Another confirmation of Ray's writings about metabolism and intelligence, and both being the hallmark of youth - the younger the better it seems.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/06 ... ut-gadgets
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/11 ... 5-year-old
"...Children try a variety of novel ideas and unusual strategies to get the gadget to go. For example, Gopnik says, "If the child sees that a square block and a round block independently turn the music on, then they'll take a square and take a circle and put them both on the machine together to make it go, even though they never actually saw the experimenters do that." This is flexible, fluid thinking — children exploring an unlikely hypothesis. Exploratory learning comes naturally to young children, says Gopnik. Adults, on the other hand, jump on the first, most obvious solution and doggedly stick to it, even if it's not working. That's inflexible, narrow thinking. "We think the moral of the study is that maybe children are better at solving problems when the solution is an unexpected one," says Gopnik. And that flexibility may disappear earlier than we think. Gopnik's lab has also toddlers and kindergartners in doing these tests of abstract thinking, and found that the diaper set are actually better at focusing on the relationship between the objects, rather than on the things."
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/06 ... ut-gadgets
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/11 ... 5-year-old
"...Children try a variety of novel ideas and unusual strategies to get the gadget to go. For example, Gopnik says, "If the child sees that a square block and a round block independently turn the music on, then they'll take a square and take a circle and put them both on the machine together to make it go, even though they never actually saw the experimenters do that." This is flexible, fluid thinking — children exploring an unlikely hypothesis. Exploratory learning comes naturally to young children, says Gopnik. Adults, on the other hand, jump on the first, most obvious solution and doggedly stick to it, even if it's not working. That's inflexible, narrow thinking. "We think the moral of the study is that maybe children are better at solving problems when the solution is an unexpected one," says Gopnik. And that flexibility may disappear earlier than we think. Gopnik's lab has also toddlers and kindergartners in doing these tests of abstract thinking, and found that the diaper set are actually better at focusing on the relationship between the objects, rather than on the things."