Cognitive Development: The Learning Brain is a thoroughly revised and updated edition of the bestselling Cognition in Children. This full-color textbook has been re-written from the perspective of brain science and shows how new discoveries in cognitive neuroscience force us to reconsider traditional theories of cognitive development. Goswami considers the established base of cognitive developmental psychology and demonstrates how new data from brain science require a new theoretical framework based on learning. This book presents a new paradigm for teaching cognitive development, going beyond Piaget to learning and the brain.
Conceptualizing cognitive development around three core domains of human knowledge – naïve physics, naïve biology and naïve psychology – the book considers the learning mechanisms available to the infant brain. Each chapter explores how these mechanisms affect different aspects of cognitive development. Starting with the development of these foundational domains in infancy, Goswami goes on to consider social cognition, language acquisition, causal learning and explanation-based reasoning, and theory of mind. Later chapters explore memory, reasoning, metacognition, executive functions, reading and numbers. The final chapter analyzes the contribution of more traditional theoretical perspectives (Piaget and Vygotsky), linking these to connectionism and neuroconstructivism. The intimate links between language acquisition and symbolic systems, cognitive development and social/cultural learning form the core of the book.
This valuable textbook is essential reading for teachers and students of developmental and cognitive psychology, as well as education, language and the learning sciences. It will also be of interest to anyone training to work with infants and children.
Cognitive Development: The Learning Brain is supported by online Student and Instructor Resources, access to which is free of charge to adopters of the book and their students.
"This volume is a tour de force. Goswami effortlessly interweaves contemporary research and theory on cognitive development with cutting edge work in both developmental neuroscience and cognitive psychology. The result is a lucid, accessible and always stimulating treatment of the field of cognitive development, which will be of great use to students and researchers alike. A superb piece of scholarship, this volume is also an excellent choice for advanced undergraduate and graduate level courses in developmental psychology." - Jeffrey J. Lockman, Professor of Psychology, Tulane University, New Orleans, USA
"In this forward looking and up-to-date book, Usha Goswami brings together major theories, concepts, and findings from neural and behavioral approaches to cognitive development. Many authors pay lip service to this goal, but Goswami succeeds in integrating behavioral and neural approaches to a greater extent than any other textbook I have seen." - Robert S. Siegler, Teresa Heinz Professor of Cognitive Psychology, Carnegie Mellon University, USA
"The study of cognitive development has recently been transformed by new interchange with cognitive science, neuroscience, computer modeling, and studies of nonhuman animals. Conveying this situation to students is challenging. Usha Goswami has provided a valuable and thorough account of cognitive development as informed by both emerging and classic perspectives." - Nora S. Newcombe, Professor of Psychology, Temple University, USA
"The book is both scholarly and exciting in the way it inter-weaves the most cutting edge research in cognitive neuroscience and connectionism with the traditional theories of Piaget and Vygotsky. It presents a clear and contemporary introduction to the field that will interest and inform both student and expert alike." - Mark H. Johnson, Director of the Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development, University of London, UK
"This is a splendid book, providing an excellent and scholarly coverage of contemporary research in cognitive development. It is written by a leading authority, and its readable style makes it an invaluable resource for undergraduates who need to access up-to-date thinking in this field." - Martyn Barrett, Department of Psychology, University of Surrey, UK
