Contributions of dynamic systems theory to cognitive development (original) (raw)
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Generalizing the dynamic field theory of spatial cognition across real and developmental time scales
Brain Research, 2008
Within cognitive neuroscience, computational models are designed to provide insights into the organization of behavior while adhering to neural principles. These models should provide sufficient specificity to generate novel predictions while maintaining the generality needed to capture behavior across tasks and/or time scales. This paper presents one such model, the Dynamic Field Theory (DFT) of spatial cognition, showing new simulations that provide a demonstration proof that the theory generalizes across developmental changes in performance in four tasks-the Piagetian A-not-B task, a sandbox version of the A-not-B task, a canonical spatial recall task, and a position discrimination task. Model simulations demonstrate that the DFT can accomplish both specificity-generating novel, testable predictions-and generality-spanning multiple tasks across development with a relatively simple developmental hypothesis. Critically, the DFT achieves generality across tasks and time scales with no modification to its basic structure and with a strong commitment to neural principles. The only change necessary to capture development in the model was an increase in the precision of the tuning of receptive fields as well as an increase in the precision of local excitatory interactions among neurons in the model. These small quantitative changes were sufficient to move the model through a set of quantitative and qualitative behavioral changes that span the age range from 8 months to 6 years and into adulthood. We conclude by considering how the DFT is positioned in the literature, the challenges on the horizon for our framework, and how a dynamic field approach can yield new insights into development from a computational cognitive neuroscience perspective.
Piagets A-nicht-B Paradigma untersucht den Einfluss vom Arbeitsgedächtnis und von Handlungsgewohnheiten auf motorische Entscheidungen. Wir zeigen, dass der Gewohnheitaufbau (A Phase) wesentlich die Testphase (B) beeinflusst. Die Feinstruktur sogenannten spontanen Fehler (Greifen zu B obwohl A stimuliert wurde) deckt eine zugrundeliegende Anziehung zu früheren Handlungszielen auf. Die Einkopplung der Verhaltensgeschichte in die aktuelle Entscheidung erklären wir mittels der Dynamischen Feldtheorie durch ein mathematisches Modell neuronaler Aktivierungsverteilungen, die motorische Parameter wie die Greifrichtung darstellen. Motorische Entscheidungen entstehen unter Stimuluseinfluss und durch neuronale Wechselwirkung. Der einfache Lernmechanismus einer Gedächtnisspur erzeugt eine Tendenz zur Perseveration. So betrachtet, liefert das A-nicht-B Paradigma Einsichten in das Erlernen von zielgerichtetem Handeln, zu dessen Stabilisierung die motorische Geschichte entscheidend beiträgt.
Generality with specificity: the dynamic field theory generalizes across tasks and time scales
Developmental Science, 2008
A central goal in cognitive and developmental science is to develop models of behavior that can generalize across both tasks and development while maintaining a commitment to detailed behavioral prediction. This paper presents tests of one such model, the Dynamic Field Theory (DFT). The DFT was originally proposed to capture delay-dependent biases in spatial recall and developmental changes in spatial recall performance. More recently, the theory was generalized to adults' performance in a second spatial working memory task, position discrimination. Here we use the theory to predict a specific, complex developmental pattern in position discrimination. Data with 3-to 6-year-old children and adults confirm these predictions, demonstrating that the DFT achieves generality across tasks and time scales, as well as the specificity necessary to generate novel, falsifiable predictions.
Filling the Gap on Developmental Change: Tests of a Dynamic Field Theory of Spatial Cognition
Journal of Cognition and Development, 2010
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Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 2009
This study tested a dynamic field theory (DFT) of spatial working memory and an associated spatial precision hypothesis (SPH). Between 3 and 6 years of age, there is a qualitative shift in how children use reference axes to remember locations: 3-year-olds' spatial recall responses are biased toward reference axes after short memory delays, whereas 6-year-olds' responses are biased away from reference axes. According to the DFT and the SPH, quantitative improvements over development in the precision of excitatory and inhibitory working memory processes lead to this qualitative shift. Simulations of the DFT in Experiment 1 predict that improvements in precision should cause the spatial range of targets attracted toward a reference axis to narrow gradually over development, with repulsion emerging and gradually increasing until responses to most targets show biases away from the axis. Results from Experiment 2 with 3-to 5-year-olds support these predictions. Simulations of the DFT in Experiment 3 quantitatively fit the empirical results and offer insights into the neural processes underlying this developmental change.
Twenty years and going strong: A dynamic systems revolution in motor and cognitive development
Child Development Perspectives, 2011
This article reviews the major contributions of dynamic systems theory (DST) in advancing thinking about development, the empirical insights the theory has generated, and the key challenges for the theory on the horizon. The first section discusses the emergence of DST in developmental science, the core concepts of the theory, and the resonance it has with other approaches that adopt a systems metatheory. The second section reviews the work of Esther Thelen and colleagues, who revolutionized how researchers think about the field of motor development. It also reviews recent extensions of this work to the domain of cognitive development. Here, the focus is on dynamic field theory, a formal, neurally grounded approach that has yielded novel insights into the embodied nature of cognition. The final section proposes that the key challenge on the horizon is to formally specify how interactions among multiple levels of analysis and across multiple time scales create developmental change.
Connectionist models of development
How have connectionist models informed the study of development? This paper considers three contributions from specific models. First, connectionist models have proven useful for exploring nonlinear dynamics and emergent properties, and their role in nonlinear developmental trajectories, critical periods and developmental disorders. Second, connectionist models have informed the study of the representations that lead to behavioral dissociations. Third, connectionist models have provided insight into neural mechanisms, and why different brain regions are specialized for different functions. Connectionist and dynamic systems approaches to development have differed, with connectionist approaches focused on learning processes and representations in cognitive tasks, and dynamic systems approaches focused on mathematical characterizations of physical elements of the system and their interactions with the environment. The two approaches also share much in common, such as their emphasis on continuous, nonlinear processes and their broad application to a range of behaviors.
On a multistable dynamic model of behavioral and perceptual infant development
Developmental …, 2010
In this theoretical work, we treat behavioral and perceptual issues on an equal footing and examine the emergence of mutually exclusive behavioral patterns and perceptual variables during infant development from the perspective of multistable competitive dynamic systems. Accordingly, behavioral modes and modes of perception compete with each other for activation. One and only one mode survives the mode-mode competition, which accounts for the incompatibility of modes being considered. However, the winning behavioral or perceptual state is not predefined. Rather, we argue that during particular stages of maturation multiple modes coexist for the same set of developmental, body-scaled, and environmental parameters or constraints. The winning behavioral or perceptual state depends on these parameters as well as on initial conditions as operationalized in terms of previously performed behaviors or utilized perceptual stimuli. We give explicit examples of our approach and address the emergence of two-handed grasping and catching movements and the emergence of monocular and binocular vision during infant development. In particular, we propose that the emergence of midline crossing movements in 3-to 6-month-old infants involves two independent but interaction control parameters: a body-scaled and a developmental one. Likewise, we argue that the onset of binocularity in infants involves two independent but interaction control parameters: a developmental and an environmental one. ß 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Dev Psychobiol 52: 352-371, 2010.