Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- PART I THEORY AND BACKGROUND
- 1 The Power of Expression
- 2 Representation and Expression
- 3 The Emergent Infant
- 4 The Expressive Infant
- 5 The Transition to Language
- PART II FROM 9 MONTHS TO 2 YEARS
- Appendix: Dictionary of Words in the Playroom
- Notes
- References
- Name Index
- Subject Index
2 - Representation and Expression
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 August 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- PART I THEORY AND BACKGROUND
- 1 The Power of Expression
- 2 Representation and Expression
- 3 The Emergent Infant
- 4 The Expressive Infant
- 5 The Transition to Language
- PART II FROM 9 MONTHS TO 2 YEARS
- Appendix: Dictionary of Words in the Playroom
- Notes
- References
- Name Index
- Subject Index
Summary
The present-day cognitivist perspective in psychology was born with Miller, Galanter, and Pribram's now classic response to behaviorism: Plans and the Structure of Behavior. The problem addressed in that book was the task of describing “how actions are controlled by an organism's internal representation of its universe” such that “cognitive representation” is mapped into “the appropriate pattern of activity.” Two aspects of cognitive representation were invoked: a mental plan for acting and the individual's knowledge base. In short, what determines how we act is what we know and the plans we construct for making use of what we know.
Acts of expression and interpretation require plans, just like other acts that we do. These plans include the representations in intentional states that “we set up as we talk or listen and that we structure with elements, roles, strategies, and relations.” Such representations are set up in the part of the mind traditionally called working memory or consciousness. They are the mental meanings that individuals express when they talk and that they construct when they interpret the speech of others. And they are the representations that give rise to feelings of emotion and their expression. The purpose of this chapter is to draw attention to these representations and to the developments that contribute to them so as to emphasize their importance for acquiring language.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Transition from Infancy to LanguageAcquiring the Power of Expression, pp. 21 - 34Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1993
- 2
- Cited by