Children's Understanding: The Development of Mental Models - Couverture rigide

Halford, Graeme S.

 
9780898599701: Children's Understanding: The Development of Mental Models

Synopsis

This work argues that cognitive development is experience driven, and processes entailed in acquiring information about the world are analyzed based on recent models of learning and induction. The way information is represented and accessed when performing cognitive tasks is considered paying particular attention to the implications of Parallel Distributed Processing (PDP) models for cognitive development.

The first half of the book contains analyses of human reasoning processes (drawing on PDP models of analogy), development of strategies, and task complexity -- all based on aspects of PDP representations. It is proposed that PDP representations become more differentiated with age, so more vectors can be processed in parallel, with the result that structures of greater complexity can be processed. This model gives an account of previously unexplained difficulties in children's reasoning, including some which were influential in stage theories.

The second half of the book examines processes entailed in some representative cognitive developmental tasks, including transitive inference, deductive inference (categorical syllogisms), hypothesis testing, learning set acquisition, acquisition and transfer of relational structures, humor, hierarchical classification and inclusion, understanding of quantity, arithmetic word problems, algebra, conservation, mechanics, and the concept of mind. Process accounts of tasks are emphasized, based on applications of recent developments in cognitive science.

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À propos de l?auteur

Graeme S. Halford

Les informations fournies dans la section « A propos du livre » peuvent faire référence à une autre édition de ce titre.

Autres éditions populaires du même titre

9780805812336: Children's Understanding: The Development of Mental Models

Edition présentée

ISBN 10 :  0805812334 ISBN 13 :  9780805812336
Editeur : Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc, 1993
Couverture souple