And I have pretty much lost the ability to read a complex argument. There are not enough words on the screen at one time, and reading a few words at a time, pause, another few words, is not reading. Hence until someone can really demonstrate the opposite, I have to assume that _anything_ which involves construal of printed text fails to be a useful measurement of human mental capacity -- except the very specialized capacity (analogous, say, to perfect pitch or the ability to draw a curve as Picaso can_ of construing printed characters. Dyslexia is well known now, but we have to assume many similar 'types.'
The talent (or form of thinking) which, as a political organizer, I am most interested in is the ability to grasp _spoken_ arguments or explanations, respond with relevant questions, and take part in _spoken_ discussions. As a literary critic I'm obviously more interested in other kinds of intellection, involving construal of printed texts. (Probably not necessary for _some_ 'tests': I've listened to the Iliad in Fitzgerald's translation (being translated one would think would 'erase' the oral quality, but apparently not) and 'discovered new things about the poem that I had missed in many preceding readings of it. In contrast, one of my favorite poems, Paradise Regained (with simply wonderful paragraphs) simply doesn't come across from listening to the CDs of a reading of it. One apparently has to SEE those paragraphs, SEE that wonderful handling of syntax, to grasp what is going on. I'm going to continue to listen to it, and maybe my grasp of the oral text will improve. But in any case it is a radical difference from my experience with the oral text of Fitzgerald's Iliad.
And I doubt very seriously that now I could score very high on a multiple-choice text of each question exceeded four or five lines of the following length:
***** of each question exceed ***** Those letters extend across the whole screen in the size font I am using. I can have trouble sometimes even with my own texts, which makes it difficult to write very long texts and maintain coherence. I may be approaching or at that point in this post.
Another example from my experience, this one not related to eyesight. I have always frequently browsed through back issues of Critical Inquiry, both recent and far back. Between about 1999 and 2006 I had a strange experience three times. I would start an article from an issue from a year or so earlier, and on the first couple pages become quite excited: Hey, this is good, wonder why I missed it earlier. Then I would turn the page & there would be underlining, marginal notes, etc. I had read it when it came out. Now these articles were on material quite new to me, but while reading them I had no trouble following the new material, even if quite complicated and introducing relations unfamiliar to me. But the material obviously did not fix itself in my short term memory long enough to become really part of my thinking. Nota Bene my earlier point: I had no trouble construing these texts, just in _remembering_ them. I had not in the least lost my analytical powers, but age had clearly sapped short term memory.
Now these traits are particular to one person of a given background, age, & eyesight. But we really don't come close to understanding the human brain to assume that such variations in intellection are the _only_ ones, that there are not innumerable other forms of thinking (or whatever: I don't have the terminology to label what I'm after). Measurements of thinking grounded in reading and/or writing clearly are no measure of the potential powers of mind (of analysis, etc) of the person being tested. In fact I have known in my political practice (as well as in my teaching) quite a few people who could handle complex ideas in one form (say written) but could not really do much with them in another form (say group discussion).
And so on.
Obviously reading and writing and the power of analysis expressed in study of text are of immense importance. That is not in question. What is in question is whether analytic and synthesizing and comparative powers exist _only_ in so far as they can be measured by printed tests, grounded in reading printed texts.
Carrol
P.S. I dislike as strongly reductions such as Joanna's claim that teaching is "fundamentally" erotic. That is silly. It is as silly to dismiss currently recognized powers of thought as it is to assume that they are the only powers. I have not done so in any of my posts. A post is not a complete Encyclopedia of all a person thinks and knows.
-----Original Message----- From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org] On Behalf Of Peter Fay Sent: Tuesday, February 08, 2011 7:54 PM To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Sternberg article on Academically Adrift
On Tue, Feb 8, 2011 at 6:06 PM, Chuck Grimes <c123grimes at att.net> wrote:
>
> bothered by the basic assumption that psychology and or cognitive science
> can profile, measure, or even asses any kind of thinking. I assume this
> assumption is itself in deep contestation within the field.
I don't believe it is contested at all in psychology that 'thinking' (or at least answering - the behavioral outcome of thinking) can be assessed. If this cannot be measured, then it seems the tools to measure it (statistics) would be false - as well as its foundations - validity (content and construct validity), reliability (inter-rater and test-retest reliability) and probability itself.
Why would probability be any less valid when applied to psychology than to physics? ___________________________________ http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk