https://psycnet.apa.org/journals/rev/87/6/477.pdf

A theory of cognitive development: The control and construction of hierarchies of skills.

According to the Cognitive Complexity and Control (CCC) theory, the development of executive function can be understood in terms of age-related increases in the maximum complexity of the rules children can formulate and use when solving problems. This Monograph describes four studies (9 experiments) designed to test hypotheses derived from the CCC theory and from alternative theoretical perspectives on the development of executive function (memory accounts, inhibition accounts, and redescription accounts). Each study employed a version of the Dimensional Change Card Sort (DCCS), in which children are required first to sort cards by one pair of rules (e.g., color rules: "If red then here, if blue then there"), and then sort the same cards by another, incompatible pair of rules (e.g., shape rules). Study 1 found that although most 3- to 4-year-olds failed the standard version of this task (i.e., they perseverated on the preswitch rules during the postswitch phase), they usually performed well when they were required to use four rules (including bidimensional rules) and those rules were not in conflict (i.e., they did not require children to respond in two different ways to the same test card). These findings indicate that children's perseveration cannot be attributed in a straightforward fashion to limitations in children's memory capacity. Study 2 examined the circumstances in which children can use conflicting rules. Three experiments demonstrated effects of rule dimensionality (uni- vs. bidimensional rules) but no effects of stimulus characteristics (1 vs. 2 test cards; spatially integrated vs. separated stimuli). Taken together, these studies suggest that conflict among rules is a key determinant of difficulty, but that conflict interacts with dimensionality. Study 3 examined what types of conflict pose problems for 3- to 4-year-olds by comparing performance on standard, Partial Change, and Total Change versions of the DCCS. Results revealed effects of conflict at the level of specific rules (e.g., "If red, then there"), rather than specific stimulus configurations or dimensions per se, indicating that activation of the preswitch rules persists into the postswitch phase. Study 4 examined whether negative priming also contributes to difficulty on the DCCS. Two experiments suggested that the active selection of preswitch rules against a competing alternative results in the lasting suppression of the alternative. Taken together, the results of these studies provide the basis for a revision of the CCC theory (CCC-r) that specifies more clearly the circumstances in which children will have difficulty using rules at various levels of complexity, provides a more detailed account of how to determine the complexity of rules required in a task, takes account of both the activation and inhibition of rules as a function of experience, and highlights the importance of taking intentionality seriously in the study of executive function.

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The Development of Executive Function in Early Childhood

Contents: Preface. Introduction. Part I: Historical Backgrounds. Analytic, Dialectic and Rhetoric. Analysis of Fallacies, Controversy, and Discussion. Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca's New Rhetoric. Toulmin's Model of Argumentation. Part II: Contemporary Developments. Informal Logic and Critical Thinking. Communication and Rhetoric. Fallacies and Formal Logic. Dialogue Logic and Formal Dialectics. Pragma-Dialectics and Critical Discussion. Language-Oriented Approaches to Argumentation. Other Significant Developments.

Fundamentals of Argumentation Theory : A Handbook of Historical Backgrounds and Contemporary Developments

The mathematics instructional approaches of effective elementary teachers in urban highpoverty schools were investigated. Approximately 99 urban elementary teachers were administered the Star Teacher Selection Interview; a total of 31 were identified as star teachers. These teachers were then administered the Instructional Practices Assessment to identify their mathematical instructional practices and the degree to which they implemented these practices. The findings indicated that the star teachers are using a variety of instructional approaches that are culturally relevant and aligned with the NCTM’s Principles and Standards for School Mathematics. The highest mean ratings were associated with principles and practices related to equity and strong adherence to curriculum standards infused with personal creativity.

Shared cognition: Thinking as social practice.

ALCESTE - A Methodology of Textual Data Analysis and an Application: Aurelia by Gerard de Nerval. Beginning with a cross-tabulation with different all sentence fragments in rows and a selected vocabulary in columns for a specific corpus, the author presents: the methodology, including principle concepts and objectives of this form of analysis; the technique, the ALCESTE computer program of automatic classification based on resemblance or dissimilarity: and an application, the analysis of Gerard de Nerval's text Aurelia. The analysis distinguishes three types of fragments which are described and analyzed further.

Alceste une méthodologie d'analyse des données textuelles et une application: Aurelia De Gerard De Nerval

Logique et langage

Years ago, prompted by Grize, Apostel and Papert, we undertook the study of functions, but until now we did not properly understand the relations between functions and operations, and their increasing interactions at the level of 'constituted functions'. By contrast, certain recent studies on 'constitutive functions', or preoperatory functional schemes, have convinced us of the existence of a sort of logic of functions (springing from the schemes of actions) which is prior to the logic of operations (drawn from the general and reversible coordinations between actions). This preoperatory 'logic' accounts for the very general, and until now unexplained, primacy of order relations between 4 and 7 years of age, which is natural since functions are ordered dependences and result from oriented 'applications'. And while this 'logic' ends up in a positive manner in formalizable structures, it has gaps or limitations. Psychologically, we are interested in understanding the system atic errors due to this primacy of order, such .as the undifferentiation of 'longer' and 'farther', or the non-conservations caused by ordinal estimations (of levels, etc. ), as opposed to extensive or metric evaluations. In a sense which is psychologically very real, this preoperatory logic of constitutive functions represents only the first half of operatory logic, if this can be said, and it is reversibility which allows the construction of the other half by completing the initial one-way structures."

Jean-Blaise Grize

Papers

Logique et langage

Epistemology and Psychology of Functions

De la logique à l'argumentation

Essai de logique opératoire

Salaries face aux nouvelles technologies : vers une approche socio-logique des représentations sociales