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Title: The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition by Michael Tomasello ISBN: 0-674-00582-1 Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr Pub. Date: March, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (2 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: The Essential Ingredient
Comment: This is the best account of cognitive development in human beings I've read, and as a psychoanalyst I've read quite a few. Tomasello focuses on the essential difference between human children and our closest relatives among the great apes. This is the ability to imagine that another creature has a mind with intentions and with plans to fulfill those intentions. From this capability follows the human infant's unique capacity to track the behavior of adults and to reconstruct their thoughts and intentions from their observed actions. Apes can make accurate predictions by watching what other apes do. They can emulate those actions in a general way, but they cannot imagine what the other ape is trying to do, or that there might in fact be other ways of doing whatever that is. As Tomasello shows, without a model of the other creature's intentions,it is impossible to appreciate and imitate the fine details of his actions. It is also impossible to build a cumulative model that relates one set of actions with another to form a larger scheme of mental activity.
Tomasello shows how the entire structure of shared ideas and artifacts that we call culture rests on this uniquely human cogitive achievement. His descriptions of the steps and stages in the evolving interaction between the child and its caretakers make this progressive development crystal clear. His account of languge acquisition is unusually good. He shows, for example, that words do not simply label objects but identify them through the particular aspects they display in a variety of meaningful contexts. Language introduces perspective, allowing the infant to see the world without the exclusive bias of his own immediate needs.
Tomasello's writing doesn't waste any words, but maintains a tone of empathy and understanding that makes the book a pleasure to read. I think it will prove invaluable to any educator or clinician concerned with understanding the receptivity to learning of either children or adults.
Rating: 5
Summary: Convincing and provocative work
Comment: Tomasello's work convincingly elucidates the roles of attention and intention discovery amongst infants in the acquisition of language. He enables us to dispense with ideas of linguistic modules, of "innateness" with respect to human speech acquisition. The key, in his thesis, is the human awareness of intention, and it's the emergence of this in infants at around 9 months which provides the basis for language comprehension (ultimately). A very enjoyable and persuasive text - strongly recommended to anyone interested in the origins of human language (on a species and individual basis).
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Title: Constructing a Language : A Usage-Based Theory of Language Acquisition by Michael Tomasello ISBN: 0674010302 Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr Pub. Date: May, 2003 List Price(USD): $45.00 |
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Title: Primate Cognition by Michael Tomasello, Josep Call ISBN: 0195106245 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: September, 1997 List Price(USD): $44.50 |
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Title: The Way We Think: Conceptual Blending and the Mind's Hidden Complexities by Gilles Fauconnier, Mark Turner ISBN: 0465087868 Publisher: Basic Books Pub. Date: March, 2003 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
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Title: Language in Mind: Advances in the Study of Language and Thought by Dedre Gentner, Susan Goldin-Meadow ISBN: 0262571633 Publisher: MIT Press Pub. Date: 01 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
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Title: Origins of the Modern Mind: Three Stages in the Evolution of Culture and Cognition by Merlin Donald ISBN: 0674644840 Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr Pub. Date: February, 1993 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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