16 Jan
1994
16 Jan
'94
3:15 a.m.
Below is the abstract of a book that will be accorded multiple book
review in Behavioral and Brain Sciences (BBS), an international,
interdisciplinary journal that provides Open Peer Commentary on
important and controversial current research in the biobehavioral and
cognitive sciences. Reviewers must be current BBS Associates or
nominated by a current BBS Associate. To be considered as a reviewer
for this book, to suggest other appropriate reviewers, or for
information about how to become a BBS Associate, please send email to:
harnad(a)clarity.princeton.edu or harnad(a)pucc.bitnet or write to:
BBS, 20 Nassau Street, #240, Princeton NJ 08542 [tel: 609-921-7771]
To help us put together a balanced list of reviewers, please give some
indication of the aspects of the topic on which you would bring your
areas of expertise to bear if you are selected as a reviewer. Please
also indicate whether you already have a copy of the book or will need
one if you are selected. The author's article-length precis of the
book is available for inspection by anonymous ftp according to the
instructions that follow after the abstract.
____________________________________________________________________
BBS Multiple Book Review of:
BEYOND MODULARITY: A DEVELOPMENTAL PERSPECTIVE ON COGNITIVE
SCIENCE Cambridge, MA: MIT Press 1992 (234 pp.)
Annette Karmiloff-Smith
Cognitive Development Unit,
Medical Research Council,
4 Taviton Street,
London WC1H 0BT, U.K.
Electronic Mail:
annette(a)cdu.ucl.ac.uk
KEYWORDS: cognitive development, connectionism, constructivism,
developmental stages, Fodor, modularity, nativism, Piaget,
representational redescription, species differences.
ABSTRACT: Beyond Modularity attempts a synthesis of Fodor's
anti-constructivist nativism and Piaget's anti-nativist
constructivism. Contra Fodor, I argue that: (1) the study of
cognitive development is essential to cognitive science, (2) the
module/central processing dichotomy is too rigid, and (3) the mind
does not begin with prespecified modules, but that development
involves a gradual process of modularization. Contra Piaget, I
argue that: (1) development rarely involves stage-like
domain-general change, and (2) domain-specific predispositions give
development a small but significant kickstart by focusing the
infant's attention on proprietary inputs. Development does not
stop at efficient learning. A fundamental aspect of human
development ("Representational Redescription") is the hypothesized
process by which information that is IN a cognitive system becomes
progressively explicit knowledge TO that system. Development thus
involves two complementary processes of progressive modularization
and rendering explicit. Empirical findings on the child as
linguist, physicist, mathematician, psychologist and notator are
discussed in support of the theoretical framework. Each chapter
concentrates first on the initial state of the infant mind/brain
and on subsequent domain-specific learning in infancy and early
childhood. They then go on to explore data on older children's
problem solving and theory building, with particular focus on
evolving cognitive flexibility. Throughout the book there is an
emphasis on the status of representations underlying different
capacities and on the multiple levels at which knowledge is stored
and accessible. Finally, consideration is given to the need for
more formal developmental models, and the Representational
Redescription framework is compared with connectionist simulations
of development. The concluding sections consider what is special
about human cognition and offer some speculations about the status
of representations underlying the structure of behavior in other
species.
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To help you decide whether you would be an appropriate reviewer for
this book, an electronic precis is retrievable by anonymous ftp from
princeton.edu according to the instructions below (the filename is
bbs.karmsmith). Please let us know, after having inspected it, what
relevant expertise you feel you would bring to bear on what aspect of
the article. Note that only the book, not the Precis, is the object of
the reviews.
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ftp princeton.edu
or
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available on request (thanks to Brian Josephson)>
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----------
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