Educational Psychology—Limitations and Possibilities

614 The Praeger Handbook of Education and Psychology
brain is creating neural pathways to categorize and create a prototype to remember what a lemon
tastes like. It is here that parallel processing computers along with Magnetic Resonance Imagings
(MRI) and Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scans have been vital. What neuroscientists
have discovered/created is a Baudrillardian example of a simulation creating an understanding
of reality. Through the use of parallel processing computers, neuroscientists have been able to
create artificial neural networks that provide clues as to how actual neural networks function.
For example, neuroscientists have created computer programs using activation patterns, parallel
distribution processing, and a method called backpropagation (a method to discover the various
weights of synaptic connections) to produce a computer program that can recognize faces in a
manner just as effective as humans. This program created by Garrison Cottrell and his laboratory
group with its backpropagated synaptic connections acted similar to the way the human brain
does. It created prototypes of male and female faces and from this was able to recognize familiar
faces introduced to it in a training set.
Taking this knowledge of how parallel processing and activation patterns function in computers,
neuroscientists with the assistance of MRI and PET scans are trying to understanding what part
of the brain performs what functions when dealing with activities such as recognizing familiar
faces. PET scans provide neuroscientists with the ability to watch which part of the brain and
which neurons are activated causing an increase of blood to that area of the brain. MRIs provide
the computer images of the brain that can be dissected and exposed to the cubic millimeter.
The output from these three computer-generated images—artificial neural networks, PET scans,
and the images of the brain garnered from MRIs—have given neuroscientists much to speculate
about.
THE HOPE OF NEUROSCIENCE
The successes of neuroscience in the last twenty years have lead to the rethinking of basic
psychological debates that have existed since the inception of the discipline in the late 1800s. One
of those debates is the stale nature/nurture debate. This debate is prominent in the debate over the
intelligence of a child: is the child born intelligent or is the child a product of its environment?
The debate has become a dreadful way to justify inequalities in places such as United States
and England where political officials and policy makers pay lip service to notions of equality.
Neuroscience weighs in on this debate and suggests that when it comes to the development of
the brain it is both nature and nurture but once the child is born it is nurturing that is most
important. Each neuron is “predisposed” to perform a certain function within the brain (nature),
however, when a child is born all neurons are fair game and can be used to perform any function
no matter what its destiny was. After a child is born and neural networks are constructed, the
first networks to be created are not the last. The human continues to develop neural networks that
help them understand the world around them. The old adage one cannot teach an old dog new
tricks fits perfectly in a world where certain ideological policy makers want to limit the support
governments give to certain social groups. However, the reality of the brain is that all brains from
those of a child to that of a senior citizen are constantly growing, and if given a chance all brains
can be nurtured to accomplish things psychologists thought impossible.
This ability to create new neural networks in the lifespan of the brain leads us into the issue
of multiculturalism. The neurophilosopher Paul Churchland believes that those people who are
able to create numerous neural pathways in order to see and understand moral dilemmas in the
world will be those people who are better adapted for a diverse world. Given this assumption
about the need and ability to create more than one neural pathway for moral reasoning, and given
the growth of diverse cultures within the United States and other nations, it is an imperative that
schools begin to nurture in the minds of children alternative ways to see the world. Those children