Role of Learning in Cognitive Development

Abstract

Abstract In this chapter, we review the distinction between development and learning, showing why what is innate and what is learned cannot be treated as mutually exclusive categories. The learning that is essential to cognitive development is driven by domain‐specific skeletal structures, which seek relevant inputs and organize and structure what is revealed by experience. Different domains are defined by different sets of principles, specifying relations between different kinds of entities. The domain of sociality is structured by the principles of contingency, agency, mental states, emotional evaluation, and fittingness. These principles apply to persons in social interactions. This skeletal structure organizes the acquisition of social understanding. Special attention is given to this domain, because the account of structured learning in this domain is given de novo here. We contrast learning in the social domain with learning in two other domains: the domain of number and the domain of causality. The numerical domain is structured by arithmetic operations (addition, subtraction, and ordination) and by the principles of nonverbal counting. These principles organize attention to and the learning of verbal counting and basic arithmetic. The central principle in the causal domain is the distinction between animate and inanimate causality. These principles organize the learning of facts about the nature of movements, interactions, and transformations of objects in the animate and inanimate spheres.

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