Spatial intelligence - Picture Smart

Children with strong spatial intelligence, also known as 'picture smart,' are visual learners; they need to be able to see things in order to understand them. Since they have a strong visual memory, a sharp eye for detail and colors, and a good hand-eye coordination, they tend to be artistically inclined. They enjoy creating art, building puzzles, and learning through watching movies.

Learning Style: They need visual support, such as charts, pictures and other images.

Spatial Intelligence ("picture smart") learners think in pictures more than words and need to create vivid mental images to remember and understand information. They like maps, charts, pictures, videos, and movies, so teaching with film may be helpful in their case.. They’re usually good at puzzles, have a strong sense of direction and like making and repairing things. Visual/Spatial learners can become navigators, sculptors, inventors, architects and interior designers, mechanics or engineers.

Spatial intelligence might be one of less familiar kind of intelligence, however it has wide implications in many academic and professional disciplines. It is extremely important in disciplines such as mathematics and computer science. There are many theories and models attempting to define spatial reasoning. The first model is called the MV/PD model. According to this model, spatial representation consist of two parts. The first is a metric diagram, which includes quantitative information and provides a substrate, which can support perceptual-like processing. The second part of the model is termed place vocabulary, which makes explicit qualitative distinction in shape and space relevant to the current task Therefore, spatial reasoning is not just visualization of objects and space but also the ability to take qualitative information and then transformation them to spatial representations so that it can be better understood.

Another theory addressing spatial intelligence is called the mental model theory,
developed by Johnson-Laird and Byrne. According to the mental model theory, first, the person constructs a mental model of the premises of the problem. Second, the person draws a conclusion from the model that is informative. The model helps to extract information that is not directly asserted by the premises. Third, the participant tries to construct another alternative model to try and contradict the initial one, if they cannot construct an alternative model, then they take the first one to be correct.

According to the mental model theory, reasoning is guided by a 'search for counter –examples procedure." However, if the search of counter examples takes too much working memory capacity, then the process of searching for counter examples to get the right answers will come to a halt. Also, the mental model theory predicts that problem difficulty increases as the number of different possible mental models increases.

References

1)Resources in Teaching, Multiple Intelligence, A listing and description of the eight kinds of intelligence.
2)Looking At Changes in Spatial Reasoning, Description of the Role of Spatial Reasoning in different fields of studies.
3) 3. Van der Henst, Jean Baptiste. "The Mental Model of theory of spatial reasoning reexamined : The role of relevance in premise order." British Journal of Psychology, 90 (1999) , 73(1).

Edited by: Carol Roger (KPLI Jan 2010)

Howard Gardner: His Sayings On Musical Intelligence

(Howard Gardner)

The theory of multiple intelligences developed by Howard Gardner has significantly influenced education in the last few decades. Gardner refers to the intelligences as ways of knowing and understanding yourself and the world around you. In the introductory section of Frames of Mind, his first popular book on the subject, Gardner defines intelligence as "the ability to solve problems, or to create products, that are valued within one or more cultural settings" (1983). He explains that he was seeking to undermine the common notion of intelligences as a general capacity or potential which every human being possessed to a greater or lesser extent. He questioned the assumption that you could measure intelligence with standardized verbal instruments, such as the short answer, paper and pencil IQ test. He asks his readers to "perform two thought experiments."

• Imagine you have never heard of the concept of intelligence as a single property of the human mind; or that an instrument called the intelligence test exists.
• "Cast your mind widely about the world and think of all the roles or "end states" - vocational and avocational - that have been prized by cultures during various eras (hunters, fishermen, farmers, shamans, religious leaders, psychiatrists, military leaders, civil leaders, athletes, artists, musician, poets, parents, and scientists)"

In Gardner's early research he discussed seven intelligences. Gardner later introduced an eighth intelligence: the naturalist intelligence.

Gardner believes that everyone possesses some capacity in all intelligences, but these intelligences function together in ways unique to each person. He proposes that most people can develop each intelligence to an adequate level of competency. Gardner determined the validity of each intelligence by reviewing such factors as the potential impairment of the intelligence by brain damage, the existence of savants and prodigies, a definable set of expert "end-state" performances, an evolutional history and plausibility, support from psychological data, an identifiable set of operations, and the use of a symbol system.

"As a young person I was a serious pianist and enthusiastically involved with other arts as well. When I began to study developmental and cognitive psychology, I was struck by the virtual absence of any mention of the arts. An early professional goal was to find a place for the arts within academic psychology. I am still trying! In 1967 my continuing interest in the arts prompted me to become a founding member of Project Zero, a basic research group at the Harvard Graduate School of Education begun by a noted philosopher of art, Nelson Goodman. For 28 years, I was the co-director of Project Zero and I am happy to say that the organization continues to thrive"

(AERA, 2003)

For an update from Howard Gardner himself - Multiple Intelligences after Twenty Years -http://www.pz.harvard.edu/PIs/HG_MI_after_20_years.pdf

Edited by: Carol Roger, 2010

Musical Intelligence "Music Smart" (Part 2): What is Musical Intelligence?

Gardner indicates that "pitch (or melody) and rhythm: sounds emitted at certain auditory frequencies and grouped according to a prescribed system" are most central to the musical intelligence. He explains that pitch is more important in certain cultures. He discusses "Oriental societies that make use of tiny quarter-tone intervals" (1983). Other cultures (such as sub-Saharan Africa) emphasize rhythm where "rhythmic ratios can reach a dizzying metrical complexity" (1983). Gardner discusses the horizontal and vertical organization of music. Horizontal refers to the "relationship of pitches as they unfold over time." Vertical refers to the "effect of two or more sounds emitted at the same time, giving rise to a harmonic or a dissonant sound." Gardner also states that timbre - the characteristic qualities of a tone, is an important element.

Central Elements - "Cores" of Music

• pitch
• rhythm
• timbre

The musical intelligence is central to human experience. It's the earliest of the intelligences to emerge--even children as young as two months old can sing and match rhythmic structures. And it's closely linked to our other intelligences--we often "feel" music with our bodies and move accordingly, we often "feel" music with our emotions, and cry or laugh accordingly. Indeed, as Howard Gardner writes in Frames of Mind (1983), many scientists believe that...

"if we can explain music, we may find the key for all human thought."

Armstrong states that the musical intelligence is the intelligence of tone, rhythm, and timbre.

Music is universal, crossing cultural borders, playing a significant, unifying role in the earliest history of man throughout the world. The components of the musical intelligence, sensitivity to pitch or melody and rhythm, provide the core elements or set of operations. Musical notation provides a complex separate symbol system. Individuals process musical tones in the right hemisphere of the brain, but with formal training and greater competence, musicians utilize the left hemisphere as well (Gardner, 1983, pp.118-119). The musical/rhythmic intelligence is represented in the brain in both the left and right hemispheres, as well as the limbic system (emotional). The more formal and analytical aspects of music as a system are in the left hemisphere and the figural/experiential aspects are in the right hemisphere (Lazear).

Copyright 2003 by Carla Piper, Ed. D.

Edited by: Carol Roger, 2010

Musical Intelligence "Music Smart"

In introducing musical intelligence, Gardner first stands back and identifies its basic core of objective features: rhythm, pitch, harmony, and timbre, but he soon moves closer to dwell on the mysterious emotional power of music. He then presents several kinds of evidence to support his theory that musical ability functions like an intelligence-- what composers have called "logical musical thinking" and the "musical mind". Musical abilities illustrate why Gardner rejects the simpler split-brain concept of mind. Although most musical abilities are located in the right hemisphere, trained musicians are likely to draw upon the left hemisphere "in solving a task that the novice tackles primarily through the use of right hemisphere mechanisms"

The musical intelligence is more difficult to relate to writing than the others are, especially when you consider that tone of voice is not included in the province of the musical intelligence. But it is no accident that the rhythmic, tonal qualities of words have long been associated with music. Music probably originates in primordial dance, song, and gesture--places where speech and writing may also have deep roots. The earliest poems that we know about appear to have been sung or chanted--perhaps to the accompaniment of a musical instrument. Today, it would be easy assume that clear, straightforward prose was the original method of written expression, and that poetry is an emotional elaboration on prose. The opposite is almost certainly true. The de-poeticizing of prose has been the work of centuries.

Today's emphasis on clear, simple prose floats uneasily upon a sea of older and far deeper styles--the complex cross-currents of poetry, persuasion, and personal song. Some writers find the clean logic of the Strunk and White style overly restrictive. Expressive writing reaches back into the roots of song, tone, dance, and rhythm to draw upon the powerful communicative abilities of what Gardner calls the musical intelligence. I sometimes invent aphorisms to stimulate (and provoke) students; one goes, "You can begin to write better only when you realize that speech is the least recognized of all the forms of music."

The musical intelligence is not limited to poetry and poetic prose. Many writers have celebrated the music of writing.

When I sit down to write, I know that I hear in my head the rhythms of writers I have read and admired. Sometimes, I can even remember which writer's rhythm I am hearing. I think all the good writers hear the music of good writing they've read.

More on Musical Intelligence could be found on Musical Intelligence Part 2.....

from "Writing and Multiple Intelligences," A Working Paper

by Gerald Grow, Ph.D.

School of Journalism, Media & Graphic Arts

Florida A&M University, Tallahassee FL 32307 USA

Available at: http://www.longleaf.net/ggrow

Edited By: Carol Roger, KPLI Jan 2010