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The scientist in the crib : minds, brains, and how children learn / Alison Gopnik, Andrew N. Meltzoff, Patricia K. Kuhl.

Van Pelt Library BF311 .G627 1999
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Format:
Book
Author/Creator:
Gopnik, Alison.
Contributor:
Meltzoff, Andrew N.
Kuhl, Patricia K. (Patricia Katherine), 1946-
Language:
English
Subjects (All):
Cognition.
Cognition in children.
Learning, Psychology of.
Physical Description:
xv, 279 pages ; 25 cm
Edition:
First edition.
Place of Publication:
New York : William Morrow & Co., [1999]
Summary:
This book combines two worlds--children and science--in an entirely unique way that yields exciting discoveries about both. The authors show that by the time children are three, they've solved problems that stumped Socrates with an agility computers still can't match. The Scientist in the Crib explains just how, and how much, babies and young children know and learn, and how much parents naturally teach them. In fact, The Scientist in the Crib argues that evolution designed us to both teach and learn. Nurture is our nature, and the drive to learn is our most important instinct.
Contents:
Chapter 1 Ancient Questions and a Young Science 1
The Ancient Questions 4
Baby 0.0 6
The Other Socratic Method 10
The Great Chain of Knowing 11
Piaget and Vygotsky 14
The New View: The Computational Baby 20
Chapter 2 What Children Learn About People 23
What Newborns Know 25
The Really Eternal Triangle 32
Peace and Conflict Studies 35
Changing Your Point of View 40
The Conversational Attic 42
Learning About "About" 44
The Three-Year-Old Opera: Love and Deception 47
Knowing You Didn't Know: Education and Memory 51
How Do They Do It? 52
Mind-Blindness 53
Becoming a Psychologist 55
When Little Brother Is Watching 57
Chapter 3 What Children Learn About Things 60
What Newborns Know 64
The Irresistible Allure of Stripes 64
The Importance of Movement 65
Seeing the World Through 3-D Glasses 67
The Tree in the Quad and the Keys in the Washcloth 70
Making Things Happen 73
Kinds of Things 79
How Do They Do It? 83
World-Blindness 84
The Explanatory Drive 85
Grown-ups as Teachers 88
Chapter 4 What Children Learn About Language 92
The Sound Code 94
Making Meanings 97
The Grammar We Don't Learn in School 99
What Newborns Know 102
Taking Care of the Sounds: Becoming a Language-Specific Listener 106
The Tower of Babble 110
The First Words 112
Putting It Together 117
How Do They Do It? 120
Word-Blindness: Dyslexia and Dysphasia 120
Learning Sounds 122
Learning How to Mean 125
"Motherese" 128
Chapter 5 What Scientists Have Learned About Children's Minds 133
Evolution's Programs 134
The Star Trek Archaeologists 139
Foundations 143
Learning 147
The Developmental View: Sailing in Ulysses' Boat 149
Big Babies 153
The Scientist as Child: The Theory Theory 155
Explanation as Orgasm 162
Other People 164
Nurture as Nature 165
The Klingons and the Vulcans 170
Sailing Together 172
Chapter 6 What Scientists Have Learned About Children's Brains 174
The Adult Brain 175
How Brains Get Built 180
Wiring the Brain: Talk to Me 183
Synaptic Pruning: When a Loss Is a Gain 186
Are There Critical Periods? 189
The Social Brain 194
The Brain in the Boat 195
Chapter 7 Trailing Clouds of Glory 198
What Is to Be Done? 198
The Clouds 206.
Notes:
Includes bibliographical references (pages [227]-264) and index.
ISBN:
0688159885
OCLC:
41039870

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