Précis of neuroconstructivism: how the brain constructs cognition

Neuroconstructivism: How the Brain Constructs Cognition proposes a unifying framework for the study of cognitive development that brings together (1) constructivism (which views development as the progressive elaboration of increasingly complex structures), (2) cognitive neuroscience (which aims to understand the neural mechanisms underlying behavior), and (3) computational modeling (which proposes formal and explicit specifications of information processing). The guiding principle of our approach is context dependence, within and (in contrast to Marr [1982]) between levels of organization. We propose that three mechanisms guide the emergence of representations: competition, cooperation, and chronotopy; which themselves allow for two central processes: proactivity and progressive specialization. We suggest that the main outcome of development is partial representations, distributed across distinct functional circuits. This framework is derived by examining development at the level of single neurons, brain systems, and whole organisms. We use the terms encellment, embrainment, and embodiment to describe the higher-level contextual influences that act at each of these levels of organization. To illustrate these mechanisms in operation we provide case studies in early visual perception, infant habituation, phonological development, and object representations in infancy. Three further case studies are concerned with interactions between levels of explanation: social development, atypical development and within that, developmental dyslexia. We conclude that cognitive development arises from a dynamic, contextual change in embodied neural structures leading to partial representations across multiple brain regions and timescales, in response to proactively specified physical and social environment.     

Artificial grammer learning by infants: an auto‐associator perspective

This paper reviews a recent article suggesting that infants use a system of algebraic rules to learn an artificial grammar (Marcus, Vijayan, Bandi Rao & Vishton, Rule learning by seven‐month‐old infants. Science, 183(1999), 77–80). In three reported experiments, infants exhibited increased responding to auditory strings that violated the pattern of elements they were habituated to. We argue that a perceptual interpretation is more parsimonious, as well as more consistent with a broad array of habituation data, and we report successful neural network simulations that implement this lower‐level interpretation. In the discussion, we discuss how our model relates to other habituation research, and how it compares to other neural network models of habituation in general, and models of the Marcus et al. (1999) task specifically.     

Notes on the beating fantasy1

This theoretical paper revisits the beating fantasy, which constitutes a crossroads of the psychic economy in that it condenses three primal phantasies, namely the primal scene, castration and seduction. Two forms of the phantasy have been distinguished: a ‘fixed’ form, apparently associated with the masochistic perversion, and a ‘transitory’ form, probably bound up with libidinal development. In Freud ’s (1919) paper these two aspects are intertwined. The present contribution confines itself to the transitory form of the phantasy and its significance in the libidinal development of the girl, notably in the organization of passivity. With this in mind, particular attention is paid to the phantasy’s third phase in this context, and an attempt made to show how this phase epitomizes the transformation of the instinctual pressure and might therefore be looked upon in this connection as the intermediate phase of the phantasy.     

Neuroconstructivism

Neuroconstructivism is a theoretical framework focusing on the construction of representations in the developing brain. Cognitive development is explained as emerging from the experience-dependent development of neural structures supporting mental representations. Neural development occurs in the context of multiple interacting constraints acting on different levels, from the individual cell to the external environment of the developing child. Cognitive development can thus be understood as a trajectory originating from the constraints on the underlying neural structures. This perspective offers an integrated view of normal and abnormal development as well as of development and adult processing, and it stands apart from traditional cognitive approaches in taking seriously the constraints on cognition inherent to the substrate that delivers it.