[MD] Speed of Lighting, Roar of thunder...

[david buchanan]

Well, one of the points of the rat study was to point out that the rat's ability to find a biscuit in the corner does not constitute thinking. They can successfully act upon their perceptions, but they lack the ability to connect their various perceptions together in such a way that it would count as a conceptualization. So, no, playing with a ball of yarn does not mean the kitten is thinking. One of the first things a baby learns is "object permanence". Before the infant learns to use the idea of a "thing", when she drops an object off the high chair it does not, from her perspective, fall down and out of view. For her, the "object" has gone out like a flame. It's just gone. That doesn't mean the baby won't shake the rattle or put it in her mouth. There are perceptions and the baby acts upon them but it's going to be a while before she concepts too. And it's language that helps her brain connect the various perceptions which thereby create the concepts. In the study on rats, three separate perceptions were too many. Their brains could only connect two perceptions. I imagine the idea of an object requires us to connect way more than three perceptions. Baby's gotta watch that little red ball roll under the couch a few times and then listen to daddy talk about where the little red ball went and watch as daddy retrieves it. 
If she giggles when you pull a coin out of her ear, she's old enough to believe in object permanence. Doesn't count if you tickled her little ear, though. 

 

> Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2010 16:40:45 +0000
> From: craigerb at comcast.net
> To: craigerb at comcast.net
> CC: moq_discuss at lists.moqtalk.org
> Subject: Re: [MD] Speed of Lighting, Roar of thunder...
> 
> Give a non-linguistic, untrained kitten a ball of yarn & it will play with the ball to the exclusion of
> everything else.  Later if it catches a mouse, it will exhibit this same behavior.
> Give a pre-linguistic, untrained infant a novel toy & s/he will treat it similarly, as an integrated whole.
> If it is dropped among other things, it will be picked out.
> Put the infant in a room with a climbing structure & a mural of that same structure, the infant will only
> try to climb the former.  Doesn't that show s/he is thinking of them differently?
> Craig 
> 
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