The Cradle of Knowledge

In the past twenty-five years there has been an explosion in research on
the development of perception. This research has produced discoveries at multiple
levels: ecological analyses of the information available for perception, models of
representation and process, and improved understanding of biological mechanisms. In
this comprehensive treatment of infant perception, Philip Kellman and Martha
Arterberry bring together work at these multiple levels to produce a new picture of
perception's origins. The emphasis is on perceptual knowledge -- how one comes to
perceive the world; what information, processes, and mechanisms produce this
knowledge; and how perceptual processes change over time. They examine early
perception in various domains, such as object, space, motion, intermodal, and speech
perception and attempt to discover the starting points and paths of development of
each. By focusing on individual experiments, they also give the reader a view of how
research is conducted, including the interplay of data and
theory.

Two families of views compete to describe how perception
begins and develops. The authors show that the traditional constructivist view,
emphasizing the construction of perceptual reality through extended learning, has
been disconfirmed by experimental data in many domains. An ecological view,
emphasizing the role of evolution in preparing infants to perceive, provides a
better overall account, but the authors show that both innate foundations and
learning contribute to perceptual development. The authors also examine interactions
between infants' perceptual abilities and their cognitive, social, and motor
development. They argue that the new picture of early perception requires a revised
view of the beginnings of human cognitive and social development.