Text view

Why Your Mind Is Like a Shark: Testing the Idea of Mutualism

- Rogier A. Kievit, Ivan L. Simpson-Kent, & Delia Fuhrmann

Whenever you try to solve a problem—at school or elsewhere—you use what psychologists call your cognitive abilities. Cognitive abilities are things like memory (how well you can remember things from the past), vocabulary (how many words you know) and reasoning (how good you are at solving problems). Many things you do and learn in school rely on cognitive abilities. Vocabulary, for instance, is a really important building block of language, as well as other skills. For example, you use your vocabulary when you apply for a job, tell a story, or write a message to a friend.
Normally, scientists study different cognitive abilities separately, just like you study lots of different subjects in school. However, in some recent studies, scientists have discovered exciting connections between cognitive abilities. As it turns out, rather than being entirely separate skills, your cognitive abilities behave a bit like sharks and suckerfish—they help each other grow over time. Your vocabulary is not just useful for improving language skills, it may also help your reasoning, which, in turn, may help your maths skills, which may help your vocabulary.

License information: CC BY 4.0
MPAA: G
Go to source: https://kids.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/frym.2020.00060

Text difficulty