Learning and Development as Dialectical Factors in Cognitive Growth

Abstract

Cognitive growth results from dialectical interactions among different modes of learning and mental attentional capacity. These interactions explain truly novel (creative) performances. The different modes of learning, as well as the functional components making up mental attention, relate to the function of different areas in the human cortex. Organismic schemes are neuropsychological units; principles governing their functioning can be clarified by connectionist modeling. Learning is a manifold memorial storage of patterns of schemes that are coactivated and cofunctional. Four dimensions of learning are discussed: (a) operative/procedural versus figurative/ declarative, (b) LM/symbolic versus LC/signalic, (c) conceptual versus experiential, and (d) learning in facilitating versus misleading situations.

LIFESPAN PSYCHOLOGY: Theory and Application to Intellectual Functioning

“…Much of the search for stage-like development during adulthood has been inspired by Piaget's theory of cognitive development (Chapman 1988, Pascual-Leone 1995, and it has tried to identify one or more "post-formal" or "dialectical" stages of cognitive development after the advent of formal operations. The conceptual description of these stages often connects personality development (e.g.…”

Constructivist developmental theory is needed in developmental neuroscience

“…Representations and performances, in developmental constructivist models, are overdetermined by the currently activated compatible schemesaided by general-purpose brain capacities. 2,3 Constructivistdevelopmental processes and their stages (as distinct from, but complementary with, learning and neuroplasticity) are heuristically important to understand relations between child behaviour and brain development. They should be a part of neuroscience research designs.…”

Mental-Attentional Capacity: Does Cognitive Style Make a Difference?

“…Many studies have reported that field-independent people do better than fielddependent people on a variety of tasks designed to measure cognitive ability (e.g., Globerson, 1983Globerson, ,1985Globerson, , 1989Pascual-Leone, 1969;Witkin, Dyk, Faterson, Goodenough, & Karp, 1962;Witkin & Goodenough, 1981), but this difference remains controversial with regard to its causal determinants. For instance, adopting a dialectical constructivist model such as the one proposed by Pascual-Leone (Pascual-Leone, 1969, 1970, 1995Pascual-Leone & Goodman, 1979) we might ask: Do field-dependent subjects mobilize and/or allocate their mental-attentional resources less efficiently than field-independent people of the same mental-attentional capacity or do they have a smaller mental-attentional capacity? Mental-attentional capacity (Pascual-Leone, 1987;Pascual-Leone & Baillargeon, 1994) is the endogenous attentional resource (often loosely called "working memory") which enables subjects to keep in mind, via endogenous activation of corresponding schemes (i.e., information-carrying functional unit processes), a given number of task features or constraints that are not directly activated by the perceptual situation.…”