The Emerging Spatial Mind

by Jodie M. Plumert (Editor), John P. Spencer (Editor)

Overview

How does the spatial mind develop? In this book, Jodie Plumert and John Spencer bring together the leading researchers from the field of spatial cognitive development to examine how the spatial mind emerges from its humble origins in infancy and becomes its mature, flexible, and skilled adult form. The work presented sheds light on how the emerging spatial mind is fostered and shaped over time by our experiences of thinking about and interacting in the space around us. Each chapter presents cutting-edge research and theory that addresses the two pivotal questions of what changes in the spatial mind, and how these changes come about. The authors provide both conceptual and formal theoretical accounts of developmental process at multiple levels of analysis--genes, neurons, behaviors, social interactions--creating a contemporary overview of the general mechanisms of cognitive change. Commentary chapters show how the developmental advances discussed in these accounts fit into our understanding of not only spatial cognitive development, but also spatial cognition more generally.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780190293406
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	04/12/2007
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	5 MB

About the Author

University of Iowa

University of Iowa

Table of Contents

Contributors     ix
Introduction   Jodie M. Plumert   John P. Spencer     xiii
Remembering Where Things Are
Using Spatial Categories to Reason about Location   Janellen Huttenlocher   Stella F. Lourenco     3
Organism-Environment Interaction in Spatial Development: Explaining Categorical Bias in Memory for Location   Jodie M. Plumert   Alycia M. Hund   Kara M. Recker     25
Explaining the Development of Spatial Reorientation: Modularity-Plus-Language versus the Emergence of Adaptive Combination   Nora S. Newcombe   Kristin R. Ratliff     53
Using Locomotion to Update Spatial Orientation: What Changes with Learning and Development?   John J. Rieser   Herbert L. Pick, Jr.     77
Commentary: The Nature and Development of Spatial Reference Systems   Timothy McNamara     104
Thinking and Talking about Spatial Relations
On the Infant's Prelinguistic Conception of Spatial Relations: Three Developmental Trends and Their Implications for Spatial Language Learning   Paul C. Quinn     117
Adapting Spatial Concepts for Different Languages: From Preverbal Event Schemas to Semantic Categories   Soonja Choi   Laraine McDonough     142
The Body and Children's Word Learning   Linda B. Smith   JositaMaouene   Shohei Hidaka     168
Developmental Changes in Children's Understanding of Maps: What, When, and How?   Lynn S. Liben   Lauren J. Myers     193
Map Use and the Development of Spatial Cognition   Clare Davies   David H. Uttal     219
Commentary: Linking Internal Representations to the External World via Spatial Relations   Laura Carlson     248
Mapping the Neuropsychological Bases of Spatial Development
Effects of Blindness and Deafness on the Development of Spatial Perception and Cognition   Teresa V. Mitchell     263
Explaining Selective Spatial Breakdown in Williams Syndrome: Four Principles of Normal Spatial Development and Why They Matter   Barbara Landau   James E. Hoffman     290
What Does Theoretical Neuroscience Have to Offer the Study of Behavioral Development? Insights from a Dynamic Field Theory of Spatial Cognition   John P. Spencer   Vanessa R. Simmering   Anne R. Schutte   Gregor Schoner     320
Commentary: Specificity, Mechanisms, and Timing in the Study of Spatial Cognition   Courtney Stevens   Edward Awh     362
Conclusions
What Makes Thinking about Development So Hard?   John P. Spencer   Jodie M. Plumert     375
Author Index      387
Subject Index     399

Editorial Reviews

"[I]ncludes much of the best current thinking about fundamental questions in spatial development . . . By encouraging so many of the best thinkers in the field to address these basic issues, and by bringing their ideas together in a single volume, the editors have done a real service." —Robert Siegler, Teresa Heinz Professor of Cognitive Psychology, Carnegie Mellon University

". . . This collection of chapters from many of the main thinkers in the field provides thoughtful perspectives on those issues." —Barbara Tversky, Professor Emerita of Psychology, Stanford University

"This is a much needed book in an area that has seen considerable advances over the past 20 years or so . . . will be a must for advanced students and researchers at every level working on the development of spatial cognition." —Gavin Bremner, Professor of Developmental Psychology, University of Lancaster

"[P]rovides an authoritative, up-to-date, wide-ranging view of spatial development . . .This volume will be an indispensable source for anyone interested in how children come to understand and act in the world." —Judy S. Deloache, William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Psychology, University of Virginia

". . . offers a valuable and timely synthesis that encompasses basic processes, how children come to represent and communicate about space, and the neural systems that support their abilities." —Roberta L. Klatzky, Professor of Psychology and Human-Computer Interaction, Carnegie Mellon University

"The editors hoped to contribute to the emerging vision of the spatial mind as it moves beyond the field of spatial cognition, integrating the insights from the field of spatial cognitive development with research on adult spatial cognition, the neural bases of spatial cognition, the evolution of spatial thinking, and beyond. Toward that end, they have achieved success."—John S. Wodarski in PsycCRITIQUES

From the Publisher