MULTIPLE SYSTEMS - A NEW APPROACH TO COGNITIVE THEORY

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.