Secrets of the Human Body. Andrew Cohen
boy, challenging him to improvise a song of ‘love and a song of rage’. Writing in a now famous letter to the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society some years later, Barrington described how Mozart’s
astonishing readiness, did not arise merely from great practice; he had a thorough knowledge of the fundamental principles of composition … and his transitions from one key to another were excessively natural and judicious.
‘EVEN TODAY, AFTER A CENTURY OR SO OF SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF CHILD DEVELOPMENT, PRECOCIOUS TALENT REMAINS A MYSTERY. WE ARE STILL AS CURIOUS ABOUT TALENT NOW AS PEOPLE WERE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.’
PROFESSOR UTA FRITH
Barrington’s visit, tests and subsequent publication of his observations are widely regarded as one of the first examples of Behavioural Science. As Professor Uta Frith, a current FRS and one of Britain’s most distinguished cognitive scientists, wrote some 250 years later, ‘Naturally, the methods of observation he used are rather crude to our modern eyes, but, the crucial point is that he gives concrete examples of behaviour and not just opinions.’
It did not just take Barrington to prove that Mozart was undoubtedly a child genius. The historical records are full of details of his precocious talent, from his first compositions as a 4-year-old, to his first symphony, composed during that extended stay in London. This was a childhood that was truly full of extraordinary achievement, a unique talent that was maturing before the eyes and ears of the world. As Frith went on to conclude, ‘Even today, after a century or so of scientific study of child development, precocious talent remains a mystery. We are still as curious about talent now as people were in the eighteenth century.’
Achievement and emerging talent however, is not something that is in short supply with children of 4, 5, or 6 years of age. This is the moment that many of us sit our children down at the piano for the first time, sign them up for the local football team or send them off to ballet class as well as seeing them grasp the fundamentals of reading, writing and arithmetic skills that they will carry throughout their lives.
Subconsciously or not, we are aware that this is a precious time, a moment when children are more than just sponges; they are receptive to developing new skills and abilities with an ease that will not be repeated at any other time in their lives.
The foundation of all of this new-found knowledge, skill and ability is of course the brain, and intriguingly we now think the brain power that goes into all of this intensive learning is intricately linked to that mysterious and odd pattern of growth we were puzzling on earlier in the chapter.
On a daily basis your brain demands a huge amount of the energy your body uses. Weighing around 1.4 kg, just 2 per cent of our total body weight, the average adult human brain consumes 20 per cent of our body’s energy expenditure (to be precise that is 20 per cent of the resting metabolic rate [RMR]). To put this massive power demand into some context, if your body needs 1,400 calories just to sit on the couch all day doing sod all (that’s what the RMR is), then your brain will be consuming 280 of those calories just to keep things ticking over, like deciding which channel to watch, or when to eat dinner. Put another way, it takes one Mars bar plus an extra bite for your brain to exist. No other organ in the body is so hungry for energy, but what is interesting is that the energy demands of the brain are far from constant throughout your life.
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