tjhorton@ai.toronto.edu ("Timothy J. Horton") (03/09/88)
From: Michael Friendly <FRIENDLY@yorkvm1.bitnet> Sender: Cognitive Science Discussion Group <COGSCI-L@yorkvm1.bitnet> Date: Wed Mar 9 09:33:57 1988 ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: | | | Cognitive Science Discussion Group | | | | Speaker : Juan Pascual Leone (Psychology, York University) | | Title : "Human Development: Why it is not knowledge | | acquisition or unfolding of innate competence | | Date : Friday, Mar. 12, 1988 -- 1pm | | Location: Rm 207 Behavioural Science Bldg., York University | | | ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Abstract ________ There are some paradoxes of cognition that speak against develop- ment being either pure acquisition of knowledge or unfolding of innate competencies. Of them, I shall mention the learning para- dox, the psychogenetic (or equilibration) paradox, the symbolic communication (or human mediation) paradox, and the human- compe- tence evolutionary paradox. There are also data speaking against these two extreme solu- tions to Development. I will briefly illustrate data from three domains of experience: motor performance, visual processing and language. Since these are distinct domains in the brain, the data's common stage-wise developmental pattern speaks against both a knowledge-acquisition account of development and an innate- competence account in the manner of the Chomskians and the neo-empiricists. Having given some of the theoretical and empirical reasons for abandoning both extreme environmentalist and extreme maturation- ist explanations of development, the real problem becomes provid- ing a satisfactory middle-way solution. My middle way solution is called dialectical constructivism This solution includes the fol- lowing elements: (1) a repertoire of innate content-specific sen- sorimotor modalities and affective modalities; (2) an innate rep- ertoire of "silent operators" or general-purpose hardware capacities--heuristics for processing and coordinating the infor- mation obtained by (1); (3) an innate system of organismic prin- ciples that serves to functionally bring together and coordinate (1) and (2); (4) a small repertoire of innate informational knowledge structures. I will use the example of driving a car to illustrate how the three accounts of development differ and to show the advantages of the middle way. I will then, if time allows, show how the mid- dle way explains the paradoxical data and the paradoxes mentioned at the beginning of the talk.