Newcombe, Nora S.; Janellen Huttenlocher;
Making Space: The Development Of Spatial Representation And Reasoning
MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2000, 276 pages
ISBN 0262140691
topics: | language-acquisition | spatial | linguistics
Considers developmental aspects - how infants acquire their knowledge of space. Spatial competence is considered "a distinct aspect, separable from other cognitive abilities at the behavioral, computational and neurological levels of analysis." (p.2), based on factor analytic studies (Carroll:93}, and Shepard/Cooper:93 claim that spatial reasoning is distinct from verbal reasoning. Spatial function is neurologically localizable (hippocampus/parietal/areas of prefrontal; e.g. damage to some parietal areas --> can see, name, and reach for objects, but cannot locate obj w eyes closed). But "a commitment to domain specific analysis does not entail a commitment to the idea that there exist innately available autonomously running procedures (Fodor:83)". Closer to Karmiloff-Smith, who suggests that sometimes there is "an early modularity that is punctured in the course of development, such as when perceptual codings become accessible to symbolic representation and verbal description during childhood." (5) [IDEA: comparing difficulty in mental rotation to difficulty in middle-recursion? both are a matter of degree, though the former is "more" continuous than the latter. ] Three approaches have dominated thinking about spatial development: A. Piaget and followers: infants are born without knowledge of space or a conception of permanent objects that occupy space. They develop such knowledge through experience and manipulation of their environment. B. Nativists suggest that the essential aspects of spatial understanding are innate and that biological maturation of specific brain areas can account for whatever aspects of spatial development are not accounted for at birth. C. Vygotskan approach emphasizes the cultural transmission of spatial skills. Newcombe/ Huttenlocher argue for an "interactionist approach" to spatial development integrating some insights of these three. ... biological preparedness interacts with the spatial environment that infants encounter after birth to create spatial development and mature spatial competence.
[landmarks may be] "treated as points (e.g. an elm tree in left field) [or as] a region (e.g. left field itself). Actually these types exist on a continuum, and true point lm's exist only in the abstract..." 15 [representations at different scales / hierarchies - collapsible, but also multiple?]
1 Introduction 1 2 Thinking about Space 13 3 Two Hypotheses about Infant Location Coding 39 4 Three Other Important Questions about the Development of Location Coding (and an Epilogue on Automaticity) 73 5 Development of Spatial Thought 109 6 Models and Maps 145 7 Space and Language 179 8 Thinking about Development 207 References 227
from http://linguistlist.org/issues/14/14-1621.html Spatial competence is a central aspect of human adaptation. To understand human cognitive functioning, we must understand how people code the locations of things, how they navigate in the world, and how they represent and mentally manipulate spatial information. Until recently three approaches have dominated thinking about spatial development. Followers of Piaget claim that infants are born without knowledge of space or a conception of permanent objects that occupy space. They develop such knowledge through experience and manipulation of their environment. Nativists suggest that the essential aspects of spatial understanding are innate and that biological maturation of specific brain areas can account for whatever aspects of spatial development are not accounted for at birth. The Vygotskan approach emphasizes the cultural transmission of spatial skills. Nora Newcombe and Janellen Huttenlocher argue for an interactionist approach to spatial development that incorporates and integrates essential insights of the classic three approaches. They show how biological preparedness interacts with the spatial environment that infants encounter after birth to create spatial development and mature spatial competence. Topics covered include - spatial coding during infancy and childhood; - early origins of coding distance in continuous space, - coding location with respect to distal external landmarks, and of hierarchical combination of information; - mental processes that operate on stored spatial information; - spatial information as encoded in models and maps; - spatial information as encoded in language. - contrast spatial development in relation to various approaches to cognitive development in other domains, including quantitative development, theory of mind, and language acquisition. --- MIT Press (Reasoning (Learning, Development, And Conceptual Change) series