Bjorklund synthesizes promising research directions in developmental psychology using an evolutionary framework. In general terms, we agree with Bjorklund: Evolutionary theory has the potential to serve as a metatheory for developmental psychology. However, as currently used in psychology, evolutionary theory is far from reaching this potential.…

I argue that emotion research needs formal (mathematical) theory to address two central questions. How does evolution shape mechanisms of emotion development across generations, depending on environmental conditions? How do these mechanisms generate emotions, based on lifetime experience and current context? Formal modeling enables researchers to…

The empirical and conceptual interrelations of phylogeny (evolution) and ontogeny (development) may prove to be more important than previously acknowledged. It is argued that this holds particularly for evolutionary psychology. For instance, an evolutionary point of view will add to the explanation of (the shape of) pre- and post-reductive phases…

The aim of this essay is to elucidate the relevance of cross-species comparisons for the investigation of human behavior and its development. The focus is on the comparison of human children and another group of primates, the non-human great apes, with special attention to their cognitive skills. Integrating a comparative and developmental…

This article suggests that ideas about adolescent brains and their development increasingly function as powerful truths in making sense of young people. In this context, the knowledge practices of the neurosciences and evolutionary and developmental psychology are deemed capable of producing what we have come to understand as the evidence on which…

Ohlsson's proposal of resubsumption as the dominant process in conceptual, or nonmonotonic, change presents a worthy challenge to more established theories, such as Chi's theory of ontological shift. The two approaches differ primarily in that Ohlsson's theory emphasizes a process of learning in which narrower, more specific concepts are subsumed…

Is human ontogenesis a product of evolution or a result of individual decisions and actions? In the present paper we aim at solving this apparent conflict between a behavioral genetics approach and an action-theoretical perspective to human development. After a discussion of the idea of active and intentional self-development and the role of genes…

The marriage of evolution and development to produce the new discipline "evo-devo" in biology is situated in the general history of evolutionary biology, and its significance for developmental cognitive science is discussed. The discovery and description of the highly conserved, robust and "evolvable" mechanisms that organize the vertebrate body…

Offers a commentary on five contributions to recent developments in the study of cognitive development that have been selected for this special issue. The relevance of each author's paper to issues that are central to cognitivists today and post-Piagetian developmental psychologists is discussed, and the overall need of evolutionary models to…