Pinker’s description of the accommodations that the brain makes in order to accurately perceive reality–such as the way the brain makes vertical objects look longer than horizontal objects to compensate for the natural foreshortening of 3D objects directed away from us in our vision (see Pinker, 2002, p. 200)—made a big impression on me.  I wondered if these accommodations are present at birth or develop through our interactions with the world.  As a result, I began searching visual perception in infants.  As an aside to the main thrust of this post, I did find a fascinating article on how infants respond to pointing movements that I think gives some evidence that the human tendency to follow a moving hand is innate rather than learned (see Click here for article in EBSCOhost).

In the course of my search, however, I stumbled on a TED Talk with a different focus, how complex hearing is and how that corresponds to our appreciation of music.  In this video, Charles Limb talks about the limitations of cochlear implants and the multitude of factors that go into deriving beauty from songs.

TED Talk by Charles Limb

Limb starts his presentation with an interesting assertion, that our senses do more than help us survive in the world.  They also make it possible for us to find beauty in our experiences.  Limb contrasts language, which is goal-driven, with music that is more experientially based.  Learning to interpret music is different than learning to interpret words.  As a result, patients with cochlear implants have a much easier time understanding and appreciating language than they do music. 

For me, this TED Talk has major implications for education.  First, it demonstrates how humans use a complex variety of information sources to construct meaning.  All of our senses are intricate devices that have evolved to distinguish subtleties in the kind of information they receive.  Am I attuned to this idea as a teacher?  Am I teaching my students how to construct meaning in multiple modalities?  Do I make sure that the messages I send are consistent across sensory inputs, that I have coordinated what my students experience with all of their senses?  For example, students who do not have hearing difficulties will react to a film showing a woman walk down a dark alley differently based on the music in the background.  If the music has frightening tones, they will interpret the act as dangerous, but if the music has playful tones, they will probably find the clip more humorous and harmless. 

Secondly, a wide range of physical impairments can affect my students’ ability to construct meaning from their experiences.  In the PowerPoint on sensory registers, the second component of the information-processing model, we learned that “sensory limitation can result in information being distorted.”  Limb described all the things that happen inside the ear while people listen to music.  A malfunction in even one area changes the way music is received and the potential response of the individual.  As a result, senses do not involve a simple have or don’t have binary.   A student may not have an obvious hearing impairment, but may still “hear” music differently from me.  Before jumping to conclusions about a student’s meaning-making ability, I should consider that something could be happening in a student’s sensory register.  In addition to meeting students’ different learning preferences, creating lessons in multiple modalities can help balance potential differences in students’ sensory abilities.