Beyond Modularity: A Developmental Perspective on Cognitive Science [Paperback]

Annette Karmiloff-Smith (Author)

Book Description

Series: Learning, Development, and Conceptual Change | Publication Date: September 25, 1995

Taking a stand midway between Piaget's constructivism and Fodor's nativism, Annette Karmiloff-Smith offers an exciting new theory of developmental change that embraces both approaches. She shows how each can enrich the other and how both are necessary to a fundamental theory of human cognition.Karmiloff-Smith shifts the focus from what cognitive science can offer the study of development to what a developmental perspective can offer cognitive science. In Beyond Modularity she treats cognitive development as a serious theoretical tool, presenting a coherent portrait of the flexibility and creativity of the human mind as it develops from infancy to middle childhood.Language, physics, mathematics, commonsense psychology, drawing, and writing are explored in terms of the relationship between the innate capacities of the human mind and subsequent representational change which allows for such flexibility and creativity. Karmiloff-Smith also takes up the issue of the extent to which development involves domain-specific versus domain-general processes. She concludes with discussions of nativism and domain specificity in relation to Piagetian theory and connectionism, and shows how a developmental perspective can pinpoint what is missing from connectionist models of the mind.Formerly a research collaborator of Piaget and Inhelder at Geneva University, Annette Karmiloff-Smith is Senior Research Scientist with Special Appointment at the MRC Cognitive Development Unit in London, and Professor of Psychology at University College, London.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"... deserves wide readership by both developmentalists and nondevelopmentalists who need an overview of the state of the art. Clearly and comprehensively, Karmiloff-Smith shows the highly structured ways in which different representational processes emerge from infancy onwards." Andrew Whiten, Nature

About the Author

A former research collaborator of Piaget and Inhelder at Geneva University, Annette Karmiloff-Smith is Senior Research Scientist with Special Appointment at the MRC Cognitive Development Unit in London, Professor of Psychology at University College London, and a Fellow of the British Academy.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: A Bradford Book (September 25, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0262611147
• ISBN-13: 978-0262611145
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #872,534 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A model for child's cognitive development, February 28, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Beyond Modularity: A Developmental Perspective on Cognitive Science (Paperback)

Cognitive development has been the issue of research and debate for years. Many theories have been proposed in order to effectively describe and explain cognitive development. Two of those theories are Fodor's nativism and Piaget's constructivism.

In the specific book, Annette Karmiloff-Smith, a student of Piaget, is proposing a model of child cognitive development. The author's effort is concentrated on connecting Fodor's nativism (existance of modules,predispostitions in a neonate's mind) and Piaget's theory of constructivism (all aspects of knowledge are part of a domain-general cognitive development and occur during the interaction with the environment).

Karmiloff-Smith supports the existance of innately specified attention biases and predispositions of the human mind which develop through a sequence of subsequent changes.

According to Karmiloff-Smith the child must be born with a set of pre-wired modules that account a variety of cognitive skills. Unlike Fodor, Karmiloff-Smith supports that during development the modules start interacting and working together. Initially, children learn by instinct, or at least "implicitly". Then their thinking develops, and consists of redescribing the world from an implicit form to more and more explicit forms, to more and more verbal knowledge.

The author's model contains a key-idea called "representational redescription". Representational redescription occurs through three stages: first the child learns to become a master of some activity (phase 1); then she analyzes introspectively what she has learned (phase 2); and, finally, she reconciles her performance with her introspection (phase 3). This process involves re-coding information from one representational format to another. The same "redescription" process operates within each module, but not necessarily at the same pace. In each domain, children acquire domain-specific principles that augment the general-purpose principles (such as representational redescription) that guide their cognitive life. Finally, mapping across domains and the innate predespositions is a fundamental achievement by the child's mind.

The book consists of five chapters which describe how cognitive development occurs in five different spheres of mental activity. Karmiloff shows how children start with innate dispositions for language, achieve linguistic mastery and then develop metalinguistic knowledge through representational redescription. Analogously, the child masters the physical objects and later develops a naive Physics of her own (a theory of object behavior). Same applies to Mathematics and to Psychology (children develop a theory of mind that explains the behavior of other individuals).

The main idea of this book lies in the fact that to account for development it is necessary to invoke an integration of aspects of nativism and constructivism, along with a cognitive architecture that enables representational redescription.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A model for child's cognitive development, February 28, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Beyond Modularity: A Developmental Perspective on Cognitive Science (Paperback)

Cognitive development has been the issue of research and debate for years. Many theories have been proposed in order to effectively describe and explain cognitive development. Two of those theories are Fodor's nativism and Piaget's constructivism.

In the specific book, Annette Karmiloff-Smith, a student of Piaget, is proposing a model of child cognitive development. The author's effort is concentrated on connecting Fodor's nativism (existance of modules,predispostitions in a neonate's mind) and Piaget's theory of constructivism (all aspects of knowledge are part of a domain-general cognitive development and occur during the interaction with the environment).

Karmiloff-Smith supports the existance of innately specified attention biases and predispositions of the human mind which develop through a sequence of subsequent changes.

According to Karmiloff-Smith the child must be born with a set of pre-wired modules that account a variety of cognitive skills. Unlike Fodor, Karmiloff-Smith supports that during development the modules start interacting and working together. Initially, children learn by instinct, or at least "implicitly". Then their thinking develops, and consists of redescribing the world from an implicit form to more and more explicit forms, to more and more verbal knowledge.

The author's model contains a key-idea called "representational redescription". Representational redescription occurs through three stages: first the child learns to become a master of some activity (phase 1); then she analyzes introspectively what she has learned (phase 2); and, finally, she reconciles her performance with her introspection (phase 3). This process involves re-coding information from one representational format to another. The same "redescription" process operates within each module, but not necessarily at the same pace. In each domain, children acquire domain-specific principles that augment the general-purpose principles (such as representational redescription) that guide their cognitive life. Finally, mapping across domains and the innate predespositions is a fundamental achievement by the child's mind.

The book consists of five chapters which describe how cognitive development occurs in five different spheres of mental activity. Karmiloff shows how children start with innate dispositions for language, achieve linguistic mastery and then develop metalinguistic knowledge through representational redescription. Analogously, the child masters the physical objects and later develops a naive Physics of her own (a theory of object behavior). Same applies to Mathematics and to Psychology (children develop a theory of mind that explains the behavior of other individuals).

The main idea of this book lies in the fact that to account for development it is necessary to invoke an integration of aspects of nativism and constructivism, along with a cognitive architecture that enables representational redescription.