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Alessandroni N, Malafouris L, Gallagher S. An Ecological Approach to Conceptual Thinking in Material Engagement. EUROPES JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLOGY 2024; 20:84-103. [PMID: 39118997 PMCID: PMC11304374 DOI: 10.5964/ejop.13227] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/09/2023] [Accepted: 04/04/2024] [Indexed: 08/10/2024]
Abstract
Although post-cognitivist approaches have shaken the status quo by emphasising the dynamic interactions among the brain, the body, and the environment in cognition, mainstream psychological theories continue to view concepts as primarily representational or skull-bound mental phenomena. As a result, the dynamics of action and the possible impact of material culture on conceptual thinking are poorly understood. In this paper, we explore the process and meaning of conceptual thinking from a material engagement perspective. We argue that conceptual thinking is not a matter of forming representations in the head but something we do-a way of engaging with materiality. Conceptual thinking is conceptual thinging, namely a kind of unmediated practical knowledge that individuals put into play when they engage, in a general way, with and through the world. In this sense, we propose that conceptual thinking is instantiated in the dynamic coordination of bodily practices and artefacts in sociomaterial activities. To elucidate this perspective, we introduce seven principles defining conceptual thinking within an ecological-enactive framework of cognition.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Lambros Malafouris
- Hertford College/Institute of Archaeology, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
| | - Shaun Gallagher
- Department of Philosophy, University of Memphis, Memphis, TN, USA
- School of Liberal Arts, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, Australia
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Ferreira JM, Muniz LS. Material Engagement Shaping Participation of Children on the Autism Spectrum: Embodiment and Subjectivity in Small-Group Learning. EUROPES JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLOGY 2024; 20:143-164. [PMID: 39119000 PMCID: PMC11304372 DOI: 10.5964/ejop.13307] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/23/2023] [Accepted: 01/23/2024] [Indexed: 08/10/2024]
Abstract
This study investigated the material engagement and their affordances for participation of children on the autism spectrum (AS) in small-group learning. Framed by a methodology called Idea Diary that fosters social interactions in classroom environments, our focus was on understanding how and when the construction and manipulation of the diary supported children's participation and knowledge construction in small groups. This investigation was guided by the intersection of the theory of subjectivity developed by Fernando González Rey and enactive accounts of cognition. This framework provided the view of the singularity in the communicative process of children on the AS and the necessary support for examining the mechanisms of engagement that led to children's participation. We present two case studies of 9-10-year-old boys. Data consists of the diaries produced and used by children and video recordings of children's interactions during small-group discussions. Our analytical approach included a qualitative semiotic analysis of the materials and a micro-analysis of the social interactions. The results showed, first, that children on the AS continuously engaged in the construction of the diary, expressing elements of their subjectivity-experiences, ideas and the system through which they interact with the world. Repetition framed children's productions and signalled engagement. Second, material engagement enabled participatory sense-making, which in this study appeared in creating new communicative resources between the child on the AS and their peers and in adapting the narratives, approximating children's perspectives in conversations. Although contextualised within a specific pedagogical practice, the study contributes to advancing our understanding of the role of material engagement in social participation in learning situations involving children on the AS, particularly relevant in educational psychology and education.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Luciana Soares Muniz
- Teacher Education and Training School, University of Uberlândia, Uberlândia, Brazil
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Alessandroni N, Ferreira JM. Materiality and Cognitive Development: Contemporary Debates and Empirical Studies in Early Childhood. EUROPES JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLOGY 2024; 20:79-83. [PMID: 39118996 PMCID: PMC11304373 DOI: 10.5964/ejop.14433] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 08/10/2024]
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Vietri M, Alessandroni N, Piro MC. Intentional Understanding Through Action Coordination in Early Triadic Interactions. Integr Psychol Behav Sci 2023; 57:655-676. [PMID: 35460046 DOI: 10.1007/s12124-022-09677-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 01/27/2022] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Abstract
The ability to understand the behaviour of other people in intentional terms has been traditionally explained by resorting to inferential mechanisms that would allow individuals to access the internal mental states of others. In recent years, the second-person perspective has established itself as a theoretical alternative to traditional models. It argues that intentional understanding is an embodied, natural, and immediate process that occurs in situations such as face-to-face early dyadic interactions between adults and infants. In this article, we argue that the way in which the second-person perspective regards body and object is problematic. Based on psychological evidence that demonstrates the constitutive role of the body and objects for cognitive development, we propose the foundations of an ecological-enactive, semiotic and pragmatic model of intentional understanding. We argue that intentional understanding should be conceived as the skilful coordination of behaviours that subjects come to enact in interactive settings, following the dynamics of bodily and material practices that have acquired normative force over time.
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Affiliation(s)
- Maximiliano Vietri
- Laboratorio de Investigaciones en Psicoanálisis y Psicopatología (LIPPSI), Facultad de Psicología, Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Buenos Aires, Ensenada (1925), Calle 51 e/123 y 124, Argentina.
| | - Nicolás Alessandroni
- Departamento Interfacultativo de Psicología Evolutiva y de la Educación, Facultad de Psicología, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain
| | - María Cristina Piro
- Laboratorio de Investigaciones en Psicoanálisis y Psicopatología (LIPPSI), Facultad de Psicología, Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Buenos Aires, Ensenada (1925), Calle 51 e/123 y 124, Argentina
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Gubenko A, Houssemand C. Alternative Object Use in Adults and Children: Embodied Cognitive Bases of Creativity. Front Psychol 2022; 13:893420. [PMID: 36118496 PMCID: PMC9480609 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.893420] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/10/2022] [Accepted: 05/31/2022] [Indexed: 12/08/2022] Open
Abstract
Why does one need creativity? On a personal level, improvisation with available resources is needed for online coping with unforeseen environmental stimuli when existing knowledge and apparent action strategies do not work. On a cultural level, the exploitation of existing cultural means and norms for the deliberate production of novel and valuable artifacts is a basis for cultural and technological development and extension of human action possibilities across various domains. It is less clear, however, how creativity develops and how exactly one arrives at generating new action possibilities and producing multiple alternative action strategies using familiar objects. In this theoretical paper, we first consider existing accounts of the creative process in the Alternative Uses Task and then present an alternative interpretation, drawing on sociocultural views and an embodied cognition approach. We explore similarities between the psychological processes underlying the generation of new uses in the Alternative Uses Task and children’s pretend play. We discuss possible cognitive mechanisms and speculate how the generation of new action possibilities for common objects in pretend play can be related to adults’ ability to generate new action strategies associated with object use. Implications for creativity development in humans and embodied artificial agents are discussed.
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Riede F, Walsh MJ, Nowell A, Langley MC, Johannsen NN. Children and innovation: play, play objects and object play in cultural evolution. EVOLUTIONARY HUMAN SCIENCES 2021; 3:e11. [PMID: 37588535 PMCID: PMC10427281 DOI: 10.1017/ehs.2021.7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/22/2022] Open
Abstract
Cultural evolutionary theory conceptualises culture as an information-transmission system whose dynamics take on evolutionary properties. Within this framework, however, innovation has been likened to random mutations, reducing its occurrence to chance or fortuitous transmission error. In introducing the special collection on children and innovation, we here place object play and play objects - especially functional miniatures - from carefully chosen archaeological contexts in a niche construction perspective. Given that play, including object play, is ubiquitous in human societies, we suggest that plaything construction, provisioning and use have, over evolutionary timescales, paid substantial selective dividends via ontogenetic niche modification. Combining findings from cognitive science, ethology and ethnography with insights into hominin early developmental life-history, we show how play objects and object play probably had decisive roles in the emergence of innovative capabilities. Importantly, we argue that closer attention to play objects can go some way towards addressing changes in innovation rates that occurred throughout human biocultural evolution and why innovations are observable within certain technological domains but not others.
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Affiliation(s)
- Felix Riede
- Department of Archaeology and Heritage Studies, Aarhus University, Moesgård Allé 20, 8270 Højbjerg, Denmark
- Interacting Minds Centre, Aarhus University, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark
| | - Matthew J. Walsh
- Department of Ethnography, Numismatics, Classical Archaeology and University History, Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo, 0164Oslo, Norway
| | - April Nowell
- Department of Anthropology, University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
| | - Michelle C. Langley
- Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia
- Forensics and Archaeology, School of Environment and Science, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia
| | - Niels N. Johannsen
- Department of Archaeology and Heritage Studies, Aarhus University, Moesgård Allé 20, 8270 Højbjerg, Denmark
- Interacting Minds Centre, Aarhus University, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark
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The development of categorisation and conceptual thinking in early childhood: methods and limitations. ACTA ACUST UNITED AC 2020; 33:17. [PMID: 32700155 PMCID: PMC7377002 DOI: 10.1186/s41155-020-00154-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/11/2019] [Accepted: 07/05/2020] [Indexed: 11/17/2022]
Abstract
We present a systematic and qualitative review of academic literature on early conceptual development (0–24 months of age), with an emphasis on methodological aspects. The final sample of our review included 281 studies reported in 115 articles. The main aims of the article were four: first, to organise studies into sets according to methodological similarities and differences; second, to elaborate on the methodological procedures that characterise each set; third, to circumscribe the empirical indicators that different sets of studies consider as proof of the existence of concepts in early childhood; last, to identify methodological limitations and to propose possible ways to overcome them. We grouped the studies into five sets: preference and habituation experiments, category extension tasks, object sorting tasks, sequential touching tasks and object examination tasks. In the “Results” section, we review the core features of each set of studies. In the “Discussion” and “Conclusions” sections, we describe, for one thing, the most relevant methodological shortcomings. We end by arguing that a situated, semiotic and pragmatic perspective that emphasises the importance of ecological validity could open up new avenues of research to better understand the development of concepts in early childhood.
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