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
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| Cognitive Science Discussion Group |
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| 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 |
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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.