Nature/Nurture Brain Development

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Nature and nurture both influence the development of the brain. The influence of the environment on the brain is constantly being studied. The effect of experience on the brain is one that most people are not aware of. The more people experience the world and are exposed to various stimuli, the more specialized and molded the brain becomes. Studies examine the Fusiform Face Area (FFA) of the brain to see how specialization plays a role in our perceiving of objects and faces. Through the FFA, the visual perception and development of people, starting with infants, can be tracked. Without the FFA, parts of the infant’s way of perceiving the world would remain a mystery. The question remains, however, when does this area of the brain develop in …show more content…
Experience starts affecting the brain the moment that we are born. Everything we perceive and do molds our brain from infancy into adulthood. Studies of the infant’s fusiform face area(FFA)in the brain serve to see how the brain responds to various types of stimulus. Studies show that the more we perceive the more specialized the FFA becomes. Studies often determine this by comparing the infant FFA to the adult …show more content…
It concluded that infants use labeling to differentiate faces from other objects. Early development of this skill lays the foundation for better recognition and discrimination when they get older. Even though time passes from when an infant gives an object or a face a label, they will still be able to recognize and distinguish it from other faces and objects when they are a child. This study broadens the findings of another study done that examines infant’s frontal cortex. Dehaene-Lambertz, Dehaene, and Hertz-Pannier (2009) found that around 3-months-old infants use their frontal cortex in a way that shows “functional specificity”. They also determined that infants have “active memory retrieval.” This means that around 3-months-old infants can remember things and retrieve things from prior