Abstract
The relations between the developing mind and developing brain are explored. We outline a theory of intellectual development postulating that the mind comprises four systems of processes (domain-specific, attention and working memory, reasoning, and cognizance) developing in four cycles (episodic, realistic, rule-based, and principle-based representations, emerging at birth, 2, 6, and 11 years, respectively), with two phases in each. Changes in reasoning relate to processing efficiency in the first phase and working memory in the second phase. Awareness of mental processes is recycled with the changes in each cycle and drives their integration into the representational unit of the next cycle. Brain research shows that each type of processes is served by specialized brain networks. Domain-specific processes are rooted in sensory cortices; working memory processes are mainly rooted in hippocampal, parietal, and prefrontal cortices; abstraction and alignment processes are rooted in parietal, frontal, and prefrontal and medial cortices. Information entering these networks is available to awareness processes. Brain networks change along the four cycles, in precision, connectivity, and brain rhythms. Principles of mind-brain interaction are discussed.
Highlights
The brain is a biophysical system collecting physical messages from the environment with self as the reference system
We summarized a theory about the architecture and development of the mind and reviewed research on the architecture and development of the brain
Despite the complexity of the theory, the main idea is simple: brain is an integrated modular system where modules specialize to represent specific aspects of the environment and abstract patterns for each aspect; in humans, there are power abstraction-reduction processes generalizing over abstractions, offering an increasingly highly integrated representation of the environment
Summary
The brain is a biophysical system collecting physical messages from the environment with self as the reference system. The paper is organized in two parts: the first focuses on the architecture and functioning and the second on the development of mind and brain In each of these parts, we first outline the basic findings and principles about the mind and present evidence and theory about the underlying brain structures and mechanisms. Martínez et al (2015) recently demonstrated dramatically that the relations between different aspects of cognition, such as fluid intelligence and working memory, cannot be consistently mapped on the same brain dimensions, when the methods of brain mapping vary. With these reservations granted, we will attempt to set a tentative frame for bridging the two fields
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