Beyond Modularity: BBS Call for Book Reviewers

[Stevan Harnad]

Below is the abstract of a book that will be accorded multiple book
review in Behavioral and Brain Sciences (BBS), an international,
interdisciplinary journal that provides Open Peer Commentary on
important and controversial current research in the biobehavioral and
cognitive sciences. Reviewers must be current BBS Associates or
nominated by a current BBS Associate. To be considered as a reviewer
for this book, to suggest other appropriate reviewers, or for
information about how to become a BBS Associate, please send email to:

harnad at clarity.princeton.edu  or harnad at pucc.bitnet        or write to:
BBS, 20 Nassau Street, #240, Princeton NJ 08542  [tel: 609-921-7771]

To help us put together a balanced list of reviewers, please give some
indication of the aspects of the topic on which you would bring your
areas of expertise to bear if you are selected as a reviewer. Please
also indicate whether you already have a copy of the book or will need
one if you are selected. The author's article-length precis of the
book is available for inspection by anonymous ftp according to the
instructions that follow after the abstract.
____________________________________________________________________
                BBS Multiple Book Review of:
        BEYOND MODULARITY: A DEVELOPMENTAL PERSPECTIVE ON COGNITIVE
        SCIENCE Cambridge, MA: MIT Press 1992 (234 pp.)

                Annette Karmiloff-Smith
                Cognitive Development Unit,
                Medical Research Council,
                4 Taviton Street,
                London WC1H 0BT, U.K.
                Electronic Mail:
                annette at cdu.ucl.ac.uk

    KEYWORDS: cognitive development, connectionism, constructivism,
    developmental stages, Fodor, modularity, nativism, Piaget,
    representational redescription, species differences.

    ABSTRACT: Beyond Modularity attempts a synthesis of Fodor's
    anti-constructivist nativism and Piaget's anti-nativist
    constructivism.  Contra Fodor, I argue that: (1) the study of
    cognitive development is essential to cognitive science, (2) the
    module/central processing dichotomy is too rigid, and (3) the mind
    does not begin with prespecified modules, but that development
    involves a gradual process of modularization. Contra Piaget, I
    argue that: (1) development rarely involves stage-like
    domain-general change, and (2) domain-specific predispositions give
    development a small but significant kickstart by focusing the
    infant's attention on proprietary inputs. Development does not
    stop at efficient learning. A fundamental aspect of human
    development ("Representational Redescription") is the hypothesized
    process by which information that is IN a cognitive system becomes
    progressively explicit knowledge TO that system. Development thus
    involves two complementary processes of progressive modularization
    and rendering explicit. Empirical findings on the child as
    linguist, physicist, mathematician, psychologist and notator are
    discussed in support of the theoretical framework.  Each chapter
    concentrates first on the initial state of the infant mind/brain
    and on subsequent domain-specific learning in infancy and early
    childhood. They then go on to explore data on older children's
    problem solving and theory building, with particular focus on
    evolving cognitive flexibility. Throughout the book there is an
    emphasis on the status of representations underlying different
    capacities and on the multiple levels at which knowledge is stored
    and accessible. Finally, consideration is given to the need for
    more formal developmental models, and the Representational
    Redescription framework is compared with connectionist simulations
    of development. The concluding sections consider what is special
    about human cognition and offer some speculations about the status
    of representations underlying the structure of behavior in other
    species.

--------------------------------------------------------------
To help you decide whether you would be an appropriate reviewer for
this book, an electronic precis is retrievable by anonymous ftp from
princeton.edu according to the instructions below (the filename is
bbs.karmsmith). Please let us know, after having inspected it, what
relevant expertise you feel you would bring to bear on what aspect of
the article. Note that only the book, not the Precis, is the object of
the reviews.
-------------------------------------------------------------
   To retrieve a file by ftp from a Unix/Internet site, type either:
ftp princeton.edu
   or
ftp 128.112.128.1
   When you are asked for your login, type:
anonymous
   Enter password as per instructions (make sure to include the specified @),
   and then change directories with:
cd /pub/harnad/BBS
   To show the available files, type:
ls
   Next, retrieve the file you want with (for example):
get bbs.karmsmith
   When you have the file(s) you want, type:
quit
   In case of doubt or difficulty, consult your system manager.
   A more elaborate version of these instructions for the U.K. is
   available on request (thanks to Brian Josephson)>

These files can also be retrieved using gopher, archie, veronica, etc.
----------
Where the above procedures are not available (e.g. from Bitnet or other
networks), there are two fileservers:
ftpmail at decwrl.dec.com
       and
bitftp at pucc.bitnet
that will do the transfer for you. To one or the
other of them, send the following one line message:

help

for instructions (which will be similar to the above, but will be in
the form of a series of lines in an email message that ftpmail or
bitftp will then execute for you).