Skip to main content

On Neonatal Competence: Sleepless nights for representational theorists?

  • Chapter

Part of the book series: Annals of Theoretical Psychology ((AOTP,volume 10))

Abstract

Some years ago, I tried to capture concisely, if somewhat cryptically, what I felt Gibson’s ecological psychology could do for babies:

[Gibson] takes the view that we have often been too busy seeking solutions to stop and question the problems themselves. His strategy, therefore, is based on their elimination, rather than their resolution, for, he argues, once the appropriate terms for describing perception are employed, the classical puzzles simply disappear. His relevance to infancy research, of course, is in helping psychologists to avoid foisting more problems onto babies than either babies or psychologists really need. (Costali, 1981, p. 32.)

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Buying options

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   129.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD   169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD   169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  • Barnard, S. T. (1983). Interpreting perspective images. Artificial Intelligence, 21, 435–462.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Benedict, R. (1934). Patterns of culture. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Blakemore, C. (1973a). The baffled braia In R. L. Gregory & E. H. Gombrich (Eds.), Illusion in nature and art (pp. 9–48). London: Duckworth.

    Google Scholar 

  • Blakemore, C. (1973b). Environmental constraints on development in the visual system. In R. A. Hinde & J. Stevenson-Hinde(Eds.), Constraints on learning (pp. 51–74). London: Academic Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Costali, A. P. (1981). On how so much information controls so much behavior: James Gibson’s theory of direct perceptioa In G. Butterworth (Ed.), Infancy and epistemology (pp. 30–51). Brighton: Harvester Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Costali, A. P. (1989). A closer look at ‘direct perception’. In A. Gellatly, D. Rogers, & J. A. Sloboda, (Eds.), Cognition and social worlds (pp. 10–21). Oxford: Clarendon Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cowie, R. (1987a). The new orthodoxy in visual perception: 1. Reassessing what makes environments perceivable. Irish Journal of Psychology, 8, 50–60.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cowie, R. (1987b). The new orthodoxy in visual perception: 2. Conjectures and doubts about internal processes. Irish Journal of Psychology, 8, 99–110.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cullen, E. (1957). Adaptations in the kittiwake to cliff-nesting. Ibis, 99, 272–302.

    Google Scholar 

  • Eddington, A. (1935). The nature of the physical world. London: Dent. [First published in 1928]

    Google Scholar 

  • Einstein, A., & Infeld, L. (1961). The evolution of physics. Cambridge: University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fodor, J. A., & Pylyshyn, Z. (1981). How direct is visual perception?: Some reflections on Gibson’s “Ecological Approach.” Cognition, 9, 139–196.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Forman, G. (1983). Where’s the action in knowing? Contemporary Psychology, 28, 356–357.

    Google Scholar 

  • Frisby, J. P. (1979). Seeing: Illusion, brain and mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gelder, B., de (1985). The cognitivist conjuring trick or how development vanished. In C. J. Bailey & R. Harris, (Eds.), Developmental mechanisms of language (pp. 149–166). London: Pergamon.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gibson, E. J. (1982). The concept of affordances in development: The renascence of functionalism. In W. A. Collins (Ed.), The concept of development: The Minnesota Symposia on Child Psychology, Vol15., (pp. 55–81). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gibson, J. J. (1950). The perception of the visual world. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gibson, J. J. (1966). The senses considered as perceptual systems. Boston: Houghton-Mifflia

    Google Scholar 

  • Gibson, J. J. (1979). The ecological approach to visual perception. Boston: Houghton-Mifflia

    Google Scholar 

  • Gibson, J. J., & Gibson, E. J. (1955). Perceptual learning: Differentiation or enrichment? Psychological Review, 62, 32–41.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Gleitman, H. (1986). Psychology, (2nd ed.). New York: Norton.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gregory, R. L. (1974). Concepts and mechanisms of perceptioa London: Duckworth.

    Google Scholar 

  • Helmholtz, H., voa (1962). Treatise on physiological optics, Vol. 3. (Ed. J. P. C. Southall.) New York: Dover.

    Google Scholar 

  • Henle, M. (1977). The influence of Gestalt psychology in America. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 291, 3–12.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jerison, H. J. (1985). On the evolution of mind. In D. A. Oakley (Ed.), Brain and mind (pp. 1–12). London: Methuea

    Google Scholar 

  • Katz, D. (1950). Gestalt psychology. London: Methuea

    Google Scholar 

  • Koenigsberger, H. (1906). Hermann von Helmholtz. (F. A. Welby, Trans.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lindsay, P., & Norman, D. (1977). Human Information Processing, (2nd ed.). New York: Academic Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • McLannahan, H. M. C. (1973). Some aspect of the ontogeny of cliff nesting behaviour in the kittiwake (Rissa Trydactyla) and the herring gull (Larus argentatus). Behaviour, 44, 36–88.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Morgan, M. J. (1977). Molyneux’s question: Vision, touch and the philosophy of perception. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Müller, J. (1964). Of the senses [1838]. Reprinted in W. N. Dember (Ed.), Visual perception: the nineteenth century (pp. 35–70). New York: Wiley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Palmer, A. (1987). Cognitivism and computer simulatioa In A. Costali & A. Still, (Eds), Cognitive psychology in question (pp. 55–70). Brighton: Harvester Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pastore, N. (1973). Helmholtz’s ‘Popular lectures on vision’. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 9, 190–202.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rock, I. (1984). Perception. New York: Scientific American Library.

    Google Scholar 

  • Routtenberg, A., & Glickman, S. E. (1964). Visual cliff behavior in undomesti-cated rodents, land and aquatic turtles, and cats (Panthera). Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology, 58, 143–146.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Schiff, W. (1971). The comparative study of sensory and perceptual processes. In J. Elliot (Ed.), Human development and cognitive processes (pp. 171–185). New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winstoa

    Google Scholar 

  • Sherrington, C. (1950). Introduction. In P. Laslett (Ed.), The physical basis of mind (pp. 1–4). Oxford: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sutherland, S. (1981). More sight than sound. Nature, 289, 711–712.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Spalding, D. A. (1873). Instinct with original observations on young animals. Macmillan’s Magazine, 27, 282–293. [Reprinted in J. B. S. Haldane (1954), Introducing Douglas Spalding. British Journal of Animal Behaviour, 2, 1–11.]

    Google Scholar 

  • Walk, R. D. (1978). Depth perception and experience. In H. Pick & R. D. Walk (Eds.), Perception and experience (pp. 77–103). New York: Plenum.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 1994 Springer Science+Business Media New York

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Costall, A. (1994). On Neonatal Competence: Sleepless nights for representational theorists?. In: van Geert, P., Mos, L.P., Baker, W.J. (eds) Annals of Theoretical Psychology. Annals of Theoretical Psychology, vol 10. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-9194-5_2

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-9194-5_2

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4757-9196-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4757-9194-5

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

Publish with us

Policies and ethics