Hostname: page-component-f554764f5-rj9fg Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-13T01:03:58.381Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The insufficiency of associative learning for explaining development: Three challenges to the associative account

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 April 2014

Bennett I. Bertenthal
Bennett I. Bertenthal*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405. [email protected]://www.indiana.edu/~dcnlab/index.html
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Three challenges to the sufficiency of the associative account for explaining the development of mirror mechanisms are discussed: Genetic predispositions interact with associative learning, infants show predispositions to imitate human as opposed to nonhuman actions, and early and later learning involve different mechanisms. Legitimate objections to an extreme nativist account are raised, but the proposed solution is equally problematic.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 37 , Issue 2 , April 2014 , pp. 193 - 194
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Bertenthal, B. I. & Campos, J. J. (1987) New directions in the study of early experience. Child Development 58(3):560–67.Google Scholar
Boyer, T. W., Pan, S. & Bertenthal, B. I. (2011) Infants' understanding of actions performed by mechanical devices. Cognition 121:1–11.Google Scholar
Garcia, J., Kimeldorf, D. J. & Koelling, R. A. (1955) Conditioned aversion to saccharin resulting from exposure to gamma radiation. Science 122:157–58.Google Scholar
Gottlieb, G. (2007) Probabilistic epigenesis. Developmental Science 10:1–10.Google Scholar
Gould, J. L. & Marler, P. (1987) Learning by instinct. Scientific American 256:74–85.Google Scholar
Greenough, W. T., Black, J. E. & Wallace, C. S. (1987) Experience and brain development. Child Development 58:539–59.Google Scholar
Liepelt, R. & Brass, M. (2010) Top-down modulation of motor priming by belief about animacy. Experimental Psychology 57:221–27.Google Scholar
Longo, M. R. & Bertenthal, B. I. (2006) Common coding of observation and execution of action in 9-month-old infants. Infancy 10:43–59.Google Scholar
Longo, M. R. & Bertenthal, B. I. (2009) Attention modulates the specificity of automatic imitation to human actors. Experimental Brain Research 192:739–44.Google Scholar
Meltzoff, A. N. (1995) Understanding the intentions of others: Re-enactments of intended acts by 18-month-old children. Developmental Psychology 31(5):838–50.Google Scholar
Woodward, A. L. (1998) Infants selectively encode the goal object of an actor's reach. Cognition 69:1–34.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed