Cortical activation to action perception is associated with action production abilities in young infants

The extent to which perception and action share common neural processes is much debated in cognitive neuroscience. Taking a developmental approach to this issue allows us to assess whether perceptual processing develops in close association with the emergence of related action skills within the same individual. The current study used functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to investigate the perception of human action in 4- to 6-month-old human infants. In addition, the infants' manual dexterity was assessed using the fine motor component of The Mullen Scales of Early Learning and an in-house developed Manual Dexterity task. Results show that the degree of cortical activation, within the posterior superior temporal sulcus—temporoparietal junction (pSTS-TPJ) region, to the perception of manual actions in individual infants correlates with their own level of fine motor skills. This association was not fully explained by either measures of global attention (i.e., looking time) or general developmental stage. This striking concordance between the emergence of motor skills and related perceptual processing within individuals is consistent with experience-related cortical specialization in the developing brain

Exploring the Process of Statistical Language Learning

In this thesis, I investigated the process of statistical word segmentation using a combination of behavioural, clinical, and neuroimaging approaches. Prior research has largely focused on the outcome of statistical learning approaches, with little research attention paid to the process of learning. In this body of research, I sought to address this issue. In Chapter 2, I examined how domain-specific and domain-general working memory interference effects on a statistical word segmentation task. I found that when completing a concurrent visuospatial or verbal working memory task, statistical language learning was impaired. Thus, this study provided some evidence that domain-general working memory may support statistical language learning. In Chapter 3, I further investigated how cognitive processes, including language and working memory, are involved in statistical learning across domains. In this study, school-aged children with and without a developmental language disorder (DLD) completed a statistical language learning task and a visual statistical learning task. I found that those with DLD did not differ from typically developing children on either statistical learning task, and that performance across groups was meager for the statistical language learning task, and not above chance levels for the visual statistical learning task. Further, performance on the statistical learning tasks was not associated with other cognitive processes. This raised the possibility that an alternative measurement approach may be better suited to examine statistical learning. I addressed this issue in Chapter 4, where I measured event related potentials (ERPs) using electroencephalography (EEG) during exposure to a structured, unsegmented language. I found that statistical learning performance was related to neural responses to the structured linguistic input, and that ERPs were modulated as a function of language exposure, revealing the dynamic nature of statistical learning. Chapter 5 discusses the relevant findings of this thesis in relation to the current state of affairs in statistical learning research, and presents recommendations for future research in examining the process of statistical learning

The Development of Executive Function: Mechanisms of Change and Functional Pressures

This developmental account of executive function (EF) argues that domain-general analogical processes build a functional hierarchy of skills, which vary on a continuum of abstraction, and become increasingly differentiated over time. The paper begins by showing how a functional hierarchy can capture important aspects of EF development, including incrementalism, partial differentiation, and a shift from reactive to proactive control. It then details how children construct this hierarchy in development, by showing how they make functional analogies between similar EF problems, in a bottom-up incremental fashion. This results in EF structure which becomes differentiated into components which are more suited to solving some goal-directed problems than others. The developmental implications of this are that children eventually acquire task-general EFs while also retaining goal-specific skills sensitive to wider beliefs, values, norms, preferences, relevant motor, procedural, and embodied knowledge. There is discussion of how this approach is similar to and different from existing accounts, and how it relates to broader issues of training and transfer, group and individual differences, overlapping EF functions and domain-general learning. The developmental mechanisms advocated under this account intentionally draw on neuropsychological, learning and cognitive processes that have been demonstrated in other domains, so that EF theory can benefit from the lessons learned elsewhere and become more integrated with other areas of cognition

Fostering designers' visual practices through a sociocultural approach

This thesis puts forward a sociocultural approach to the learning of visual practices for designers and suggests communication tools to help educators and students to engage with practice. It is concerned with the question of how designers’ visual practices are developed and fostered. From prior research in this area it was assumed that designers learn through a linguistic visual literacy approach or, at best, through a critique-based process. However, this study found that learning happens through social interactions and dialogues, which enables reflection on visual practices, informing future visual inquiry. It was found, through the provision of communication tools that externalise visual practices, that students develop into active learners, who can take greater control over their learning. Therefore, the presentation of a sociocultural approach explicitly develops knowledge of visual development, but also offers a more effective learning theory upon which to ground visual pedagogy in design. The study employed a qualitative approach and a strategy of design-based research to externalise the underlying attributes and processes of developing and fostering visual practices through the designing, and testing, of teaching-learning artefacts. This strategy led to the employment of two research phases: design experiments with design students and user testing with design educators. A review of the literature relating to a sociocultural approach led to a design framework (a sociocultural approach, shared understanding, reflective articulation, and critical questioning of visual practices) that informed both the designing and testing during both phases of the research. The design framework was adopted to analyse and code the data gained in two stages: descriptive and pattern coding. Through the discourse of the identified patterns, theoretical descriptions of developmental learning attributes and processes of fostering designers’ visual practices were formed. These descriptions were then interpreted and contextualised in design education, to present a sociocultural approach and characteristics (a shared understanding of, constructive reflection on, and critical evaluation of, visual practices), in the process outlining theoretical and practical knowledge of developing and fostering designers’ visual practices. Through the presentation of this knowledge, this study outlines opportunities to develop new directions in design education; moving from a critique-based process guided by design educators fostering individual development, to a general dialogue facilitated in collaboration with the learning community

Principles of Neo-Schumpeterian Economics

Within the last 25 years large progress has been made in Neo-Schumpeterian Economics, this branch of economic literature which deals with dynamic processes causing qualitative transformation of economies basically driven by the introduction of novelties in their various and multifaceted forms. By its very nature, innovation and in particular technological innovation is the most exponent and most visible form of novelty. Therefore it is not very surprising that Neo-Schumpeterian Economics today has its most prolific fields in the studies of innovation and learning behavior on the micro-level of an economy, the studies on industry dynamics on the meso-level and studies of innovation driven growth and competitiveness on the macro-level of the economy. From a general point of view, however, the future developmental potential of socio-economic systems i.e. innovation in a very broad understanding encompassing besides technological innovation also organizational, institutional and social innovation has to be considered as the normative principle of Neo-Schumpeterian Economics. In this sense, innovation plays a similar role in Neo-Schumpeterian Economics like prices do in Neoclassical Economics. Instead of allocation and efficiency within a certain set of constraints, Neo-Schumpeterian Economics is concerned with the conditions for and consequences of a removal and overcoming of these constraints limiting the scope of economic development. Thus, Neo-Schumpeterian Economics is concerned with all facets of open and uncertain developments in socio-economic systems. A comprehensive Neo-Schumpeterian approach therefore has to consider not only transformation processes going on e.g. on the industry level of an economy, but also on the public and monetary side of an economic system. Our contribution introduces those extensions and complements to a comprehensive Neo-Schumpeterian economic theory, and develops some guideposts in the sense of a roadmap for necessary strands of analysis in the future in order to fulfill the claim of becoming a comprehensive approach comparable to neoclassical theory.Neo-Schumpeterian economics, industrial dynamics, public finance, financial markets

Language acquisition in developmental disorders

In this chapter, I review recent research into language acquisition in developmental disorders, and the light that these findings shed on the nature of language acquisition in typically developing children. Disorders considered include Specific Language Impairment, autism, Down syndrome, and Williams syndrome. I argue that disorders of language should be construed in terms of differences in the constraints that shape the learning process, rather than in terms of the normal system with components missing or malfunctioning. I outline the integrative nature of this learning process and how properties such as redundancy and compensation may be key characteristics of learning systems with atypical constraints. These ideas, as well as the new methodologies now being used to study variations in pathways of language acquisition, are illustrated with case studies from Williams syndrome and Specific Language Impairment

Precis of neuroconstructivism: how the brain constructs cognition

Neuroconstructivism: How the Brain Constructs Cognition proposes a unifying framework for the study of cognitive development that brings together (1) constructivism (which views development as the progressive elaboration of increasingly complex structures), (2) cognitive neuroscience (which aims to understand the neural mechanisms underlying behavior), and (3) computational modeling (which proposes formal and explicit specifications of information processing). The guiding principle of our approach is context dependence, within and (in contrast to Marr [1982]) between levels of organization. We propose that three mechanisms guide the emergence of representations: competition, cooperation, and chronotopy; which themselves allow for two central processes: proactivity and progressive specialization. We suggest that the main outcome of development is partial representations, distributed across distinct functional circuits. This framework is derived by examining development at the level of single neurons, brain systems, and whole organisms. We use the terms encellment, embrainment, and embodiment to describe the higher-level contextual influences that act at each of these levels of organization. To illustrate these mechanisms in operation we provide case studies in early visual perception, infant habituation, phonological development, and object representations in infancy. Three further case studies are concerned with interactions between levels of explanation: social development, atypical development and within that, developmental dyslexia. We conclude that cognitive development arises from a dynamic, contextual change in embodied neural structures leading to partial representations across multiple brain regions and timescales, in response to proactively specified physical and social environment

Models of atypical development must also be models of normal development

Functional magnetic resonance imaging studies of developmental disorders and normal cognition that include children are becoming increasingly common and represent part of a newly expanding field of developmental cognitive neuroscience. These studies have illustrated the importance of the process of development in understanding brain mechanisms underlying cognition and including children ill the study of the etiology of developmental disorders