How Infants Know Minds

How Infants Know Minds

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  • Author: Vasudevi Reddy
  • Publisher: Harvard University Press
  • ISBN: 0674026667
  • Category : Family & Relationships
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 289

Most psychologists claim that we begin to develop a “theory of mind”—some basic ideas about other people’s minds—at age two or three, by inference, deduction, and logical reasoning. But does this mean that small babies are unaware of minds? That they see other people simply as another (rather dynamic and noisy) kind of object? This is a common view in developmental psychology. Yet, as this book explains, there is compelling evidence that babies in the first year of life can tease, pretend, feel self-conscious, and joke with people. Using observations from infants’ everyday interactions with their families, Vasudevi Reddy argues that such early emotional engagements show infants’ growing awareness of other people’s attention, expectations, and intentions. Reddy deals with the persistent problem of “other minds” by proposing a “second-person” solution: we know other minds if we can respond to them. And we respond most richly in engagement with them. She challenges psychology’s traditional “detached” stance toward understanding people, arguing that the most fundamental way of knowing minds—both for babies and for adults—is through engagement with them. According to this argument the starting point for understanding other minds is not isolation and ignorance but emotional relation.


How Infants Know Minds

How Infants Know Minds

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  • Author: Vasudevi Reddy
  • Publisher: Harvard University Press
  • ISBN: 0674046072
  • Category : Medical
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 286

"Most psychologists claim that we begin to develop a “theory of mind”—some basic ideas about other people’s minds—at age two or three, by inference, deduction, and logical reasoning. But does this mean that small babies are unaware of minds? That they see other people simply as another (rather dynamic and noisy) kind of object? This is a common view in developmental psychology. Yet, as this book explains, there is compelling evidence that babies in the first year of life can tease, pretend, feel self-conscious, and joke with people. Using observations from infants’ everyday interactions with their families, Vasudevi Reddy argues that such early emotional engagements show infants’ growing awareness of other people’s attention, expectations, and intentions. Reddy deals with the persistent problem of “other minds” by proposing a “second-person” solution: we know other minds if we can respond to them. And we respond most richly in engagement with them. She challenges psychology’s traditional “detached” stance toward understanding people, arguing that the most fundamental way of knowing minds—both for babies and for adults—is through engagement with them. According to this argument the starting point for understanding other minds is not isolation and ignorance but emotional relation."


Baby Minds

Baby Minds

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  • Author: Linda Acredolo, Ph.D.
  • Publisher: Bantam
  • ISBN: 0307805077
  • Category : Family & Relationships
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 241

More than 65 delightful games and activities to jump-start your baby's amazing brainpower Can simply singing a song or blowing a dandelion under a toddler's nose help her mind to blossom? Can your baby count, remember events, and solve problems even before he can talk? The exciting answer to both questions is yes! Breakthrough research is revealing the extraordinary inborn abilities of infants. It is also showing how experiences during the first years of life profoundly influence intelligence, creativity, language development-and even later reading and math skills. Now two psychologists and child development experts-authors of the bestselling Baby Signs-have created a delightful guide for parents based on the most up-to-date knowledge of how babies discover the world. You'll learn how to: _ Create a homemade mobile to stimulate your three-month-old's delight in solving problems _ Play a patty-cake game to help your two-year-old make logical connections _ Initiate bedtime conversations that build your child's memory and sense of personal history _ Develop "Baby Signs" to help your toddler communicate before he or she can talk _ Stimulate your child's natural number skills with puppets and counting games _ Use nursery rhymes and special read-aloud techniques to foster reading readiness _ Nurture budding creativity with humor and fantasy play _ And much more! Baby Minds is not another program for creating "super babies." Instead it builds on activities that babies instinctively love to develop their unique abilities and make your daily interactions full of the joy of discovery-for both of you. NOTE: This edition does not include photographs.


The Philosophical Baby

The Philosophical Baby

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  • Author: Alison Gopnik
  • Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
  • ISBN: 1429959444
  • Category : Psychology
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 304

For most of us, having a baby is the most profound, intense, and fascinating experience of our lives. Now scientists and philosophers are starting to appreciate babies, too. The last decade has witnessed a revolution in our understanding of infants and young children. Scientists used to believe that babies were irrational, and that their thinking and experience were limited. Recently, they have discovered that babies learn more, create more, care more, and experience more than we could ever have imagined. And there is good reason to believe that babies are actually smarter, more thoughtful, and even more conscious than adults. This new science holds answers to some of the deepest and oldest questions about what it means to be human. A new baby's captivated gaze at her mother's face lays the foundations for love and morality. A toddler's unstoppable explorations of his playpen hold the key to scientific discovery. A three-year-old's wild make-believe explains how we can imagine the future, write novels, and invent new technologies. Alison Gopnik - a leading psychologist and philosopher, as well as a mother - explains the groundbreaking new psychological, neuroscientific, and philosophical developments in our understanding of very young children, transforming our understanding of how babies see the world, and in turn promoting a deeper appreciation for the role of parents.


Learning and the Infant Mind

Learning and the Infant Mind

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  • Author: Amanda Woodward
  • Publisher: Oxford University Press
  • ISBN: 0195301153
  • Category : Education
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 349

Until recently there has been little contact between investigations of how infants learn and what infants know. The authors consider both infants' knowledge across domains, and learning, bringing to bear direct laboratory manipulations of learning and more general considerations of the relations between experience and knowledge.


What Babies Know

What Babies Know

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  • Author: Elizabeth S. Spelke
  • Publisher: Oxford University Press
  • ISBN: 0190618248
  • Category : Psychology
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 561

What do infants know? How does the knowledge that they begin with prepare them for learning about the particular physical, cultural, and social world in which they live? Answers to this question shed light not only on infants but on children and adults in all cultures, because the core knowledge possessed by infants never goes away. Instead, it underlies the unspoken, common sense knowledge of people of all ages, in all societies. By studying babies, researchers gain insights into infants themselves, into older children's prodigious capacities for learning, and into some of the unconscious assumptions that guide our thoughts and actions as adults. In this major new work, Elizabeth Spelke shares these insights by distilling the findings from research in developmental, comparative, and cognitive psychology, with excursions into studies of animal cognition in psychology and in systems and cognitive neuroscience, and studies in the computational cognitive sciences. Weaving across these disciplines, she paints a picture of what young infants know, and what they quickly come to learn, about objects, places, numbers, geometry, and people's actions, social engagements, and mental states. A landmark publication in the developmental literature, the book will be essential for students and researchers across the behavioral, brain, and cognitive sciences.


Children's Early Understanding of Mind

Children's Early Understanding of Mind

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  • Author: Charlie Lewis
  • Publisher: Psychology Press
  • ISBN: 1317775228
  • Category : Psychology
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 510

A major feature of human intelligence is that it allows us to contemplate mental life. Such an understanding is vital in enabling us to function effectively in social groups. This book examines the origins of this aspect of human intelligence. The five sections attempt firstly, to place human development within an evolutionary context, focusing on the possibility of innate components of understanding. The second aim of the book is to examine the roles of early perception, pretence and communication as precursor skills in the development of a grasp of mental states. Thirdly, attention is given to the possibility that children know a good deal more about the mind than is apparent from many studies designed to probe their abilities. Taken together, the chapters in this book mark a new focus within a 'theory of mind' movement, examining a group of skills in infancy and early childhood which culminate towards the end of the preschool period in a more mature understanding of one's and others' mental states. Drawing together researchers from diverse theoretical positions, the aim is to work towards a coherent and unified account of this fundamental human abiity. This book will be of central relevance to psychologists and those in related disciplines, particularly education and philosophy.


Making Minds

Making Minds

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  • Author: Professor Henry M. Wellman
  • Publisher: Oxford University Press
  • ISBN: 0199334935
  • Category : Psychology
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 336

Developmental psychologists coined the term "theory of mind" to describe how we understand our shifting mental states in daily life. Over the past twenty years researchers have provided rich, provocative data showing that from an early age, children develop a sophisticated and consistent "theory of mind" by attributing their desires, beliefs, and emotions to themselves and to others. Remarkably, infants barely a few months old are able to attend closely to other humans; two-year-olds can articulate the desires and feelings of others and comfort those in distress; and three- and four-year-olds can talk about thoughts abstractly and engage in lies and trickery. This book provides a deeper examination of how "theory of mind" develops. Building on his pioneering research in The Child's Theory of Mind (1990), Henry M. Wellman reports on all that we have learned in the past twenty years with chapters on evolution and the brain bases of theory of mind, and updated explanations of theory theory and later theoretical developments, including how children conceive of extraordinary minds such as those belonging to superheroes or supernatural beings. Engaging and accessibly written, Wellman's work will appeal especially to scholars and students working in psychology, philosophy, cultural studies, and social cognition.


How People Learn

How People Learn

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  • Author: National Research Council
  • Publisher: National Academies Press
  • ISBN: 0309131979
  • Category : Education
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 384

First released in the Spring of 1999, How People Learn has been expanded to show how the theories and insights from the original book can translate into actions and practice, now making a real connection between classroom activities and learning behavior. This edition includes far-reaching suggestions for research that could increase the impact that classroom teaching has on actual learning. Like the original edition, this book offers exciting new research about the mind and the brain that provides answers to a number of compelling questions. When do infants begin to learn? How do experts learn and how is this different from non-experts? What can teachers and schools do-with curricula, classroom settings, and teaching methods--to help children learn most effectively? New evidence from many branches of science has significantly added to our understanding of what it means to know, from the neural processes that occur during learning to the influence of culture on what people see and absorb. How People Learn examines these findings and their implications for what we teach, how we teach it, and how we assess what our children learn. The book uses exemplary teaching to illustrate how approaches based on what we now know result in in-depth learning. This new knowledge calls into question concepts and practices firmly entrenched in our current education system. Topics include: How learning actually changes the physical structure of the brain. How existing knowledge affects what people notice and how they learn. What the thought processes of experts tell us about how to teach. The amazing learning potential of infants. The relationship of classroom learning and everyday settings of community and workplace. Learning needs and opportunities for teachers. A realistic look at the role of technology in education.


Baby Knows Best

Baby Knows Best

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  • Author: Deborah Carlisle Solomon
  • Publisher: Little, Brown Spark
  • ISBN: 0316286753
  • Category : Family & Relationships
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 180

Raise self-confident, self-reliant children using the RIE (Resources for Infant Educarers) Approach. Your baby knows more than you think. That's the heart of the principles and teachings of Magda Gerber, founder of RIE (Resources for Infant Educarers), and Educaring. Baby Knows Best is based on Gerber's belief in babies' natural abilities to develop at their own pace, without coaxing from helicoptering or hovering parents. The Educaring Approach helps parents see their infants as competent people with a growing ability to communicate, problem-solve, and self-soothe. Baby Knows Best is a comprehensive resource that shows parents how to respond to their babies' cues and signals; how to develop healthy sleep habits; why babies need uninterrupted playtime; and how to set clear, consistent limits. The result? More relaxed parents and more confident, self-reliant children.