Yay for Adult Learning: Bonds that Bind
Yay for Adult Learning—
Bonds that Bind
Article 16
How are Child Learning and Adult Learning Different –That is the question.
Child learning, especially visual learning and speaking a language, is more efficient in children than adults. Neuroimaging study found rapid neurotransmitter GABA boosting as a major potential explanation-component for that. 1, 2, 3. 4
A second reason for the faster learning is that children’s brains contain more “silent synapses” which are inactive until required. This neuroplasticity allows for the flexibility in which the brain can acquire new learning and memory as it is needed. 4. Notably, plasticity or the ability to learn a motor skill by activating synapses is intensified during intense motor learning. 4
What about neuroplasticity in adults? Recent study of adult mice at MIT in 2022 uncovered that “silent synapses” are abundant in adult mice. Silent synapses are groundwork for brain capacity and are recruited for new learning. 5, 6, 7
Critically, the human condition of adulthood is different than childhood or adolescence. By the time a human is an adult, say 18 years old, an individual has considerable experience of being a part of social groups. Bonding is a characteristic shared by humans and other social animals. (For the other eight characteristics shared by humans and other social animals, such as dolphins, whales, and especially big apes, see blog article 15 http://www.cleartalkmastery.com/blog/2023/08/23/the-human-factor/)
Bonding theory maintains that most humans most of the time have behavioral patterns because they are bonded to the conventional wisdom of society through their being a member of various groups. 8, 9 and Footnote 1
( Stay with me. These behavioral patterns for most people most of the time positively affect adult learning – making for efficient and durable learning. Yay for adult learning!)
Familial, education, workplace, religious/church act as drivers through which the bonding to the society’s group rules – behavior patterns encouraged by the groups –are maintained. As long as ties to home or school or workplace or church remain strong, an individual is likely to maintain or keep doing the behavior patterns encouraged by the groups.
Hirschi (1979) and Johnson et al (1981) in expansion and refinement of earlier work of Nye describe four processes through which behavior patterns are encouraged and maintained. The first is commitment — the degree to which a person has interests (school, work, familial aspirations, belief system) that a path with particular behavioral patterns are encouraged and where nonconformity to those patterns would jeopardize that path. With respect to this conforming or continuing of behavioral patterns, to paraphrase Hirschi, 1969, p 29, the human invests time, energy, the “self” in an activity path – say getting an education, building a business or a career, acquiring a reputation for virtue. When ndividuals consider rebelling against the behaviors encouraged by the group or activity path, they must consider the costs or the risks they take in losing the investment or commitment they have made. 8, 9, 10. 11
No matter how strongly the groups an individual belongs to encourage specific behaviors and agreement with conventional wisdom, the message will be wasted unless persons have some inducement or reason to listen. The investment, or stake, is such an inducement. It may include not only an immediate desirable position but a realistic promise of status in the near future. For example, a student in college has the status of college student; in the workplace, the employee may have the position and status of assistant manager. An example of the realistic promise of status in the near future could be for the student in college to become a college graduate with a degree (status by itself and enables entry into careers). An example of realistic promise of status in the future within a workplace could be for the assistant manager to see the career path of promotion to manager and above, which carries more status and salary. Higher aspirations (for education/school such as BA, MA or PhD degrees, or workplace upward trajectory to management) promote the behavior patterns provided that the realistic promises are perceived as attainable over a relatively short time.
A second process of bonding is attachment to other people. Here, to adhere to the behavior patterns is to act according to the wishes and expectations of others. A high level of attachment makes violation of those behavior patterns of going along with the wishes and expectations of others much less likely.
A third process of bonding is involvement, or engagement in conventional activities; it refers to an individual’s ongoing allocation of time and energy as opposed to one’s past investment of personal resources. Only certain time and energy allocations that are bound up directly with conventional ties to one’s social group act to preserve or enlarge those behavioral patterns. For instance, the amount of time watching television or streaming or gaming or reading magazines at home or work does not contribute to strengthening the ties to the family or workplace. However, the amount of time sharing or preparing meals at home, engaging in family activities including celebrations or at school the amount of time attending class and doing homework, or at the workplace, cooperating with others on projects or engaging in training to increase workplace skill do contribute to involvement and thus strengthen the bonds to those social groups.
The fourth bonding process is belief in the validity or moral validity of social rules of groups or society (Hirschi, 1969, pp 16-26; Johnson et al, 1981). Examples of belief for humans within the entities they have ties to include these:
1. Familial –Belief that wellbeing of the family is paramount – well-being such as health (all aspects), pursuit of happiness, productivity, safety and security.
2. Education – Belief that persistence and dedication will yield learning and skill acquisition needed for academic coursework and attainment of graduation (diploma, certification, degree). Belief that acquisition of skills in the education setting will generate life skills and employment with probable increased levels of status/pay.
3. Workplace – Belief that personal characteristics and behaviors regarding quality and quantity of work or productivity, increasing skills, accountability, focused effort, cooperation, and shared purpose will contribute to attainable desired outcomes for individuals. These can include well-being on the job and foreseeable possible increase in responsibility, skill attainment, status, and enumeration or pay.
4. Religious entities, churches, or secular groups with codes of ethics: Belief that the conventional wisdom of the entity for encouraged behaviors will bring enhanced well-being of the individual, of the group, of the society. Code of ethics or encouraged behaviors could include character traits of honesty, accountability, altruism, sincerity, work ethic, etc.
To paraphrase Johnson et al (1981), to be effective the four processes of bonding – commitment, attachment, involvement and belief—must operate through affiliations with group and organizational representations of conventional wisdom and advice of society. The stronger the ties, the greater the control or bonding. The closeness of a tie or an affiliation in any one sector is likely to fluctuate or move up and down, but most adults have a multiplicity of important conventional ties. During periods when there is no stake worth protecting in the workplace, then family and other community memberships remain as sources of bonds and control. For most adults it is an extremely rare occurrence when all important affiliations or ties to groups are in a disintegrated or failed state at once.
This is not true for children or youth/adolescents, who typically have their eggs in far fewer baskets than adults. The only important conventional affiliations for most young persons are school and family. When these ties deteriorate, there is nothing left because there are not affiliations with other groups.
According to bonding theory, employment that creates an affiliation that the young or older adult worker does not want to jeopardize through misconduct is more likely to be effective in promoting the behavior patterns espoused or encouraged by the employment entity than employment that merely offers involvement in a conventional pursuit. For example, an individual who feels motivated by the goals and mission of the workplace is more likely to devote more effort and focus than the individual whose work life is limited to just showing up at work, doing assigned tasks and taking home a paycheck. If the employment or school entity provides a commitment stake accompanied by valued attachments to other people, so much the stronger is the tie.
So, where is the advantage of adults compared to children learning a new skill? Bonding theory maintains that the ties to various social groups give the adult the advantage of behavior patterns in the form of habits and desires which makes learning a new skill more efficient and enduring. For example, acquiring a new skill, such as clear American English compared to an already present accented-English or hard-to-understand-English, requires heightened attention or focus/concentration, deliberate (not mindless) practice, which is spaced in time or schedule (or distributed practice/perseverence in practice) to make for long lasting learning. Adults have had extended school experience – 12 or more years of school learning is vastly different than 2 or 9 years. The extended years of school learning for adults in the 21st century also means experience with video and auditory lessons, doing homework, and likely virtual meetings or learning.
Children may not have developed consolidated interests, ethics, interest in purpose and meaningful activities, knowledge about real world requirements and demands and priorities. Contrarily, these mind frames are present for most adults, most of the time. Yay for adults!
Next, bonding and bootstrapping new skills onto old—the how for fast, durable adult learning.
FOOTNOTE 1This description of Bonding Theory is an expression of the Hirschi Social Bond Theory from 1969 which was based on his work in the 1960s and described and refined by Johnson et al, 1981. Bonding Theory as elucidated by Hirschi Johnson is a social control theory which describes the essential processes of why most people most of the time adhere to conventional behaviors rather than behaviors defined as criminal. Notably, Bonding Theory here in this Article 16 is an expansion to include those same four processes which form the basis for “why most people most of the time adhere to conventional patterns of behavior”. While Hirschi limited his description to conventional behavior in contrast to behaviors defined by the society to be against the law, our description and examples extend more broadly. Relatedly and notably, the four processes of Bonding Theory was and has been the well-spring from which qualitative assessment and program decisions were anchored from the start of this author’s work beginning 2000 for instruction to maximize efficiency and durability of nonnative-born adult acquisition of clear American English speech.
References:
- Sebastian M.; Becker, Markus; Qi, Andrea; Geiger, Patrician’ Frank, Utrika Il; Rosendahl, Luke A.; Malloni, Wilhelm M.; Sasaki, Yuka; Greenlee, Mark W.; Watanabe, Takeo (5 December 2022) “Efficient learning in children with rapid GABA boosting during and after training”. Current Biology. 32(23) 5022-5030)
- “Brain scans shed light on how kids learn faster than adults”. UPI
- Buxton, Alex (10 February 2016). “What Happens in the Brain When Children Learn?” Neuroscience News
- Ismail, Fatima Yousif; Tatemi, Ali; Johnston, Michael V. (1 January 2017). “Cerebral plasticity: Windows of Opportunity in the developing brain”. European Journal of Paediatric Neurology. 21 (2); 23-48.
- University press release: Trafton, Anne. “Silent synapses are abundant in the adult brain”. Massachusetts Institute of Technology via medicalexpress.com. Retrieved Dec. 2022.
- Vardalaki, Dimitra; Chung, Kwanghun; Harnett, Mark T. (December 2022). Filopodia are a structural substrate for silent synapses in adult neocortex”. Nature 612 (7939): 323-327.
- Lioreda, Claudia Lopez (16 December 2022) “Adult mouse brains are teeming with silent synapses”. Science News..
- Johnson, Grant; Bird, Tom; Warren-Little, Judith; Beville, Sylvia L. (1981). Delinquency Prevention: Theories and Strategies, Second Edition, Center for Action Research publ. U.S. Dept of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention: 2.1-2.71.
- Hirschi, Travis, “Causes of Delinquency”. Berkeley: University of California Press, cited in Johnson, G. et al (1981). Delinquency Prevention: Theories and Strategies, Center for Action Research. U.S. Dept of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention
- Nye, F. Ivan (1958). “Family Relationships and Delinquent Behavior”. New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc cited in Johnson, G. et al (1981). Delinquency Prevention: Theories and Strategies, Center for Action Research. U.S. Dept of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention
- Costello, Barbara J., (2012). Theories of Crime, Criminology and Criminal Justice, Oxford Handbooks, p 131-142
Copyright 2023 by Clear Talk Mastery Inc and Antonia L. Johnson
Amazing Effect of Vocal Reading on Pronunciation
Did You Know?
Writing is only about 5,500 years old, unlike human speech estimated to be from 50,000 years to 2 million years old. In contrast to speech, the human brain did not naturally evolve to read. Thus, the brain adapts to the challenge of reading.
The Amazing Effect of Accurate Vocal Reading on Accurate English Pronunciation Article 13
English speech intelligibility increases sharply for North American children when they learn to read. For adult nonnative-born individuals who want acquisition of clear English, reading words, phrases and sentences is an ideal vehicle for helping to learn accurate English pronunciation.
It is in reading words that the speakers learns that there are different meanings for “hit” and “hid,” or “hot” and “hat,” “bottle” and “battle,” “kin” and kind,” “beach” and “b*tch” which rhymes with “witch”.
And in oral reading or reading with your voice, the human being learns that the spelling of the English word most frequently corresponds to the accurate pronunciation.
The process of reading involves most of the brain, especially an interconnection between visual areas and language areas. And importantly reading also involves neural systems related to action, emotion, decision making and memory.
Big alert! The sensorimotor cortex of the brain is the most active region of the brain during reading. A seminal MRI study in 2014 involving adults and children, where bodily movement was restricted, demonstrated strong evidence revealing that this region may be correlated with automatic word processing and decoding. Specifically, this area of the brain was highly active in persons new to the English language, as well as those children learning to read, and those children struggling to read (dyslexia).
Brain Regions Used for Reading?
Here is the description from Wikipedia (Reading):
The occipital and parietal lobes are involved for orthographic processing of visual words
The two major regions of the brain associated with phonological skills (speech sounds) are the temporal-parietal region and the Perisylvian Region (in MRI study, 2001).
The Perisylvian Region, which is the region of the brain believed to connect Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas, is another region highly active during phonological activities when participants are asked to verbalize known and unknown words.
The inferior frontal region is active in several reading related activities associated with comprehension and processing skills such as spelling and working memory.
In addition to regions on the cortex considered gray matter on MRIs, several white matter fasciculus are active during different reading activities. These three white matter regions connect the three respected cortex regions as the brain reads thus these regions are responsible for the brain’s cross-model integration involved in reading. These are the left arcuate faciculus, the left inferior longitudinal faciculus, and the superior longitudinal fasciculus.
The cerebellum, which is not part of the cerebral cortex, is also believed to play an important role in reading. The role of automatization, word accuracy, and reading speed is associated with the cerebellum.
Have you wondered why learning to speak clear English feels so hard? A principal reason is that your brain is working hard to access and coordinate a good number of separate brain regions!”
Article 13, Blog, copyright 2023 Clear Talk Mastery, Inc
Buy One, Get Three Free and the Human Brain
Buy One, Get Three Free and the Human Brain– Aarticle 12
It really is true, for mastering American English, you can “Buy one, get three free.” Every time you push the blade and tip of the tongue forward in your mouth for the accurate TH no voice speech sound, you are also deliberately practicing the TH with a voice, the L, and the American English Short Vowel A as in “hat.”
That’s because of how the human brain controls speech.
What Part of the Brain Controls Speech?
Control of speech is part of a complex network in the brain. The brain regions called lobes which control speech include the frontal, parietal, and temporal lobes which formulate or put together what you want to say and are located usually in the left hemisphere (Cafasso, 2019). —– More later about the importance of “usually”—which is actually critically important for human brains.
The motor cortex in your frontal lobe enables you to speak words. The brain’s language regions work together as a coordinated network with some parts involved in multiple functions and redundancy in some processing pathways (Abbott, 2016).
To speak clearly, you must move the muscles of your mouth, tongue and throat. This is where the motor cortex participates. Located in the frontal lobe, the motor cortex takes information from the Broca area, in the front part of the left hemisphere, and tells the muscles of your face, mouth, tongue, lips, and throat how to move to form speech (Cafasso, 2019).
In particular, past studies have found that a part of the human brain called the ventral sensorimotor cortex, or vSMC, controls speech. Using electrical stimulation, researchers found which general areas of the vSMC controlled which parts of the face and mouth. But that kind of electrical stimulation couldn’t trigger meaningful utterances. That finding reveals that speech sounds are not being stored in discrete brain areas, but rather arise from coordinated motor patterns involving multiple areas (Wein, 2013).
Electrical patterns in the brain transitioned within tens of milliseconds between distinct and different representations or patterns for different consonants and vowels. (Wein, 2013)
Importantly, regions of brain activity during speech have a hierarchical, overlapping structure organized by phonetic feature. Examples of phonetic features for American English include whether the speech sound has a voice or no voice (like P vs D, F vs V), or for instance whether there is prolonged audible friction of air as in S, Sh, F, V or in contrast, the speech sound is quick ( such as J, CH, P, D). Also, scientists found that consonants that require similar tongue locations have overlapping areas of activity (for instance American English T, D, J, Ch for tip of tongue, and NG, K, G for back of the tongue). Notably, patterns of brain activity differ the most between consonants and vowels. (Wein, 2013).
Wein also emphasized that although the researchers used English, they found the key phonetic features observed were ones that linguists have observed in spoken languages around the world.
For acquisition of clear American English speech when it is a second or other language (ESL, English as a Second Language), a key skill to master is changing and making different the movement and positioning of the muscles, and the tension of muscles in the tongue, lips, jaw, and the muscles in the throat for the vocal folds or chords.
To reiterate because it is so important: speech sounds and spoken words require coordinated motor patterns, which are hierarchical and overlapping. An example of this coordinated motor or movement pattern is the coordinating of making a voice at the vocal folds in your throat with pushing out air from your lunghs and positioning of the top front teeth on the lower lip to make the American English speech sound V.
The research cited above gives physiological and brain insight for an important facet of learning or acquiring clear English pronunciation. That is, researchers have discovered that the brain is organized for speech according to movements of the face and mouth which includes tongue, lips, jaw and for phonetic features which include voicing or no voice, and audible air friction such as in S, Z, SH, ZH which is SH with a voice. You probably already know that positioning of muscles of the lips is a critical articulator difference which distinguishes the English speech sound of S from SH and Z from ZH.
Now to swing back to the “Buy one, get three free” proclamation. A practical application is that if you train your motor system in the brain for the accurate positioning of your tongue “forward” for TH with voice—such as “the”– you are also training the positioning of the tongue for TH with no voice – such as “think”–and also for the consonant L—as in “light” and “tall” and the tongue forward movement for the American English Short Vowel A as in “hat.” The same principle applies for the accurate pronunciation of English speech sounds K, G, and NG which uses the back of the tongue hitting the roof of the back of the mouth. Do one of those K, G, NG accurately and you are making stronger the neural connections in the motor cortex for two more speech sounds.
Do you want motivation or a reason for doing a lot of accurate speaking (including reading words and sentences)? The “Buy one get two or three free” motivation is powerful reason.
Recall that the same kind of bonus to “Buy one get one free” motivates humans to buy products in grocery or other stores and online.
To add important actionable information: Evidence indicates that daily practice of 400 to 800 times leads to reorganization of the brain connections after a stroke, also called “brain attack” or CVA, Cerebrovascular Accident (Vearrier et al 2005; Flint Rehab 2023. If my arithmetic is accurate, to speak 400 speech sounds consecutively, as in connected speech, reading aloud, takes about 30 minutes. If you are using a recorded video lesson or recorded audio lesson to accurately imitate, then the practice time is longer because you must listen and perhaps watch before you imitate. With our more than 800 different student/learners for more than 20 years, most frequently they do 30 minutes of deliberate practice with their voice speaking Clear English (Careful Leveled-Up Mode or Work-Out Mode) and add minutes for the listening to audio recorded spoken English with or without video. For humans, listening and imitating accurately clear English words is quite efficient for learning and mastery for accurate American English pronunciation.
The take-home message is quite good! The good news is that accurate American English is not some random collection of phonetic or speech sound features – unknowable because they are random. Instead, systematic learning – which has been our mission for more than 20 years–which uses the scientific evidence of brain organization and function for English speaking can lead to excellent efficiency in learning. The systematic learning is the crux of the exercises and tasks for learning from video recorded lessons, different audio recorded lessons, and customized textbook with additional tasks for independent speech practice without imitation for deeper learning..
Yay for efficient and long lasting learning based on brain research and evidence and experience with student-learners. Yay today for “Buy one, get two or three free!” Way to go, human brain! Way to go for human being learning!
copyright 2023 Clear Talk Mastery Inc
P for “Priority” for Massed and Distributed Practice
This is Number 4 in our series of recommended sequence for fast, easy mastery of American English speech sounds. The directed instruction is for English consonant P and the word “priority.”
It’s estimated it takes 35 accurate repetitions of a new word to memorize it accurately. That’s called massed practice. That will get you in to the associative phase of procedural learning. Getting to the autonomous phase where the pronunciation is automatic and long term learning is gained through even more accurate pronunciation. That is best spread out in time, and is spaced learning or distributed learning or timing. More information? http://www.cleartalkmastery.com/blog/2023/05/10/the-endgame-is-procedural-memory/
By practicing different words, you are giving your motor system and motor memory variety so it can p for producing the P sound with the needed tension in the lips and pressing of the lips when the speech sounds preceding and following the target speech sound are different.
That’s why the words I, 3 and 4 in this series all have directed instruction on the video for the English speech sound p—“probably,” “anticipate,” and “priority. “
Copyright 2023 by Clear Talk Mastery
