Strategies for processing visual information also change as a child’s brain develops. Tests of toddlers vs. preschool children show that the younger ones recognize people by picking out specific visual clues such as a moustache, hairline, glasses or skin color. That’s why at Halloween, for example, a toddler might burst into screams when daddy puts on a funny nose. In the child’s eyes that difference is enough to turn a familiar loving face into a complete stranger. Older children’s brains have developed sufficiently to use the adult strategy for recognizing faces as being familiar or strange. They are able to scan quickly for an overall abstract pattern of lights, darks, hues and forms.
But, of course, there’s only a correlation to some degree between information-processing speed in infancy and IQ later in life. Why only to some degree? Assuming processing speed is stable, there must be other factors that bear on a person’s developing intelligence. What factors? You can see how an interest in novelty would do little good if the environment didn’t provide enough new things to explore, while a richer environment might help an infant learn more skills even if the brain processes information a little more slowly. All children have a natural urge to learn and explore. The only thing that can really get in the way of that inborn predilection is a lack of things to explore. In this sense, environment always has the final say in the development of intelligence.
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