Emerging Cognitive Abilities in Early infancy

Mikael Heimann, Francisco Lacerda, Claes von Hofsten

Written by a group of developmental scientists, this book debates cognitive achievements in early infancy from a multidisciplinary perspective. The editors combine knowledge from different areas of infant development research to present an integrated view of the cognitive abilities emerging in early infancy. The chapters are arranged in a sequence that best conveys to the reader the line of reasoning that emerged during the development of this book. The book opens with chapters dealing with fundamental and general aspects of cognitive development, sweeps through the specific theme of language acquisition, and closes by returning to general questions concerning different representation modalities.

Contents: Preface. K.F. Condry, W.C. Smith, E.S. Spelke, Development of Perceptual Organization. Y. Munakata, Task Dependency in Infant Behavior: Toward an Understanding of the Processes Underlying Cognitive Development. M.H. Johnson, Infants' Initial "Knowledge" of the World: A Cognitive Neuroscience Perspective. C. von Hofsten, On the Early Development of Action, Perception, and Cognition. F. Lacerda, U. Sundberg, Auditory and Articulatory Biases Influence the Initial Stages of the Language Acquisition Process. P.K. Kuhl, Speech, Language, and Developmental Change. B.L. Davis, B. Lindblom, Phonetic Variability in Baby Talk and Development of Vowel Categories. P.W. Jusczky, In the Beginning, Was the Word... M. Legerstee, Domain Specificity and the Epistemic Triangle: The Development of the Concept of Animacy in Infancy. A.N. Meltzoff, M.K. Moore, "Discovery Procedures" for People and Things--The Role of Representation and Identity. M. Heimann, Neonatal Imitation--A "Fuzzy" Phenomenon?