Herein developmental psychological research complementary to Hutto's narrative practices hypothesis is considered. Specifically, I discuss experiential development from the perspective of first, second and third person in the acquisition of knowledge and the con-struction and comprehension of narratives, with relevance for theo-ries of 'theory of mind' and in particular tests of the child's understanding of false belief. I propose that the development of distinct third person belief states requires significant developmental work, which is advanced through social sharing of memory and (...) knowledge, by means of linguistic representations especially through narrative practices of different kinds, personal narratives and story telling. The final sections summarize the view that these developments are part of a broader expansion of consciousness that is evident in many aspects of cognitive change during the later preschool years. (shrink)

Concepts have been a focus of research in developmental psychology for more than 50 years, although the target article does not refer to these uses of the concept of “concept.” I summarize some of the developmental research that is relevant to the issues raised. Cognitive content, concepts as internal products of memory, and the relation of internal concepts to language learning are pointed out important problems in considering the usefulness of the construct in psychology. 2012 APA, all rights reserved).

The premise of this research is that autobiographical memory is essentially social in origin and that the social-interactive aspects of an experience influence the content and form of what is later recalled. Two studies are reported in which an ongoing event was observed in order to track the way present experience enters past memory. In the first study, the talk between 3View the MathML source-year-old children and their mothers during a visit to a museum was analyzed. In a second study, (...) the effects of maternal style on 4View the MathML source-year-old children′s encoding and later recall were examined. Strong effects of talk during the experience were found in both studies, confirming the hypothesis of a social-interactive effect on children′s encoding and later recall of a situation shared with an adult. It is proposed that autobiographical memory development and language are inextricably bound together because of the role of linguistic input in adult–child construction of experience. Implications of this model for children′s memory of traumatic events are discussed. (shrink)

This paper provides a historical overview of cognitive psychology and computational theories in cognitive science. Critiques of the computational model are discussed. The perspective of the evolution of mind and brain provides an alternative model such as that presented by Merlin Donald in terms of the “Hybrid Mind.” This “naturalist” model is also consistent with what we know of cognitive development in childhood. It provides a better understanding of cognition in situated context than the computational alternatives and is a better (...) fit as a model of mind for the social sciences, including for economic decision making. (shrink)

The field of psychology has emphasized quantitative laboratory research as a defining character of its role as a science, and has generally de-emphasized qualitative research and theorizing throughout its history. This article reviews some of the effects of this emphasis in two areas, intelligence testing, and learning and memory. On one side, quantitative measurement produced the widely used IQ test but shed little light on the construct of intelligence and its role in human cognition. On the other side, reductive quantification (...) and experimental constraints limited the investigation and understanding of human memory systems and complex learning throughout the first century of the field’s history. Recent research under fewer constraints has made greater progress in these areas. (shrink)

Millikan's theory of substance concepts has advantages for psychological theories, including those in cognitive development. However, the disadvantage is that it cannot be generalized even to some of the most common concepts that children acquire in the early years of life. For a general theory we must get beyond substances.

Cross-domain representations provide the foundation for language and are not its unique product. Modularity of a limited kind is confined to early infancy in humans and is succeeded by domain-general thinking and speaking. Representational language becomes accessible to the cognitive system during the preschool years as a supplement to experientially based conceptual processing, resulting in a dual-process system.

Mental time travel requires the sense of a past and future self, which is lacking in the early years of life. Research on the development of autobiographical memory and development of self sheds light on the difference between memory in other animals and its cultural narrative basis in humans.

The intentionality schema is an abstraction that relates phylogenetic and ontogenetic sequences of social understanding, but it also obscures the differences between humans and other primates. In particular, it ignores human social developmental and communicative history and the important roles that language plays in human understanding of others' intentional states.

The functional theory of memory set out in Glenberg's target article accords with recent proposals in the developmental literature with respect to event memory, conceptualization, and language acquisition from an embodied, experiential view. The theory, however, needs to be supplemented with a recognition of the sociocultural contribution to these cognitive processes and emerging structures.

Three points extend the authors' comprehensive and provocative argument: (1) The idea of “entering a community of minds” is suggested to replace theory of mind or social understanding; (2) learning words and concepts through a Wittgensteinian process often involves a period of “use without meaning”; (3) concepts based in social interaction are achieved through collaborative – neither individual nor social alone – construction.

Bloom's domain general theory remains strictly cognitive and individualistic. By ignoring the contribution of social interaction and collective construction of concepts, he fails to solve the word learning problem.