Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface and acknowledgements
- Introduction: the what, how and why of developmental change: the emergence of a new paradigm
- 1 Mind, intelligence and development: a cognitive, differential and developmental theory of intelligence
- 2 Types of cognitive change: a dynamical, connectionist account
- 3 Developmental patterns in proportional reasoning
- 4 Building general knowledge and skill: cognition and microdevelopment in science learning
- 5 Cognitive change as strategy change
- 6 The emergence of mind in the emotional brain
- 7 Practices of quantification from a socio-cultural perspective
- 8 Contributions of central conceptual structure theory to education
- 9 Accelerating the development of general cognitive processing
- 10 Dealing with change: manifestations, measurements and methods
- 11 Dynamic modelling of cognitive development: time, situatedness and variability
- 12 Modelling individual differences in change through latent variable growth and mixture growth modelling: basic principles and empirical examples
- Index
- References
11 - Dynamic modelling of cognitive development: time, situatedness and variability
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface and acknowledgements
- Introduction: the what, how and why of developmental change: the emergence of a new paradigm
- 1 Mind, intelligence and development: a cognitive, differential and developmental theory of intelligence
- 2 Types of cognitive change: a dynamical, connectionist account
- 3 Developmental patterns in proportional reasoning
- 4 Building general knowledge and skill: cognition and microdevelopment in science learning
- 5 Cognitive change as strategy change
- 6 The emergence of mind in the emotional brain
- 7 Practices of quantification from a socio-cultural perspective
- 8 Contributions of central conceptual structure theory to education
- 9 Accelerating the development of general cognitive processing
- 10 Dealing with change: manifestations, measurements and methods
- 11 Dynamic modelling of cognitive development: time, situatedness and variability
- 12 Modelling individual differences in change through latent variable growth and mixture growth modelling: basic principles and empirical examples
- Index
- References
Summary
Modelling and the representation of phenomena
In her book Life with Picasso, Françoise Gilot recalls a discussion about the portrait that Picasso painted of Gertrude Stein in 1906 (Gilot and Lake 1964). Many people first found that the portrait was not a very good likeness. Later, however, many began to think that, over the course of the years, Gertrude Stein had come to resemble the portrait. Picasso had predicted that although the portrait was not a very good likeness, Stein herself would become a good likeness of the portrait.
Gertrude Stein's portrait reminds us of a basic feature of what a model should be, namely the representation of what the modeller sees as the essence of the modelled phenomenon (Casti 1997). However, it also reminds us of the fact that resemblance runs both ways. If the model is powerful enough, it will come to dictate what the essence of the modelled phenomenon should be.
A model leaves out those aspects that are not considered essential or important and it exaggerates or idealizes what it considers characteristic. In that sense, what a model does not show, what it considers not characteristic, is about as interesting as what the model does show. The dictum that what must be left out of representation is more fundamental than what is actually displayed is probably more characteristic of traditional Japanese than of Western art, but it is nevertheless applicable to all forms of art, including the art of modelling.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Cognitive Developmental ChangeTheories, Models and Measurement, pp. 354 - 378Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2005
References
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