Intelligence as a Developing Function: A Neuroconstructivist Approach
Open Access
- 29 April 2017
- journal article
- research article
- Published by MDPI AG in Journal of Intelligence
- Vol. 5 (2), 18
- https://doi.org/10.3390/jintelligence5020018
Abstract
The concept of intelligence encompasses the mental abilities necessary to survival and advancement in any environmental context. Attempts to grasp this multifaceted concept through a relatively simple operationalization have fostered the notion that individual differences in intelligence can often be expressed by a single score. This predominant position has contributed to expect intelligence profiles to remain substantially stable over the course of ontogenetic development and, more generally, across the life-span. These tendencies, however, are biased by the still limited number of empirical reports taking a developmental perspective on intelligence. Viewing intelligence as a dynamic concept, indeed, implies the need to identify full developmental trajectories, to assess how genes, brain, cognition, and environment interact with each other. In the present paper, we describe how a neuroconstructivist approach better explains why intelligence can rise or fall over development, as a result of a fluctuating interaction between the developing system itself and the environmental factors involved at different times across ontogenesis.Keywords
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