Locked in a Cage

[WackityWhiz]

Soooo, what do you think would happen if doctors were to take a child right after it was born and put it in a dark room for 21 years. They would obviously feed the child until it was old enough to eat food that was placed in front of it.

Lets say the room was 20 ft X 20 ft... what do you think would happen when they let it out at 21 years of age? Do you think it would be hard to it to learn a language?

etc etc... ima go pass out now [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

[WackityWhiz]

fwiw i'm not low

[meleader2]

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Soooo, what do you think would happen if doctors were to take a child right after it was born and put it in a dark room for 21 years. They would obviously feed the child until it was old enough to eat food that was placed in front of it.

Lets say the room was 20 ft X 20 ft... what do you think would happen when they let it out at 21 years of age? Do you think it would be hard to it to learn a language?

etc etc... ima go pass out now [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

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from a biological POV the child would be blind. children's toys aren't bright colors for no reason. the eyes need to be stimulated to make connections, one of the main reason's females have greater ability to make color distinctions than males do. and no, language would be impossible, humans can only learn a main language for a certain time frame. the window is only until 5 or 6 years old.

[Joshssj4]

These studies have already been done. It's related to feral children. You can find various sites on this all over.
It wouldn't be hard to learn a language, it would be virtually impossible.

[Los Feliz Slim]

I watched something about this on the History Channel about two weeks ago. Some poor girl was locked in a cage by her father for the first 12 years of her life, that's the closest they know to this example.

I would come out pissed off
Except that you wouldn't know how to be pissed off

[PoBoy321]

How's www.FeralChildren.com for ya?

[jstnrgrs]

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How's www.FeralChildren.com for ya?

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So it turns out that the test that the OP sugested has actually been done before (more or less)
link

The thing I found most interesting was:

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Over the next couple of years, some scientists concluded that Genie was not mentally retarded, even though she was still unable to master language. She was brilliant at nonverbal communication. Sometimes she would be so frustrated at not being able to say what she wanted that she would grab a pencil and paper and in a few strokes, illustrate fairly complex ideas and even feelings. She scored the highest recorded score ever on tests that measure a person's ability to make sense out of chaos and to see patterns. Her abilities to understand and to think logically were also strong. She had a perfect score on an adult-level test that measured spatial abilities. One test required that she use a set of colored sticks to recreate a complicated structure from memory. She was not only able to build the structure perfectly, she built it with sticks of the exact same color as the first structure! Despite all this, Genie remained unable to master the basics of language.


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[send_the_msg]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
How's www.FeralChildren.com for ya?

[/ QUOTE ]

So it turns out that the test that the OP sugested has actually been done before (more or less)
link

The thing I found most interesting was:

[ QUOTE ]
Over the next couple of years, some scientists concluded that Genie was not mentally retarded, even though she was still unable to master language. She was brilliant at nonverbal communication. Sometimes she would be so frustrated at not being able to say what she wanted that she would grab a pencil and paper and in a few strokes, illustrate fairly complex ideas and even feelings. She scored the highest recorded score ever on tests that measure a person's ability to make sense out of chaos and to see patterns. Her abilities to understand and to think logically were also strong. She had a perfect score on an adult-level test that measured spatial abilities. One test required that she use a set of colored sticks to recreate a complicated structure from memory. She was not only able to build the structure perfectly, she built it with sticks of the exact same color as the first structure! Despite all this, Genie remained unable to master the basics of language.


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yeah i saw something on tv about that girl. weird [censored]

[astroglide]

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She scored the highest recorded score ever on tests that measure a person's ability to make sense out of chaos and to see patterns.

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calling bullshit on this. i don't believe the "can't learn a language" assertion either, but the quoted statement is really over-the-top.