Words, thoughts, and theories

TLDR

The paper reviews the theory‑theory perspective on how children and adults develop scientific and cognitive theories, exploring structural, functional, and dynamic features of theories, their development, and the role of language and cognition. The authors synthesize developmental evidence from infant cognition studies—such as the A‑not‑B error, object permanence, and semantic development—to support the theory‑theory account of how children form and revise mental representations.

Abstract

The other Socratic method: Socrates's problem Augustine's problem a road map. Part 1 The theory theory: the scientist as child - but surely it can't really be a theory? a cognitive view of science, naturalistic epistemology and development - an evolutionary speculation, science as horticulture, objections - sociology, objections - timing and convergence, objections - magic, empirical advances, what is theory? structural features of theories, functional features of theories, dynamic features of theories, theories in childhood, theories as representations theories, modules, and empirical generalizations - modules, theories and development, modules and development, modularity in peripheral and central processing, empirical generalization - scripts, narratives, and nets, interactions among theories, modules, and empirical generalizations, nonconceptual development - information processing and social construction. Part 2 Evidence for the theory theory: the child's theory of appearances - the adult theory, the initial theory, the paradox of invisible objects, an alternative - a theory-change account, the nine-month-old's theory, the A-not-B error as an auxiliary hypothesis, the 18-month-old's theory, other evidence for the theory theory, semantic developments - from objects permanence to perspective taking, later semantic developments - gone and see, conclusion the child's theory of action - the adult theory, the initial theory, the nine-month-old's theory, the 18-month-old's theory, other evidence for the theory theory, semantic development - no, uh-oh and there, later developments - from actions to desires, later semantic developments - want, conclusion the child's theory of kinds - the adult theory, categories and kinds, the initial theory, the nine-month-old's theory, the 18-month-old's theory , other evidence for the theory theory, semantic development - the naming Spurt, later developments, conclusion. Part 3 Theories and language: language and thought - prerequisites, interactions, a theory-theory view, methodological issues - specificity and correlation, developmental relations between language and cognition, theories and constraints, crosslinguistic studies, individual-difference studies, conclusion the Darwinian conclusion - who's afraid of semantic holism? a developmental cognitive science, computational and neurological mechanisms, after Piaget, sailing in Neurath's boat.