A Quest for the Holy Grail in the New Millennium: In Search of a Unified Theory of Cognitive Development

Our reply emphasizes the benefits of cooperation between researchers in developing a comprehensive model of cognitive development that considers the constraints of human brain structures and the interplay of general laws of development and individual differences in developmental pathways within the context of social and cultural environments.     

认知神经科学视角下的创造力研究

创造力研究对于社会进步和个人发展均具有重要意义,逐渐成为心理学研究中的一个重要领域。随着认知神经科学的兴起,研究者从认知神经科学视角开展了丰富的创造力研究,这些研究主要体现在两个方面:(1)从大脑结构、大脑皮层唤醒水平和神经效能三个角度对创造力个体差异的认知神经机制进行了揭示;(2)基于最近几十年认知神经科学的研究成果,从认知神经科学角度对创造力进行了分类。认知神经科学的创造力研究,深化了人们对创造力的理解,但依然存在挑战,通过分析这些挑战,使我们明晰了认知神经科学关于创造力研究的未来方向:改进创造力测量工具和实验任务以满足认知神经科学研究的需要,进一步加强知识与创造力关系、人格特质与创造力关系的认知神经科学研究。     

Assessment of a fertile dialogue (2012–17) / Balance de un diálogo fértil (2012–17)

This text reviews the main goals and achievements from the management of Infancia y Aprendizaje (2012–17). We have promoted a dialogue between developmental psychology and educational psychology from a complex and situated approach. We have also created a section for highly regarded authors to chart prospective lines that could have an impact on areas for development within this field of knowledge. In addition, we brought back the debate between theoretical and methodological positions around a central article. Two different calls promoted the training of scientific writers and reviewers, with an analysis of the modifications introduced into the texts from their receipt up to their publication as well as the interactions among author, reviewers and editors. Other calls encouraged research on the training of university teachers, learning in environments favoured by technology, relationships between argumentation and education, and cognitive change as a dynamic process. At an operational level, we highlight the transition to Taylor & Francis, the configuration of a strictly bilingual journal and the thematic and cultural expansion and diversification of the editorial team at its different levels.     

Stichwort: Kompetenzentwicklung im Grundschulalter

Keyword: Development of Competencies During Elementary School. The development of scholastic competencies is a topic discussed in the cross-section between the fields of developmental psychology, education, and educational psychology. This article will attempt an overview of the development of competencies during elementary school. After a conceptual clarification of the term competency, the focus will turn to the development of scholastic competencies at elementary school level from a development psychology perspective. Following this, the developmental changes within four basic competence domains, which are central topics of current research, are described: reading, writing, mathematics, and science. Factors affecting the development of scholastic competencies are then discussed, including individual (intelligence, prior knowledge, language) as well as environmental determinants (family, quality of instruction, classroom composition). General as well as differential changes in the four domains are described and illustrated by empirical research results.     

差异模型及其在个体差异研究中的应用

20世纪90年代以来,McClearn借鉴统计遗传学的理论模型构建了用于描述个体差异形成过程中遗传与环境因素作用的“差异模型”,并应用这一模型对表现在一般认知能力、特殊认知能力、学业成就和个性等方面的个性差异进行了研究。差异模型为差异心理学研究提供了一种全新定量研究范式,进一步丰富了人们对遗传与环境因素在影响个体差异形成过程中作用机制的认识,这一理论模型已在教育、心理卫生等领域得到应用。     

Educational Psychology: some thoughts on the transformation of learning in social practices and its consequences for a field of research

The relevance of psychological knowledge to education and learning has been recognized for long time. Educational psychology was thus, one of the first subdisciplines of applied psychology to emerge on the academic scene, and most scholars in the area — internationally as well as in the Nordic countries — have had a firm grounding in psychology. For a couple of decades or more during the second half of this century, educational psychology held a central position within education in most of the Nordic countries. Research within this field has been varied and vigorous. However, although psychological theories should be seen as important intellectual resources, it must be recognized that the relationship between a general discipline such as psychology and a particular area such as education is complex. Important problematics inherent in this relationship are illuminated and discussed in the contribution by Säljö on Sweden. It is argued, that recent attempts to develop a cultural psychology, explicitly recognizing the socio‐cultural nature of learning and other psychological processes, promise to pave the way for conceptions of human activities that are relevant to human concerns in general. The second article in this section, on Finland, contrasts with the first by focusing on educational research performed during the last few decades. This article describes trends in the content and methodologies of this research. The developmental orientation has been very strong in Finnish educational psychology during the whole of the post‐war period. Early research was highly influenced by a differential‐psychology approach, whereas later research has adopted social, motivational and cognitive frameworks. This article discuss the influential theoretical trends and developments.     

论负启动机制的理论研究及其发展

负启动效应及其机制是近年来认知心理学研究的重要课题。该研究从早期的抑制理论与后来的非抑制理论及其新进展出发,探讨了负启动机制理论研究的发展,以期为加深对负启动效应及其机制的理解提供帮助。     

国外幼儿手指动作与数能力关系研究回顾与展望

数能力作为儿童认知发展的重要方面一直是心理学关注的问题.近些年来,国外手指动作与早期数能力关系研究越来越受到研究者的重视.笔者通过发展心理学与认知神经科学两个视角,从数概念及其表征、计数技能的获得以及运算能力的发展等方面概述了国外近些年来幼儿手指动作与数认知关系的研究,并在此基础上提出了当前该领域研究的前景与教育上的思考.     

Child development and evolutionary psychology

Evolutionary developmental psychology involves the expression of evolved, epigenetic programs, as described by the developmental systems approach, over the course of ontogeny. There have been different selection pressures on organisms at different times in ontogeny, and some characteristics of infants and children were selected in evolution to serve an adaptive function at that time in their life history rather than to prepare individuals for later adulthood. Examples of such adaptive functions of immaturity are provided from infancy, play, and cognitive development. Most evolved psychological mechanisms are proposed to be domain specific in nature and have been identified for various aspects of children's cognitive and social development, most notably for the acquisition of language and for theory of mind. Differences in the quality and quantity of parental investment affect children's development and influence their subsequent reproductive and childcare strategies. Some sex differences observed in childhood, particularly as expressed during play, are seen as antecedents and preparations for adult sex differences. Because evolved mechanisms were adaptive to ancestral environments, they are not always adaptive for contemporary people, and this mismatch of evolved mechanisms with modern environments is seen in children's maladjustment to some aspects of formal schooling. We argue that an evolutionary perspective can be valuable for developing a better understanding of human ontogeny in contemporary society and that a developmental perspective is important for a better understanding of evolutionary psychology.     

英汉时间概念隐喻及其文化的认知比较

时间是抽象的,而近期的认知语言学和心理学的研究表明隐喻是人们对抽象概念认识和表达的强有力工具。这些隐喻概念的运用说明了隐喻在人类语言中的普遍性和各民族认知的共性;同时,隐喻概念因深受民族社会文化等因素的影响,也存在一定的文化差异性。     

“说明”或是“理解”——试论心理学中两种方法论路线之争

“说明”与“理解”代表着心理学中两条对立的方法论路线。文章分析了两者的含义及其对立的具体表现,认为两者的对立在心理学中经历了构造心理学的实证主义经验描述与格式塔学派的现象学直观描述相对立、行为主义心理学的演绎型说明与精神分析的符号性理解相对立、认知心理学的模型论说明与人本主义的移情、目的论理解相对立等三个发展阶段。指出说明与理解对立的根源在于科学与人文两种文化传统及心理独特的矛盾性质,将来的心理学研究不能只择其一,而是要针对研究对象的具体特点,找寻合适的平衡点。     

School bullying and fitting into the peer landscape: a grounded theory field study

Research on school bullying has its roots in the field of developmental and educational psychology, and appeals to the need for a theoretical and methodological widening in order to grasp its ambiguity and complexity. The article draws on ethnographic fieldwork in which 144 pupils and seven teachers participated from seven school classes in three Swedish public primary schools. A constructivist grounded theory guided data gathering and analysis. This article offers an interpretative portrayal of school bullying. It paints a picture of the core process of misfitting and how this process involves the selective use of normativities from the macro, meso and micro levels. When bullying is conceptualized as simply caused by individual characteristics, teachers and others become blind to gender norms, heteronormativity, racism and a range of other oppressions taking place in bullying, and this will fail to offer an appropriate knowledge base on how to counteract and reduce bullying.     

Cognitive Development in Gifted Children: Toward a More Precise Understanding of Emerging Differences in Intelligence

To truly understand gifted performance, it is necessary to merge research on giftedness with current thinking in cognitive development and intelligence. This article presents traditional research on gifted children's cognitive development then considers how the application of newer models and theories from the field of cognitive development can be combined with research on giftedness to change the way people think about gifted performance. First four factors that have often been associated with giftedness are discussed from the perspectives of cognitive developmental psychology and gifted education. Next, emphasis is placed on investigating the strategic development of gifted children. Specifically, R. S. Siegler's (Emerging Minds: The Process of Change in Children's Thinking, Oxford University Press, New York, 1996) model of strategy development is addressed in terms of what it may contribute to understanding gifted cognition. Finally, future lines of research using models from cognitive development and complex systems models of development are recommended.     

Educating the Developing Mind: Towards an Overarching Paradigm

This essay first summarizes an overarching theory of cognitive organization and development. This theory claims that the human mind involves (1) several specialized structural systems dealing with different domains of relations in the environment, (2) a central representational capacity system, (3) general inferential processes, and (4) consciousness. These systems interact dynamically during development so that changes in each are related to changes in others. The changes in all systems and the change mechanisms are described. This theory integrates research and theorizing from cognitive, developmental, and differential psychology. Based on this theory, a model for education is proposed that specifies, first, educational priorities for different phases of development according to the cognitive developmental milestones associated with each phase. The theory also specifies how education can educate students to (1) construct mental models for the sake of conceptual change, (2) use their central representational capacity efficiently, (3) advance analogical and deductive reasoning, (4) learn how to learn, and (5) become critical and creative thinkers. The theory is offered as an overarching paradigm for the architecture, the development, and the education of the human mind.     

Three sources of differences between educational and developmental psychology: resolution through educational-developmental psychology

Although educational and developmental psychology should inform each other, it is unusual when they do so. Three reasons are offered for the differences between the two psychologies. First, the content of research and purposes for choosing that content are different. Second, the significance of developmental sequences is different for the two psychologies, and the role of values in developmental sequences also differs. And third, there are differences in the search for biologically constrained laws of human cognitive development versus schooling effects. It is suggested that the two psychologies can inform each other. The zone where the two psychologies meet, the zone of educational-developmental psychology, is an emergent area which is neither developmental nor educational psychology as traditionally practiced, but it takes elements from both.This is Working Paper Number 47 of the Tel-Aviv University Unit of Human Development and Education. I would like to thank Pnina Frenkel, Tamar Globerson, Annette Karmiloff-Smith, Iris Levin, Ken Russell, Gavriel Salomon, and Liliana Tolchinsky for extremely valuable comments on an earlier draft of this article.     

The Educational Relevance of Research in Cognitive Neuroscience

The benefits of incorporating findings from cognitive neuroscience into the field of educational psychology are considered. The first section begins with arguments against the idea that one can ignore the brain when positing a model of student learning or motivation. The second section describes limitations in the methods used to reveal brain-cognition relations. In the third section, properties of the brain and brain development are described. The fourth section summarizes the cognitive neuroscientific research on attention, memory, reading, and math. Finally, areas of future research in cognitive neuroscience are suggested that would help answer important questions about individual and developmental differences in student learning.     

Teacher–Child Interactions in Infant/Toddler Child Care and Socioemotional Development

Research Findings: The teacher–child relationships that develop in infant/toddler child care provide a critical caregiving context for young children’s socioemotional development. However, gaps remain in researchers’ understanding of the individual-level processes that facilitate socioemotional development, specifically in center-based child care programs. Guided by ecological theory, this article offers a review of the current literature on this topic, including influential factors and developmental outcomes associated with teacher–child interaction quality, the teacher–child relationship as a compensatory mechanism for children facing risk, and differential susceptibility to caregiving experiences. Practice or Policy: Within the context of infant/toddler child care, many opportunities exist for researchers to refine the measurement of individual teacher–child interactions, test young children’s self-regulation as an outcome variable, and develop understanding of compensatory and differential susceptibility mechanisms. Clarifying these processes will inform early childhood education teacher training in terms of how teachers can best facilitate healthy socioemotional outcomes, especially for the most vulnerable children.     

Cultural Underpinnings of Gender Development: Studying Gender Among Children of Immigrants

This article addresses the historical divide between gender development researchers and developmental researchers working with immigrant populations, advocating for the benefits gained by bridging research approaches and interests. For gender researchers, the immigrant context allows for the examination of how children embedded in multiple cultures navigate the potentially conflicting information about appropriate gendered behaviors and attitudes. Furthermore, research focusing on immigrant development can move beyond examining gender differences and benefit from understanding the ways in which gender differences develop. This bridging seems particularly relevant in middle childhood, given (a) the exposure to multiple contexts which increase the salience of cultural differences between home and outside-of-home environments and (b) greater awareness and internalization of collective identities (i.e., gender, ethnicity).     

简议儿童的攻击性行为

受整个心理学认知发展趋势的影响,80年代以后越来越多的研究者开始从社会认知的角度来研究儿童的攻击性行为,使这个领域重新成为发展心理学中的一个热点。本文主要介绍道奇的社会信息加工理论是如何分析儿童的攻击性行为及其应用和展望。