-
Question: Imagine, if you will, that you are alone in a void. There is no light to see with. The are no sounds to hear. There are no odours to smell. There are no items to taste. There are no objects to touch. There is not even any gravity to give you a sense of which way is up. You have no perception of any sensory input. Is it possible to learn anything in this emptiness?
- Keywords:
Comments
alexanderhurle commented on :
Hi Joe,
Thank you for your response. I hadn’t viewed it from that perspective but I can see how, as an intellectual adult, one could use deductive reasoning to extrapolate new information from patterns previously observed.
However, I am currently researching the development of children with profound and multiple learning disabilities. Do you or any of the other scientists know of any research pertaining to enhancing and quantifying the learning of sensorially impaired children? E.g. types of sensory receptors in the human body, forms of perception within humans with impaired sensation, etc.
Many thanks,
Alex
Joe commented on :
Hi Alex,
Cool topic — not one I know much about so hopefully others will join in. The only things that I know that seem related are focused on enhancing the child’s sensory input: things like cochlear implants for deaf children or sensory substitution devices (e.g. recoding visual signals as touch inputs). I haven’t seen any work on enhancing their learning per se.
Can anyone help with this question?
Mark commented on :
Hi Alex
My answer would be along the same lines as Duncan’s – we know that sensory input is critical for normal perceptual and motor development (and cognitive development in turn relies on perceptual and motor development). In short, development is learning – it’s not a simple physical growth of body and brain. Moreover, there are critical time periods during which the child must obtain the sensory input (or cortical blindness with result, language will never develop properly etc).
From an applied perspective, it is desirable to expose children to the richest possible sensory environment. From an experimental perspective it’s generally hard to quantify and manipulate (ethically!) the ‘richness’ of an individual’s environment. Animal studies have explored this issue (e.g. through exposing kittens to only horizontal or only vertical stripes) and have confirmed that the visual system requires sensory input within a critical period – but active interaction with the sensory environment is also a requirement for optimal development.
Hope that helps!
Mark