A Bio‐Social‐Cultural Approach to Early Cognitive Development: Entering the Community of Minds
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A Bio-Social-Cultural Approach
to Early Cognitive Development:
Entering the Community of Minds
KATHERINE NELSON
Abstract
Important cognitive changes take place during the preschool years in addition to
the acquisition of a first language. A bio-social-cultural (BSC) theory is needed to
explicate the relation between language and cognition during this period of development. The foundations of the BSC approach in evolutionary and developmental
systems theory are noted and applied to the emergence of autobiographical memory
and the understanding of one’s own and other minds within the general conception
of “entering the community of minds” a conceptual framework for the social-cultural
components of this approach. The need for further theoretical and empirical research
including neurological change during this period is indicated.
COGNITIVE CHANGE IN THE PRESCHOOL YEARS
The years between infancy and school age (2–5, usually referred to as
preschool or early childhood) reveal the most dramatic changes in behavior
and cognitive abilities of any in the life span, except for infancy (birth to 2
years). During this time, children acquire their native language and use it
for communicative and cognitive purposes. They listen to stories, engage
in conversations, play with toys in symbolic scenes, actively jump and run,
and, in recent years, spend time playing games on mobile devices. During
these years, children also acquire a great deal of conventional knowledge
about animals, plants, and other real world domains as well as about
fictional worlds; memories for personal past experiences are shared with
others; understanding the intentions of others increases; and the sense of
self consolidates. The 5-year-old is thus, cognitively as well as physically,
quite a different creature from the 2-year-old.
The 5-year-old is on the verge of another cognitive “great leap
forward”—the “5–7 shift”—when many cognitive and social systems
Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Edited by Robert Scott and Stephen Kosslyn.
© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 978-1-118-90077-2.
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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
seem to produce a more competent and sophisticated child (Sameroff &
Haith, 1996). This later period is associated with the onset of formal schooling, across history, and in many different cultures; yet, schooling is not
considered to be the cause of the “leap forward.” Rather, it implies that the
preschool developments have consolidated, lifting the child to a new level
of functioning , ready for new levels of participation in the culture.
Child study experts have long recognized the unique character of the
preschool period. The nursery school model for fostering its progress was
proposed in the nineteenth century. Today, many support preschool for all
young children. What that schooling should consist of, however, is not yet
clear. Psychology has not offered a clear view of cognitive development
during this period that would guide education, whether preliteracy, play, or
something else.
The view here is that developing cultural knowledge is very much what the
preschool years are invested in, although not in the straightforward mode
of schooling. In this essay, I sketch the outlines of a theoretical approach
to the dramatic cognitive developments of this life period for which the
implicit goal is “entry into the Community of Minds (CoM).” The CoM
designates a cultural context within which people understand and share the
contents of their own and other minds. The contents are cultural products
and are shared through varying kinds of semiotic representations; of prime
importance is the language that the child acquires along the way. The CoM
concept has been described in several works in relation to ongoing research
(e.g., Nelson, 2005, 2007).
The broader theoretical framework within which early cognitive development can be explicated is that of bio-social-cultural (BSC) interactive systems. The major point here is that developmental change, while individual in
nature, involves aspects of each of these general interconnected contexts. The
biological component derives from its evolutionary roots, consistent with
“evo-devo,” the “new look” in biology (Carroll, 2005). The background for its
development is presented in the section titled “Foundational Research” with
some specific achievements of early childhood addressed in this framework
described in the section titled “Cutting Edge Research” and future trends in
the section titled “Key Issues for Fundamental Research.”
This theoretical development and the related research undertaken can be
best understood in the context of the alternatives. Much of cognitive developmental research over the past 50 years has been carried out within a general
information processing (IP) model of the mind, based on the digital computer. This model is undergoing challenge and change today; however, it still
serves as a background for much research. Its disadvantages include its application to the workings of the brain independent of the external environment,
and its lack of accommodation for change over time as development requires.
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Related in their effects are versions of biological “nativisms” in which the
biological system provides the structure of cognition, much of which is available in infancy and subsequently depends solely on individual learning for
change over time. A variation in this line is “sociobiology” in which the social
conditions and interactions of people are held to be genetically determined.
As its label implies, the BSC approach has some allegiances with both of
these other views, in terms of the significance of biological and social foundations, but it emphasizes the interconnection and interaction of all three major
components throughout development, learning, and life. Understanding the
complexities of these interactions in developmental systems terms is bound
to be complicated, and nothing approaching a formal model for any particular development yet exists. Such challenges are for the future.
The acquisition of language and its use in communication and cognition by
almost all children is one of the most obvious changes during the early childhood period. Moreover, language ability is closely related to almost every
social and cognitive advance that takes place during childhood. It has been
easy to assume a causal connection between language and cognition. In fact,
it is notable that both classic developmental theorists Piaget (Language and
Thought, 1926) and Vygotsky (Thought and Language, 1962; original work, 1934)
produced books on the topic, although with reverse causal arrows. In contemporary work there is more study of children’s language per se than of
its specific use in cognitive contexts. My work has long been aimed to connect the two; yet the puzzle remains as to how exactly the child’s language
becomes, as Vygotsky puts it, “a tool of thought.” Each of the domains to be
discussed here provides a context for speculation on this issue.
FOUNDATIONAL RESEARCH
EMERGENCE OF BSC COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
By 1990, 30 years after the “cognitive revolution,” some cognitivists began
to welcome its revision. Among the first were Varela, Thompson and Rosch
(1991) who argued that the embodiment of mind in activity made extant
“head-driven” cognitive models inapplicable. Clark’s (1997) Being There
reinforced and went beyond this argument to assert that the then current
“top-down” cognitive model was fatally flawed, calling for a revolution
in thinking about the role of action in cognition. Oyama (1985) offered
an incisive critique of the extremes of sociobiology from a developmental
perspective and countered with a constructive view of development through
integrated biological and cultural dynamic systems. These and other works
prepared for the broader acceptance of a more complex biological foundation for development than that implied in the computer model or in innatist
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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
positions, acknowledging the link between phylogenetic (evolutionary) and
ontogenetic (developmental) change (see Jablonka & Lamb, 2005 for recent
biological account).
Human infants emerge from a long phylogenetic history, prepared, like
other mammals, for development in the expected environment of their
species. However, the nature of human environments is diversity: the
geographical and ecological settings, as well as the cultural particulars,
are unpredictable and largely blind to genetic control. As a result, human
infants must be to some extent cognitive generalists, they must become
socially attached to knowledgeable care-givers who can guide them into and
through whatever environment they are born within and over the course of
evolution Humans have developed some generalist capacities for dealing
with these uncertainties. Among these are access to specific memory for past
experience, social bonding, and mimetic skills.
These attributes appeared in human prehistory before the emergence of
language, as documented by Merlin Donald (1991) in his path breaking book
Origins of the Modern Mind. This work traced the phylogeny of prehuman
brain and culture, through the prehistory of oral language and its uses, the
invention of writing and its effects, and into the modern world of print,
resulting in what Donald called the modern (hybrid) mind. Important to
this broad conception is the base of mimesis that emerged in the prehuman
Homo erectus period, enabling the recall of memory of prior experience and
recreation of actions in imitation of others, as well as social group mimetic
practices such as rhythmic and musical activities. Advances in individual
and group communication and cooperation provided a plausible platform
for the emergence of verbal language.
Equally important was Donald’s emphasis on the cultural origins of the
emergence of language, and later the development of written forms that provided the platform for the extensive and widespread shared knowledge base
that characterizes the modern literate culture and mind. Indeed, the significant role of culture in originally establishing language, as well as providing
the possibility of further evolution through semipermanent external representational forms, is a major contribution of Donald’s work.
A different but related view of the evolutionary basis of human development was emphasized by the sociobiologist Hrdy (1999), documenting the
birth and mothering practices of other primates, as well as humans, the latter through history and in different cultures. The strong social dependence of
humankind and its variable cultural solutions is a cornerstone of BSC developmental theory.
A developmental analog of Donald’s account of linguistic and cognitive
evolution is the emergence within an individual lifespan of the varying
components of complex culture, language and cognition, its hybrid layers
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implied by the phylogenetic history, remaining available for different operations throughout the lifespan. Such a developmental theory in accord with
Donald’s evolutionary account was proposed by Nelson (1996). The basis of
this account in event knowledge (Nelson, 1986), as well as use of mimesis
and language–especially in narrative form—were emphasized for different
domains in development. For example, mimesis is readily evident in the
infant’s disposition (unlike that of most other primates) to imitate others
and later to engage in symbolic play. The acquisition of spoken language is
a prime example of the coordination of a biological base through perceptual
and motor biases, social mediation through engagement and modeling,
and cultural forms. However, the emergence of literacy is a strictly cultural
evolutionary achievement (with dramatic results for restructuring of the
brain) requiring for most individuals, specific schooling rather than simply
exposure to cultural members and activities
Several emphases of Donald’s account appeared to hold particular promise
as a basis for a new view in cognitive developmental psychology. Rather than
claiming that language was the one independent component of the human
species that made the “difference” between humans and other species, he
viewed language as an outcome of the prior evolutionary changes in social,
cultural, and biological characteristics; he viewed the emergence of spoken
language as a beginning point in cognitive change, to be followed by literacy
and its cognitive impact, and eventually by printed works available to all.
Each of these moves of course resulted from and in cultural change. In other
words, the system was dynamic, with change always in prospect. It takes
little imagination to presume that the contemporary world of digital social
devices may provide another lurch into a different cognitive world.
Contemporary with these accounts, Michael Tomasello (1999) presented
a strong biocultural perspective on human cognitive development based
on his studies of children’s language acquisition and the comparison of ape
and human cognition and behavior. He emphasized the unique quality of
cultural learning and the intricate process of advancing and maintaining
cultural and cognitive change over generations. By 2000, the cultural nature
of human learning and development was a familiar theme in developmental
psychology.
Of course, “culture” (like “biology”) is a very broad term, covering a great
deal of the world around us. Thus the simple statement that children develop
or learn in culture is hardly an informative or even contested claim. A link
is needed between the biological individual, and what it means to “learn”
or to learn in culture. Social agents who bear culture and share it (or impose
it) on the young through a variety of means, implicit and explicit, provide
the obvious link. The use of language as a communicative and cognitive tool
is a natural medium for cultural exchange. However, the social bearing of
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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
culture for infants begins long before language is available to the child, and
many media besides the verbal also convey the contents and meanings of culture. Indeed, all of the interactions of parents and infants reflect the specifics
of the cultural world they inhabit. The point here is that social and cultural
embeddedness is indeed a part of the biologically determined beginnings of
human life.
A general foundation with wide influence for reconsidering mental
development is “dynamic systems theory,” an ongoing revolution in science
and social science. In developmental psychology, Oyama’s (1985) work
introduced the developmental systems approach, but it was Thelen and
Smith’s (1994) book that brought developmental systems theory to general
attention in the cognitive development field. This approach (assumed in
BSC theory) emphasizes the interactions of multiple systems of actions,
perceptions, internal processes, and communication that are involved in a
child’s encounters in the world and that necessarily interact in developing
new cognitive operations and structures. [See Oyama, Griffiths, & Gray
(2001) for further perspective on the biological systems of development.]
CUTTING EDGE RESEARCH
ENTERING THE COMMUNITY OF MINDS
This section highlights two areas of early cognitive development, indicating
a major developmental change involved in becoming a member of the adult
“CoM.” Autobiographical memory emerges from social and cultural experience in this period as a fundamentally different kind of memory, whereas
theory of mind (ToM) involves a fundamentally different view of the motivations of people and their actions.
In recent years the recognition of aspects of mind “outside the head”
has accelerated beyond the “embodiment” of Varela et al. (1991). They
have appeared under a variety of mind labels (“embodied,” “ecological,”
“emulation,” “extended,” “open,” and “shared”) of which “the enactive
mind” (Glenberg, Witt, & Metcalfe, 2013) appears to have become generic.
These proposals are consistent with the broader base for BSC developmental
thinking, incorporating the necessity of taking interactions with people as
well as the material world into the assumptions of how the mind works.
In addition, these proposals, by problematizing the concept of mind, have
made questionable the assumption of an innate concept of mind in the
minds of children. The idea of the “CoM” rests on the assumption that as
children come to recognize the minds of others, and with that, their own
minds (Bogdan, 2010), they also enter into a community where what is in
A Bio-Social-Cultural Approach to Early Cognitive Development
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the mind of self and others is part of a cultural mode of being. Development
of memory and ToM are both critically involved in this movement.
Autobiographical Memory. Memory is a basic biological component of the cognitive system operations of the brain. In prior eras of child study, memory
was rarely considered central to understanding cognitive development. It
was long taken for granted that infants and young children had no or very
poor memory. That view has changed dramatically, as documented in Bauer
(2007) and in the recent Handbook of Children’s Memory (Bauer & Fivush, 2013)
whose authors review the enormous body of literature on infant and child
memory that has accumulated over the past decades.
In humans, one kind of memory, autobiographical, retains some personal
episodes for a lifetime. Adults’ memories of this kind typically date from
about 3.5 to 6 years of age. The beginnings of this capacity establish a sense of
the past self and project the self into the future, providing a new perspective
of time. The lack of memories from the earliest 3 years of life (termed infantile or childhood amnesia) has long-fascinated theorists, including Freud and
William James. On the basis of studies first reported in the nineteenth century
with many recent replications, the age of earliest memory is very reliable
(although variable—very few memories appear from 1 or 2 years in some
adults, whereas others have no memories until 6, 7, or 8 years). It is now
clear that infants have memory for faces, actions, events and objects, memories that may persist for many months, even in a few cases for a year or more
during the first three years of life. Knowing language terms for items in the
remembered experience enhances memories during this period, extending
their range. However, these early memories rarely persist into later years of
childhood, much less into adulthood. The question of interest has been: what
causes the failure of these memories to persist into later life? What enables
their retention?
Robyn Fivush and I addressed this question in light of the social and cultural basis for memory development in the preschool years (Nelson & Fivush,
2004). Results from studies of parents and their 3- and 4-year-old children
talking together about their experiences of past events indicated that the
way that parents engage the child in talk about the past event affects how
long the memory persists. Parents who elaborate the child’s own contributions have a positive effect on the child’s retaining a memory of that event in
the future. Moreover, children whose parents elaborated their memory talk
recalled more memories overall years later. These children appeared to establish a durable “past self” at an early age, reflecting the influence of the social
environment that encourages this orientation (Fivush & Haden, 2003).
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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
Memory talk reflects not only social practices but cultural values.
Cross-cultural research by Wang (2013) and others has found variations in
age of onset and contents of autobiographical memory through different
cultural emphases on self and social relationships. Wang has also found that
emphases on personal and family relationships or on individual achievements vary in autobiographical memory (as in other areas) across different
cultures. The development of a new kind of memory, autobiographical
memory, turns out to be simultaneously self-oriented, socially established,
and culturally influenced (Nelson, 2003a, p. 13; 2003b, p. 15; 2013). A dual
self and social-cultural foundation for autobiographical memory is an
important component of the progress of children toward the specific cultural
“community of minds.”
Other Minds. For the past 25 years “theory of mind” has been a focal topic
in cognitive development, and in philosophy. From the outset a strong claim
for the innate constitution of a unique human disposition to “read others’
minds” has been assumed necessary to explain adults’ assumptions about
the actions and motivations of others in the social world. For much of that
time the ability to engage this unique “folk theory” was thought to emerge at
4 years when children attained the ability to understand others’ capacity for
false (as well as true) beliefs (Baron-Cohen, Tager-Flusberg & Cohen, 2000).
More recently, ToM has been attributed to 1-year-old infants backing a strong
claim for its innate origin. That some ability to anticipate and interpret others’
attention, emotion, and goals appears in late infancy and is necessary for
interpreting intentions of others in language and action is accepted by most
developmentalists. However, there is a strong case that this understanding
of others’ intentions in direct face-to-face interactions is not the broad “false
belief” understanding that is under test in the ToM tasks for 4-year-olds.
A reasonable hypothesis is that in the course of their evolution of mimetic
skills and their social applications, humans may have acquired sophisticated
readings of those they interact with. However, as Hutto (2008) points out,
understanding false belief is really about “third person theory of mind,” and
not about on the spot interpretation of facial expression, body movement,
and so on. ToM tasks are typically verbal and involve the interpretation of
the knowledge, beliefs, and intentions of third person actors. In these cases,
the child must construct a representation of a person’s thinking and belief
states, on the basis of incomplete evidence from situational or story context.
The BSC developmental account begins in infancy when the infant
experiences social-cultural situations where certain dispositions (smiling,
cooing, following eyes, tracking tonal voice patterns) are met responsively
by the social world revealing social and cultural meaning. As Bogdan
A Bio-Social-Cultural Approach to Early Cognitive Development
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(1997) suggested, this implies a two-system solution of the ToM problem,
with person-to-person interpretation available by the end of infancy and
the more cognitively complex third-person interpretation emerging only
after experience with interactions around complex situations of competing
interests. A two-system solution to ToM is consistent with other views as
well (e.g., Apperly, 2011; Tomasello, 2008). In addition, narratives (stories,
memory talk) that incorporate beliefs aid the child in coming to understand
the mechanisms of intentions, events, and outcomes, as well as the temporality of these components (Nelson, 2003a, p. 13; 2003b, p. 15; Nelson
et al., 2002). Hutto’s (2008) explicitly narrative solution to the understanding
of false belief and the contents of other minds argues that certain cultural
narratives (e.g., Aesop’s Fables) can lead the child, in discussions with
adults, to the understanding of how different actors conflict and resolve
their arguments. Bogdan (2010) argues further that it is only after experience
with the language of the mind, especially as adults speak about what is in
their own minds that children can begin to interpret the other as ‘having” a
mind, and reciprocally coming to understand that they have minds as well.
The development of autobiographical memory and the emergence of an
awareness of mind in self and others are two major cognitive shifts during
the preschool period, but certainly not the only ones. The self-consciousness
involved in the realization of “one’s own mind” (Bogdan, 2010) is also
involved in the realization of the meaning of some notable abstract concepts
such as those involved in temporality. Again, the sharing of narratives, of
self and of fictional characters is a major source of attaining knowledge of
this kind, with guidance from adults and peers. The capacity for acquiring
nonpersonal cultural knowledge, for example, the complex knowledge
about ancient Dinosaurs that fascinates many young children or the intricacies of chess and other (simpler) games, reveals an emerging ability to use
external representations (illustrations, chessmen and board) in combination
with internal representations to carry out increasingly complex cognitive
operations.
It is notable that the major advances in the preschool period involve interaction with external representations, including but not limited to symbolic
language, and that a critical central development is the tracking of knowledge source (Roberts and Blades, 2000) that is involved. This points out to a
major change in cognition associated with language acquisition but not confined to it: the shift from all learning dependent on self-exploration to the
acquisition of new knowledge through the medium of others’ representations (in language, pictures, play, etc.). In turn, this suggests a major shift
from simple “embodied learning” to “shared knowing” and its reciprocal
state of “self-conscious knowing.”
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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
KEY ISSUES FOR FUTURE RESEARCH
BRAIN, MIND, LANGUAGE AND ACTION WITH SOCIAL OTHERS IN CULTURE
The initial impulse of the “new look” in cognitive development in the wake
of Donald’s (1991) work assumed that language was the moving force in cognition (Nelson, 1996). This fit with Vygotsky’s proposal of thinking as “inner
speech.” This assumption was reflected in the expectation that facility with
language would explain the onset of autobiographical memory; yet, I found
that a child with very advanced language at 2 years remembered nothing of
her life before 4 years of age. Similarly, a conference on “Why Language Matters to Theory of Mind” (Astington & Baird, 2005) considered this assumption
at length but came forth with no agreement on the answers.
The problem lies in presuming that the internal possession of “a language”
somehow affects thought. Rather, we need to switch attention to how language is used in both interactive learning and in reflection on the message.
For example, the use of language by mother and child in memory talk affects
how autobiographical memory is initiated. Similarly, how language is used
in narratives affects how theory of mind, or attention to what’s in the minds
of others, develops at age 4. It is the interface that language enables among
the cultural components, the social exchange, and the individual thinker that
is significant. This perspective leads to the suggestion that the future resides
in research that focuses on language in context concerned with matters that
are of critical interest to young children: for example, the passage of time, life,
death, and birth. It also suggests that educators of young children focus on
the interactive context as well as the messages that are to be received. Questions from children, their play, and peer talk may all inform us of the focus
of children’s interests and concerns. Better understanding of the processes of
reflection, representation, and knowledge generation may follow.
An important fact to keep in mind is that learning in the preschool years
begins with retaining and organizing self-experience, and that this kind of
self-learning continues throughout life. Learning from interactions with others in the form of statements in language or through other media is a secondary achievement that needs to be investigated as the unique process that
it is. On the face of it, learning from own experience (perceptual observation,
action on the world, imitation) requires self-activity directed by self-interest.
Learning from accounts of others requires relating to and translating others’ words, expressions, or presentations into concepts and memories stored
in one’s own cognitive systems, together with active induction or imagination and integration into one’s own background knowledge. The details of
this process remain unexplored—taken for granted—at present. Vygotsky
addressed this issue in terms of “scaffolding” but often the learning is not
A Bio-Social-Cultural Approach to Early Cognitive Development
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scaffolded except through the learner’s own background of knowledge. This
is a rich topic for future exploration.
An obvious area for future exploration on this topic is the neurocognition of early childhood. Although much has been learned in recent years
about areas of the brain involved in cognitive activities, there is still little
insight into developments in critical areas of the brain throughout the early
childhood period. Given the dramatic changes taking place, neurocognitive
exploration should be incorporated into specific research areas investigating
change over time.
Finally, any theoretical perspective on cultural learning must take account
of the ongoing cultural changes around us, especially the use by children of
all ages of digital systems and devices. Given Donald’s hypothesis of changes
in the organization of brain and mind over the periods that involved the
emergence of language, of writing, and printed works, one would expect
related changes in the ways that minds work to be emerging among significant portions of the population even during the early childhood period. What
those changes are is a fascinating matter for future exploration.
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Wang, Q. (2013). The Cultured Self and Remembering. In P. J. Bauer & R. Fivush
(Eds.), Wiley-Blackwell handbook on the development of children’s memory. New York,
NY: Wiley-Blackwell.
FURTHER READING
Rochat, P. (2001). The infant’s world. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
KATHERINE NELSON SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Katherine Nelson graduated from Oberlin College and earned a PhD in psychology from UCLA (1969), followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at Yale
(1969–1971). She served on the faculty at Yale until 1978 when she left to head
the program in Developmental Psychology at the CUNY Graduate Center,
where she is now an Emerita professor. She spent a year at CASBS during
1992–1993 and a semester at Oxford (1978), and has lectured in Shanghai
China (1984) and at several other international universities. Her work has
focused on young children’s language acquisition, cognitive development
including memory, concepts, and narrative, and social cultural theory combining language and cognitive development. She has mentored over 40 PhD
students and has published more than 200 journal articles and book chapters
on these topics and authored or edited 9 books. Her work has been among
the most cited in Developmental Psychology. Honors and awards include the
SRCD award for distinguished research career (1999); the Eleanor Maccoby
Book award from Div.7 APA (2008); and the APA Div. 7 G. Stanley Hall award
for Distinguished Contribution to the field (2008).
RELATED ESSAYS
Economics of Early Education (Economics), W. Steven Barnett
Kin-Directed Behavior in Primates (Anthropology), Carol M. Berman
Neighborhoods and Cognitive Development (Psychology), Jondou Chen and
Jeanne Brooks-Gunn
Sibling Relationships and Development (Psychology), Nicole Campione-Barr
and Sarah Killoren
Genetics and the Life Course (Sociology), Evan Charney
Cognitive Processes Involved in Stereotyping (Psychology), Susan T. Fiske
and Cydney H. Dupree
Social Class and Parental Investment in Children (Sociology), Anne H.
Gauthier
Changing Family Patterns (Sociology), Kathleen Gerson and Stacy Torres
Language and Thought (Psychology), Susan Goldin-Meadow
14
EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
Family Relationships and Development (Psychology), Joan E. Grusec
Genetics and Social Behavior (Anthropology), Henry Harpending and Gregory Cochran
An Evolutionary Perspective on Developmental Plasticity (Psychology),
Sarah Hartman and Jay Belsky
Grandmothers and the Evolution of Human Sociality (Anthropology), Kristen
Hawkes and James Coxworth
Childhood (Anthropology), Karen L. Kramer
Two-Systems View of Children’s Theory-of-Mind Understanding (Psychology), Jason Low
Evolutionary Perspectives on Animal and Human Personality (Anthropology), Joseph H. Manson and Lynn A. Fairbanks
Neural and Cognitive Plasticity (Psychology), Eduardo Mercado III
The Intrinsic Dynamics of Development (Psychology), Paul van Geert and
Marijn van Dijk
How Form Constrains Function in the Human Brain (Psychology), Timothy
D. Verstynen
Theory of Mind (Psychology), Henry Wellman
Behavioral Heterochrony (Anthropology), Victoria Wobber and Brian Hare
-
A Bio-Social-Cultural Approach
to Early Cognitive Development:
Entering the Community of Minds
KATHERINE NELSON
Abstract
Important cognitive changes take place during the preschool years in addition to
the acquisition of a first language. A bio-social-cultural (BSC) theory is needed to
explicate the relation between language and cognition during this period of development. The foundations of the BSC approach in evolutionary and developmental
systems theory are noted and applied to the emergence of autobiographical memory
and the understanding of one’s own and other minds within the general conception
of “entering the community of minds” a conceptual framework for the social-cultural
components of this approach. The need for further theoretical and empirical research
including neurological change during this period is indicated.
COGNITIVE CHANGE IN THE PRESCHOOL YEARS
The years between infancy and school age (2–5, usually referred to as
preschool or early childhood) reveal the most dramatic changes in behavior
and cognitive abilities of any in the life span, except for infancy (birth to 2
years). During this time, children acquire their native language and use it
for communicative and cognitive purposes. They listen to stories, engage
in conversations, play with toys in symbolic scenes, actively jump and run,
and, in recent years, spend time playing games on mobile devices. During
these years, children also acquire a great deal of conventional knowledge
about animals, plants, and other real world domains as well as about
fictional worlds; memories for personal past experiences are shared with
others; understanding the intentions of others increases; and the sense of
self consolidates. The 5-year-old is thus, cognitively as well as physically,
quite a different creature from the 2-year-old.
The 5-year-old is on the verge of another cognitive “great leap
forward”—the “5–7 shift”—when many cognitive and social systems
Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Edited by Robert Scott and Stephen Kosslyn.
© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 978-1-118-90077-2.
1
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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
seem to produce a more competent and sophisticated child (Sameroff &
Haith, 1996). This later period is associated with the onset of formal schooling, across history, and in many different cultures; yet, schooling is not
considered to be the cause of the “leap forward.” Rather, it implies that the
preschool developments have consolidated, lifting the child to a new level
of functioning , ready for new levels of participation in the culture.
Child study experts have long recognized the unique character of the
preschool period. The nursery school model for fostering its progress was
proposed in the nineteenth century. Today, many support preschool for all
young children. What that schooling should consist of, however, is not yet
clear. Psychology has not offered a clear view of cognitive development
during this period that would guide education, whether preliteracy, play, or
something else.
The view here is that developing cultural knowledge is very much what the
preschool years are invested in, although not in the straightforward mode
of schooling. In this essay, I sketch the outlines of a theoretical approach
to the dramatic cognitive developments of this life period for which the
implicit goal is “entry into the Community of Minds (CoM).” The CoM
designates a cultural context within which people understand and share the
contents of their own and other minds. The contents are cultural products
and are shared through varying kinds of semiotic representations; of prime
importance is the language that the child acquires along the way. The CoM
concept has been described in several works in relation to ongoing research
(e.g., Nelson, 2005, 2007).
The broader theoretical framework within which early cognitive development can be explicated is that of bio-social-cultural (BSC) interactive systems. The major point here is that developmental change, while individual in
nature, involves aspects of each of these general interconnected contexts. The
biological component derives from its evolutionary roots, consistent with
“evo-devo,” the “new look” in biology (Carroll, 2005). The background for its
development is presented in the section titled “Foundational Research” with
some specific achievements of early childhood addressed in this framework
described in the section titled “Cutting Edge Research” and future trends in
the section titled “Key Issues for Fundamental Research.”
This theoretical development and the related research undertaken can be
best understood in the context of the alternatives. Much of cognitive developmental research over the past 50 years has been carried out within a general
information processing (IP) model of the mind, based on the digital computer. This model is undergoing challenge and change today; however, it still
serves as a background for much research. Its disadvantages include its application to the workings of the brain independent of the external environment,
and its lack of accommodation for change over time as development requires.
A Bio-Social-Cultural Approach to Early Cognitive Development
3
Related in their effects are versions of biological “nativisms” in which the
biological system provides the structure of cognition, much of which is available in infancy and subsequently depends solely on individual learning for
change over time. A variation in this line is “sociobiology” in which the social
conditions and interactions of people are held to be genetically determined.
As its label implies, the BSC approach has some allegiances with both of
these other views, in terms of the significance of biological and social foundations, but it emphasizes the interconnection and interaction of all three major
components throughout development, learning, and life. Understanding the
complexities of these interactions in developmental systems terms is bound
to be complicated, and nothing approaching a formal model for any particular development yet exists. Such challenges are for the future.
The acquisition of language and its use in communication and cognition by
almost all children is one of the most obvious changes during the early childhood period. Moreover, language ability is closely related to almost every
social and cognitive advance that takes place during childhood. It has been
easy to assume a causal connection between language and cognition. In fact,
it is notable that both classic developmental theorists Piaget (Language and
Thought, 1926) and Vygotsky (Thought and Language, 1962; original work, 1934)
produced books on the topic, although with reverse causal arrows. In contemporary work there is more study of children’s language per se than of
its specific use in cognitive contexts. My work has long been aimed to connect the two; yet the puzzle remains as to how exactly the child’s language
becomes, as Vygotsky puts it, “a tool of thought.” Each of the domains to be
discussed here provides a context for speculation on this issue.
FOUNDATIONAL RESEARCH
EMERGENCE OF BSC COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
By 1990, 30 years after the “cognitive revolution,” some cognitivists began
to welcome its revision. Among the first were Varela, Thompson and Rosch
(1991) who argued that the embodiment of mind in activity made extant
“head-driven” cognitive models inapplicable. Clark’s (1997) Being There
reinforced and went beyond this argument to assert that the then current
“top-down” cognitive model was fatally flawed, calling for a revolution
in thinking about the role of action in cognition. Oyama (1985) offered
an incisive critique of the extremes of sociobiology from a developmental
perspective and countered with a constructive view of development through
integrated biological and cultural dynamic systems. These and other works
prepared for the broader acceptance of a more complex biological foundation for development than that implied in the computer model or in innatist
4
EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
positions, acknowledging the link between phylogenetic (evolutionary) and
ontogenetic (developmental) change (see Jablonka & Lamb, 2005 for recent
biological account).
Human infants emerge from a long phylogenetic history, prepared, like
other mammals, for development in the expected environment of their
species. However, the nature of human environments is diversity: the
geographical and ecological settings, as well as the cultural particulars,
are unpredictable and largely blind to genetic control. As a result, human
infants must be to some extent cognitive generalists, they must become
socially attached to knowledgeable care-givers who can guide them into and
through whatever environment they are born within and over the course of
evolution Humans have developed some generalist capacities for dealing
with these uncertainties. Among these are access to specific memory for past
experience, social bonding, and mimetic skills.
These attributes appeared in human prehistory before the emergence of
language, as documented by Merlin Donald (1991) in his path breaking book
Origins of the Modern Mind. This work traced the phylogeny of prehuman
brain and culture, through the prehistory of oral language and its uses, the
invention of writing and its effects, and into the modern world of print,
resulting in what Donald called the modern (hybrid) mind. Important to
this broad conception is the base of mimesis that emerged in the prehuman
Homo erectus period, enabling the recall of memory of prior experience and
recreation of actions in imitation of others, as well as social group mimetic
practices such as rhythmic and musical activities. Advances in individual
and group communication and cooperation provided a plausible platform
for the emergence of verbal language.
Equally important was Donald’s emphasis on the cultural origins of the
emergence of language, and later the development of written forms that provided the platform for the extensive and widespread shared knowledge base
that characterizes the modern literate culture and mind. Indeed, the significant role of culture in originally establishing language, as well as providing
the possibility of further evolution through semipermanent external representational forms, is a major contribution of Donald’s work.
A different but related view of the evolutionary basis of human development was emphasized by the sociobiologist Hrdy (1999), documenting the
birth and mothering practices of other primates, as well as humans, the latter through history and in different cultures. The strong social dependence of
humankind and its variable cultural solutions is a cornerstone of BSC developmental theory.
A developmental analog of Donald’s account of linguistic and cognitive
evolution is the emergence within an individual lifespan of the varying
components of complex culture, language and cognition, its hybrid layers
A Bio-Social-Cultural Approach to Early Cognitive Development
5
implied by the phylogenetic history, remaining available for different operations throughout the lifespan. Such a developmental theory in accord with
Donald’s evolutionary account was proposed by Nelson (1996). The basis of
this account in event knowledge (Nelson, 1986), as well as use of mimesis
and language–especially in narrative form—were emphasized for different
domains in development. For example, mimesis is readily evident in the
infant’s disposition (unlike that of most other primates) to imitate others
and later to engage in symbolic play. The acquisition of spoken language is
a prime example of the coordination of a biological base through perceptual
and motor biases, social mediation through engagement and modeling,
and cultural forms. However, the emergence of literacy is a strictly cultural
evolutionary achievement (with dramatic results for restructuring of the
brain) requiring for most individuals, specific schooling rather than simply
exposure to cultural members and activities
Several emphases of Donald’s account appeared to hold particular promise
as a basis for a new view in cognitive developmental psychology. Rather than
claiming that language was the one independent component of the human
species that made the “difference” between humans and other species, he
viewed language as an outcome of the prior evolutionary changes in social,
cultural, and biological characteristics; he viewed the emergence of spoken
language as a beginning point in cognitive change, to be followed by literacy
and its cognitive impact, and eventually by printed works available to all.
Each of these moves of course resulted from and in cultural change. In other
words, the system was dynamic, with change always in prospect. It takes
little imagination to presume that the contemporary world of digital social
devices may provide another lurch into a different cognitive world.
Contemporary with these accounts, Michael Tomasello (1999) presented
a strong biocultural perspective on human cognitive development based
on his studies of children’s language acquisition and the comparison of ape
and human cognition and behavior. He emphasized the unique quality of
cultural learning and the intricate process of advancing and maintaining
cultural and cognitive change over generations. By 2000, the cultural nature
of human learning and development was a familiar theme in developmental
psychology.
Of course, “culture” (like “biology”) is a very broad term, covering a great
deal of the world around us. Thus the simple statement that children develop
or learn in culture is hardly an informative or even contested claim. A link
is needed between the biological individual, and what it means to “learn”
or to learn in culture. Social agents who bear culture and share it (or impose
it) on the young through a variety of means, implicit and explicit, provide
the obvious link. The use of language as a communicative and cognitive tool
is a natural medium for cultural exchange. However, the social bearing of
6
EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
culture for infants begins long before language is available to the child, and
many media besides the verbal also convey the contents and meanings of culture. Indeed, all of the interactions of parents and infants reflect the specifics
of the cultural world they inhabit. The point here is that social and cultural
embeddedness is indeed a part of the biologically determined beginnings of
human life.
A general foundation with wide influence for reconsidering mental
development is “dynamic systems theory,” an ongoing revolution in science
and social science. In developmental psychology, Oyama’s (1985) work
introduced the developmental systems approach, but it was Thelen and
Smith’s (1994) book that brought developmental systems theory to general
attention in the cognitive development field. This approach (assumed in
BSC theory) emphasizes the interactions of multiple systems of actions,
perceptions, internal processes, and communication that are involved in a
child’s encounters in the world and that necessarily interact in developing
new cognitive operations and structures. [See Oyama, Griffiths, & Gray
(2001) for further perspective on the biological systems of development.]
CUTTING EDGE RESEARCH
ENTERING THE COMMUNITY OF MINDS
This section highlights two areas of early cognitive development, indicating
a major developmental change involved in becoming a member of the adult
“CoM.” Autobiographical memory emerges from social and cultural experience in this period as a fundamentally different kind of memory, whereas
theory of mind (ToM) involves a fundamentally different view of the motivations of people and their actions.
In recent years the recognition of aspects of mind “outside the head”
has accelerated beyond the “embodiment” of Varela et al. (1991). They
have appeared under a variety of mind labels (“embodied,” “ecological,”
“emulation,” “extended,” “open,” and “shared”) of which “the enactive
mind” (Glenberg, Witt, & Metcalfe, 2013) appears to have become generic.
These proposals are consistent with the broader base for BSC developmental
thinking, incorporating the necessity of taking interactions with people as
well as the material world into the assumptions of how the mind works.
In addition, these proposals, by problematizing the concept of mind, have
made questionable the assumption of an innate concept of mind in the
minds of children. The idea of the “CoM” rests on the assumption that as
children come to recognize the minds of others, and with that, their own
minds (Bogdan, 2010), they also enter into a community where what is in
A Bio-Social-Cultural Approach to Early Cognitive Development
7
the mind of self and others is part of a cultural mode of being. Development
of memory and ToM are both critically involved in this movement.
Autobiographical Memory. Memory is a basic biological component of the cognitive system operations of the brain. In prior eras of child study, memory
was rarely considered central to understanding cognitive development. It
was long taken for granted that infants and young children had no or very
poor memory. That view has changed dramatically, as documented in Bauer
(2007) and in the recent Handbook of Children’s Memory (Bauer & Fivush, 2013)
whose authors review the enormous body of literature on infant and child
memory that has accumulated over the past decades.
In humans, one kind of memory, autobiographical, retains some personal
episodes for a lifetime. Adults’ memories of this kind typically date from
about 3.5 to 6 years of age. The beginnings of this capacity establish a sense of
the past self and project the self into the future, providing a new perspective
of time. The lack of memories from the earliest 3 years of life (termed infantile or childhood amnesia) has long-fascinated theorists, including Freud and
William James. On the basis of studies first reported in the nineteenth century
with many recent replications, the age of earliest memory is very reliable
(although variable—very few memories appear from 1 or 2 years in some
adults, whereas others have no memories until 6, 7, or 8 years). It is now
clear that infants have memory for faces, actions, events and objects, memories that may persist for many months, even in a few cases for a year or more
during the first three years of life. Knowing language terms for items in the
remembered experience enhances memories during this period, extending
their range. However, these early memories rarely persist into later years of
childhood, much less into adulthood. The question of interest has been: what
causes the failure of these memories to persist into later life? What enables
their retention?
Robyn Fivush and I addressed this question in light of the social and cultural basis for memory development in the preschool years (Nelson & Fivush,
2004). Results from studies of parents and their 3- and 4-year-old children
talking together about their experiences of past events indicated that the
way that parents engage the child in talk about the past event affects how
long the memory persists. Parents who elaborate the child’s own contributions have a positive effect on the child’s retaining a memory of that event in
the future. Moreover, children whose parents elaborated their memory talk
recalled more memories overall years later. These children appeared to establish a durable “past self” at an early age, reflecting the influence of the social
environment that encourages this orientation (Fivush & Haden, 2003).
8
EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
Memory talk reflects not only social practices but cultural values.
Cross-cultural research by Wang (2013) and others has found variations in
age of onset and contents of autobiographical memory through different
cultural emphases on self and social relationships. Wang has also found that
emphases on personal and family relationships or on individual achievements vary in autobiographical memory (as in other areas) across different
cultures. The development of a new kind of memory, autobiographical
memory, turns out to be simultaneously self-oriented, socially established,
and culturally influenced (Nelson, 2003a, p. 13; 2003b, p. 15; 2013). A dual
self and social-cultural foundation for autobiographical memory is an
important component of the progress of children toward the specific cultural
“community of minds.”
Other Minds. For the past 25 years “theory of mind” has been a focal topic
in cognitive development, and in philosophy. From the outset a strong claim
for the innate constitution of a unique human disposition to “read others’
minds” has been assumed necessary to explain adults’ assumptions about
the actions and motivations of others in the social world. For much of that
time the ability to engage this unique “folk theory” was thought to emerge at
4 years when children attained the ability to understand others’ capacity for
false (as well as true) beliefs (Baron-Cohen, Tager-Flusberg & Cohen, 2000).
More recently, ToM has been attributed to 1-year-old infants backing a strong
claim for its innate origin. That some ability to anticipate and interpret others’
attention, emotion, and goals appears in late infancy and is necessary for
interpreting intentions of others in language and action is accepted by most
developmentalists. However, there is a strong case that this understanding
of others’ intentions in direct face-to-face interactions is not the broad “false
belief” understanding that is under test in the ToM tasks for 4-year-olds.
A reasonable hypothesis is that in the course of their evolution of mimetic
skills and their social applications, humans may have acquired sophisticated
readings of those they interact with. However, as Hutto (2008) points out,
understanding false belief is really about “third person theory of mind,” and
not about on the spot interpretation of facial expression, body movement,
and so on. ToM tasks are typically verbal and involve the interpretation of
the knowledge, beliefs, and intentions of third person actors. In these cases,
the child must construct a representation of a person’s thinking and belief
states, on the basis of incomplete evidence from situational or story context.
The BSC developmental account begins in infancy when the infant
experiences social-cultural situations where certain dispositions (smiling,
cooing, following eyes, tracking tonal voice patterns) are met responsively
by the social world revealing social and cultural meaning. As Bogdan
A Bio-Social-Cultural Approach to Early Cognitive Development
9
(1997) suggested, this implies a two-system solution of the ToM problem,
with person-to-person interpretation available by the end of infancy and
the more cognitively complex third-person interpretation emerging only
after experience with interactions around complex situations of competing
interests. A two-system solution to ToM is consistent with other views as
well (e.g., Apperly, 2011; Tomasello, 2008). In addition, narratives (stories,
memory talk) that incorporate beliefs aid the child in coming to understand
the mechanisms of intentions, events, and outcomes, as well as the temporality of these components (Nelson, 2003a, p. 13; 2003b, p. 15; Nelson
et al., 2002). Hutto’s (2008) explicitly narrative solution to the understanding
of false belief and the contents of other minds argues that certain cultural
narratives (e.g., Aesop’s Fables) can lead the child, in discussions with
adults, to the understanding of how different actors conflict and resolve
their arguments. Bogdan (2010) argues further that it is only after experience
with the language of the mind, especially as adults speak about what is in
their own minds that children can begin to interpret the other as ‘having” a
mind, and reciprocally coming to understand that they have minds as well.
The development of autobiographical memory and the emergence of an
awareness of mind in self and others are two major cognitive shifts during
the preschool period, but certainly not the only ones. The self-consciousness
involved in the realization of “one’s own mind” (Bogdan, 2010) is also
involved in the realization of the meaning of some notable abstract concepts
such as those involved in temporality. Again, the sharing of narratives, of
self and of fictional characters is a major source of attaining knowledge of
this kind, with guidance from adults and peers. The capacity for acquiring
nonpersonal cultural knowledge, for example, the complex knowledge
about ancient Dinosaurs that fascinates many young children or the intricacies of chess and other (simpler) games, reveals an emerging ability to use
external representations (illustrations, chessmen and board) in combination
with internal representations to carry out increasingly complex cognitive
operations.
It is notable that the major advances in the preschool period involve interaction with external representations, including but not limited to symbolic
language, and that a critical central development is the tracking of knowledge source (Roberts and Blades, 2000) that is involved. This points out to a
major change in cognition associated with language acquisition but not confined to it: the shift from all learning dependent on self-exploration to the
acquisition of new knowledge through the medium of others’ representations (in language, pictures, play, etc.). In turn, this suggests a major shift
from simple “embodied learning” to “shared knowing” and its reciprocal
state of “self-conscious knowing.”
10
EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
KEY ISSUES FOR FUTURE RESEARCH
BRAIN, MIND, LANGUAGE AND ACTION WITH SOCIAL OTHERS IN CULTURE
The initial impulse of the “new look” in cognitive development in the wake
of Donald’s (1991) work assumed that language was the moving force in cognition (Nelson, 1996). This fit with Vygotsky’s proposal of thinking as “inner
speech.” This assumption was reflected in the expectation that facility with
language would explain the onset of autobiographical memory; yet, I found
that a child with very advanced language at 2 years remembered nothing of
her life before 4 years of age. Similarly, a conference on “Why Language Matters to Theory of Mind” (Astington & Baird, 2005) considered this assumption
at length but came forth with no agreement on the answers.
The problem lies in presuming that the internal possession of “a language”
somehow affects thought. Rather, we need to switch attention to how language is used in both interactive learning and in reflection on the message.
For example, the use of language by mother and child in memory talk affects
how autobiographical memory is initiated. Similarly, how language is used
in narratives affects how theory of mind, or attention to what’s in the minds
of others, develops at age 4. It is the interface that language enables among
the cultural components, the social exchange, and the individual thinker that
is significant. This perspective leads to the suggestion that the future resides
in research that focuses on language in context concerned with matters that
are of critical interest to young children: for example, the passage of time, life,
death, and birth. It also suggests that educators of young children focus on
the interactive context as well as the messages that are to be received. Questions from children, their play, and peer talk may all inform us of the focus
of children’s interests and concerns. Better understanding of the processes of
reflection, representation, and knowledge generation may follow.
An important fact to keep in mind is that learning in the preschool years
begins with retaining and organizing self-experience, and that this kind of
self-learning continues throughout life. Learning from interactions with others in the form of statements in language or through other media is a secondary achievement that needs to be investigated as the unique process that
it is. On the face of it, learning from own experience (perceptual observation,
action on the world, imitation) requires self-activity directed by self-interest.
Learning from accounts of others requires relating to and translating others’ words, expressions, or presentations into concepts and memories stored
in one’s own cognitive systems, together with active induction or imagination and integration into one’s own background knowledge. The details of
this process remain unexplored—taken for granted—at present. Vygotsky
addressed this issue in terms of “scaffolding” but often the learning is not
A Bio-Social-Cultural Approach to Early Cognitive Development
11
scaffolded except through the learner’s own background of knowledge. This
is a rich topic for future exploration.
An obvious area for future exploration on this topic is the neurocognition of early childhood. Although much has been learned in recent years
about areas of the brain involved in cognitive activities, there is still little
insight into developments in critical areas of the brain throughout the early
childhood period. Given the dramatic changes taking place, neurocognitive
exploration should be incorporated into specific research areas investigating
change over time.
Finally, any theoretical perspective on cultural learning must take account
of the ongoing cultural changes around us, especially the use by children of
all ages of digital systems and devices. Given Donald’s hypothesis of changes
in the organization of brain and mind over the periods that involved the
emergence of language, of writing, and printed works, one would expect
related changes in the ways that minds work to be emerging among significant portions of the population even during the early childhood period. What
those changes are is a fascinating matter for future exploration.
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FURTHER READING
Rochat, P. (2001). The infant’s world. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
KATHERINE NELSON SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Katherine Nelson graduated from Oberlin College and earned a PhD in psychology from UCLA (1969), followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at Yale
(1969–1971). She served on the faculty at Yale until 1978 when she left to head
the program in Developmental Psychology at the CUNY Graduate Center,
where she is now an Emerita professor. She spent a year at CASBS during
1992–1993 and a semester at Oxford (1978), and has lectured in Shanghai
China (1984) and at several other international universities. Her work has
focused on young children’s language acquisition, cognitive development
including memory, concepts, and narrative, and social cultural theory combining language and cognitive development. She has mentored over 40 PhD
students and has published more than 200 journal articles and book chapters
on these topics and authored or edited 9 books. Her work has been among
the most cited in Developmental Psychology. Honors and awards include the
SRCD award for distinguished research career (1999); the Eleanor Maccoby
Book award from Div.7 APA (2008); and the APA Div. 7 G. Stanley Hall award
for Distinguished Contribution to the field (2008).
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