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)

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