The foundations of mind : origins of conceptual thought / Jean Matter Mandler.
"The Foundations of Mind presents a new theory of cognitive development in infancy, focusing on the ways that perceptual information becomes transformed into conceptual thought. Mandler tackles issues such as how babies form concepts and begin to think before they have language, and how they ca...
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| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
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Oxford ; New York :
Oxford University Press,
2004.
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| Series: | Oxford series in cognitive development.
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| Subjects: |
| Summary: | "The Foundations of Mind presents a new theory of cognitive development in infancy, focusing on the ways that perceptual information becomes transformed into conceptual thought. Mandler tackles issues such as how babies form concepts and begin to think before they have language, and how they can recall the past and make inductive inferences. Drawing on her extensive research, she illustrates how these processes form the conceptual basis for language and advanced thought, stressing the importance of distinguishing automatic perceptual processes from conceptualizations about what is perceived. She argues that these two kinds of learning, though sometimes confounded in psychological experimentation, follow different principles, and that it is crucial to specify the particular kind of learning required by a given task. Early preverbal concepts, although typically more general than infant perceptual categories, allow infants to make the inductive generalizations necessary for them to form theories about the world and organize their developing conceptual system into a recognizably adult form."--BOOK JACKET. |
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| Physical Description: | xiii, 359 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references (pages 311-341) and index. |
| ISBN: | 0195172000 9780195172003 |