Review: a Study in Human Capacities Reviewed Work(S): Genie. A
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Review: A Study in Human Capacities Reviewed Work(s): Genie. A Psycholinguistic Study of a Modern-Day "Wild Child" by Susan Curtiss Susan Goldin-Meadow Science, New Series, Vol. 200, No. 4342. (May 12, 1978), pp. 649-651. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0036-8075%2819780512%293%3A200%3A4342%3C649%3AASIHC%3E2.0.CO%3B2-P Science is currently published by American Association for the Advancement of Science. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/about/terms.html. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/journals/aaas.html. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. The JSTOR Archive is a trusted digital repository providing for long-term preservation and access to leading academic journals and scholarly literature from around the world. The Archive is supported by libraries, scholarly societies, publishers, and foundations. It is an initiative of JSTOR, a not-for-profit organization with a mission to help the scholarly community take advantage of advances in technology. For more information regarding JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. http://www.jstor.org Mon Aug 13 18:18:25 2007 This rate was over three times the base commits up to half of all crimes. We can- ceeds at a slow but steady pace until age rate. A criminal environment enhances not affbrd to neglect the possibility that 13. at which time linguistic progress, re- the predisposition. biological factors are significantly linked gardless of level attained, halts. Fini Schulsinger's previously pub- to crime in this group. The crucial test of the critical-period lished adoption study of psychopathy is JOSEPH M. HOIIN hypothesis is. of course, whether an indi- reprinted in this volume. Starting with a Drpurtnzrirt of' Psy~holog?., vidual prevented from learning language group of adopted psychopaths and a LJilil,f>rsityof Te.url.s, during the first 13 years of life can devel- group of adopted controls Schulsinger Alr,ctitl 78712 op language thereafter. For obvious rea- found psychopathy five times as preva- sons the experimental manipulation that lent among the biological parents of the would answer this question has not been psychopaths as arnong their adoptive carried out. However, tragic circum- parents. There was little or no psycho- A Study in Human Capacities stances have created Genie. the subject pathy among the biological and adoptive of this book and a test case for the criti- parents of the controls. All the ~.esearch- Genie. A Psycholingui\tic Study of a Modern- cal-period hypothesis. Day "Wild Child." SLSANCURI ISS. Acadern- ers writing in this volume are cautio~lsin Genie was discovered at the age of 13 ic I'ress, New York. 1977. xvi, 288 pp. $27.50. drawing inferences about the relative in- Perspectives in Neu~~olinguisticsand Psycho- years, 7 months, after having experi- fluence of environment and heredity in linguistics. enced a childhood of extreme and unusu- criminalit).. Given the great hetero- al deprivation and abuse. From the age geneity in crime and criminals they seem In his book Bio/ogic,trl Folli1clafiotr.s of of 20 months, she had been confined to a wise to accept that environmental fac- L.tr:lgl~cijir (Wile),, 1967) E. H. Lenne- small room and allowed no freedom of tors play a major role in many types of berg hypothesired that language learning movement, no perceptual stimulation. crime. Mednick interprets the evidence in humans is constrained to a particular and no human companionship. Under to indicate that variations in the environ- developmental period: if a human is to these inhumane conditions. it is hardly ment best account for crime among the acquire language, he or she must do so surprising that Genie did not develop lower class whereas genetic factors are roughly between the age of two and pu- language. linked to crime arnong the middle and berty. According to Lenneberg, behav- Since the time of her discovery in upper classes. ioral evidence for the lower bound of this 1970, attempts have been made to reha- The epidemiological facts provided b). critical period comes from normal lan- bilitate and educate Genie. This book is a the many large-scale Scandinavian stud- guage acquisition, which does not uni- description of Genie's first five years af- ies also provide an interesting new per- versally begin (inti1 about age two. f-vi- ter diicovery, foc~lsingon her linguis- spective on crime. By comparison with dence for the upper bound comes pri- tic progress. Four chapter dexribing the situation in the United States. pover- marily froni pathology. Damage to the Genie's language abilities make up the ty and other adverse environmental cir- left side of the brain (the hemisphere bulk of the book. One deals with Genie's cumstances have been drastically cur- dominant for language in most people) phonology, both comprehension and tailed in Scandinavia, yet about 9 per- before the age of 13 usually will not re- production. Two others focus, respec- cent of males receive felon). convictions sult in permanent language impairment; ti~el)..on her comprehension and on her during their lifetimes. Does this fact rep- damage after that age tends to produce production of syntax. ~norphology.and resent a limit to what socialism can ac- irreversible language losses. Moreover, semantics. 'fhe fourth of this group of complish in crime reduction'? Perhaps language acquisition in retardates pro- chapters compares Genie's linguistic ca- not, but it might encourage a search for environmental variables qualitatively different in character from social class. "Genie's drawing of a human figure (121221 health, and employment. 71). Note the lack of either trunk (if lines rep- Another fact emerging froni a number resent arms) or arms (if lines represent trunk), of the investigations reported here is the and legs, ears. hair, clothes, and so forth. Contrast this primitive figure with the detail association between criminal behavior she produced when asked, at an earlier time and schizophrenia. Kirkegaard-Saren- (11/8/71),to draw 'a cat eating.' 'a dog eating.' \en and Mednick report that rates of The animals have a well defined trunk and criminality are significantly elevated head, four legs. and other features. The among the offspring of schizophrenic tongue, one eye, and tail are in keeping with a profile ciew, a fairly sophisticated per- mothers. Similar results are obtained in spective." [t.'rom Grtzir: A P syc.holinglri.c tic. adoption studies where the schi~ophren- St~urijc?f ti *llot/rr.n-Do?"Wilt/ Child"] ic mothers had nothing to do with rearing their children. Perhaps the contribution of the schizophrenic mother was genetic. Overall, this book leaves the reader with the impression that evidence from various sources is slowl). converging on the idea that individual dift'erences among criminals are real and that even eradication of environmental inequities will not make them all go away. Some criminals, perhaps the ver). worst, are very different from the rest of us. These ditferences seem most pronounced in that small group of active recidivists that I? h1AY 1978 pacities with those of normal children. learned during the critisal period and learning American Sign Language, clear- Most of the linguistic data presented in which can be acquired beyond it. The ly a case of language learning with a non- the book come from comprehension data described in Geuir offer a tentative human cortex: and left-heniispherectoni- tests developed by the author solel). for answer to this revised question (tentative i7ed adults who must reacquire language the purpose of tapping Genie's linguistic because Genie's language may continue with their right, "nonlanguage" herni- skills and from observations rnade by the to improve and because Genie's general spheres. Curtiss claims that these three author of Genie's speech (detailed notes, development prior to age 13 was far from populations all have the same "gaps" in videotapes, and audiotapes). normal). It now appears that some prop- their languages as are found in Genie's- In general, the comprehension and erties. such as ordering rules and recur- that is, the). lack proforms. auxiliaries, production data in the book, although sion. can be developed beyond puberty and movement rules. She then general- presented in a somewhat scattered and and other properties, such as proforms, izes from this that these three properties redundant fashion. will be of much value movement rules. and auxiliary struc- of language are aniong those that cannot to researchers in the various fields of lan- tures, cannot. be learned b). the "nonlanguage" cortex. guage study. Since Genie spoke rarel). Curtiss attempts to interpret these One might immediately object to this even several years after her discovery, data in a broader context b). considering line of argument on the grounds that an appendix listing all of her utterances Genie's accomplishnients as one aniong there is no reason to believe that young would probably have been manageable several examples of language learning by children begin to learn language with and would have made the book even a "nonlanguage" cortex. To this end, "nonlanguage" cortexes, nor is there more useful as a data source.