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Book chapter
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English

Cognitive Development: Enrichment or Impoverishment ? How to Conciliate Psychological and Neurobiological Models of Development

ContributorsMounoud, Pierre
PublisherAmsterdam : North Holland
Collection
  • Advances in Psychology; 64
Publication date1990
Abstract

This chapter compares two conceptions of cognitive development. The psychological model called "enrichment" considers development as a shift from elementary to complex behaviors by means of mechanisms of coordination. The neurobiological model called "impoverishment" describes the opposite shift by means of selective mechanisms for adaptation. An interpretation based on a combination of these two models is suggested. From Edelman's neurobiological theory and Harnad's psychological one, the development of categorization skills is presented as the "groundwork of cognition". Finally, it is argued that the development of categories is accompanied by qualitative shifts usually ignored in contemporary research.

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Keywords
  • Cognitive development as enrichment or impoverishment
  • Developmental changes in categorization skills
  • Cognitive functions
  • Qualitative shifts
  • Mechanisms of coordination
  • Parallel Distributed Processing
  • Selective mechanisms for adaptation
  • Iconic representations
  • Categorical representations
  • Edelman's neurobiological theory
  • Harnad's psychological theory of categorization
Citation (ISO format)
MOUNOUD, Pierre. Cognitive Development: Enrichment or Impoverishment ? How to Conciliate Psychological and Neurobiological Models of Development. In: Developmental Psychology: Cognitive, Perceptuo-Motor and Neuropsychological Perspectives. Amsterdam : North Holland, 1990. p. 389–414. (Advances in Psychology) doi: 10.1016/s0166-4115(08)60105-3
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