Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Development,
3,
113-136
(1988)
of California,
San
Diego
The notion
of a sensorimotor
stage in infancy
is called into question.
First, some of
the recent
experimental
literature
on cognitive
development
in infancy
is examined to determine
the kinds of representational
capacity
that these data require.
It
is concluded
that most of the recent
work
on perceptual
development
and the
object
concept
in infancy
is compatible
with the notion
of a sensorimotor
stage
but that other
work
showing
imitation,
motor
recognition,
the acquisition
of
manual
signs, and recall of absent
objects
is not, requiring,
instead,
a conceptual
form
of representation.
Such a system
is apparent
early
in development.
It is
suggested
that there
is a viable
alternative
to Piagets
theory
that conceptual
representation
consists
of a transformation
of sensorimotor
schemas
into a new,
more advanced
code.
It is proposed
that an accessible
conceptual
system
develops simultaneously
and in parallel
with the sensorimotor
system,
with
neither
system
being derivative
from the other.
It is further
proposed
that the mechanism
by which
infants
encode
information
into an accessible
system
consists
of a process of perceptual
analysis.
Preparation
of this article was supported
in part by NSF research grant BNS-85 19218 and the
MacArthur
Foundation
research grant on the Transition
from Infancy to Early Childhood.
I wish to
thank Annette Karmiloff-Smith,
Alan Leslie, and John Morton for stimulating
discussion
on these
issues and Elizabeth
Bates, Rachel Gelman,
and Katherine
Nelson for helpful comments
on the
manuscript.
Correspondence
Psychology
C-009,
Manuscript
received
August
19, 1987;
revision
accepted
October
15, 1987
Department
of
113
114
Jean M. Mandler
a sensorimotor stage is that the infant is born with a single type of representational capacity. Infants are said to represent the world by means of perceptual
and motor schemas but lack the capacity to form concepts that are accessible for
purposes of recall or thinking. Only gradually does a qualitative shift in the
representational system occur, with the new and higher order form of representation that results being necessarily dependent on the development of an earlier
exclusively sensorimotor form. This higher order form of representation is
called, variously, a symbolic or conceptual system. In this view, although the
capacity to symbolize may be considered innate, its realization is dependent on a
gradual transformation of motor and perceptual schemas into symbolically realized concepts.
In spite of a growing literature on infancy in recent years that suggests greater
competence than Piaget ascribed to the infant, relatively little has been said about
whether or not this new evidence might require us to change our views on the
foundations of the representational system. For example, we have learned that
the perceptual capabilities of infants are much greater than we once assumed, and
that infants know much more about objects than Piaget thought possible. There
are also growing indications that infants are capable of symbolic activity and
recall much earlier than Piaget thought possible. Which, if any, of these newfound capabilities require us to reformulate the notion of a sensorimotor stage of
development?
The purposes of this article are two. The first is to examine some experimental
findings from the recent literature on cognitive development in infancy with the
goal of establishing what these data require in terms of an underlying representational system capable of accounting for them. Following a few definitions of
terms, the current experimental evidence is addressed in two sections. The first
section covers some recent work in perceptual development; to state briefly the
conclusion that will be reached, most of this work can probably be accommodated to the notion of an initial sensorimotor stage. The second section covers
recent evidence for early symbolic functioning and recall; it is concluded that this
kind of evidence cannor be accommodated within such a representational
system.
The second purpose is to discuss the kind of representational system that we
will need to posit if we must abandon the notion of an initial sensorimotor stage.
In particular, I address the issue of when and how an accessible conceptual
system might be formed. I suggest that there is a viable alternative to Piagets
theory that conceptual representation consists of a transformation of sensorimotor schemas into a new, more advanced code. That alternative is that an
accessible representational system develops simultaneously and in parallel with
the sensorimotor system, with neither system being derivative from the other. I
propose that the mechanism by which information is encoded into an accessible
system is neither through recoding motor activity nor by means of perception
alone but, instead, involves a process of perceptual analysis.
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Jean M. Mandler
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JeanM. Mandler
118
dogs are. not just the ability to distinguish a dog shape or doglike way of moving
from that of a cat shape or catlike way of moving. I Objects that adults classify as
basic level may or may not be the first kinds of things for which the infant forms
concepts (Mandler & Bauer, in press), but to say that the infant has formed a
basic-level concept is to say at the least that the infant has some small packet of
accessible knowledge above and beyond what the object looks like. Perhaps it
would be advisable to reject the term lxrsic-level
mtrgorization
to refer to the
kinds of perceptual schemas being formed in infancy. If the term per-c~~pruc11
schemas
was used instead of perceptual
cutrgorics.
then, like the notion of
motor schemas, we would not be inclined to impute conceptual knowledge to
them.
If perceptual schemas do not necessarily implicate other than a sensorimotor
form of representation, what about recent data indicating that infants know a
great deal more about objects than has been traditionally ascribed to them? We
have learned that infants perceive objects as bounded and unitary (Spelke. 1985),
use cross-modal patterns of information to identify objects (Gibson & Spelke,
1983), and perceive causal relations among moving objects as well (Leslie &
Keeble, 1987). The data are robust and impressive, but their theoretical implications have not been entirely clear. Much of this literature has used the terms
perception, apprehension. and conception of objects interchangeably (e.g., Kellman & Spelke, 1983). Although early concepts about objects are undoubtedly
derived from perceptual input, the data of Spelke and others do not in and of
themselves speak to conceptual knowledge as defined here. To say that an
inherent conception of the physical world determines infant perception (Spelke,
1985) may mean no more than that the system is preset to parse the perceptual
array into objects rather than, say, colored patches. There is nothing antithetic to
the notion of an exclusively sensorimotor form of representation in this view. To
say that the starting parameters of the perceptual system produce object perception rather than patch perception does deemphasize one type of constructive
activity that was a focus of Piagets theory of sensorimotor development, but this
approach does not require conscious access to such information on the part of the
infant. Nor does it require a symbolic, or conceptual, form of representation or
the ability to think about objects in their absence.
In sum, the current data on early object perception are not inherently incompatible with the notion of a sensorimotor stage. On the other hand, there are some
types of data, having to do with conceptual functioning, that are incompatible
of early object
perception
can be handled
within
a strictly
perceptual
How
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a Baby
of models
seems
better
able to handle
sensorimotor
processing
than conceptual
thought.
120
Jean M. Mandler
How
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a Baby
inrcnt. Although
separate strands
the
and
reference
may be coming together at this point in dcvclopmenl.
Communicative
intent is present in
1977). but it has generally
been
infants from perhaps as early as 2 IO 3 months (c.g.. Trevarihcn.
described as contentlcss
(Newson.
1977). In the prcscnt example, the infant scans to bc communicating content,
not just making communicative
contact with the parents.
122
Jean
M. Mandler
been observed. However, we have no reason to assume that there is no conceptual functioning before the onset of the ability to express concepts through
gesture. Piagets hypothesis that imagery is the earliest form of symbolization
places signification where it rightly belongs-in
the mental, not gestural or
vocal. sphere. He believed, of course, that imagery is a late-blooming process,
not present until the second year of life. Before this time, infants were said to
have only contentless expectations of anticipated events. However, Piaget cited
no evidence for this position. and 1 think we can discern evidence against it.
The most damaging evidence against the notion of an imageless infant would
be the demonstration of the ability to recall. Piaget defined recall as the evocation
of absent objects, a definition similar to that most of us would espouse: the
ability to re-present to our conscious minds something experienced before, in the
absence of any current perceptual support. By this definition. recall requires an
image or other type of symbol or signifier to refer to the absent object. Also, by
definition, if the infant is able to recall absent objects, it must have an accessible
knowledge system. Thus, although we cannot observe conceptual thought directly, if we can observe behavior that could occur only if conceptual thought
were possible, we can deduce that underlying conceptual activity is taking place.
It was for this reason, I believe, that Piaget was at some pains to suggest that
before Stage VI infants have not yet acquired the capacity for imagery (Piaget,
1951). If infants can image something, they have a potential symbol at their
disposal for use in recall or in other types of thinking that is independent of
ongoing sensorimotor routines. In fact, the onset of recall was for Piaget the
hallmark of the borderline between the sensorimotor and the conceptual stages.
Therefore, Piaget posited that the onset of imagery is a late development. the end
point of a long period during which only imageless anticipation is possible.
Because imagery is so difficult to study directly (even in adults), the best way to
tackle the problem would seem to be to study recall. Demonstrating recall in
preverbal infants is also not easy but, if successful, it would demonstrate an
accessible conceptual system. as well as imagery or some other symbolic form of
representation.
Recall in Infancy
What evidence is there for a capacity to recall in the first year of life? The
existing evidence comes mostly from the second 6 months, some of it from
Piagets own observations. For example, he noted that from 6 months onward if
one of his children placed an object behind her. a little later she might reach
around to retrieve it. He called this a deferred circular reaction, and classified it
as a sensorimotor schema (Piaget, 1952). It seems unlikely, however. that such
behavior could be explained as the operation of a simple motor procedure,
whether delayed or not, or by the notion that an object is conceived as an
extension of a reaching movement. What set the procedure off? Why did it occur
only when an object had been deposited at a given place? Gratch (1975) has
How
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pointed out that infants do not search in the A-not-B paradigm when no object
has been hidden, thus making the hypothesis that they frequently reach out for
nonexistent objects unlikely.h Thus, something has to set the reaching procedure
in operation and, because of the variable, even unique, aspects of this kind of
situation, it cannot be the motor anticipation found in practiced routines. It seems
far more likely that what sets the procedure off is recall-the infant remembers
where the object is (see Sophian, 1980, for a similar argument). The infant may
or may not explicitly conceptualize the abandoned object itself-she might
merely recall that something was there or that she had put something there. In
either case, the infant would be recalling a fact (which might be glossed as My
doll is behind me or 1 put something behind me). Such a fact must have
been recovered from an accessible store of facts, that is, from a nonsensorimotor
store of information.
An explicit
conceptualization seems even more likely to be required in some
of the examples of recall of location reported by Ashmead and Perlmutter (1979,
1980) in children as young as 7 months (the earliest age they studied). Furthermore, these examples often concern unique occurrences.
In one, a 9-month-old
girl was described as being accustomed to play with ribbons kept in the bottom
drawer of a dresser. One day the girl crawled to the dresser and opened the
bottom drawer but found no ribbons. She then opened all the drawers until she
found the ribbons, which had been moved to the top drawer. The next day she
crawled to the dresser and immediately opened the top drawer and took out the
ribbons. It would be difficult to explain this performance in terms of contentless
expectation followed by recognition. It seems to require an explicit conceptualization of the new location of the ribbons. Even if one could couch this
behavior in terms of a familiar routine, one would be left with the necessity of
explaining how the infant updated her usual procedure so easily. This would not
be easy within the Piagetian theory of a still incomplete concept of the object at
this point in development and the likelihood of an A-not-B error in established
reaching routines. Note that this example and the example of deferred circular
reactions just described probably illustrate reminding rather than a deliberate
search of memory. However, reminding is a respectable form of recall (see J.
Mandler, 1984a) and, whether incidental or deliberate, recall by definition requires an accessible knowledge representation.
Another type of evidence for recall during this period comes from recent work
on deferred imitation (Meltzoff, 1988). It has been widely assumed that deferred
imitation does not occur until approximately 18 months. However. in a carefully
controlled experiment, Meltzoff found that 9-month-olds could imitate three
different actions that they had seen perfomled 24 hours earlier. The infants had
not been given the opportunity to perform the actions themselves, so they must
h The A-not-B
A and successfully
124
JeanM. Mandler
have recalled what they had seen the day before rather than merely reproducing a
previously learned action schema. It is of particular interest that the infants
performed just as well after 24 hours as they did after a delay of a few minutes.
Although the relevant experiments have not yet been carried out, it seems likely
that if 9-month-olds can recall several new actions after 24 hours. younger
infants could recall similar actions over shorter delays.
There are a few other pieces of experimental work suggesting recall at even
earlier ages, although the delays that have been used are quite short. An experiment by Baillargeon, Spelke, and Wasserman (1985) was designed to show that
5-month-olds know something about the permanence of objects, but it also
contains data re!evant to the ability to recall. Infants were shown an opaque
screen that rested on a table in front of them. The screen slowly rotated away
from the child through 180 until it again rested flat on the table; then it rotated
back to its original position. After the infant habituated to this rotating display, a
box was moved behind the screen while the infant watched. Then the screen
started rotating again. It either made the exact rotation as before or else moved
backward through 120. stopping at the point where it would have hit the box.
then moved forward again. Even though the latter display was different from
amything seen during habituation, the infants dishabituated only a little, whereas
they dishabituated much more to the 180 movement that was exactly the SCIIHC
as
they had seen before. This is one of those rare cases in which it, is legitimate to
use dishabituation or surprise to infer something more than recognition. If only
recognitory processes were at work, the infant should have continued to habituate to the test display. Thus, the most likely explanation for this finding is that
the infant remembered the box was there-hidden behind the screen-and was
surprised to see the screen move through the space where the box should be.
Recently, Baillargeon (1987) has shown that 4-month-olds also pass these tests,
although only some 3-month-olds do.
Similar experiments have shown that infants not only remember that something is hidden behind the screen but also where it is located. Baillargeon (1986)
habituated 6- and 8-month-olds to a car running down a track. Then a box was
placed either on the track or behind it. Next. a screen was lowered, hiding the
portion of the track where the block had been placed, and the car was again sent
down the track. Even though they could not see the block, infants dishabituated
to the display in the situation in which the block was on the track. but not in the
situation in which the block was behind the track. These data indicate quite
accurate memory for where the block had been placed. Although involving a
shorter time span, this work provides an experimental verification of the type of
observational evidence provided by Ashmead and Perlmutter (1979. 1980).
The delays in these experiments were short. For example, in the Baillargeon
box and screen experiments, on each of the impossible trials the Uox was only
out of view for 8 s. Perhaps one could explain this kind of performance in ternIs
of some type of perceptual inference, but a delay of even 8 s seems too long for
How
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such an explanation. The infant must remember that something out of sight is
still there. Thus, even with short delays, the data suggest a re-presentational
response rather than a sensorimotor response to a presentation. In addition,
Leslie (1988) has pointed out that perceptual input systems are impervious to the
contradiction these experiments present to an observer. and so some kind of
central thought must be involved. Therefore, recall seems a more appropriate
term than perceptual inference, although some might prefer the language of
running a mental model of past events, a model that conflicts with the present
perception. Either interpretation, however, requires an accessible representational system.
Actually, the length of the period of holding something in mind for the 4- and
5-month-olds in the Baillargeon experiments is longer than one might predict on
the basis of recent data on the A-not-B search task (Diamond, 1985). This
paradigm has been treated as a kind of recall task because of the persistent
searching for an absent object that it evokes (Sophian, 1980). Diamond (1985)
charted the delays that infants can tolerate in finding a hidden object from about 6
months of age. At first, a delay of 2 or 3 s is sufficient to cause an error, with the
length of tolerable delay increasing slowly by about 2 s a month. For whatever
delay a given infant can handle, increasing it increases the likelihood of error and
lessening it eliminates the error. It looks as if the error occurs whenever the delay
is greater than the short-term memory span of the infant. However, as Diamond
pointed out, infants who know where the object is (because the covers of the
hiding places are transparent) or who can accurately remember where it is hidden
may still reach incorrectly because of a failure to inhibit the previously trained,
successful motor response. Not only did the infants typically correct their wrong
choices, sometimes when they uncovered the wrong well, they didnt even
bother to look in it but immediately reached to the correct spot. They also
sometimes looked intently at the correct hiding spot even as their hand reached to
the wrong place.
We see such discrepancies even in adults when conditioned expectations or
motor responses have been set up. A nice demonstration of this is an experiment
by Chromiak and Weisberg (1981). who adapted a technique used by Bower,
Broughton, and Moore (197 1) and Nelson (197 1) with infants. In these experiments, infants watched a train running along a track, entering a tunnel, and then
reappearing at the other end. Over a period of trials, the infants learned to
anticipate the train coming out the end of the tunnel, and their eyes would move
ahead in preparation for the sight. If the train stopped in full view before entering
the tunnel, the infants still moved their eyes to the end of the tunnel. Does this
finding mean that the infants thought the train could be in two places at once?
Not necessarily. Chromiak and Weisberg (1981) found that adults did the same
thing. Once the conditioned expectation was set up, their eyes also moved to the
end of the track when the train stopped in full view.
For purposes of the present discussion, the point is that if we want to assess
126
Jean
M. Mandler
THE CONDITIONS
OF CONSCIOUS
ACCESS
The notion that conceptual thought is gradually created out of previously learned
sensorimotor schemas has been widely accepted. As a result, there has been little
theoretical discussion of alternative bases for early conceptual development. The
question that needs to be posed is the following: If an accessible knowledge
system is operative as young as 4 to 6 months, where does it come from? What
mechanism accounts for its formation? Clearly. the mechanism cannot consist of
a transformation of overlearned action schemas such as object manipulation,
because these schemas are still too primitive at this age. Just as clearly, perception is involved but, because it is reasonable to assume that there are organisms
that perceive but do not have conceptual systems. perception alone cannot be
enough. We are seeking a mechanism for constructing concepts or ideas about
things.
The formulation I propose is this: In addition to being able to perceive, infants
are born with the capacity to engage in perceptual analysis. By perceptual analysis, I mean a symbolic process (probably conscious) by which one perception is
actively compared with another. This process can occur either simultaneously
(by comparing two objects with each other) or sequentially (by comparing a
present object with a previously stored representation). Often such comparisons
involve categorization: This is like that. Sometimes they merely involve
noting a previously unattended aspect of a perceptual array. But, in all these
cases, an analytic process is at work, doing conceptual thought rather than
primitive recognition. 1 assume that the process is similar to that described in
adults as elaborative processing, that is, the relating of one mental content to
another (G. Mandler, 1979, in press). Of course, the adult has an existing set of
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Gemran Shepherds
have cars that stand up in a certain way, you can not answer Kosslyns
(1980)
famous question. except by guessing. Typically.
of course. we do not remember whether or not we
ever noticed such ears; we inspect our image and either do or do not find the answer.
s This is a difficulty
that cannot be escaped by any theory because the earliest concepts,
whenever
and however
formed.
will present fomridable
problems
of description.
Such problems
will exist
whether
the description
is couched
in low-level
symbolic
terms (e.g., Leslie, in press) or, as
suggested
here,
in terms
more
appropriate
to conscious
thought.
128
lean M. Mandler
sensory information used to make the perceptual discrimination must not only be
reduced but also must be encoded into a different representational format if a
concqt of nipple is to be formed.
The notion of perceptual analysis can be related to Werner and Kaplans
(1963)concept of a contemplative attitude toward objects. Werner and Kaplan discerned the beginnings of this differentiation between acting on objects
and regarding or contemplating them as early as 3 to 5 months of age. However,
because they defined contemplation as being opposed to action, they assumed
that a true attitude of contemplation could not emerge as long as the infant was
spending time reaching for and manipulating objects. To my knowledge, there is
no evidence that motor activity and contemplation are antithetical; on the contrary, when infants examine objects, they often combine intense looking with
manual manipulation (Ruff, 1986; Uzgiris, 1967).
Beyond observing intense concentration, it is difficult to know how to measure perceptual analysis (as opposed to mere seeing) in a preverbal person. Piaget
used a detailed observational analysis of complex imitative behavior in infants at
stage IV and beyond to document such analysis. There are also a few examples in
the experimental literature that suggest such analysis is going on. For example,
Fox, Kagan, and Weiskopf (1979) report that before 6 to 7 months, infants
merely look at a new toy when a pair of toys-one old and one new-is
presented to them. After that time, they increasingly look back and forth between
the two. In the behaviorist period of psychology, this was called vicarious trial
and error, or VTE behavior. a term that comfortably externalized a mental
comparison process.
A good example of such behavior in infants is provided by Janowsky (1985).
She presented to infants a pair of line drawings of faces for six trials; one of these
was a canonically arranged face, the other was scrambled. Following these
presentations, the infants were habituated to the normal face. Then they were
given six more trials of the paired comparison between the normal and scrambled
face. A longitudinal design was used, with the infants being tested first at 4
months and then at 8 months. On most measures, there were no significant
differences between the two ages. At both ages, the children preferred the normal
face in the initial paired comparison, took about the same amount of time to
habituate, and looked at the stimuli about the same amount of time during the
comparison trials. However, there was a large difference between the two ages in
the number of times the infants looked back and forth between the two stimuli on
the first trial of the paired-comparison tests. 9 At 4 months, the infants switched
their looking back and forth between the two stimuli on average 1.7 and I.8
times, respectively, on the first trial of the pre- and posttests. Thus, they did
some comparing of the two stimuli but did not increase the amount of com9 The datareponedherearefirsI-triallookingtimes.extractedfrom the overalllookingtimesfor
normalinfantsreponedin Janowsky(1985).Eachtrial lasted for 8 s.
How
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parison after familiarization with one of the stimuli. At 8 months, on the other
hand, they switched back and forth between the two stimuli on average 2.8 and
4.5 times, respectively. on the pre- and posttests. Thus, when they were older,
infants compared the faces initially more than they did at the younger age;
furthermore, when they became accustomed to one stimulus and then were given
a new opportunity to compare it to another, they did so at a rate two and a half
times greater than they did when they were younger. I0
The kind of comparison process that these data indicate is different from the
simpler process of recognition. As discussed earlier, habituation to an old stimulus and dishabituation to a new one happen from birth, but a change in a
recognitory procedure does not itself imply the accessing of information from an
accessible knowledge store, nor does it imply awareness or consciousness of
familiarity or novelty. Although awareness of familiarity r?rnybe present from a
young age, infant recognition data can be explained equally well without it.
Active comparison of two objects, on the other hand, seems likely to require
conscious awareness; it represents the kind of mental activity that consciousness
is ideally suited for (G. Mandler, 1985). Whether or not the act of analysis itself
is conscious, however, the findings described by Fox et al. (1979) and by
Janowsky ( 1985) seem to be good examples of the kind of active analysis of
objects and events that Piaget thought was required for image formation. He
insisted that such analysis occurred only at a later age, but his own observations
of earlier imitation seem equally amenable to explanation in terms of perceptual
analysis.
I think it likely that Piaget and lnhelder (197 I) were correct in assuming that
images are not formed through repeated perception alone (although the hypothesis remains untested). However, they provided no evidence that the perceptual
analysis required for image formation is such a late-blooming process. Piagets
careful descriptions of his children, between the ages of 8 months and 1 year,
learning to imitate blinking their eyes and sticking out tongues, are replete with
observations suggesting that the infants were actively trying to analyze what the
model was doing. However, the analysis involved in understanding such complex activities is just as apparent in his descriptions of imitation of simpler
activities at earlier ages. In addition, the examining schema, in which objects are
lo 1 assume that a similar
kind of perceptual
comparison
is also responsible
for the onset of
stranger anxiety at around 6 to 7 months. II appears that the strangers
appearance
is being compared
(unfavorably)
with an accessible
representation
of the absent mother or other familiar caretaker
(see
Kagan, 1979).
I This is one of the reasons why infant habituation
studies cannot easily be compared
to adult
recognition
tests. Adults are required to scry that they have seen a stimulus before; that is. the adult
form of the recognition
test requires conscious
awareness
of familiarity.
When the adults are amnesic, they often cannot attest to the familiarily
of a stimulus,
and some sort of priming test must be
used to show that the stimulus
is familiar (e.g., Shimamura.
1986): such a test is similar in spirit to
the habituation-dishabituation
studies
conducted
with
infants.
130
Jean M. Mandler
How
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131
I2 The availability
of such a system may also accnunt for the superiority
of observational
learning
in humans compared
with nonhuman-especially
nonprimate-species
(see Bates, 1979b3. In this
regard.
it may be noted thar Premacks
work on chimpanzees
strongly
suggests
that the basic
capacities
ascribed IO infants in this article also characterize
that species (e.g., Premack.
1983). That
there arc differences.
as well. is not in doubt. bur they do not stem to be due lo a lack of a capacity IO
image. conceptualize,
or be conscious.
132
Jean M. Mandler
priming (Graf & Mandler, 1984; Mandler, Nakamura, & Van Zandt, 1987).
Schema formation depends on accurate processing of frequency information, but
our conscious judgments about frequency are biased by the rare or unusual events
that have caught our attention, often leading to gross errors of judgment (e.g.,
Hamilton & Gifford, 1976: J. Mandler, 1984b. p. 35). Our motor procedures
faithfully reflect the laws of physics, but our theories of physical movement are
often fundamentally opposed to them (disessa, 1982; McCloskey & Kohl,
1983). The examples are everywhere and do not need to be as dramatic as the
double dissociations of amnesia or the misrepresentation of the number of fingers
on the hand in cultures that do not emphasize counting (Pontius. 1983).
We pay lip service to the principle, espoused by Nisbett and Wilson (1977),
that people tell (both themselves and others) more about their mental processes
than they really know, but I think we do not take the principle seriously enough.
There is much in our mental life that we cannot in principle observe; it is simply
inaccessible. All procedural knowledge is of this sort, and that includes sensorimotor procedures as well as activation of semantic networks, priming, retrieval. and the like. Only some kinds of perceptions and memories are accessible. and these must be organized differently from sensorimotor knowledge. If we
are to take the concepts of accessibility and inaccessibility seriously. there must
be more than one form of representation. None of this means that sensorimotor
and conceptual knowledge are not interconnected or that they do not influence
each other; they obviously do. The perceptual system provides the information
that gets interpreted conceptually. and the conceptual system often detemlines
what gets perceptually processed. So, it is just as reasonable to speak of a single,
multifaceted representational system. The temlinology doesnt matter, but how
one acquires and stores the two kinds of knowledge does.
Is it possible that conceptual knowledge grows out of sensorimotor knowledge. that by practicing and integrating perceptual and motor schemas long
enough they are finally rendered directly accessible? This is the essence of the
proposal for a sensorimotor stage as the foundation of later conceptual knowledge, as well as for many proposals as to why metacognitive knowledge grows
with development. I am dubious that things work in this way. It seems much
more likely that we gradually foml theories about the way our sensorimotor
procedures work and, with increasingly detailed perceptual analysis. these tend
to become more elaborate and systematic, not that we have the possibility of
access that was not there before.i3
I3 Karmiloff-Smith
(1986) proposed that during the syskmarization
of complex
cognitive
systems, procedural
knowledge
undergoes several levels of symbolic
redescription.
She also claims that
there is no direct access lo procedural
knowledge
itself: relationships
within these systems become
accessible
procedural
to consciousness
parts and these
only after
conneclions
connections
have been formed among
have been described.
Karmiloff-Smith
previously
has not
isolated
appliedher
the
of
How
to Build
a Baby
133
Thus, the main issue is whether or not we must start infants off with the
capacity to form concepts and to store them in a potentially accessible format. It
is for this reason that I have stressed the issue of recall in infancy. If it is the case
that infants can store information accessibly, then we should see some signs of it,
at least by the time that the central nervous system has reached a certain level of
maturity. 1 have presented evidence that there are such signs by 6 months or even
earlier. Such knowledge may be quite context bound, but that does not mean that
it is solely sensorimotor in nature. In fact, when I think about how to build a
baby, I find no way to proceed without the possibility of accessto some kinds of
information from the beginning. It is difficult to imagine a purely sensorimotor
organism, which stores information only by modifying procedures, suddenly
begin to make those procedures accessible to consciousness. There must be a
system that does the accessing, and so we have posited the system whose creation we are trying to explain.
We need a mechanism to accomplish the storage of information in accessible
form. 1 have suggested that the earliest mechanism is perceptual analysis or
comparison. When we just see we are unconscious-it is only when we analyze
or compare that we become fully aware human beings. It seems more reasonable
(and consonant with the available data) to say that we are born with the capacity
to engage in perceptual analysis and to store its results in an accessible form than
to say that this capacity depends on a prior history of sensorimotor functioning.
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