Work In Developmental Psychology Research Articles

Cross-Modality and the Self

The thesis of this paper is that the capacity to think of one's perceptions as crossmodally integrated is incompatible with a reductionist account of the self. In ?2 I distinguish three versions of the argument from cross-modality. According to the 'unification' version of the argument, what needs to be explained is one's capacity to identify an object touched as the same as an object simultaneously seen. According to the 'recognition' version, what needs to be explained is one's capacity, having once seen an object, to reidentify that same object by touch alone. According to the 'objectivity' version, what needs to be explained is one's capacity to think of one's perceptions in different modalities as perceptions of one and the same object. The third version seems to establish that one must conceive of oneself substantially, as the numerically identical owner of one's experiences, a conclusion in agreement with recent work in developmental psychology claiming to show that an infant's cross-modal capacities are essentially implicated in their development of a sense of self. There is further work to be done if this is to be turned into an argument against reductionism: there is no swift route from the epistemology of self-consciousness to the metaphysics of the self. In the ?3, I will claim that there is, nevertheless, an argument linking the two. What I propose is an argument derived, not from the token-reflexive rule for the first-person, but resting on its anaphoric behaviour spanning intensional operators.

Invention and Discoveries: An Interview with Ann K. Beneduce

Invention and Discoveries:An Interview with Ann K. Beneduce Leonard S. Marcus Ann K. Beneduce is editor-in-chief of Philomel Books, a division of the Putnam Publishing Group, a position she has held since May, 1980. She has worked in publishing in various capacities since 1967, and has previously been editor-in-chief of children's books at World Publishing, T.Y. Crowell, and Collins & World. In addition to being a member of or chairing several committees of the Children's Book Council, Beneduce has been the United States representative to the executive committee of IBBY (1974-78); founding member of the U.S. Friends of IBBY and president (1980 and 1981); corporate member of the U.S. Committee for UNICEF (1976 to present) and member of the Board of Directors of the U.S. Committee for UNICEF (1979 to present); jury member for BIB (1977); art jury member for the Bologna Book Fair's Exhibition of Children's Book Elustrations (1977); and Member of the U.S.A. National Committee for the International Year of the Child (1978-80). The following interview is based on conversations with Beneduce in the latter part of 1983. LSM: How did you get started in the children's book field? AKB: Well, I was divorced quite young and had two young children and found I had to earn a living. Publishing was the thing I knew most about. Not publishing exactly, but books and literature in general. I had been writing book reviews for a local newspaper and had also been reading to children—I was the story lady at the library, just for pleasure. I went to Doubleday, asked for a job and they had one. So that was luck. I worked for three years in adult books, but found that it was in the children's book department that a woman was most likely to move forward, and so I started working in that side of publishing, but somewhat half-heartedly, feeling that intellectually it was perhaps a downward step. It was only after I began working on children's books that I saw it was something I loved doing, and that it was challenging and rewarding. In addition, I had done graduate work in developmental psychology, and I was passionately interested in literature and art, as well as in the intellectual development of children, and I found that editing children's books was the perfect combination of all these concerns. [End Page 47] My first job in children's books was at Lippincott. LSM: Whom did you work under there? AKB: Eunice Blake. I took the job at a reduction in salary because I wanted the experience of working with an outstanding editor. It was a wonderful decision. She knew every aspect of publishing, and was virtually a one-woman department when I arrived. She could design a book, had an eye for art, and cared about quality in the text. Eunice was interested in international picture books. She was one of the first editors who went around the world and looked for artists to bring to American children, which is something I've also found very worthwhile. LSM: Which countries did she go most often to? AKB: She brought many books from England; for instance the novel Tom's Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce. She went to Czechoslovakia and brought back several adorable picture books by Czech artists, and she discovered the work of Nicola Simbari from Italy. We did a beautiful book by him, a picture book called Gennarino. I guess my eyes were opened to a wider range of artists from the start than if I had just worked with Americans. LSM: From Lippincott where did you go? AKB: In 1963 Velma Varner asked me to come to World as her assistant. She really knew—but didn't divulge to me at that time—that she was going on to Viking. Very shortly afterward she left World and I took over the department there. LSM: Velma Varner found a Japanese picture scroll by the twelfth century artist Toba Sojo, and made a children's picture book out of it called The Animal Frolic. In a general...

Developmental Psychology in China

A brief history of Chinese developmental psychology is given and the current main research projects are outlined. Developmental psychological concepts had already been formulated within ancient Chinese philosophy. However, modern Chinese developmental psychology was strongly inspired by European and American psychology. Research work in developmental psychology has been especially promoted since 1977 with particular reference to children's cognitive development and educational reform. Current research projects mainly concern child development within the following areas: cognition development (development of the number concept and operational abilities), language development, relation of thinking and language, personality and moral development, supernormal children, mental retardedness.

DISTORTIONS IN DEVELOPMENTAL REPORTING MADE BY PARENTS OF BEHAVIORALLY DISTURBED CHILDREN

In a previous report we have presented data on the accuracy with which parents can report significant aspects of their child's development after a lapse of time (Robbins, 1963). The same question has also been studied by a number of other investigators (Goddard, Broder, and Wenar, 1961; Haggard, Brekstad, and Skard, 1960; MacFarlane, 1938; Wenar and Coulter, 19(2). The consistent finding in these reports of significant degrees of distortion uf memory as characteristic of the parental recall of developmental facts in normal children led us to wonder whether equally great or greater distortions of memory exist in the parental reports of development of behaviorally disturbed children. The present paper reports our findings on the types of distortion in recall made by parents of children referred for psychiatric evaluation because of parental concern that significant degrees of behavioral abnormality existed in their children. This study takes place against a background of work in developmental psychology and child psychiatry that indicates an increasing recognition that the fuller understanding of the origins, development, and course of behavioral disturbances in children requires