The inflexible efficiency of babies

[image error]Scientific American Mind has an excellent article on how the inflexibility of young children's brains can make them better learners than adults.

The piece riffs on the apparent paradox that humans develop into perhaps the most psychologically flexible of creatures and yet spend the longest with seemingly impaired mental functions. This is due to the relatively delayed development of the frontal lobes during childhood.

One particularly delayed skill is the ability to direct our attention - to...