A Metatheory for Cognitive Development (or “Piaget is Dead” Revisited)

Abstract

In 1997, I argued that with the loss of Piaget's theory as an overarching guide, cognitive development had become disjointed and a new metatheory was needed to unify the field. I suggested developmental biology, particularly evolutionary theory, as a candidate. Here, I examine the increasing emphasis of biology in cognitive development research over the past 2 decades. I describe briefly the emergence of evolutionary developmental psychology and examine areas in which proximal and distal biological causation have been particularly influential. I argue that developmental biology will continue to increasingly influence research and theory in cognitive development and that evolutionary theory is well on its way to becoming a metatheory, not just for cognitive development, but for developmental psychology generally.

Individual differences in neonatal “imitation” fail to predict early social cognitive behaviour

“…In an exploratory, post‐hoc series of analyses, we found support for Bjorklund's () observation that the neonates in our original sample tended to protrude their tongues more frequently in response to facial gesture models than to other models. Bjorklund suggested that such a tendency – while not imitation – might serve to maintain social interactions between infants and their caregivers.…”

“…For each neonatal time point in the original full sample from Oostenbroek et al (), we first obtained a “face‐specific tongue protrusion score” by calculating the difference between (a) the average frequency of tongue protrusions in response to the facial gesture models (tongue protrusion, mouth opening, happy face, sad face) and (b) the average frequency of tongue protrusions in response to the seven other models. Supporting Bjorklund's () observations, a series of one‐sample t ‐tests indicated that these scores were significantly above zero at 3 weeks, t (92) = 4.52, p < .001, 6 weeks, t (100) = 3.58, p = .001 and 9 weeks of age, t (95) = 3.49, p = .001, and above zero but not significantly so at 1 week of age, t (87) = 1.88, p = .063.…”

“…Bjorklund () recently highlighted that the neonates in our original study consistently displayed tongue protrusions in response to facial gestures (compared to other models), and suggested that such a tendency might serve to maintain face‐to‐face interactions between infants and their caregivers. We therefore examined whether the neonates showed intra‐individual consistency in this tendency across neonatal time points, and whether individual differences predicted later‐developing social cognitive behaviour.…”

“…Alternatively, if newborns do not imitate, then it would appear that we instead acquire the capacity during infancy (Piaget, ), perhaps as a function of both innate and environmental factors (see, e.g. Bjorklund, ; Byrne, ; Heyes, ; Paulus, Hunnius, Vissers, & Bekkering, ; Ray & Heyes, ). Mirror neurons have been proposed as a neural correlate of imitation (Iacobini, ), but it remains controversial whether these neurons play an innate and causal role in copying behaviour (Ferrari, Bonini, & Fogassi, ; Simpson, Murray, Paukner, & Ferrari, ) or whether they are simply an artefact of postnatal associative learning (Cook, Bird, Catmur, Press, & Heyes, ; Heyes, ).…”

“…Alternatively, if newborns do not imitate, then it would appear that we instead acquire the capacity during infancy (Piaget, 1962), perhaps as a function of both innate and environmental factors (see, e.g. Bjorklund, 2018;Byrne, 2003;Heyes, 2016a;Paulus, Hunnius, Vissers, & Bekkering, 2011;Ray & Heyes, 2011).…”