We recently proposed a multi-channel, image-filtering model for simulating the development of visual selective attention in young infants (Schlesinger, Amso & Johnson, 2007). The model not only captures the performance of 3-month-olds on a visual search task, but also implicates two cortical regions that may play a role in the development of…

We explored the perceptual structure of facial expressions of six basic emotions, varying systematically in intensity, in adults and children aged 7 and 14 years. Multidimensional scaling suggested that three- or four-dimensional structures were optimal for all groups. Two groups of adults demonstrated nearly identical structure, which had…

Maintains that one future direction for cognitive development research involves a closer integration with knowledge about the developing brain. Presents a framework for analyzing and interpreting postnatal functional brain development. Discusses three contributing hypotheses, within which a variety of phenomena associated with the neural basis of…

Examines the fallacies about the nature of abilities and learning and about the interaction between sense modalities which follow from the dichotomy in relation to explanations of spatial development in the blind. Suggests that interactions between cognitive and perceptual factors need to be considered to explain more adequately effects of sensory…

Introduces the concepts of online and offline sampling and highlights the role of online sampling in agent-based models of learning and development. Compares the strengths of each approach for modeling particular developmental phenomena and research questions. Describes a recent agent-based model of infant causal perception. Discusses limitations…

Although the study of the acquisition of a first language has been split by a controversy between the "innatists" and the "behaviorists," neither group has given enough consideration to the relationship between language development and the other developments of the child (social, cognitive, and perceptual). This collection of readings links the…

Two divergent approaches to the treatment of children with nonprogressive brain injury (the medical or neuropsychological and the educational or perceptual-motor) are discussed and compared by treatment rationale, models of the perceptual process, etiology, and organization theory. A guide to a comprehensive theory of development, based on…

Elusive developmental processes are most often examined in the context of the philosophic problem of scientific determinism. The Markov process model, enhancing a probabilistic viewpoint for the explanation of developmental data, should be restricted. Attention should be focused on the immediate context and situational setting of a subject. The…