer-facilitated)
• 3. only in the presence of an observer /
  prospective student (Directed modeling)
• Observer-facilitated actions may involve
  recruiting and sustaining the attention of
  students and directing their actions to them.
• Sometimes it is a reciprocal relationship

44
HIERARCHICAL TAXONOMY OF TEACHING

• Mirror Neurons
• Unique qualities of the neurophysiological
  substrate facilitate imitation
• Sometimes reciprocity is engaged directly or by
  means of attention structure

45
Mirror neurons reflect (or cause) dysfunction

• Distribution of Mirror Neurons
• is different in brains of autism spectrum
  disorder
• a. Activity in a specific site
• b. Activity in ASD group
• c. Significantly different areas

46
(No Transcript)
47
HIERARCHICAL TAXONOMY OF TEACHING

• II. MODELING
  SOCIAL TEACHING
  ALLO-TEACHING forms
• 1. Mere presence of another (even passive or
  imagined?) individual may affect the probability,
  rate, or frequency of the performance of a
  behavioral pattern in another individual
  (audience effect, observer effect). the
  performer (actor, teacher) may or may not prosper
  as a result of practice, and the observer
  (audience, student, respondent) may prosper as a
  result of (a) demonstration of boundary
  conditions (empowerment) for the act, its target,
  or context or (b) demonstration of modal
  (typical) motor acts and their coordination.
• 2. Peer facilitation (reciprocal facilitation)
  comparably inexperienced individuals teach each
  other including facilitating by co-action of
  individuals engaged in the same task.

48
HIERARCHICAL TAXONOMY OF TEACHING

• 3. Modeling (teacher's actions fixed in form)
• a. Indifferent modeling individuals (models,
  actors, teachers) may act, unaffected by the
  presence of observers.
• b. Observer-affected (facilitated) modeling
  models have their actions affected (facilitated
  or inhibited) by the presence of observers.
• c. Directed modeling Models act only in the
  presence of observers involves recruiting and
  sustaining their attention and directing their
  actions to them.

49
IMITATION STARTS EARLY

• Twelve- to 21-day-old infants imitate adult
  facial actions, indicating that infants are
  innately connected to others from birth.
  Imitation may lay the foundation for feeling
  empathy later on.

50
HIERARCHICAL TAXONOMY OF TEACHING

• III. INTERACTIVE TEACHING. Teaching in the
  traditional sense the teacher's actions vary
  according to student reactions.
• a. Responsive teaching individuals direct their
  actions to students to on the basis of feedback
  from students.
• b Adjusted teaching individuals adjust their
  actions to accommodate feedback from performance
  of student includes reciprocity, providing
  guiding feedback to students about their
  performance.

51
HIERARCHICAL TAXONOMY OF TEACHING

• IV. MEDIATION individuals act to foster
  generalizations within others that are beyond the
  others immediate needs (transcendence) by
  selectively emphasizing specific aspects of
  stimuli, the relationships between stimuli,
  between stimuli and those experiencing them.
• This is typically done by intervening between
  stimuli and student to transform the student's
  experience (MLE)
• INTERNAL versus EXTERNAL validity an issue ?

52
HIERARCHICAL TAXONOMY OF TEACHING

• IV. MEDIATION the mediator is a lens and an
  artist
• Art is a fragment of nature seen through a
  temperament
• Emile Zola

53
HIERARCHICAL TAXONOMY OF TEACHING

• IV. MEDIATION the mediator is a lens and a
  scientist
• Understanding advances from particulars
  (internally valid associations) through
  generalities (externally valid associations
• The particulars inform the generality, the
  generality interprets the particulars

54
The SHIFT from MODELING to INTERACTION and
MEDIATION

• The best things cant be told . . . (Jos
  Campbell)
• ROLE MODELING (conscious or not) shows, it
  doesnt tell. It has an implicit authority
  deriving from authenticity and spontaneity as
  manifest in a caregiver or other respected more
  knowledgeable other (such as a social referee)
• Its authority makes it a potent influence in the
  social construction of the personality
• The shift to conscious modeling and then to
  mediation reflects the level of consciousness in
  operation.
• Higher cognitive functions (prefrontal cortex)
  are presumed to control behavior organized at
  lower cerebral levels. Higher centers enable
  more conscious decisions about paths to pursue
  based on projected outcomes.

55
The SHIFT from MODELING to INTERACTION and
MEDIATION

• The best things cant be told . . . (Jos
  Campbell)
• ROLE MODELING (conscious or not) shows, it
  doesnt tell. It has an implicit authority
  deriving from authenticity and spontaneity as
  manifest in a caregiver or other respected more
  knowledgeable other (such as a social referee)
• Its authority makes it a potent influence in the
  social construction of the personality
• The shift to conscious modeling and then to
  mediation reflects the level of consciousness in
  operation.
• Higher cognitive functions (prefrontal cortex)
  are presumed to control behavior organized at
  lower cerebral levels. To make more conscious
  decisions about paths to pursue based on
  projected outcomes.

56

• "Our life is an apprenticeship to the truth that
  around every circle another can be drawn that
  there is no end in nature, but every end is a
  beginning, and under every deep a lower deep
  opens"
• --Ralph Waldo Emerson