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Summary: Researchers argue that people with dyslexia specialize in exploring the unknown. This exploratory tendency has an evolutionary basis that plays a crucial role in human survival.
Source: University of Cambridge
Cambridge researchers studying cognition, behavior and the brain have concluded that people with dyslexia specialize in exploring the unknown. This probably plays a fundamental role in human adaptation to changing environments.
They believe this “exploratory bias” has an evolutionary basis and plays a critical role in our survival.
Based on these findings, which were evident in multiple areas from visual processing to memory and at all levels of analysis, the researchers argue that we need to change our perspective on dyslexia as a neurological disorder.
The results reported today in the journal frontiers in psychology, have implications at both individual and societal levels, says lead author Dr. Helen Taylor, an Associate Researcher at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research at the University of Cambridge and Research Fellow at the University of Strathclyde.
“The deficit-centric view of dyslexia doesn’t tell the whole story,” Taylor said. “This research proposes a new framework that will help us better understand the cognitive strengths of people with dyslexia.”
She added: “We believe that the problem areas of people with dyslexia result from a cognitive trade-off between exploring new information and using existing knowledge, with the benefit being an exploratory bias that could explain the improved skills observed in specific areas such as.” Discovery, invention and creativity.”
This is the first time that an interdisciplinary approach using an evolutionary perspective has been applied in the analysis of studies on dyslexia.
“Schools, academic institutes and workplaces are not designed to make the most of exploratory learning. But we urgently need to start fostering that mindset so humanity can continue to adapt and solve important challenges,” Taylor said.
Dyslexia affects up to 20% of the general population, regardless of country, culture and world region. It is defined by the World Federation of Neurology as “a disorder in children who, despite traditional classroom experience, do not attain language skills of reading, writing, and spelling consistent with their intellectual ability.”
The new findings are explained in the context of “complementary cognition,” a theory that suggests our evolutionary ancestors specialized in different but complementary ways of thinking, enhancing humans’ ability to adapt through cooperation.
These cognitive specializations are rooted in a well-known trade-off between exploring new information and using existing knowledge. For example, if you eat all the food you have, you risk starving when it’s all gone. But if you spend all your time looking for food, you’re wasting energy that you don’t need to waste. As in any complex system, we must ensure that we balance our need to exploit known resources and explore new resources in order to survive.
“Finding the balance between seeking new opportunities and reaping the benefits of a particular choice is key to adaptation and survival, and underpins many of the choices we make in our daily lives,” Taylor said.
Exploration includes activities that seek the unknown, such as experimentation, discovery, and innovation. In contrast, exploitation is about using what is already known, including refinement, efficiency, and choice.
“Considering this trade-off, an exploratory specialization in people with dyslexia might help explain why they struggle with exploitative tasks such as reading and writing.”
“It could also explain why people with dyslexia seem to be interested in certain careers that require exploratory skills, such as art, architecture, engineering and entrepreneurship.”
The researchers found that their findings were consistent with evidence from several other areas of research. For example, an exploratory bias in such a large segment of the population suggests that our species must have evolved during a period of great uncertainty and change.
This is consistent with findings in the field of paleoarchaeology, which show that human evolution has been marked by dramatic climatic and environmental instability over hundreds of thousands of years.
The researchers emphasize that collaboration between individuals with different abilities could help explain our species’ extraordinary adaptability.
About this dyslexia and news from evolutionary neuroscientific research
Author: press office
Source: University of Cambridge
Contact: Press Office – University of Cambridge
Picture: The image is in the public domain
Original research: Open access.
“Developmental Dyslexia: Developmental Disability or Specialization in Exploratory Cognitive Search” by Helen Taylor et al. frontiers in psychology
abstract
See also
Developmental Dyslexia: Developmental disorder or specialization in exploratory cognitive search
We raise the new possibility that people diagnosed with developmental dyslexia (DD) specialize in exploratory cognitive search and rather than having a neurocognitive disorder, play an essential role in human adaptation.
Most DD research has examined educational difficulties, with theories presenting differences in neurocognitive processes as deficits. However, people with DD are also often credited with certain strengths—particularly in areas such as discovery, invention, and creativity—that deficit-centered theories cannot account for.
We examine whether these strengths reflect an underlying exploratory specialization. We review experimental studies in psychology and neuroscience within the framework of cognitive searchmany psychological processes involve a trade-off between exploration and exploitation.
We report evidence of exploratory bias in DD-associated cognitive strategies. A high prevalence of DD and a concomitant exploratory bias in several cognitive domains suggest the existence of an exploratory specialization.
An evolutionary perspective explains the combination of results and challenges the notion that individuals with DD have a disorder. In cooperating groups, individual specialization is favored when traits that confer fitness advantages are functionally incompatible.
Evidence of search specialization suggests that, as with some other social organisms, humans mediate the trade-off between exploration and exploitation by specializing in complementary strategies.
The existence of a system of collective cognitive search that emerges through collaboration would help explain our species’ extraordinary adaptability. It is also consistent with evidence for considerable variability throughout our evolutionary history and the notion that humans are not adapted to a particular habitat but to variability itself.
Specialization creates interdependence and requires balancing complementary strategies. The reframing of DD, therefore, underscores the urgency to change certain cultural practices to ensure we don’t hinder adaptation.
Major improvements would remove cultural barriers to exploration and encourage exploratory learning in education, science and the workplace, and emphasize collaboration over competition. The specialization in complementary search skills represents a meta-adaptation; By working together, this likely enables human groups (as species and as cultural systems) to adapt successfully.
Cultural shifts in support of this system of collaborative search can therefore be essential to addressing the challenges humanity is facing today.
