The Brain Doctor is In
There are few things on earth more complex and more intriguing than the human brain. Duke Han, PhD, assistant professor of psychology and neurology, is devoting his research at Loyola to unlocking some of its mysteries.
One project looks at why some people with high IQs seem to have difficulty functioning or obtaining career success once they enter the "real world." "We all know that a high IQ doesn't necessarily mean someone will be able to pull it all together to meet certain life goals," Han says. This may have something to do with a lower level of executive functioning skills, which are tied to the frontal lobe of the brain and include abilities such as abstract thinking, multitasking, problemsolving, and impulse inhibition.
Han is testing Loyola students, looking for cases where someone who is successful in high school (a more structured environment) struggles academically and socially once in college. "We are determining if a lack of executive functioning skills might predict difficulty adjusting to college. Which is a better predictor for success: IQ or executive functioning? My bet is that it's executive functioning," he says.
The research could ultimately show parents and educators that they should encourage executive functioning skills to help people perform better in each new life stage. It could also affect standardized testing.
"School testing concentrates on things that are correlated with IQ," Han explains. "But the concept of executive functioning is expanding our ideas about what makes up intelligence. We could end up showing that testing in school doesn't capture what's most important in terms of functioning well in the real world." With these and other projects, Han is working not only toward understanding how people think and behave on an academic level, but toward methods of education and treatment that could improve how they live.
Jenny Kustra-Quinn