On Becoming More Human: The Two Human Distinctions

To become more human, it seems we must first recognize what is distinctive about being human. Basic biology is about the same in all higher animals and humans. So for distinctiveness we must look to mental and behavioral functions. It seems that only two mental characteristics are distinctively human. These are commonly referred to as constructed imagined scenarios and deliberate practice.

The clarification of human scenario building became evident from the research of Thomas Suddendorf at the University of Queensland. He challenged the usual claim that humans are distinct because of their capacity for “speech, fire, agriculture, writing, tools, and large-scale cooperation.” Actually, certain animal species can perform one or more of these activities in their own way. As examples, Suddendorf reminds us that "If you set the bar low, you can conclude that parrots can speak, ants have agriculture, crows make tools, and bees cooperate on a large scale." What sets people apart from others in the animal kingdom is that humans have imagination that enables them to develop scenarios and link other scenario-building minds. Such use of creative imagination, he says, allows humans to turn animal communication ”into open-ended human language, memory into mental time travel, social cognition into theory of mind, problem solving into abstract reasoning, social traditions into cumulative culture, and empathy into morality."

Suddendorf concedes that some animals, like great apes, seem to have some scenario-building capability. But human capability explodes after about age 2, while this does not happen in great apes. Age 2 is about when humans show signs of conscious self-awareness, which may be the key determinate for scenario-building capability.

We should not overlook the creativity element of scenario-building. Creativity has certainly been central to cultural advancement. Animal cultures, if they evolve at all, mostly seem to arise from trial-and-error learning.

A second uniquely human feature is captured in the term "deliberate practice." This term was apparently first coined in 1993 by Florida State University professor, K. Anders Ericsson and colleagues, as a result of observing the development of expertise by budding musicians. Their report has been cited an astounding 10,000 times according to Google Scholar. Key principles include the importance of purposeful learning involving individualized instruction and a focus on identifying goals and methods for achieving musical mastery. The phenomenon has since been named "structured practice" to capture the essential feature of systematic growth of expertise. I take the liberty of adding to the original ideas about deliberate practice by identifying several central elements for success of deliberate practice:

·       Motivation to develop expertise,

·       A specific learning regimen,

·       Learner control,

·       Knowledge on how to improve,

·       Time on task,

·       Repetition that features explicit awareness of how well mastery develops,

·       Immediate performance feedback,

·       Analysis of corrective feedback needed,

·       Successive approximations of feedback correction and attendant positive reinforcement of improvement,

·       Repetition that incorporates corrections.

Though Erickson originally claimed that a challenging expert teacher or coach is needed, the learner need not have direct supervision of a teacher, as long as there is an external source of information on the nature of the expertise, advice on how to develop it, and an objective metric for the extent of growth in expertise. Obviously, deliberate practice is more efficient when performed under the guidance of an expert coach or teacher.

Obviously, deliberate practice is most needed for development of specific skills, as in sports, music, and competitive games like chess. My own experience with use of mnemonics suggests a role for deliberate practice in the ability to memorize. Also relevant to the effectiveness of deliberate practice are the memory principles of focused attention, conditions supporting memory consolidation, and spacing of practice session. Other aspects of learning experience can be a kind of deliberate practice that promotes learning sets and a learning-how-to-learn expertise.

So, if we want to become more human, it seems necessary to develop our capacity for creativity and scenario building and for deliberate practice. Numerous writings, including my own, suggest ways to become more creative. Deliberate practice is achieved by doing it, especially in a way that promotes remembering what the practice is teaching you. As described on my web site (WRKlemm.com), my four books on memory seem to cover the breadth of memory theory and application.

Sources:

Ericsson, K. A., Krampe, R. T., and Tesch-Römer, C. (1993). The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance. Psychol. Rev. 100, 363–406. doi: 10.1037/0033-295X.87.3.215

Ericsson, K. Anders, and Harwell, Kyle W. (2019), Deliberate practice and proposed limits on the effects of practice on the acquisition of expert performance: Why the original definition matters and recommendations for future research. Front. Psychol., 25 October 2019, https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02396

Klemm, W. R. (2018). Developing a strategic and systematic idea creation and management system. International Journal of Creativity and Problem Solving. 28(1), 7-26.

Klemm, W. R. (2017). Leadership and creativity, p. 263-296. In Leadership Today, edited by Joan Marques and Satinder Dhiman. New York: Springer.

Klemm, W. R. (2017). Reason and creativity require free will. Chapter 2, in Free Will: Interpretations, Implementations and Assessments  In Hauppauge, NY: Nova Science.

Klemm, W. R. (1990). Leadership: creativity and innovation, p. 426-439. Concepts for Air Force Leadership, 2nd Ed. Air University, Maxwell AFB, Ala. Available on-line at the Air War College website, http://www.au.af.mil/AU/AWC/AWCGATE/au-24/au24-401.htm. (Used as a text in several military academies for multiple years).

Suddendorf, Thomas (2013). The Gap: The Science of What Separates Us from Other Animals. New York, NY, United States: Basic Books).