Monitor on Psychology - April 2012 - (Page 26)

Questionnaire Can you teach an old guitarist new licks? Cognitive psychologist Gary Marcus spent his sabbatical learning to play guitar, and putting to rest the fallacy that new skills are just for kids. BY SADIE DINGFELDER Monitor staff D uring his sabbatical last year, Gary Marcus, PhD, of New York University, decided to learn to play the guitar. A cognitive psychologist known for his research on language acquisition, Marcus knew that learning an instrument wasn’t going to be easy — especially for him. In fifth grade, Marcus was kicked out of recorder class, and as an adult he couldn’t play the video game “Guitar Hero” without extensive coaching from his wife. Drawing on his cognitive psychology knowledge, Marcus has since overcome his lack of talent to become, in his words, “a nearly listenable guitarist.” In his new book, “Guitar Zero,” Marcus details his journey and explores theories of music cognition along the way. We caught up with him to learn more. Since “Guitar Zero” came out, you’ve been interviewed by The New York Times and dozens of other publications. Why have you been getting so much media attention? It’s been wonderful to see it resonate with so many people. I imagine it’s partly because so many other people harbor secret dreams. The book says that adults can learn to do new things that they may have thought were outside their reach and get a lot of satisfaction out of it. I’m not ever going to be Jimi Hendrix, but I am at the point where I can jam with people and still have a really good time. You’ve shown that adults can learn, but aren’t children better at it? Not necessarily. If you take at random any experiment in developmental “I get a joy from improvising sort of like the joy I get from science. It’s the joy of exploring and discovering new things.” psychology that has an adult control, the adults almost always do better than kids. We all know that kids are better at learning languages than adults, but if you break that down in the lab, the kids are only better at a few things, like auditory processing and pitch detection. Children do have an advantage at accent, but some of the rest of it may have more to do with motivation and interference. If you know one language, it interferes with learning another one. Children also have more persistence. Everyone thinks kids are better than adults at video games, but research shows that adults are often better to begin with. It’s just that the kids spend many more hours playing and soon overtake the adults. Adults actually even have a few advantages in music. When I played with 11- and 12-year-olds at a band camp in Baltimore, their fingers were faster, but I did most of the arranging of our song. Even though I haven’t been making music for very long, I have been listening to it for decades and have some intuitive sense of composition, and in that way was able to make a contribution. As an expert on learning, how did you approach the guitar? We know from language acquisition that immersion is the best way to learn. You have to practice every day for several hours a day in the beginning, before things start to gel. If you practiced only once a month, you’d forget what you learned and won’t be able to build on it. I follow the same principle when I am working on a book. I need at least three hours every day, including weekends, purely devoted to writing, so I have all the ideas fresh in my mind. Did learning guitar give you any ideas for future research? Absolutely. In tandem with learning to play guitar, I started reading the music 26 MONITOR ON PSYCHOLOGY • APRIL 2012

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Monitor on Psychology - April 2012

Monitor on Psychology - April 2010
Letters
President’s Column
Contents
From the CEO
Internship Shortage Continues
Mental Health Services Remain Scarce at Community Colleges
Apa Weighs in on the Constitutionality of Life Without Parole for Juvenile Offenders
Apa Praises Court’s Support for Equality
New Mobile App Answers Psychologists’ Clinical Questions
Nih Offers Free Web Resources for Psychologist Researchers
New and Improved Psyclink
In Brief
Government Relations Update
Time Capsule
Questionnaire
Random Sample
Judicial Notebook
Early Career Psychology
Psychologist Profile
Coal Miners’ Dilemma
The Science of Political Advertising
Science Watch
Science Directions
More Support Needed for Trauma Interventions
The Case Against Spanking
Innovative Psychology at the High School Level
Speaking of Education
Apa Divisions Reach Out to New Psychologists
New Journal Editors
A Home Base for Multiple Fields
Division Spotlight
American Psychological Foundation
Awards and Funding Opportunities
Personalities

Monitor on Psychology - April 2012