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Introducing LEGO Learning Institute Expert:
Dr. Thomas Wolbers
| Since 2009 Thomas Wolbers has been part of the LEGO Learning Institute sharing his knowledge about how the human brain processes spatial information and how this information is stored in long-term memory. To achieve these goals, he employs functional and structural brain imaging, immersive virtual environments and eye movement recordings. The LEGO Website interviewed Dr. Wolbers about his relationship with the LEGO Learning Institute, the LEGO Group, and the unique challenges that today’s children might face in the future. |
What is your background and what are your areas of research?
I am a Senior Lecturer at the University of Edinburgh. More precisely, I work at the Centre for Cognitive and Neural Systems, where I am part of a large group of researchers who all try to understand how the brain works, how its activity can give raise to complex mental functions such as learning and memory and what happens when things go wrong, i.e. when someone has sustained a brain damage or develops a disease such as Alzheimer that affects the brain.In my own work, I use modern brain imaging techniques to study how the human brain computes spatial information from various sensory cues such as vision, touch and hearing. For example, when we visit a new city, park our car and wonder around for a while, how do we keep track of where we are, where the car was parked and how we will get there? It turns out that these things are highly complex as they require the brain to continuously monitor our own movements, salient objects in the environment etc. Interestingly, young children already have pretty advanced navigational abilities, but they tend to use different strategies at different ages.
When did your affiliation with the LEGO Learning Institute begin and how did it come about?
Before moving to Edinburgh, I was a researcher at the University of California in Santa Barbara. One of the projects I worked on was about how blind people can learn about space from touch. Given that my experiments usually take place inside an MRI scanner, we don’t have a lot of space and the research participants need to lie still. So we decided to have the blind subjects learn the layout of little buildings – similar to architectural models – by exploring them with their hands. It didn’t take us long to realise that LEGO bricks would be ideally suited to let us easily build the kinds of buildings we needed, and it didn’t take the LEGO company long to help us with our study by contributing loads of LEGO bricks.
In your mind, what is unique about LEGO toys?
Versatility, I am always amazed when I see what fascinating creatures, buildings etc. people come up with when they play with those simple LEGO bricks. So this combination of a relatively structured brick with the possibility to connect to any other LEGO brick seems to inspire creativity in a way that is truly remarkable and unique.
What has it been like working with LEGO Group and what have you learned?
Working with the LEGO Group has been very nice, and I was impressed about the genuine interest the company takes in understanding how their products can foster the development of young children. In a world where maximising shareholder value seems to be the only principle for many companies, a lot of decisions are focused on making short term profits. So I was positively surprised to see a global player such as the LEGO Group take a very long term perspective and invest resources in things such as basic scientific research that may not come with an immediate return on investment.
What challenges and opportunities do you think the future holds for children, the builders of tomorrow?
I can see two major challenges for our children: Mass information and the speed of technological developments. The amount of information that has become available with the advent of the internet has become so enormous that it will be more and more challenging to find exactly the information one needs in a given situation. In addition, the things we learn today become outdated very quickly, so our children in particular will have to constantly update their knowledge to compete in a global economy. However, both these challenges can also be opportunities as they enable you to create, spread and exchange new information with very large audiences in very short time. In other words, our children will be able to learn from and interact with like minded people from around the globe, which can be an amazing opportunity.
What similarities and differences do you see with children growing up now and in the past?
I think that for a young child, growing up in a loving environment that provides security and fosters self-esteem has been and will always be very important. However, it will be interesting to see how the way our children make and maintain friendships will be changed by things like facebook. After all, they will also want to have friends with whom they can have fun, talk about everything etc., and I am just not sure whether a friend with whom you only interact via a computer can satisfy all those needs.
What’s the one bit of advice you would give to care givers [parents or grandparents]?
Little children possess this remarkable feat that many adults seem to have lost: Natural curiosity. Children just love to explore the world, and doing so is just the best way to learn about it and understand the way it works. Even further, it can give them the knowledge they need if they want to change it. So although it can be stressful at times – as I know from my own experience with our little daughter – I think that supporting them in their curiosity is a great way to make them enjoy learning, hopefully for a long time.
For more information on the LEGO Learning Institute, please follow this link: LEGO Learning Institute
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