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The emergence of consciousness
... The diversity of actions revealed by infants and described by their parents is assumed to correspond to the emergence of cognitive metamorphism (Zelazo & Leonard, 1983); meaning that the transition from reflexive nutritive sucking to NNS, or from stereotyped movements to functional play, maybe a result of a conscious mental representations of real-world objects (P. R. Zelazo & P. D. Zelazo, 1998). ...
Babies react to changes in the characteristics of objects, presenting haptic recognition after a period of familiarization. We aimed to verify if infants responded to the different spatial orientations of an ergonomic pacifier in the mouth. With informed consent, 10 babies (271.6 ± 60.8 days), users of ergonomic pacifiers, revealed motor behaviors that were divisible into 3 categories, sometimes through successive actions (i.e., perception-action cycles were present): i) repositioned correctly the pacifier, through different modes; ii) repositioned it, but incorrectly, through different ways; and, iii) rejected the pacifier. So, these babies detected the incorrect position of the pacifier, and acted according to the principle of motor equivalence, since they implemented variations of a solution for the same need.
Keywords: Haptic Perception, Infants, Mouth, Ergonomic Pacifier
... The diversity of actions revealed by infants and described by their parents is assumed to correspond to the emergence of cognitive metamorphism (Zelazo & Leonard, 1983); meaning that the transition from reflexive nutritive sucking to NNS, or from stereotyped movements to functional play, maybe a result of a conscious mental representations of real-world objects (P. R. Zelazo & P. D. Zelazo, 1998). ...
Two studies test the hypothesis of conserving resources while performing depleting physical tasks and the
modifying role of metacognitive self (MCS). A total of 216 undergraduate students performed two types of
physical tasks (a body support on forearms―the first experiment; and a cold water test―the second experiment) in
anticipation vs. no anticipation of the future task conditions. Among individuals with high-MCS much weaker
persistence could be observed than among those with low-MCS. These results support theories of adaptive goal
disengagement suggesting that how individuals apply their resources may stem from other reasons than ego
depletion.
Keywords: conserving resources, ego depletion, metacognitive self, biases
... The use of labels helps children strengthen their representation of an item's location when they can no longer rely on their habitual responses. The additional representational layer of a label allows for reprocessing, reflection, and a subsequently increased conscious awareness and representational trace in memory (i.e., the levels of consciousness framework of Zelazo and Zelazo (1998)). Within the context of a spatial search task, different sorts of labels may lead to distinct biases when reprocessing, or reflecting upon, location representations. ...
Toddlers performed a spatial mapping task in which they were required to learn the location of a hidden object in a vertical array and then transpose this location information 90° to a horizontal array. During the vertical training, they were given (a) no labels, (b) alphabetical labels, or (c) numerical labels for each potential spatial location. After the array was transposed to become a horizontal continuum, the children who were provided with numerical labels during training and those who heard alphabetical labels and formed a strong memory for the vertical location, selectively chose the location corresponding to a left-to-right mapping bias. Children who received no concurrent ordinal labels during training were not able to transpose the array, and did not exhibit any spatial directionality bias after transposition. These results indicate that children exhibit more flexible spatial mapping than other animals, and this mapping is modulated depending on the type of concurrent ordinal information the child receives. (PsycINFO Database Record
... There are carefully researched parsimonious constructions of the infant's mind based on infant information processing abilities that have emerged as more cautious alterna-lives to postulating complex innate abilities for mathematics and physics based on the misuse of a unitary measure: looking time (e.g., Cohen, 1991;Zelazo, 1998;Zelazo, P. R. & Zelazo, P. D., 1998). These views of the infant during the first year of life are consistent with Kagan's schematic representations. ...
I argue that newborn infants are conscious. I propose a methodology for investigating infant consciousness and I present two approaches for determining whether newborns are conscious. First, I consider behavioral and neurobiological markers of consciousness.Second, I investigate the major theories of consciousness, including both philosophical and scientific theories, and I discuss what they predict about infant consciousness.
This new book examines the interrelationship between neuroscience and developmental science to help us understand how children differ in their capacity to benefit from their early motor and cognitive experiences. in so doing, it helps us better understand how experience affects brain growth and a child’s capacity to learn. in this interdisciplinary book, the authors review the most significant research findings and historical scientific events related to early experience, the brain, and consciousness. Authors Dalton and Bergenn propose a new theory to help demonstrate the crucial roles of attention and memory in motor and perceptual development. The goal is to help readers better understand the differences between how individuals with normal and dysfunctional brains process information and how this impacts their ability to learn from experience.
Theory of mind (ToM) and executive function (EF) have traditionally been measured starting in preschool and share a similar developmental progression into childhood. Although there is some research examining early ToM and EF in the first 3 years, further empirical evidence and a theoretical framework for a ToM-EF relationship from infancy to preschool are necessary. In this paper we review the ToM-EF relationship in preschoolers and provide evidence for early development in ToM, EF, and the ToM-EF relationship. We propose that models of cognitive control (i.e., Hierarchical Competing Systems Model: Marcovitch & Zelazo (Journal of Cognition and Development 7:477–501, 2006), (Developmental Science 12:1–25, 2009)); and Levels of Consciousness Model: Zelazo (Trends in Cognitive Science 8:12–17, 2004) account for the ToM-EF relationship across childhood through domain-general developments in the ability to form and reflect on relevant representations that can guide behavior in both ToM and EF situations. The combination of these models also presents unique, domain-general considerations for interpreting early ToM from infancy to preschool.
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