Cognitive Development: The Child's Acquisition of Diagonality is an empirical and rational enquiry into the child's development of a conceptual system relating to the concept of the diagonal during the age range three to six years. A detailed examination will be made of why a young child has difficulty with such a problem, and what occurs during development that removes this difficulty. In the context of these empirical arguments, the book considers such theoretical questions as the nature of intellectual skills and conceptual or symbolic knowledge, as well as the role of experience and instruction in their development. The study concludes with a description of the child's reconstruction of the diagonal in terms of what at least poses as a general model of perceptual and intellectual development, and accounts for, among other things, man's increasing ability to apprehend and theorize about the motion of the stars. It shows that it is the elaboration of the child's perceptual knowledge in the context of his performatory attempts in such cultural media as language and geometry that accounts for his ability to copy a diagonal in particular and his intellectual development in general.
Inhalt
Foreword
Preface
1. Introduction
Text
2. Conceptualizing Conceptualizing: The Diagonal as an Interesting Problem
Perceptual Space
Representational Space
Concepts and Conceptual Space
Visual Representation
3. The Nature of the Difficulty
Problem Difficulty Comparison I
Problem Difficulty Comparisons II
General Discussion and Conclusions
4. The Effects of Instruction
Method
Results and Discussion
Conclusion
5. The Change in the Mind of the Child
Perception
Performance
Conceptualization
6. Instruction Revisited: Perceptual, Motor, and Linguistic Factors in Cognitive Development
Part I Perceptual and Verbal Training and the Acquisition of Diagonality
Method
Results
Discussion and Conclusion
Part II Perceptual-Motor and Verbal Training in the Acquisition of Diagonality
Phase I
Phase II
Summary and Conclusion
Addendum
A Montessori Approach to the Acquisition of Diagonality
7. Personal a n d Cultural Experience in Conceptual Development: The Acquisition of t he Diagonal in East Africa
Experimental Design
Results and Discussion
Conclusion
8. Looking, Seeing, and Knowing-Eye Movement Studies
Method
Results
Discussion
Conclusions
9. The Effects of a n Educational Toy on Intellectual Development
Educational Toy I
Educational Toy II
Educational Toy III
10. Conclusions: Some Aspects of a Theory of Cognitive Development
Perception
Language: Perceptual and Semantic Structure of the Orientation of Line
Perceiving and Performing
Intelligence-Skill in a Medium
Instruction
Summary
References
Author Index
Subject Index