Smarten Up

Finally, some good news.  Humans are becoming more intelligent with each passing generation.  It may not be evident from watching television or driving a car, but humans are actually smartening up.  This is not meant as a joke or effort to flatter the American people.  Furthermore, it’s not just Americans exhibiting greater intelligence, but the world at large.

This month’s edition of Scientific American contained an article by Tim Folger regarding the Flynn Effect.  This is an empirical fact well known to psychologists, but rarely discussed in the popular media.  The New Zealand psychologist James Flynn discovered that IQ scores have been steadily rising since the turn of the last century.  IQ scores have been rising about three points per decade.

A particularly interesting aspect of the Flynn Effect is its limitation to only two cognitive skills, as measured by most intelligence tests.  The most popular IQ test is called the Wechsler Intelligence Scale, with separate instruments for children and adults.  The Wechsler tests purport to measure school related learning, as well as skills that are novel and culturally independent of school learning.  The increase in IQ scores has not been in school learning, rather gains have been very specific to novel fluid abilities.  The gain in IQ appears to be related to an increase in abstraction and pattern matching.

The Wechsler tests may be tapping into the increasingly abstract nature of our jobs and daily living.  Even modern farmers use computers and GPS guided tractors to perform their work.  Janitors within hospitals are increasingly relied upon to understand and combat bacteria and viruses that they cannot see with their eyes.  Video games, TV and internet sites may increase abstraction ability and pattern recognition at greater speeds than the prior generation.  Few jobs remain that may be accomplished without some ability to think on an abstract level.
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One of the psychologists cited in the article offered a telling example.  He attempted to explain to his grandmother how to turn off her computer.  After telling his grandmother to hit the “start” button and select “shutdown,” he returned to find his grandmother hitting the screen with the computer mouse.  The psychologist explained that his grandmother is an intelligent woman, but interpreted the instructions in a concrete fashion that may have been effective fifty years ago.  Older people may squirm at this example, but it is riotous to a ten year old.

Take heart that the laughing ten year old is not smarter in terms of raw brain power.  The ten year old mind is more modern and in step with increasingly abstract technology.  To be sure, it is difficult to ignore the influence of greater education, improved child nutrition, and smaller families on the general increase in intelligence scores.  The authors were quick to point out that even during WWII, with its strains on family resources taken into account, the global rise in IQ scores continued without a stutter.

In summary, if the reader is having trouble understanding this article, ask your grandchild to explain its meaning.  A son or daughter may, unfortunately, lack sufficient IQ gains to be very helpful.  The author would like to say more about the Flynn Effect, but he lacks a grandchild to explain the finer points.  Beating the screen with that mouse thing doesn’t make new words, but the sound is pleasing and soothing.

Consciousness

The following is an incomplete draft.  Comments would be greatly appreciated, as this is the proverbial work in progress.

Consciousness is a word like soul.  Most people believe they know what the word means, but are actually hard-pressed to provide a definition.  Even if a definition is given, it is likely that it will not agree with the one provided by their neighbor.  The importance of clarity and precision in the definition of consciousness is greater than for a word like soul, since consciousness is often used in scientific literature.  A scientific term must have a universally agreed upon definition, or it is outside the arena of scientific investigation.  A researcher cannot prove or disprove an aspect of consciousness if its definition is vague or transitional.

One problem in defining consciousness is the placement of boundaries within the total stream of thought.  There is an ongoing debate whether animals are conscious, and much of the debate hinges on the limitations of conscious thought.  It should not be overlooked that all definitions have an arbitrary feature, and consensus is the most important feature of any definition.  A proposed functional definition of consciousness is spoken or internal language that may potentiate goal directed behavior.  This definition is purposely limited to language, as this is the one cognitive skill believed to be unique among humans.

The more humans observe and understand mammalian behavior, the more their abilities are reminiscent of human behavior.  The visual memory of squirrels exceeds that of humans, and complex social behavior is not limited to primates.  Both primates and porpoises use symbols effectively, and the number of animals on this list will likely grow in the future.  The dictionary definition of consciousness could even include insects, as it is defined as an awareness of an external or internal object.  Perhaps soldier ants are not aware of internal representations, but they must be aware of external objects to defend the colony.  Primates are able to use feeling words in a reliable and appropriate fashion, such that they are aware of internal representations.  The typical definition of consciousness is hardly limited to humans.

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The second part of the proposed definition of consciousness entails its importance in accomplishing goals.  Humans that are brain injured and confused may exhibit speech, but it often a jumble of words and sentences that are senseless.  The proposition that a person’s speech lacks sense is that it doesn’t have a goal.  Even angry rambling speech communicates the current feeling state and intentions (goals) of the speaker.  People who lack goal-directed speech could be considered as not conscious, even though some form of internal speech may still transpire.  People with rambling disconnected speech rarely retain memories of events, because their brain is not encoding information in a way that can be stored and retrieved.  Please note that “not conscious” was used in lieu of “unconscious.”  Most of the information that flows into our senses is unconscious; including an awareness of our bodily states.  Consciousness would have little adaptive value if humans were constantly assaulted by a torrent of sensations and memories.

The use of the word “may” in the definition of consciousness is an acknowledgement that not all spoken or internal speech is goal directed.  The word “may” could be replaced with “has the potential to.”  Humans may ruminate on works of art that do not result in an observable behavior.  Psychologists often differentiate speech that is rambling as “illogical” or is not “pertinent” to the situation.  Both these terms have precise definitions, but are less than useful if the person cannot or will not speak.  Most people with rambling speech do not exhibit effective goal directed behavior, yet there is at least one exception.  Some strokes result in speech that is jumbled or absent, yet the patient appears to function in a goal directed fashion.  Psychologists and speech pathologists have conjectured that a patient’s “internal speech” or “deep language structure” is relatively preserved.  This would fit in neatly with the current definition of consciousness.  Unfortunately, deep language structure is a phenomenon that is not readily observable.  As such, it is unlikely to be proved or disproved by the scientific method.  A psychologist may observe a rambling or mute patient acting in a goal directed fashion, but they cannot be sure if the patient is actually conscious by this measure alone.

The proposed definition of consciousness is intended to differentiate human from animal cognition.  It is a more language dependent conceptualization than what is offered in textbooks.  An awareness of an internal or external object is not only difficult to observe, but it tends to support the blurry boundary between animal and human cognition.  It is hoped that the definition of consciousness offered here will enhance the concept’s explanatory power and scientific usefulness.  Many scientists and clinicians may be uncomfortable with the pairing of language and consciousness, but speech is the only observable that provides evidence of self-awareness.  Goals may be inferred with some accuracy from observed behavior, which is why they are crucial to the definition.  Taken together, the current definition has the potential to accurately classify a human or animal as conscious-or not.