Cognitive processes turn out to be both more innate and more culturall
y based than we used to think. On the one hand, ecological and interpe
rsonal perception are innately prepared, available in infancy; on the
other, mental development depends critically on social support. Taken
together with the emerging multiple/modular structure of the brain, th
ese discoveries demand a new kind of cognitive theory: an ecologically
grounded, developmental account of distinct systems in interaction. T
hree such systems, primarily perceptual in function, are described her
e: (1) direct perception/action establishes an immediate non-represent
ational sense of self and environment that grounds all other cognition
; (2) interpersonal preception/reactivity produces species-specific pa
tterns of social interaction; (3) recognition/representation identifie
s and classifies what is perceived. These systems are distinguished by
neurological as well as psychological criteria: the neuroanatomical '
'where/what'' distinction, for example, reflects the difference betwee
n direct perception and recognition. Cooperation among these three sys
tems, which begins near the end of the first year, is basic to languag
e and other forms of cultural learning.