Handbook of Child Psychology and Developmental Science, Cognitive Processes

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• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781118953853
• Edition: 7
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Developmental Psychology
• Index: Psychology

The essential reference for human development theory, updated and reconceptualized

The Handbook of Child Psychology and Developmental Science, a four-volume reference, is the field-defining work to which all others are compared. First published in 1946, and now in its Seventh Edition, the Handbook has long been considered the definitive guide to the field of developmental science.

Volume 2: Cognitive Processes describes cognitive development as a relational phenomenon that can be studied only as part of a larger whole of the person and context relational system that sustains it. In this volume, specific domains of cognitive development are contextualized with respect to biological processes and sociocultural contexts. Furthermore, key themes and issues (e.g., the importance of symbolic systems and social understanding) are threaded across multiple chapters, although every each chapter is focused on a different domain within cognitive development. Thus, both within and across chapters, the complexity and interconnectivity of cognitive development are well illuminated.

• Learn about the inextricable intertwining of perceptual development, motor development, emotional development, and brain development
• Understand the complexity of cognitive development without misleading simplification, reducing cognitive development to its biological substrates, or viewing it as a passive socialization process
• Discover how each portion of the developmental process contributes to subsequent cognitive development
• Examine the multiple processes – such as categorizing, reasoning, thinking, decision making and judgment – that comprise cognition

The scholarship within this volume and, as well, across the four volumes of this edition, illustrate that developmental science is in the midst of a very exciting period. There is a paradigm shift that involves increasingly greater understanding of how to describe, explain, and optimize the course of human life for diverse individuals living within diverse contexts. This Handbook is the definitive reference for educators, policy-makers, researchers, students, and practitioners in human development, psychology, sociology, anthropology, and neuroscience.

Chapter 1
Reflections on Cognitive Development

Lynn S. Liben and Ulrich Müller

The study of cognitive development has itself developed significantly since the first edition of this Handbook appeared in 1946. Early scholars often tried to catalogue which factors could account for what outcomes, and even when they identified multiple factors, they attempted to quantify the relative contributions of each. The term “independent variable” was perhaps overinterpreted to mean that variables could, indeed, be independent of one another. As well-reflected in all four volumes of this new edition of the Handbook, contemporary developmental scientists recognize the problems associated with reductionist models and with the failure to consider the role of the broader context in addition to the role of an individual's self-directive processes. The alternative model, described elsewhere in this Handbook, first in brief (Lerner, Preface) and then in detail (Overton, Chapter 1, Volume 1), is a relational-systems view that examines any particular topic such as cognitive development within the broader biological and sociocultural context.

Given their relational perspectives, authors of this volume's chapters reject models that argue for singular unidirectional effects (for instance, from action to cognition or from social context to cognition). Similarly, authors make it clear that one cannot divorce so-called peripheral from so-called central processes. As such, what were earlier viewed as “lower level” processes are no longer seen as automatic and overdetermined. They are instead conceptualized as integrated within the developmental system, and investigated as part of a more inclusive and conjoint range of biological and sociocultural processes.

Although each chapter in this volume is titled to name its focus on a relatively constrained topic, many chapters actually address shared issues. Illustrative are the importance of symbols (e.g., see chapters on concepts, language, literacy, mathematical reasoning, gesture, symbolic representation, play, and artistic development); the role of context in human development (e.g., see chapters on artistic development, gender development, atypical cognitive development, cognitive development and culture, and media and cognitive development); the power and pervasiveness of inferential or logical processes (e.g., see chapters on reasoning, conceptual development, memory, temporal cognition, mathematical reasoning, and scientific thinking); connections between cognition and emotion (e.g., see chapters on gender, executive function, and social understanding); and the importance of diversity, both in individuals' own characteristics and in the cultural contexts that surround them (e.g., see chapters on artistic development, culture, scientific thinking, and atypical development). The importance of the human body, whether approached from the perspective of neuroscience or embodiment, does not end with the first chapter on the brain and cognitive development, but rather is threaded throughout discussions of virtually all the chapters in the volume.

In short, then, while focusing on the richness and importance of their assigned topics, authors nevertheless reflect a relational perspective in conceptualizing the role of their focal cognitive-developmental process within an integrated developmental system.

If one begins from a relational systems approach to developmental science, one of the greatest editorial challenges is rooted in the linear nature of books. Pages necessarily follow one another, and it is far too easy for readers to infer that what comes first is meant to be thought of as foundational, and that the order of the chapters that follow is meant to convey a message about the conceptual layering of topics such that each builds, in turn, on the preceding more-fundamental one. As editors, we thus begin by explicitly rejecting these as intended messages. In our attempt to find a way to avoid this implication we considered multiple possible chapter sequences. In the end, though, we simply selected one, recognizing that our commitment to a relational perspective meant that there could, in fact, be no single best order. There are simply too many simultaneous and reciprocal connections among topics and processes. Fortunately, the authors have avoided presenting their substantive topics as if they were isolated, materialist, independent causal explanations of developmental outcomes. In the remainder of this introduction to Volume 2, we briefly highlight the focus of each chapter. Of course, a few lines of text cannot begin to do justice to the depth of these contributions and thus they are intended only to whet readers' appetites rather than to substitute for careful readings of the chapters themselves.

In the first chapter, Stiles, Brown, Haist, and Jernigan examine current knowledge about the links between the brain and cognitive development. They point out that as knowledge about brain development has increased, models of brain development have changed. Whereas several decades ago the dominant belief was that brain development is innately determined, current models hold that brain development proceeds as a result of the complex and dynamic interplay of molecular, cellular, and environmental systems. Stiles et al. describe the different imaging technologies used to study the brain and its development, appraising the specific strengths and weaknesses in terms of the informational detail each offers. They next summarize basics of pre- and postnatal brain development. The section on Brain and Cognitive Development in the Postnatal Period constitutes the heart of the chapter. Here Stiles and colleagues examine the relations between brain development and cognitive development in three domains: visuospatial processing, cognitive control, and language. The authors synthesize the data in a neurocognitive model of brain-behavior relations in a way that captures the dynamic changes in brain and behavioral systems, aligning theory and data from developmental neurobiology and developmental neuropsychology. The core idea of this model is that neurobehavioral development involves a dynamic series of interactions between biological and environmental factors. The chapter ends with a series of reflections on themes, trends, and future directions that emerge from the reviewed work.

In the next chapter, Johnson and Hannon discuss perceptual development. They emphasize that infants' perceptual systems are the primary means for acquiring and interpreting knowledge about events, objects, and people in the world around them. The chapter begins with a discussion of theories of perceptual development and its consequences for children's cognitive and social development. The authors then discuss neural foundations of perception and the emergence and development of sensory systems before and after birth, followed by detailed sections on audition, vision, and intermodal perception. Throughout, they focus on questions of how the developing child extracts meaningful information from the sensory array—that is, how the observer detects, synthesizes, and interprets sensory input so as to yield perceptions of structured events and objects—and how effects of experience on perceptual development interact with developmental timing and what had already been acquired earlier. They focus also on developmental processes—growth, experience, and learning—and examine as well the malleability, or plasticity, of perceptual systems during development. The chapter concludes with a discussion of how different theoretical views may be reconciled in light of the fact that the child is developing in a wider context.

In the chapter on motor development, Adolph and Robinson suggest that the study of motor development provides an opportunity to integrate developmental domains that are typically studied in isolation. This substantive domain is particularly conducive to an integrative framing because motor development is a physical (embodied) phenomenon that occurs through the child's activities within particular physical environments, is intertwined with social interactions, and is affected by the larger sociocultural context. Adolph and Robinson examine motor development through the lens of 10 general developmental issues: (1) the function of incidental activity and its consequences for motor development; (2) the relation between similar behavior patterns that are displayed at different ages; (3) the role of intraindividual variability in motor development; (4) the way in which the passage of time contributes to developmental change; (5) the challenge that the ever-changing body poses for adaptation and developmental diversity; (6) the active contribution of children to their motor development; (7) the importance of prospective control for motor behavior; (8) the role of perceiving and generalizing affordances for action in choosing the appropriate course of action; (9) the ways in which the social and cultural context affects motor development; and (10) the influence of motor development on perceptual, cognitive, and social development. Reflecting the fact that motor development is a biopsychosocial (and cultural) phenomenon, the issues are loosely organized into framing sections on embodied movement, embedded action, and enculturated interaction.

Ristic and Enns begin their chapter on attentional development by arguing that the field has undergone a seismic shift over the past decade with respect to first, the content of the empirical data being collected, and second, the theoretical ideas used to understand these data. They begin their description of this paradigm shift by first examining research during the latter half of the 20th century. Specifically, they argue that work at this time was dominated by the information-processing framework, which views attention as a localizable, domain-general, and situation-invariant cognitive faculty for which the primary role is filtering sensory information in the service of task goals. However, more recently, researchers have begun to study how individual, emotional, and social aspects of life influence everyday attentional behavior. Mounting evidence from those studies revealed that the classic information-processing framework could not provide a complete account of attentional development. Thus, at present, attention is viewed as a concept that cannot be isolated from social and emotional aspects of development. With regard to future directions, they outline a dynamic view of attention in which attention is conceptualized as a cognitive facility, integrating the demands of “cool” cognition (i.e., information processing capacities) with “hot” functions that span temperament, emotion, social communication, individual histories, and cultural context. The authors note that if this trend continues, attentional development in the next decade will be studied as the outcome of complex interactions among an individual's biology, life history, and social environment.

In the following chapter on memory development, Howe begins with a brief review of 20th-century views about memory development and then turns to three issues that have been attracting attention in the early 21st century. The first moves the theoretical focus away from questions about the structure of memory and its development and towards questions about the adaptive function of memory. Research shows that at least some of the functional attributes of memory include extracting meaning, binding information into regular patterns, and using these patterns to predict future outcomes. The second issue concerns how these adaptive memory systems develop. To address this issue, Howe reviews recent research examining correlated changes in neurobiological and cognitive functioning. The final question he raises concerns whether humans share adaptive memory development with other animals, which he addresses by reviewing the comparative literature on memory development. Howe argues for the adaptive view of memory, which holds that memory's function is not simply to remember the past, but also to understand the present and to anticipate the future.

Callaghan and Corbit focus their chapter on symbolic representations. They view these as communicative behaviors that set humans apart from other species, and that bind people together in communities and other social groups. More specifically, they focus on the developmental use of external symbols to communicate with others. They begin the chapter by considering the varieties of definitions, theoretical approaches, and recurring themes that have emerged from classic and contemporary work. They then use dominant themes from contemporary work to guide their review of the empirical findings from studies of language (including gesture), pretense, and material artifacts (including scale models, pictures, video, and maps). They argue that comparative research and cultural developmental studies provide important ways to deepen understanding of the origin of human symbolic representation, and thus they review such studies in their chapter. They end by discussing challenges faced by researchers who would like to move beyond offering insightful descriptions of symbolic development to providing process accounts of symbolic development.

In the next chapter on language development, MacWhinney observes that the modern study of children's language is influenced by two contrasting perspectives. The first, the theory of Universal Grammar, emphasizes the role of innate abilities in a core language module. The second, Emergentism, instead views language learning as the result of processes of variation, competition, and generalization that operate across a diverse set of space-time scales ranging from online processing to long-term patterns of social and genetic consolidation. MacWhinney reviews language development on seven levels of emergent structure: articulatory phonology, auditory phonology, lexicon, morphology, syntax, mental models, and conversation, with the analysis for each addressing the role of input language structure, neural processes, and social mechanisms. On each level, MacWhinney articulates ways in which the initial learning of specific items gives rise to subsequent pattern extraction and generalization and then examines the neuronal basis of language control in terms of structures and methods that allow highly interactive online processing among the seven components. This model provides developmental science with ways of understanding both developmental language disorders and the learning of multiple languages at different stages in development.

Goldin-Meadow addresses the topic of gesture and cognitive development, arguing that one important feature of gesture is that it has the potential to reveal information about how speakers think, information that may not be evident in their words. A central claim of the chapter is that gesture not only provides information that might not otherwise be revealed about the speaker's state of mind, it also plays a central role in the development of communication and cognition. The chapter begins by discussing the relation between gesture and other nonverbal behaviors. The next sections describe the development of gesture in children who acquire language following the typical course, as well as in children whose course is atypical. These sections demonstrate that gesture is instrumental in language acquisition and that it can take on many different forms and functions. The next section shows that gesture continues to play a role in promoting skill learning even after language is developed, and provides a window into the learner's thoughts. The final sections examine the mechanisms that underlie gesturing and the functions of gesturing.

Carpendale and Lewis discuss the development of social understanding, emphasizing that understanding others is an essential aspect of being human. They review research and theory on the development of a range of skills constituting social understanding, beginning in infancy with gaze-following and gestures such as pointing. Given the importance attributed to false belief understanding in preschoolers, they review accounts of this development and criticisms of these accounts. Likewise, they discuss debates about claims of infants' understanding of false beliefs—claims that raise questions about the nature and origins of social awareness. Carpendale and Lewis also discuss later-developing social skills that are still relatively neglected in the literature as well as contributions of neuroscience to the study of social cognitive development. Noting that there are many links between social cognition and children's social relations, the authors explicitly focus on the key role of language in social cognitive development. They also review ways in which social understanding may influence social conduct, issues of trust and deception, and cooperation and moral development. Throughout the chapter, the authors highlight ways that research traditions are influenced by worldviews or preconceptions about the nature of mind, meaning, and knowledge, and emphasize the interconnections between social understanding and all other aspects of human life.

To begin her chapter on play, Lillard notes that children spend a significant amount of time engaged in play, and illustrates the broad range of play activities. Despite its pervasiveness, play's role in development is not well understood. After discussing and evaluating the various definitions of play that have been used, Lillard reviews major theories of play, and then overviews the developmental course of various types of play (sensorimotor play, physical play, rough and tumble play, exploratory play, construction play, symbolic play). Lillard next covers some contemporary debates in play research that concern the relation between pretend play and theory of mind and symbolic understanding, children's ability to discriminate between fantasy and reality, the role of pretend play in promoting development, and the ways that children are initiated into the practice of pretend play. In the next section she reviews gender and cultural differences in play, and discusses play in atypically developing children. She closes by highlighting particularly important issues that remain in need of further research.

For his chapter on conceptual development, Sloutsky guides his review by using the following five principles: (1) There are diverse conceptual behaviors that range from simple and universal to complex and uniquely human; (2) simpler forms are more universal and exhibit earlier onset in the course of individual development; more complex forms are later appearing and depend on other aspects of cognitive development, including the development of attention and memory; (3) the development of more complex forms of conceptual behavior is more likely to be affected by language and instruction than is the development of simpler forms; (4) the age at which conceptual categories are acquired is affected by the structure of the input; and (5) conceptual development progresses from less-structured representations to more-structured representations.

Using these principles as a framework, Sloutsky reviews the history of the study of concepts and of theoretical approaches to concepts. Next, he discusses the multiplicity of conceptual behavior and its biological foundations. In the remainder of the chapter he addresses conceptual development in human infancy, the role of language in conceptual development, acquisition of semantic knowledge and of conceptual hierarchies, and the role of concepts in reasoning. In the concluding section, Sloutsky revisits the principles of conceptual development outlined at the beginning of the chapter.

Ricco's chapter on the development of reasoning begins with a review of the course of development for deductive and inductive forms of reasoning across childhood and adolescence, followed by a critique of key theoretical accounts of that developmental course. The development of deduction is considered primarily with respec...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Table of Contents
• Foreword to the Handbook of Child Psychology and Developmental Science, Seventh Edition
• Preface
• Volume 2 Preface
• Contributors
• Chapter 1: Reflections on Cognitive Development
• Chapter 2: Brain and Cognitive Development
• Chapter 3: Perceptual Development
• Chapter 4: Motor Development
• Chapter 5: Attentional Development
• Chapter 6: Memory Development
• Chapter 7: The Development of Symbolic Representation
• Chapter 8: Language Development
• Chapter 9: Gesture and Cognitive Development
• Chapter 10: The Development of Social Understanding
• Chapter 11: The Development of Play
• Chapter 12: Conceptual Development
• Chapter 13: The Development of Reasoning
• Chapter 14: The Development of Executive Function
• Chapter 15: The Development of Temporal Cognition
• Chapter 16: The Development of Scientific Thinking
• Chapter 17: The Development of Mathematical Reasoning
• Chapter 18: Literacy Development
• Chapter 19: Gender and Social-Cognitive Development
• Chapter 20: Cognitive Development and Culture
• Chapter 21: Artistic Development
• Chapter 22: Media and Cognitive Development
• Chapter 23: Atypical Cognitive Development
• Author Index
• Subject Index
• End User License Agreement