G. Regalbuto Bentley Dissertation

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.ill' . I N /[ K i - l i ) A V i J A h ' ' . ’ I i 1 l ' H ' •• 1 • > 1 1 l f ’

A PERCEPTUAL-CHANGE THEORY
OF DEVELOPMENT
DISSERTATION
Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate
School of The Ohio State University
By
Gloria A. Ruth, B.A., M. A .
* * * * *
The Ohio State University
1980
Reading Committee: Approved By
Victor D. Wall, Adviser
Norman D. Elliott, Co-adviser __
fdvis
Joseph Pilotta Department of Communications

This work is dedicated to my son, Eoin,
and to all children with the hope that
adults will learn to treat their world
with dignity and respect. After all,
"Grown-ups never understand anything
by themselves, and it is tiresome for
children to be always and forever
explaining things to them." (Saint-Exupery,
1943)
li

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank my husband, Douglas, and my
mother-in-law, Mrs. Richard Ruth, for their stubborn support
and constant encouragement without which this dissertation
could not have been completed. Their help was valuable, but
their love and concern is without price.
I would also like to acknowledge my teachers: Norman
Eliott, Deanna Robinson, Ellen Wartella, Leonard Hawes, Vance
Ramsey, Helen Mackenzie, and Sheldon Freedman. Their love of
knowledge is infectious, their brilliance exciting. I am a
better student and a better teacher because of them.

VITA
April 17, 1950 ......... B o m - Cleveland, Ohio
1973 .................... B.A., English, Ohio University,
Athens, Ohio
1973 - 1974 ........... Teaching Associate, English
Department, Ohio University,
Athens, Ohio
1974 .................... M.A., English, Ohio University,
Athens, Ohio
1974 .................... Teaching Associate, Speech and
Theatre Arts, University of
Pittsburgh, P ittsburgh, Penn-
sylvan ia
1975 - 1978 ........... Teaching Associate, Department of
Communication, The Ohio State
University, Columbus, Ohio
1979 - 1980 ......... Communications Instructor, Div
ision of General Studies, Central
Ohio Technical College, Newark,
Ohio
PUBLICATIONS
" 'Waiter, there's a fly in my soup!' or 'How does your
phenomenal feel?': A Transactional Approach to Perception."
with Samuel P. Wallace in Small Group Communication:
Selected Readings. Dr. Victor D. Wall, Editor. Columbus,
Ohio: Collegiate Publishing, Inc., 1978.
iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
DEDICATION...................................... ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS................................ iii
VITA............................................. iv
LIST OF TABLES ...................................... vi
LIST OF FIGURES........................................ viii
INTRODUCTION.................................... 1
Chapter
1. EXPLICATIONOF EPISTEMOLOGICALASSUMPTIONS. 7
2. CRITIQUE OFTHE CURRENT MODEL: The Myth of
the Adult Standard........................... 29
3. CRITIQUE OF THE CURRENT MODEL: The LOCUS
of Invariance................................ 61
Stimuli as theLocus of Invariance.... 65
Cognition as the Locus of Invariance.. 73
Goal Knowledge as the Locus of Invar
iance ................................. 80
Negative Feedback as the Locus of
Invariance............................ 81
Summary................................. 93
The Alternative Model.................. 95
v

4. THE ALTERNATIVE THEORY...................... 101
Elements of the Alternative Theory......... 10 3
Systems of Interest.................... 103
Objects and Object Values........... *. 106
Relationships Between Elements............. 115
Input................................... 116
Through put.............................. 123
Reception.......................... 125
Attention.......................... 132
Feedback................................ 178
Summary....................................... 194
5. DISCUSSION AND EVALUATION................... 198
Assumptions............................. 199
Implications of the Theory............ 227
Conclusion.............................. 240
Benefits of the Alternative Theory.... 241
BIBLIOGRAPHY........................................... 246
REFERENCE NOTES........................................ 268
vi

LIST OF TABLES
Table Page
1. Summary of Form/Color Perceptual Salience
Research.................................... 141
2. Feature Preference Hierarchy in Children
from 0 - 7 months........................... 187

LIST OF FIGURES
Figure Page
1. "A basic model of the discrimination
process."................................. 127
2. "Pattern analyzers for discrimination
responding.".............................. 134
3. Salience Task for form vs. color........ 138
4. A history of the interaction of the per-
ceiver anti the perceived................. 160
5. "Developmental interrelations of cog
nitive processes.”....................... 208
6. Visual Scanning Patterns of Children in
studies by Zinchenko and Ruskaya........ 219
viii

INTRODUCTION
This dissertation addresses the problem of observed
inadequacies in the current developmental model used in
mass media research to assess the effects of media on
children. The aim of this study is the development and
presentation of an alternative model based on detailed,
critical examination of the current theoretical model and
the incorporation of available research data from the field
of perceptual development. In addition, I will attempt to
assess the probable impact of the alternative model on
future research in the area of mass media effects and on
developmental research in general.
The central claim of the dissertation in that the cur
rent systems model, as it appears in mass media and devel
opmental research, fails to account adequately for the ob
servation that human systems change over time. This inad
equacy is seen as the result of the particular epistem-
ology upon which the theory is based which assumes that
1

2
information acquired by all systems is identical since
stimuli are static in nature. The concomitant assumption
that human systems can be characterized as morphostatic
or corrective systems is also seen as inadequate.
The model suggested here is based on a phenomeno
logical epistemology which assumes that differences in in
dividual orientations towards phenomena result in the ac
quisition of different kinds of information and makes the
"identity" of information processed by adults and children
problematic. It also asserts that human systems must, at
certain points, function as morphogenetic systems. Morpho
genetic functioning is seen as a necessary step in ac
counting for the observation that human systems undergo
qualitative changes in functioning over time. In specific,
the theory developed here is an attempt to provide a struc
tural description of development which more closely rep
resents a "genetic epistemology". That is, the model
described is one which conceives of the human system as a
series of evolving and open sub-systems which freely in
teract with other human systems.
The model proposed here reacts to five specific
problems in the current theory: 1) an epistemological

3
bias towards "stasis" as opposed to "process" constructs,
especially with regard to the conceptualization of stimuli;
2) a strong tendency to consequently ignore the deterministic
effects of the chronologically prior mechanism of perception
on the information processing system (i.e. emphasis is on
cognitive-change or changes in the evaluation and proces
sing of information in describing "development" thereby
ignoring changes in perception, or information acquisition,
as a source of differences in the behavior of individuals in
different age groups); 3) a theoretical assumption that
developing systems can be accurately modeled with minimal
reference to social influences; 4) the theoretical tendency
to limit the process modeled to a single type of human
action (i.e. adaptive, goal-oriented behavior) and to ig
nore those behaviors considered to be "mal-adaptive" or
"dysfunctional" when in fact those "random" or "idiosyn
cratic" behaviors may serve a specific need of the system;
and 5) the assumption that the system, at any developmental
point can be characterized as independently morphostatic or
"equilibrating".
In brief, the alternative model developed in this dis
sertation may be described as "evolutionary" rather than

"developmental" when "developmental" is defined as the in
tentional movement of the system towards a known goal and
"evolution" is seen as a progression which can be described
only retrospectively as "goal oriented" in that its charac
teristic directionality is the result of external natural-
selective mechanisms on behavior.
More specifically, the model responds to the inade
quacies mentioned above (respectively) by: l) assuming
an epistemology which is biased towards process concepts
and asserts that the perception of stasis is the result of
our learning to "freeze frame" the flux of experienced sen
sation (the natural attitude); 2) consideration of the
deterministic effects of perceptual mechanisms on the char
acter of information processed as a logically prior ques
tion to that of cognitive effects when attempting to assess
the impact of informational input on the child-as-system;
3) asserting that goal-knowledge can come only from sources
external to the developing system, thereby enhancing the
role played by social contexts; 4) asserting with Stephen
Toulmin (Toulmin, 1970, 1974) that human action cannot be
described as being simply the result of either "reasons"
or "causes", but that those terms mark the endpoints of

5
an entire range of actions of which the human system is
capable. This diversity of behaviors cannot then be modeled
by a single static analog, but must instead be represented
by a constantly evolving mechanism. This conception is in
tended to coincide with W. Ross Ashby's description of the
action of systemic "breaks'1 leading to the evolutionary
shifting of one system into a qualitatively different system
— a system which "step-functions" (Ashby, 1952) and to
correlate with what Jean Piaget intended in characterizing
his work as "genetic epistemology". 5) Finally, and central
to the development of this theory, is the assertion that
human systems do utilize positive feedback and must, at
times, be characterized as primarily morphogenetic in their
functioning.
The following presents first, an explication of the
epistemological framework upon which the theory developed
is based and then a detailed description of the observed
inadequacies of the current model. This is accompanied by
a discussion of alternative claims which are derived from
both critical analysis of the current model and from the in
corporation of results from recent research focusing on work
in the area of perceptual salience. This is followed by a

6
discussion of the problem of the locus of invariance which
provides an opportunity for critique of the current model
as it appears in current mass media research. Chapter 4
is the body of the dissertation in which the alternative
theory is described, its primary terms defined and the
points of departure from current theory delineated. The
final chapter provides more detailed support of the alter
native model and examines some of the implications of the
theory.

Chapter 1
Explication of Epistemological
Assumptions
I have made the claim that the theory offered here is
based on a phenomenological epistemology. What I intend by
this claim must be clarified before moving on to a descrip
tion of the theory itself. This description should clarify
differences between current theory and the alternative
theory which are based in the assumption of differing
epistemological foundations.
The philosophy of phenomenology has its origins in the
work of Edmund Husserl. However, since its beginnings, the
study has been taken up and altered by his students:
Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Karl Jaspers, and Max Scheler among
others. Each of these philosophers have extrapolated and,
in some cases, altered the philosophical tenets in order
to clarify what they felt were confusions or inadequacies.
7

8
The fundamentals can be presented adequately using the work
of Husserl, but because of his work on perception, Maurice
Merleau-Ponty is an important figure to deal with in this
work. Before going into an explication of the somewhat
complicated terminology of the philosophy and some of the
specific ideas which are pertinent to the theory developed
in this paper, it may be helpful to clarify the historical
origins of phenomenology and Husserl's goals in its de
velopment.
Husserl was responding to what he saw as an inadequacy
in the foundations of science which was centered in the
dichotomy between mind and matter originating with Cartesian
doubt. His goal, like Descartes', was to establish an a
priori science — to obtain certainty. Starting with an
examination of the method of doubt, Husserl came to the con
clusion that Descartes had not been radical enough in his
thinking. First, in assuming the ability to doubt, the
assertion of certainty is automatically entailed. If one
assumes "doubt", it can only be because we fear "illusions"
— that our senses cannot be trusted. But, if there are
illusions, there must necessarily be certainties? they
are mutually interdependent concepts. Secondly, Husserl

9
questioned the results of Descartes' doubt: the positing
of "cogito ergo sum" — I think therefore I am — as
certain- Husserl's central claim is that one cannot be
conscious without being "conscious of..." something, i.e.
No cogito without coqitatum (Husserl, 1962, p. 94). In
this simple assertion the gap between mind and matter is
bridged. The perceiver (noetic) and the perceived
(noematic) are mutually interdependent. Existence is no
longer a question. The question of "what" is real bows
to the question of what is meant by real.
When the mind/matter dichotomy was in force, two cen
tral epistemologies had come into play: the logical empir
ical and the idealist. The logical empirical claim was
that reality was only that which was amenable to the senses.
The idealistic claim was that, since the senses are chaotic
and unrealiable, only that which is ideal, the immutable
mental constructs, was to be considered "real". Part of
this division was due to the concept of atomism which
originated with Democritus and was followed by the theory
of "monads" from Leibnitz. In this view, the universe is
seen as a collection of homogenous "atoms". Things become
aggregates of homogenous monads and the monads themselves

10
are not accessible to the senses. Kant's development of
the idea of "mental constructs" provided a way of unifying
or aggregating these monads into units — but his central
assertion was that the neumena (the atomistic, essential
structure) — the thing-in-itself was not knowable. The
concepts of causality, space, time, etc. were not aces-
sible to experience but were "mental" categories. On
this basis, the, science becomes subjective or introspec
tive and reality itself "unknowable".
Since the scientific community functions as the arbiter
of truth in our society, this contradiction was seen by
Husserl as a threat to the continued existence of science.
By positing the interdependence of the noetic and the
noematic, Husserl attempted to create a foundation for
science that was synthetic — that did not cut man off
from his experience. Consequently, a major tenet of
phenomenology is that reality _is intimately knowable and
accessible through experience.

11
Phenomenology can then be defined as an a. priori
science — the true positivism- Its aim is to reveal the
essential reality* It has been defined by Stewart and
Mickunas as "a reasoned inquiry which discovers the in
herent essences of appearances.... an appearance is anything
of which one is conscious. ...Moreover, an appearance is
a manifestation of the essence of that which it is the
appearance.11 (1974, p.3) According to Merleau-Ponty, it is
"the study of essences; and according to it, all problems
amount to finding definitions of essences: the essence of
perception, or the essence of consciousness, for example."
(1962, p. vii). Reality is thus, given in experience, and
in Husserl's view, experience is anything of which one can
be conscious...all phenomena. Phenomenology's aim is to
discover, not "create" or "construct” reality. In this
sense, it is an "eidetic" science, one which discovers the
essential possibilities of experience. This definitional
process is accomplished through the Phenomenological
Method.
It should be made clear at this point that phenomen
ology is an essentially "empty" science in the service of
other sciences. It does not make claims about the specific

12
content of experience, but provides a means of discovering
the essential in experience. It was seen as a means of
purifying science through the suspension of the presup
positions of the normative schence. This does not imply
that phenomenology is without presuppositions, only that
phenomenology makes presuppositions thematic. This is the
goal of the method. The "essential" is discovered through
a two-step process. The first is the phenomenologica1
epoche: the suspension of prior assumptions about the
nature of reality. This is necessitated by the fact that
all consciousness is inherently "intentional". Entailed
in the assertion that all consciousness is "consciousness
of..." is the belief that a particular poise or direct-
edness towards a specific understanding of the nature of
reality to be conformed in a specific way in the very act of
consciousness. In order to reveal the essence of an ob
ject, to display its alternatives, such presuppositions
must be suspended. This epoche or "phenomenological re
duction" of the object to its "essence" is accomplished
through bracketing. Bracketing requires putting the

13
experience "out of play" or out of its normal context which
is the natural attitude. The natural attitude is the back
ground or "horizon" of all experience.
The natural attitude is never completely escapable.
It is an orientation, a set of pre-philosophical beliefs
and attitudes we hold about everyday experiences — our
common sense world. That we can transcend this world
through the bracketing of experience is the result of the
fact that the ego cannot be bracketed. This "transcen
dental ego" can be defined as an orientation which pre
supposes all possible orientations.
This is an important concept in relation to the
theory presented here and will be discussed in more detail.
It is the contention of phenomenologists, specifically
Merleau-Ponty, that the ego cannot be "reduced" or
transcended because it is only through the body that the
"essence" of experience is revealed. In his discussion
of our understanding of the unity of an object (a cube),
he states that.

14
From the point of view of my body I never see
as equal the six sides of the cube...and yet the
work "cube" has a meaning; the cube itself, the
cube in reality, beyond its sensible appear
ances, has its six equal sides. As I move round
it, I see the front face, hitherto a square,
change its shape, then disappear, while the
other sides come into view and one by one be
come squares... far from its being the case that
the experience of my own movement conditions
the position of an object, it is, on the con
trary, by conceiving my body itself as a mobile
object that I am able to interpret perceptual
appearance and construct the cube as it truly
is. ...The unity of the object is thus conceived,
and not experienced as the correlate of our
body's unity. (1962, pp. 203-4).
It must be understood, however, that when Merleau-Ponty
speaks of the body, he is not speaking of musculature and
the encompassing teguments, but of the phenomenal body:
It is never our objective body that we move, but
our phenomenal body, and there is no mystery in
that, since our body, as the potentiality of this
or that part of the world surges towards objects
to be grasped and perceives them. (1962, p. 106)
But the world toward which the body moves is a particular
world — it entails an intentional structure. This idea
can be rendered more succinctly through a clarification
of the term "eidetic".
I have made the claim that the understanding of eidos
is essential in relation to the concept of the feature.
I have been using the term "essence" and "essential" here.

15
but the proper concept is that of "eidos" -- the eidetic.
The term "essence" is ordinarily associated with the ideal
or "mental construct" and is therefore a static notion
linked with a traditional positive valuation of immuta
bility. The eidetic, on the other hand is not a "thing"
(object or concept) but an essence given in motion. It
is a fundamental invariance which presupposes all vari
ation .
This does not imply, as will be made clear through
further discussion, that the eidetic can function as, what
I will be referring to as the "locus of invariance". That
is, it does not serve to explain the observation that
individuals of specificable age groups perform similarly
at specific tasks. The object as perceived by individuals
is not invariant across time-space-perceiver coordinates.
More succinctly, the eidetic is not given in perception, but
can only be revealed through the suspension of presupposi
tions about particular appearances. If the eidetic nature
of the object were given in perception there would be no
need for the phenomenological method. All objects would be
understood as absolute. But, because we are embodied,
locked in time and space, this is impossible. This

16
"captivity" however, does not cast doubt upon the reality
of the eidetic, it only serves to acknowledge the problem
of the body so that its delimitation can begin to be used
to reveal other possibilities.
An analogy may be helpful here. If I were to enter
a house of a large but not infinite number of rooms and I
went from room to room attempting at each room to charac
terize the whole, I might say as I walked, "Here is a house
with three bedrooms and two baths," and I would have to
revise my description as I entered each new room. Even
though I could not see the entire house at once as in an
architect's rendering, it would still be unquestioningly a
house. It's existence would not be a question nor are my
judgements about it inaccurate. Since I have observed
three bedrooms and two baths, they do exist and the house
does possess them even if there are thirty-five additional
bedrooms and twenty-seven baths that I haven't yet exper
ienced. The existence of the house is invariant yet my per
ception of it varies from room to room. A second individual
entering from a different door in a different wing may have
an entirely different characterization of the house and yet
we both are in the same house. The possibilities of new

17
rooms yet to see are different for myself and the second
observer, yet the ultimate number of possibilities is
limited by the a priori existence of the house. The spec
ific question which this raises for the work at hand is,
given the pre-supposition of an eidetic epistemology, how
is it that any two individuals ever come to share their
characterizations of objects, where "characterization" is
understood as a particular intentional structure. Some of
this sharing can be explained by the fact that we are all
embodied, but as will be shown, this is not seen as suf
ficient explanation in itself.
To go a step further, according to Merleau-Ponty,
while it is the phenomenal body which permits us to see into
the eidetic, it is also a horizon which is locked in time
and space, i.e. it is, in its very essence an intended
structure:
But once more, my human gaze never posits more
than one facet of the object, even though by
means of horizons it is directed towards all
others. It can never come up against previous
appearances or those presented to other people
otherwise than through the intermediary of
time and language. ...If it (the object) is to
reach perfect density, in other words, if there
is to be an absolute object, it will have to
consist of an infinite number of different

18
perspectives compressed into strict co-existence,
and to be presented as it were to a host of eyes
all engaged in one concerted act of seeing.
(Merleau-Ponty, 1962, pp. 69-70)
The key difference between an essence as we commonly under
stand the term and the eidetic is the inclusion of time and
movement, and movement is inexorably linked to the body.
An eidetic object is not seen from perspective but from
"perspectivity".
The ability to see into the nature of things in this
manner was called by Husserl, the eidetic intuition. In
tuition is not, for Husserl, something which is fanciful
or illusionary but factual — an essential insight.. The
eidetic intuition, the ability to "see into" is the main
stay of the second step in the phenomenological method,
the eidetic reduction. This is the further reduction of the
experience which has been bracketed in the phenomenological
reduction in order to reveal its facticity. In the process,
what is accomplished is the exposure of new possibilities —
a revelation of new orientations. Each orientation has its
roots in the eidetic, but the full potential — the absolute
object — is not revealed in one orientation alone or in
the reduction of one orientation alone. The eidetic is thus
constituted in the invariance in the reduction of the flux

19
of Appearances. This concept of constitution refers to the
reconstruction of the reality "reduced" from the orienta
tion of the natural attitude in such a way as to reveal
its full possibilities, no longer delimited by the singular
orientation of the natural attitude. Each orientation
yields different clues about the eidetic and is not changed
by the variations.
Given this background and specifically the concept of
the eidetic, how does the assumption of this epistemological
structure generate differences between current theory and
the alternative, perceptual-change theory? This must be
discussed on two levels: the methodological and the phil
osophical. With regard to the former, this dissertation
seeks to bracket the popular theory of development in order
to reveal an alternative. In other words, the presup
positions of current theory are identified and critiqued
in terms of the limitations they impose upon the phenomenon
of interest in order to reveal alternatives which are then
used to generate an alternative theory. As is discussed in
the critique of the following chapters, this method sets
in relief some of the major assumptions of current theory
concerning the locus of invariance, the adult bias and the

20
assumption that all human systems are corrective. However,
not the least of these is the principle assumption that
development is a cognitive process and this will be dis
cussed briefly here.
I ’ve mentioned that I will discuss the currently pop
ular model's bias towards an adult standard of "intelligence"
— a presupposed adult end point of development. Some pre
liminary comments are necessitated as this point bears upon
the method used. It is not necessarily true that any
theory which construes perception as cognitive also assumes
that all intelligence is measured against an adult standard,
but they are highly correlated assumptions in the extant
literature. A theory may be based on perceptual-change and
still have an adult standard as an end-goal. I have yet to
discover such a theory in my research. It may be suggested,
however, that the maintenance or assumption of an adult
bias is inescapable since all researchers and theoreticians
are adult — including of course myself. This is not a
spurious argument. Thus it becomes imperative to utilize
the phenomenological method, i.e. to make thematic the pre
suppositions of the adult orientation, in order to see
through them to possible alternatives. The critique which

21
this paper pursues acknowledges this necessity and centers
on such a suspension of adult presuppositions. It attempts
to begin from the point of view of the child and follow
his/her change in perspective (orientation) to the as
sumption (taking on) of an orientation which would be judged
by adult observers to be "competent". This is not to say
then, that no determination of competence or "maturity" can
be made since they must necessarily be made by adults. The
point is that such judgements are regularly made and that,
in fact, it is the making of these judgements which supplies
the feedback necessary to impel1 the child toward behaviors
which will be seen as adult, at the same time, this work
seeks, in part, to legitimize the child's orientation as
one which yields authentic clues abouc the eidetic. Such
a legitimization can only take place after the presupposi
tions of the adult view have been clearly delineated, thus
marking off alternatives.
I mentioned that the phenomenological approach taken
here also had certain philosophical implications which must
be clarified and that one of these was the assumption that
development is a cognitive process and consequently that
any changes in perception are seen as cognitive developments

22
(e.g. Piaget's notion of decentration). This assumption is
seen as the result of the tradition of intellectualism and
the concomitant neglect of the pre-cognitive or perceptual
structure. Perception, in this view, is seen merelyas
the physiological reflex which provides material for cog
nition and ignores its role in structuring that material.
In the same vein, the acquisition of language ... of
communicative competence ... is viewed as the central phen
omenon of inquiry, yet little attention is given to the
non-verbal competency which must necessarily preceed it.
Even Piaget admits the prior necessity of structuring before
language, but sees this structure as cognitively provided:
Contrary to the too facile explanations by condi
tioning, which imply that language acquisition
starts as early as the second month, the acqui
sition of language presupposes the prior forma
tion of sensori-motor intelligence, which goes
far to justify Chomsky's ideas concerning the
necessity of a prelinguistic substrate akin to
rationality. But this intelligence which ante
dates speech is very far from pre-formed from the
beginning: we can see it grow step by step out
of the gradual coordination of assimilation
schemes. (Piaget, 1970, p. 91).
The fundamental presupposition which requires thematization
is that there is, for the child, a world already constituted
which (s)he assimilates and specifically that the world
is identical with that of the adult observer. The question

23
which is consequently left unasked (not simply unanswered)
by such a view is as iimilation of what? Until the child's
orientation has been legitimized, no attempt will be made
to describe it or explain his/her actions in relation to it.
(It must be admitted that Piaget is himself, less guilty
of this neglect than some of the students who have attempted
to apply his theory to research.) In short, this dis
sertation asserts that there is a step that has been
skipped. Long before the acquisition of verbal ability the
child has already acquired a particular mode of orientation
toward the world — a specific rhythm or mode of operation
which is pre-requisite to the kind of intellectual devel
opment examined by the current theory. This rhythm is
initially out of step with the adults' but gradually
moves in time. This dissertation seeks to gain insight
into the acquisition of that rhythm.
It will be helpful to return to the concept of the body
as the source of intentional structure in order to ex
plicate this rhythm. Merleau-Ponty speaks of the neces
sity of Bewegungsentwurfe or "motor-projects" in order to
perform "normally". In discussing the problem of the

24
patient with psychic blindness, he concludes that the ina
bility to perform certain motor tasks (tracing a figure in
the air) results from the absence of these projects:
What he lacks is neither motility no thought (but)
something which is ensured by the body itself as a
motor power, a "motor project" (Bewegungsentwurf),
a "motor intentionality" in the absence of which the
order (patient's task) remains a dead letter. The
patient either conceives the ideal formula for the
movement, or else he launches his body into blind
attempts to perform it, whereas for the normal person
every movement is, indisolubly, movement and con
sciousness of movement. This can be expressed by
saying that for the normal person every movement
has a background, and that the movement and its back
ground are "moments" of a unique totality. The back
ground to the movement is not a representation as
sociated or linked externally with the movement itself
but is immanent in the movement inspiring and sus
taining it at every moment. (Merleau-Ponty, 1962,
p. 110).
The body itself entails the object of its movement — it
is predictive and anticipatory. That which is to be grasped
is already evident in the hand that is readied for grasping.
But, how does the hand know what is to be anticipated?
According to Merleau-Ponty motor-intentionality is a
directedness from a specific orientation. How does the
body know to anticipate one shape and not another? This is
not a question of the reality of the object, but of the
style of approach which is taken:

25
In all its appearances the object retains invariable
characteristics, remains itself invariable and is an
object because all the possible values in relation to
size and shape which it can assume are bound up in
advance in the formula of its relations with the
context. ...Far from its being the case that the
thing is reducible to constant relationships, it is
in the self-evidence of the thing that this constancy
of relationships has its basis. (Merleau-Ponty, 1962,
p. 301-2).
But again, the style of approach is important in determining
what will be for me the "best" way to examine the object:
For each object, as for each picture in an art gallery,
there is an optimum distance from which it requires
to be seen, a direction viewed from which it vouch
safes most of itself; at a shorter or greater dis
tance we have merely a perception blurred through
excess or deficiency. We therefore tend towards the
maximum of visibility, and seek a better focus as
with a microscope. (Merleau-Ponty, 1962, p. 302).
This style is determined through recognition of context
(which then entails purpose) and is delimited by the pos
sibilities for style defined through the body:
If I draw the object closer to me or turn it round
in my fingers in order "to see it better", this is
because each attitude of my body is for me, immedi
ately, the power of achieving a certain spectacle,
and because each spectacle is what it is for me in
a certain kinaesthetic situation. In other works,
because my body is permanently stationed before
things in order to perceive them and, conversely,
appearances are always enveloped for me in a certain
bodily attitude. (Merleau-Ponty, 1962, p. 303).

26
I must learn, therefore, the relationship of appearances to
the kinaesthetic situation. I have a table in my home made
from a printer's tray containing sundry objects and covered
with glass; this is a most fascinating object to my in
fant son who is continually frustrated in his grasping
action by the flat, invisible surface. Bewegungsentwurfe
are intentions toward specific, recognized objects and must
therefore be learned. The shape of the hand raised toward
an object is the act of recognition itself.
In the action of the hand which is raised towards an
object is contained a reference to the object, not as
an object represented, but as that highly specific
thing towards which we project outselves, near which
we are, in anticipation, and which we haunt. Conscious
ness is being towards the thing through the inter
mediary of the body. A movement is learned when the
body has understood it. that is, when it has incor
porated it into its "world", and to move one's body
is to aim at things through it; ...In order that we
may be able to move our body towards an object, the ob
ject must first exist for it, our body must not belong
to the realm of the "in-itself". (Merleau-Ponty, 1962,
pp. 133-9, emphasis mine).
Re-cognition is the point at which current theory
often appears to begin therefore pre-supposing cognition.
Objects are assumed to be as they appear from an adult point
of view and the child's failure to "grasp" them (e.g. to
see it as constant or to have an "object concept") is
viewed as a failure of cognition. It may be, however, that

27
the child's orientation yields objects which are constituted
differently- I would not like to push the analogy too far,
but it may be as different a view as the adult might ex
perience under the influence of any of the psychedelic
drugs. Once this alternative is considered it becomes pos
sible to envisage development, not as changes in the ways
the individual processes information "merely" provided by
the senses (i.e. such that sensing and perception are en
tirely equivalent), but as the result of changes in the
ways that perception structures that information. It is
perception then which must be "brought round" to the adult
way-of-seeing through learned associations between kinaes
thetic situations and a specific orientation — the acqui
sition of a specific motor project.
The body is not more than an element in the system
of the subject and his world, and the task to be
performed elicits the necessary movements from
him by a sort of remote attraction, as the phen
omenal forces at work in my visual field elicit from
me, without any calculation on my part, the motor
reactions which establish the most effective bal
ance between them, or as the conventions of our social
group, or our set of listeners, immediately elicit
from us the words, attitudes and tones which are
fitting. Not that we are trying to conceal our
thoughts or to please others, but because we are
literally what others think of us and what our
world is. (Merleau-Ponty, 1962, p. 108).

28
The aim of the theory developed here is to provide
some explanation for the acquisition of a particular in
tentional structure. How it is that we acquire the "words,
attitudes and tones which are fitting..." and even on a
more basic level, how we acquire the orientation towards
a particular object which permits, even in the most rudi
mentary way, the sharing of that appearance by an other.
The assertion that reality is eidetic -- is open to many
possible orientations -- makes the similarities in the
orientations of members of a culture, the sharing of ob
jects and signification, problematic. Current theory
takes the structuring of objects for granted. It pre
supposes "things" as given in their totality in exper
ience. It is this presupposition which is being ques
tioned here, and, once this eidetic structure is asserted,
a mechanism is generated to account for the occurrence
of the apparent similarities in behavior which lead us
to assume similarities in experience.

Chapter 2
Critique of the Current Model:
The Myth of the Adult Standard
The following two chapters examine four assumptions
of current developmental theory generated to explain ap
parently age-related differences in ability to perform
specific tasks designed to measure development: ,
1. The older the individual, the more successful
he/she will be at performing any/all tasks.
2. The adult can serve as a standard of comparison
for measuring the progress of development.
3. Input to the system, and elements of the human
system are static in nature.
4. Patterns of behavior which emerge from obser
vation are characterized as "properties” of the
developing system and not as a function of the
act of observation itself.
These assumptions result in specific manifestations
cf the current model as used in mass media and developmental
research and are seen as the source of several gaps in the
theory's ability to explain changes in behavior over time.
29

30
The first two assumptions will be discussed in Chapter 2.
The third assumption entails the question of the locus of
invariance and because differences in current theory
center on this issue, it provides an excellent means of
critique. This critique makes up the bulk of Chapter 3,
but the fourth assumption is also discussed along with a
brief sketch of the theory relating it to the preceding
critique.
Let me first clarify what is intended by the use of
the phrase "current model". The model is, of course, a
generalized one. Although many researchers do not de
lineate the theoretical constructs upon which they base
their experiments in great detail, when specifics are
considered it becomes clear that most researchers utilize
slightly different theoretical conceptions. I will, at
a later point, discuss the specific differences of the
major researchers. My comments here, however, are aimed
at fundamental difficulties which cut across those dif
ferences. At this point, my intention is simply to pro
vide a critical overview and a nomenclature for further
discussion.
The current model has been generated in order to ex
plain two central observations:

31
1. Individual's differ in their ability to perform
specific tasks.
2. The success or failure to perform specific
(e.g. Piagetian) tasks appears to be age-related
in that individuals belonging to specifiable
age groups tend to succeed and fail similarly.
Several assumptions are normally associated with these
observations. It will be my claim that these assumptions
often go beyond what can be directly observed. These
assumptions provide the framework of the current theory:
1. It is generally assumed that the older the indi
vidual# the more successful he/she will be at
performing any/all tasks.
Stated somewhat differently, development is seen as
consistently "progressive". Regression of any sort is
generally considered an anomaly rather than the norm. There
is a positive valuation which is consequently associated
with increased age. The succeeding stages of development
are often seen as more "adaptive" or possessing a more
stable sort of equilibrium ,(Flave11, 1963, pp. 238-9).
If "development" implies a consistent improvement with age,
the reverse is also implied: the younger the individual,
the less "stable" — the less "equilibrated".
It may be, in fact, that there are certain tasks in
which this pattern is reversed (i.e. the younger the

32
individual# the greater the probability of success).
Richard Odom (1978, pp. 120-1), in a discussion of the
effects of perceptual salience (or the tendency of indivi
duals to focus on certain preferred features of a stimulus)
on problem-solving# proposes certain tasks which children
are able to perform more successfully than adults.
It must be remembered, when considering tasks designed
to measure "development", that adults determine what will
be considered successful and unsuccessful behavior...
providing an excellent opportunity for chauvinism. The
point is that there seems to be a built in bias towards
the kind of "intelligence" or "logic" used by adults and
against that used by children. The latter is generally
seen as dysfunctional, but it must be realized that the
child's logic is only dysfunctional for the adult in the
adult's construction of reality (by that I mean "construed"
reality, not "created"). The behavior is not necessarily
dysfunctional for the child.
Consider a situation described by anthropologist
Paul Bohannon in a discussion of cultural rhythms:

33
Take for example, the task of teaching a child to
tie a bowknot. That situation may be difficult be
cause the child is into a different tempo from the
adult teacher. When a parent is in a hurry, it is
difficult to "wait" while the child struggles. But
if the parent takes over, the child's learning is
slowed. Yet once the child can tie the knot so
there is no perceptible time lag, that child has
effectively "learned" to tie a bowknot. (Bohannon,
1930, p. 20).
The child-out-of-time with the adult might, as Bohannon
suggests, be diagnosed as suffering from "dysrhythmia" by
an adult observer. Spending two hours on the tying of a
shoe would be clearly dysfunctional for the adult... but
a child has all the time he needs.
In essence, I am claiming that there is another way
of looking at development such that each additional skill
is not considered "better" than the last but merely quali
tatively different. It is not the new skill itself which
contributes to an increase in the individual1s ability to
"adapt", but the fact that his/her repertoire of skills has
become larger. This wider selection of available behaviors,
though no guarantee, increases the probability of a good
match between skill and context.
Let me refer to Stpehen Toulmin's "heptachotomy" of
human action to clarify this point. It is his claim that.

34
At one extreme, there are pure cases of natural
(e.g. physiological) phenomena which happen (sic)
“as a rule": at the other, high-grade intellectual
performances involving the self-critical application
and testing of “rules" of (e.g.) computation or in
ference. This analysis leads to a “taxonomy" of
rules and suggests that the phenomena, actions,
utterances, thoughts, intellectual performances, etc.,
found in human conduct fall not — as the traditional
dichotomies all suggest — into one or two clearly
distinct kinds, but into at least seven different
types with correspondingly different orders of com
plexity." (Toulmin, 1974, p. 188).
Despite Toulmin's use of the term "high-grade", (which is,
I believe, indicative of the kind of bias I am pointing to)
each of these types of behavior must be seen as functional
within a particular situational context. The "trick" which
must be acquired by the developing child is the recog
nition of the "type" of context and the selection of an
appropriate behavior from his or her repertoire. This is
not a matter of innate cognitive ability, but one of per
ceptual pattern recognition and selection. It relies not
on increased intellectual capacity, but increased experience
with the world and hence with a broad range of contexts.
I don't believe I have strayed far from Toulmin's in
tentions in presenting his heptachotomy in this way since he
noted the possibility of an analogy to the developmental
process himself.

35
...there is a rough correspondence between the
"orders of complexity11 of the rule-explanations
applicable to the conduct of an individual, and the
"stages" of cognitive development through which he
passes on the road to full consciousness and ration
ality..." (Toulmin, 1974, p. 204).
I am not suggesting here that the skills acquired in the
developmental process are independent of each other or that
they might he acquired in any sequence. On the contrary,
Piagetian researchers seem to have supplied ample support
for the idea that each skill is a pre-requisite for the
next. What I am suggesting is that an increase in age
does not guarantee an increase in ability to succeed at
any and all tasks since it does not insure that the in
dividual will always match the appropriate skill to the
appropriate context. Hence skills acquired later in de
velopment should not be thought of as "better" in and of
themselves. Increased chronological age may only increase
the probability that a good match will occur because of the
larger repertoire of skills available and an increase in
experience.
It will be helpful here for me to refer again to
Richard Odom's study which indicates that there are con
texts in which the skills which are more likely to be

36
selected by children than adults prove to be more functional.
Odom utilizes the construct of perceptual salience in
achieving this result. In determining the nature of a
particular context, an individual will rely on certain per
ceptual cues. Certain context features have, according
to the theory, higher probability of being attended to at
different age levels than others. In other words, regard
less of context, different features will be seen as salient
or be "preferred" for attention by different age groups.
To repeat, I am talking here about the ability to identify
a particular context and match it with an appropriate re
sponse, not the ability to perform the response itself.
Odom and his collegues presented children (Mean C.A. =
8.4) and adults with the following problem to solve:
Imagine that I have two cans. One has red beads in
it, and it is called the red-bean can. The other has
blue beads in it and is called the blue-bead can.
There are the same number of red beads in the red-
bead can as there are blue beads in the blue-bead
can. Now imagine that I dip a cup into the red-bead
can and take out five beads. I pour them into the
blue-bead can. Then I mix up all of the beads in the
blue-bead can. I then dip the cup into the blue-
bead can and take out five beads and pour them into
the red-bead can. Will the number of red beads in
the red-bead can and the number of blue beads in the
blue-bead can be the same or different? (Odom, 1978,
p. 121),.

37
The answer to the problem is “same", but only 15% of the
adult subjects (college-age) gave this answer while 95% of
the children did. Odom suggests that adults perceive the
"mixing" as salient information because of their increased
experience with probability while the children simply look
at the problem as one of addition and subtraction:
We speculated that failure to give a "same" response
to this problem was due to the cognitive evaluation
of information about the mixing of beads. Such eval-
ualtion might result in probability estimates of, for
example, returning fewer red beads to the red-bead can
than were originally taken from it because the sample
would contain blue beads as well as red beads. How
ever, a correct solution to the problem could be
achieved by assuming that five beads of the same color
were returned to the red-bead can whether mixing did
or did not occur. The mixing information, therefore,
was irrelevant and unnecessary to solving the problem.
(Odom, 1978, p. 182).
Neither an increase in the number of cognitive skills
available to an individual nor an increase in the complex
ity of available skills will insure problem-solving success
if the individual is not able to perceptually sort relevant
from irrelevant information. Such perceptual sorting re
quires the ability to, in systems terminology, assess the
current state of the system, recognize a particular goal
as associated with a context which is identified by specific
features and to ignore features irrelevant to achieving

38
that goal. Only when this recognition and classification
process is completed does the ability to select and perform
the appropriate response come into play.
In sum, it should be clear that skills acquired early
on are not forgotten or left unused. Although the reper
toire of skills available increases, this does not mean
that skills acquired earlier are somehow less valuable.
But a second, more subtle, problem exists in the current
literature:
2. It is assumed that the adult can serve as a
standard of comparison for measuring the pro
gress of development.
In other words, the assumption is first made that
development is directional such that skills gained earlier
are seen as less valuable than those acquired later and
then it is further assumed that this directionality has a
particular goal end-state (i.e. the "completed" adult).
The major difficulty here is that the term "adult" or
"mature" has never been properly defined and that there
may in fact be no such state. Development, seen either as
the continued acquisition of knowledge and/or skills or the
ability to adapt to new situations and environments has no
identifiable end point. We are left in the general case to

39
measure development and maturity against an adult standard
where that "standard" is unexplicated and even taken for
granted. Because we do have some references for the terms
"adult" and "mature" in ordinary language, this assumption
is not surprising. But this does not lessen the theoretical
need to clearly define what these terms are to mean. What
in fact, is implied in the use of the terms "adult" or
"mature"?
It would be difficult to find anyone who would
seriously claim that there is a specific "end point" to
development. That is, that "adult intelligence" is known
and can be operationalized. But in fact this is what is
implied in the current model. In the literature of child
psychology, development has most commonly been operation
alized in terms of the child's ability to succeed or fail
at specific Piagetian tasks. Because these tasks are de
signed and can be performed by adults the implicit assump
tion is that this is the direction development would
inevitably take. There is, of course, some justification
for asserting that this is the direction development should
take since, from the adult point of view, the child will
need such skills to adapt to the adult's world. Difficulties

40
occur when the assumption is made that these goals are
known and aspired to by the child himself and that the
skills currently used by the child are somehow dysfunc
tional or maladaptive.
Because of the bias for the "adult" standard, Piagetian
tasks are designed more to measure what the child does not
know than to discover what (s)he does. They set a spec
ific agenda or "checklist" for what will count as legi
timate intellectual abilities. There has additionally
been much debate concerning the meaning of the results of
the Piagetian measures. This issue is generally couched in
terms of "competence" vs. "performance". The claim is
made that failure at these tasks can be interpreted only
as failure to perform and does not necessarily mean that
the child lacks competence.
Edward H. Cornell explains the differences in these
views as they relate to the problem of object-permanence:
What does the child's failure to search, or his errors
in search, indicate? Some theorists (e.g., Piaget,
1954) explain futile search behaviors in terms of the
absence of an underlying concept about objects —
the concept that objects exist independent of our
selves and our experiences with the object. ...Such
a theory is a competence theory, since it assumes
that the behaviors of the child provide a measure
of his knowledge about the permanence of objects.

41
Other theorists believe that the child may know this
fact about objects, and that we have not yet developed
adequate situations in which this knowledge can be
expressed. A performance explanation of an apparent
concept deficit is that either the child is unable to
perform certain aspects of the task or the researcher
is incompetent in posing tests of the concept of the
child. (Cornell, 1978, p. 9).
Whichever view is correct, it is clear that the utilization
of the Piagetian tasks requires reference to adult standards
and does not access the child's "type" of intelligence as
adequately as it might.
It is Richard Odom's assertion in connection with the
performance/competence issue, that the measures used ignore
the effects of changes in perceptual development. Because
this "perceptual-change" orientation is part of the basis
of this dissertation, it bears further clarification;
In this position [perceptual-change], such relations
[between information characteristics of tasks and
the performance accuracy of subjects at different de
velopmental levels] are assumed to provide informa
tion about developmental changes in the perceptual
system and how that system determines whav information
is processed by cognitive structures. It is also
assumed that understanding the function and role
of the perceptual system is necessary before strong
and persuasive conclusions can be made about develop
mental changes in cognitive structures of evaluation.
In this alternative position, certain of Gibson's
(1969) ideas about perception have been adopted.
These are (a) that relations (dimensions of diffei.mce,
invariants of events) serve as basic information for
the perceptual system? (b) that they are present in
*

42
the external environment and are not mediated pro
ducts of cognitive structures, images, stored assoc
iations, or inferences; and (c) that they are dis
covered in increasing numbers by the perceptual system
as development proceeds. (Odom, 1978, p. 116).
It is important to note before proceeding further that, while
this dissertation does rely heavily on Odom's presentation
of the perceptual-change position, I do hold to slightly
different notions concerning the nature of the distinctive
feature (Gibson's "dimension of difference") and will
elaborate on that difference at a later point.
Odom's primary contention, and the basis for his per
ceptual change position, is that the developing system;
becomes differentially sensitive to information once
that information has been detected. Changes in sensi
tivity are assumed to be primarily a function of per
ceptual experience per se...and/or particular environ
mental contexts and events... As perceptual experience
increases with development, perceptual sensitivity
to relations and categories would therefore be expected
to increase. Furthermore, it is proposed that the de
gree of sensitivity to relations or categories deter
mines how they are perceptually organized and the
order in which they are cognitively evaluated for
problem solution. That is, the greater the percep
tual sensitivity to given information, the higher
the probability of its being cognitively evaluated
regardless of the information's appropriateness for
problem solution. (Odom, 1978, pp. 116-7).
From this point of view, success or failure to perform
tasks is accounted for by perceptual — not cognitive —
development. It may be that the individual is

43
intellectually competent at and able to perform a specific
task, but because of sensitivity to what are "irrelevant
cues" the child is not able to correctly identify the ap
propriate context. Simply put, (from the adult's point of
view), the child's "definition" of the problem differs
from that of the adult. Accordingly, perceptual develop
ment must be included in any determination of what is to
be considered adult or mature.
John H. Flave11 talks about the performance/competence
issue in slightly different terminology. His discussion of
"functional maturity" is helpful in clarifying some of the
problems associated with the assumption of an "adult"
standard. Of note, this construct helps to present more
clearly the importance of the ability to perceptually
identify the type of situational context and the subsequent
selection of appropriate behavior in assessing the devel
opmental "level" of the individual.
"Functional maturity" is discussed by Flavell in terms
of:
...two general classes of abilities or processes
which jointly determine the child's developmental
status vis-a-vis an item, i.e., determine the ex
tent to which that item has attained functional
maturity within his cognitive repertoire... One

44
class refers to the evocability of operational avail
ability of the item as a candidate solution procedure
for the child, once that item has in at least a rudi
mentary way become part of his repertoire. ...The
second class refers to the child's ability, once having
sensed this item-to-problem fit, to utilize the item
effectively in solving the problem. ..."Functional
maturity" can now be defined as the highest level
of evocability and utilizability that an item ever
achieves in an individual's lifetime. This defini
tion, of course, makes the term a relative rather than
absolute concept, since it makes reference to real
thinkers rather than to some idealized cognitive
automation. (Flavell, 1975, pp. 10-1).
Flavell concludes that the demarcation of one stage from
another is the beginning of a new ability rather than the
attainment of functional maturity of a previously acquired
ability:
To put it more generally, what really determines the
agreed-upon termination date for any cognitive-
developmental stage is the beginning emergence of new
skills, skills which impress us as the best, highest-
level cognitive act the subject can now put on; the
fact that we now turn our attention to the new act
does not mean that the old one has stopped being
perfected. (Flavell, 1975, p. 12).
From Flavell's view then, development is "directional" and
progressive but its end-point is not absolute.
Yet the cognitive-conflict model of Piagetian theorists
assumes that such a standard exists. The inability to as
sume either that there exists a specific "goal" of develop
ment or that the developing system has knowledge of such

45
a goal impacts specifically on the current theory's reliance
on the idea that motivation for the shift from one skill to
another comes from within the individual system itself.
Of crucial importance here is the assumption of the
existence of an adult standard or a known goal (that is,
known to the individual) in Piaget's explanation of the
motivation for the child's shift from one developmental
stage to the next. The explanation for this shift has
been seen as a weak point in Piagetian developmental
theory for some time. According to Theodore Mischel:
...Kagan says that "the noteworthy flaw in Piaget's
prodigious output is the absence of any set of theo
retical statements that accounts for how or why a
child passes from one stage of operation to another"
(Kagan, 1966, p. 98); and Bruner, after dismissing
Piaget's account of equilibrium as "surplus baggage,"
criticizes him for neglecting motivational questions
like "the nature of the unfolding and development of
his [the child's] drives' (Bruner, 1959, pp. 365, 369).
(Mischel, 1971, pp. 333-4).
Even John Flavell, long considered the authority in
Piagetian theory, admits that the topic of motivation is
not one with which Piaget was overly attentive:
...Piaget focuses on problems of cognitive develop
ment per se? "dynamic" matters — motives, affects,
and personal-social development in general — have not
occupied a prominent place in his thinking or experi
mentation. .. (Flavell 1963, p. 78).

46
The theory which Piaget does provide is based on an
analogy to biological equilibrium.-.a systems model. This
model is, according to Mischel, a cognitive conflict theory.
...for Piaget, what is learned depends on what the
learner can take from the given by means of the cog
nitive structures available to him, and what motivates
his learning are the cognitive disequilibria (func
tional needs) — the "questions" or "felt lacunae" --
that arise when he attempts to apply his schemas to
the given. The cognitive conflicts which the child
himself engenders in trying to cope with his world,
are then what motivates his cognitive development;
they are his motives for reconstructing his system
of cognitive schemas, when different schemas for new
coordinations become available to him, until he
reaches the "stable equilibrium" of logico-mathematical
thought. (Mischel 1971, p. 332).
There is, for Piaget, an adult standard of logic
toward which the child is driven by the failure of his
previous shemas to cope with impinging reality. The problem
here, again, is that such cognitive conflict can only occur
in a system which possesses goal knowledge. It is only
failure to progress toward some goal which would cause
such conflict. Mischel elaborates on this problem:
...when we say that inconsistencies need to be removed,
perplexities need to be clarified, dissonant cogni
tions need to be adjusted to fit better, novelties
need to be assimilated to what is known, and so forth,
we are not enunciating empirical discoveries but are
stating the prescriptions that guide directed thinking.
To say that problems need solutions, cognitive con
flicts need to be reconciled, (equilibrated), etc..

47
is to say that they should be solved, reconciled, etc.
And if someone asks why they should be, the answer
one would ordinarily give is that norms like con
sistency, clarity, coherence, and the like, govern
directed thinking; to say that they "should be" is to
acknowledge the normative force of these rules over
our thinking, to recognize that deviations from these
norms are mistakes that need correction. This system
of norms defines the social practice with which we are
dealing, and there is on way of saying what consti
tutes "directed thinking" without appealing to these
norms. (Mischel, 1971, p. 342-3}.
Clearly, reliance on cognitive-conflict requires the appeal
to social norms. I will return to this point after a word
of clarification.
I have stated that the current theory as represented
in Piaget is both based upon the assumption that development
is based on cognitive rather than perceptual-change and
that development is to be measured with reference to an
adult standard. It should be made clear that while these
are interrelated assumptions, they are not identical. As
discussed, cognitive-change is asserted to proceed through
conflict. This conflict between a current state of the
system and some desired end-state need not theoretically
have an "adult" standard; it is simply that these assump
tions are highly correlated in the current theory. It is
assumed that the child's mode of processing of information

48
proves ineffective in attaining goals which are asserted
to be those of the adult observer without question.
In discussing the acquisition of object constancy, for
example, it is assumed that the concept of the "permanence"
of objects is lacking in the child whose goal is "possession"
of an object. In order to "possess" an object it must be
static and be perceived as separable from the child. If
the child is, as Piaget describes, primarily assimilating
at this stage, the question of possession can not occur
since the idea of "separateness" is not yet possible.
"Possession" is an adult goal not necessarily the child's.
In short, the child would have to be presumed to have an
object concept in order to obtain one. Reference to an
adult standard does not help to explain the cognitive-
change since the acquisition of the adult standard must first
be explained. In this example, cognitive-change is depen
dent upon the assumption of an adult standard, but it is
conceivable that cognitive-conflict could occur with ref
erence to some other type of goal. Such goals are diffi
cult for an adult to imagine because of the immersion in the
natural attitude, the pre-suppositions of which are difficult
to suspend. Such a conflict, however, would not explain

49
development according to the current theory because of
the possibility that it might result in a cognitive-change
in an other-than-adult direction (e.g. 'belief in ghosts
or animism).
What is being suggested here is that both beginning
inquiry with the processing of information and the idea of
processing in the direction of adult standards is premature
since no characterization of the kind of information pro
cessed is provided and no explanation for the acquisition
of adult standards is given.
The problem in Piaget's model is that it requires the
prior knowledge of social norms in order to explain the
acquisition of those same norms — a clearly teleological
assumption. Certainly, information about norms, the relative
appropriateness of one system goal over another, must come
from outside the individual system. In support of this
stance, it is helpful to quote Stephen Toulmin again at
some length:
Typically, the young child who learns "how to behave"
is entirely unaware that there is any "rule" with
which his personal conduct is being compared and
brought into line. In these respects, his conduct
does not "apply" or "follow" rules of procedure or
techniques, still less employ such rules "critically"

50
or "consciously" ...at most, the child learns to con
duct his personal relations in a "rule-governed" or
"rule-conforming" manner... As a representative ex
ample, we may taXe here the game of Pat-a-CaXe, in
which — unliXe in PeeX-a-Boo — the child is re
quired to produce a sequence of actions coordinated
in time and space with the actions of an adult. In
the early stages of the child's upbringing, therefore,
it is at most the mentor who has a "rule" or "role"
in mind, and who corrects the child's behavior in such
a way as to consolidate the required patterns in his
conduct...
More significantly, one may argue, the infant's act
ivities will often acquire a racognizeable structure
without either the infant or "roles" embodied in that
structure. The temporal patterns of the mother-and-
child's pre-verbal interactions, for instance, carry
over into their play-chatter, and so merge contin
uously into those of their later linguistic colloquy
(Bateson, 1970). Similarly, habits of order and
punctuality in the everyday life and/or liturgy of
a culture may apparently serve as a foundation for
the later historical development of intellectual and
practical exactitude in the culture (Mumford, 1934).
In short: there is much to suggest that the trans
mission of a specific "culture" from one generation
to the next taXes place primarily through a Xind of
behavioral "infection". The elders transmit to
their young intuitive standards of correctness and/or
deviance of which neither party is explicitly thinXing
or even aware." (Toulmin, 1974, p. 209).
The use of the phrase "mother-and-child" is a parti
cularly apt one. In order to explain the "acquisition"
of norms (i.e. adult standards) reference must be made to
a system larger than the child-in-isolation. The system
in which "development" occurs is necessarily a social one.

51
In addition, it is important to note that "goals" are not
a necessary part of the individual system. Although it
cannot be denied that individuals are often aware of speci
fic goals and can consciously behave in ways which are per
ceived as effective in achieving them, human behavior is
not necessarily limited to this mode. We are also capable
of behaving in ways which are not goal-oriented. We are
capable of error and play, but also of merely behaving
without conscious direction and simply allowing the structure
of the environment, which sets subtle agendas for the type
of behavior in which we can engage, determine the goal
which will be attained. From a phenomenological perspective,
refusing to choose is also a choice.
What then is the alternative explanation for the moti
vation behind the move from one cognitive level to the next?
First, it should be clear that the very use of the term
"motivation" implies the existence of a known goal towards
which the system directs its motion. My claim here Ls that
human behavior is not always explainable in terms of moti
vation or even "drive" and that, at least in the early
stages of the system, its power and directionality are

52
better seen as sourced in the immediate motivation or
"influence" of the suprasystem. I would say that instead
of having a "drive" to learn, we are "driven".
In very specific terms I am suggesting that in the
early stages of development the child can be characterized
as a primarily morphogentic system capable of perceiving
certain features of its environment, but unable to dis
tinguish which of those features are "distinctive" of
particular objects or events. Information concerning the
specific set of features or "configurations" of features
must be supplied by a suprasystem. Objects and events are
not, therefore, given by experience alone. The "boundaries"
which separate figure from ground in the constant flux of
sensory input are taught — not discovered in isolation.
Negative feedback which is designed to put the system
"on track" is social feedback. This alternative concep
tualization is developed in more detail in Chapter 4. It
is worth noting that this tendency of current theorists to
discount the importance of positive feedback systems is
probably a function of their having taken their information
processing model from the Cyberneticists with whom they

53
shared the common goal of modeling adaptive human behavior
and who were overtly disinterested in positive feedback
systems:
The basic hypothesis of cybernetics is that the chief
mechanism of the central nervous system is one of
negative feedback. The field of study is not, however,
restricted to feedbacks of the negative kind. Sec
ondly, cybernetics makes the hypothesis that the neg
ative feedback mechanism explains "purposive" and
"adaptive" behavior. (wisdom, 1951, pp. 130-1).
While other feedback systems are not excluded, the
emphasis is strongly on the negative. This is evidenced
even in a footnote offered by J.O. Wisdom concerning the
definition of "purposive":
Some readers may find it conducive to clarity to dis
tinguish with Northrop between "purposive" and "teleo-
logical". A machine may start toward a goal, but
after it deviates it may make no attempt to pursue that
goal. It would then be in one sense "purposive" but
not "teleological." To be "teleological" it must
continue to seek its goal, which requires negative
feedback. (F.S.C. Northrop, "The Neurological and
Behavioristic Psychological Basis of the Ordering of
Society by Means of Ideas," Science. 107 (1948), 415.
In ordinary usage, of course, "purposive" has the sense
here ascribed to "teleological.") (Wisdom, 1951,
p. 131) Emphasis mine.
It was quite appropriate for the Cybernetic theorists,
like J.O. Wisdom, to utilize this hypothesis since the
system aspect of interest was adaptability, i.e. the con
scious purposiveness of human systems. This was something

54
that was not then replicable in machines. They were prim
arily concerned with the explication of the analogy between
man and machine and with the reconciliation of discrepancies
in the comparison. The question asked by W. Ross Ashby
in his treatise. Design for a Brain, may be seen as
archetypal:
The work has as basis the fact that the nervous system
behaves adaptively and the hypothesis that it is
essentially mechanistic; it proceeds on the assump
tion that these two data are not irreconcilable.
It attempts to deduce from the observed facts what
sort of mechanism it must be that behaves so dif
ferently from any machine made so far. ...I have
attempted to deduce what is necessary, what properties
the nervous system must have if it is to behave at
once mechanistically and adaptively. (Ashby, 1951,
p. v) .
In sum, the goal was the delineation of the problematic
adaptive mechanisms -- those requiring negative feedback.
A cursory reading of this literature may leave the
impression that positive feedback systems are somehow
dysfunctional and undesireable, but this is not the case.
Even Ashby recognized the importance of such systems.
According to Wisdom,
He points out that negative feedback is not sufficient
to describe all facets of human behavior. It does not
by itself cover learning by experience — the feedbacks

55
have to improve with the passage of time. The cor
responding problem for the brain is that as a machine
it has to work out an essential part of its own
wiring. (Wisdom, 1951, p. 135-6)
This specific shortcoming of the negative feedback model is
crucial to this investigation.
It is a serious oversight then to assume that all
human systems are exclusively negative feedback systems
and consequently negentropic. This is a tempting but anth-
ropomorph ic assumpt ion. Adult systems, when operating
in ideal ways, e.g. with full, conscious, goal-orientation,
may indeed operate in deviation reducing ways, but this is
certainly not always the case. People do err and systems
do fail temporarily. The result of assuming a negentropic
model is that even the immature human system is perceived
as consciously goal-oriented. We simply are not justified
in making such an assumption.
As independent, albeit open systems, children do not
always supply their own feedback nor can they be assumed to
be always conscious of a goal. Common sense tells us that
they are, for a long time, dependent upon their environment
(adults) to provide feedback and to teach them the appro-
priat goal-orientation. To assume otherwise is to credit

56
the child with the ability to know his/her current state,
compare it to some goal and know which adjustments to make
in order to attain that goal, children are vulnerable and
dependent precisely because they are not initially capable
of such goal direction and correction.
That the child does develop — objects and the rela
tionships between them become more detailed over time --
can in part be explained as a function of the processual
structure of the feature as a result of the interaction of
time and memory. A feature is not, from the perspective
of this dissertation, isomorphic from time^ to time2 » but
evolves over time. The equilibrium state acquired by such
a system is not "stable" but "dynamic" when dynamic equil
ibrium is defined as the mean value of oscillation. The
feature is thus an eidetic structure.
The manner in which I am characterizing a feature could
be compared to the face of a clock. When one looks at it,
it appears to be static and yet we know it does change,
and while it does so, no amount of observation will yield
the perception of change. A system based on such "eidetic"
features would simply shift, almost imperceptibly, into a

57
qualitatively different kind of functioning as the elements
slowly altered in character.
In sum,, the problem with the current model is not
simply that an adult standard is assumed to exist and then
used to gauge the progress of development, but that the
model relies on the developing individual's knowledge of
such a goal in order to explain his/her progress. This is
not only a teleological assumption but is a limited con
ception of the types of action in which humans are capable
of engaging.
Before concluding this discussion, a final observ
ation must be made. From an epistemological rather than
practical point of view, the reliance on the "adult"
(poorly defined as that concept may be) standard of measure
ment for the development of intelligence is an arbitrary
selection. More succinctly, it is a biased selection in
favor of a specific "mode" of intelligence.
By way of demonstration, it is interesting that Piaget
selected the Miiller-Lyer illusion ( ) in his tests
of perceptual development because this illusion was also
discussed at length by Maurice Merleau-Ponty in an effort
to demonstrate the effects of the empirical epistemological
bias.

58
According to Piaget's observations using the illusion,
the older the subject the smaller his over-estimation of
the difference between the length of the two lines (Piaget,
1969) . It is critical to understand that this is seen as
development toward the "correct" response, i.e. that the
lines are "really" equal in length. This in itself is
somewhat self-fulfilling prophesy since correctness is
determined through reference to the adult standard. More
to the point, the belief that the lines are "in reality"
equal requires a specific epistemological stance in which
subjective appearances are not the final determiner of
what is to count as "real". This world is one in which the
indeterminate, peripheral, or more to the point, the
"irrelevant" features of a stimulus environment have less
"reality" value. According to Ponty:
The two straight lines in Muller-Lyer's optical il
lusion...are neither of equal nor unequal length; it
is only in the objective world that this question
arises. ... We must recognize the indeterminate
as a positive phenomenon. It is in this atmosphere
that quality arises. Its meaning is an equivocal
meaning; we are concerned with an expressive value
rather than a logical signification. (Merleau-Ponty,
1962, p. 6).

59
The implication of this statement is that the question about
the "real" length of the lines in the illusion can only
arise in a particular, socially determined reality. This
is an important point because it indicates the extent to
which "learning goals" are socially determined.
Despite Piaget's stand against apriorism and his con
tention that children "construct" reality (Piaget, 1954)
the theory he presents relies heavily on the assumption of
an adult objective reality. This causes some theoretical
difficulty for Piaget since no explanation is provided
to explain the maturing individual's shift from what would
be a private reality to a shared reality. That adults do
share reality can only then be explained as the result
of the acquisition of an a priori reality.
Rather than digress any further, I will defer dis
cussion of this point to a following section on the various
theories concerning what I will refer to as the "locus of
invariance". The more germaine argument here is that
some measure of "correctness" is required by Piagetian
tasks and that correctness has a law-like necessity in
Genevan thought rather than practical or rule-governed
force.

60
The necessary assertion of an objective reality in the
current theory leads me to consider a third assumption which
results from the first two and is symptomatic of the par
ticular epistemological basis upon which the initial ob
servations were made.

Chapter 3
Critique of the Current Theory:
The Locus of Invariance
The third assumption is a primary source of difficulty
and the difference in epistemological approach taken on
this particular issue forms the central pivot upon which
the alternative theory turns away from the current
theorists:
3. The assumption is made that input to the system
and elements of the human system are static in
nature.
The epistemological stance which forms the basis for
the current model of development is one which assumes that
reality is essentially limited to that which is amenable
to the senses. In other words, it is one in which the
Principle of Direct Acquaintance holds sway. The effect
of this stance is that stimulation of the senses is seen as
identical for all those who experience it; it is not
mutable. Both time and space are seen as segmetable or
61

discontinuous rather than as continuous or simultaneous.
This perspective results in several related problems in the
construction of the current theoretical model. The first
of these has already been presented as the "myth” of the
adult standard, the effect of which is the conception of
goals as static and the tendency to characterize a par
ticular state of the system as either functional or dys
functional. The elements of such a system must be static.
In other words, all input to all individuals is identical,
therefore differences in behavior can only be accounted for
by differences in the processing of those static elements.
The alternative suggested here does not deny that
"reality" is amenable to the senses, but also claims that
the "reality" which is "perceived" or "understood" by an
individual is not complete at any specific moment and that
that which is experienced is dependent upon the orientation
taken toward it by the experiencer. Reality is seen as
amenable to a multitude of perspectives and possibilities.
That part of reality that is experienced at any particular
moment is the result of the interaction of the experienced
and the experiencer, and each subsequent "experience" is
conditioned by its predecessor, i.e. it is "locked" in time.

63
Given this alternative starting point, it cannot be
assumed that reality is "extensional". In other words, it
is not identical for all perceivers, nor is it constant
for one perceiver from timei to time2 - The character of
information acquired prior to evaluation (categorization
and labelling) and processing (judgements about responses
to stimulation) becomes, as a consequence, problematic.
The initial task of development becomes the acquisition of
"adult" information acquisition skills rather than adult
processing skills.
Two other implications of the assumption of stasis
are of importance here. One is the question of the locus
of invariance, and the second relates to the stance taken
toward the nature of stimuli, specifically the nature of
the feature. Differences in these stances locate points of
departure between current theory and the alternative I
suggest. I will begin with a clarification of the "locus
of invariance". As mentioned earlier, despite my use of
the generic term "current theory", different theorists
approach the information systems model from different
perspectives. Most of these differences can be traced to
varying opinions about the theoretical location of the

causal mechanism behind the observation that individuals
within specifiable age groups succeed and fail similarly
in the performance of particular tasks. {You will recall
that this is one of the two central observations which
developmental theory has been designed to explain). Dif
ferences in theory are generated by differences in the at
tempt to locate the "first cause" of invariance in this
causal chain.
While the following positions are somewhat idealized,
I believe most extant theories can be placed in one of four
categories based on positions taken on this point: 1) those
that see stimuli as the "locus"; 2) those who locate the
source of invariance in the biological mechanisms of
cognition (i.e. innate cognitive mechanisms); 3) those
who assume that invariance in methods used by the system
are related to shared goals; and 4) the view that negative
feedback provided by external, social, sources (i.e. the
"supra-system) produce the observed similarities in be
havioral patterns and, in many cases, the appearance of
goal-orientation. I will discuss each of these views in
turn and indicate representative theorists for each:

65
1. Stimuli as the Locus of Invariance.
This approach assumes that invariance is located in
the stimulus itself (a strict a prioristic approach). In
other words, consistency in response to stimuli across in
dividuals is the result of consistency in the stimulus
responded to.
This view seems to be the result both of an epistemo-
logical assumption that reality is composed of static
"things" (monads) and of the subsequent lack of discussion/
evaluation concerning possible alternative characteri
zations of the nature of stimuli as they are responded to
over time. As a result of this characterization of stimuli,
perceptual learning is assumed to be marked only by the
cumulation of new data (conscious recognition of more
things) and skills over time. More importantly, "what"
has been learned is seen as unchanging over time. In terms
of the systems model used, the assumption is that the basic
elements of the system are monadic/isomorphic and that they
are static in nature. Changes in the system are brought
about by the addition of new/more elements and not neces
sarily by changes in the elements themselves or by changes
in the relationships between elements which might result

66
from changes in the nature of the elements over time. An
inherent contradiction in the current model is the fact
that changes brought about in the system through the addition
of new elements are not eliminated nor their effects counter
acted through the asserted negative feedback process.
The primary proponent of this view in the literature
of mass media effects is Albert Bandura. Bandura assumed,
along with the radical behaviorists that the locus of in
variance was the stimulus itself and that this stimulus
would become associated over time with expected consequences:
Without a capacity for anticipatory or foresightful
behavior, man would be forced to act blindly in ways
that might eventually prove to be highly unproductive,
if not perilous. Information about probable conse
quences is conveyed by environmental stimuli such as
traffic signals, verbal communications, pictoral mes
sages, distinctive places, persons, or things, or the
actions of others.
In the earliest years of development, environmental
stimuli, except those that are inherently painful,
exert little or no influence on infants and young
children. As a result of paired experiences either
direct or vicarious, formerly neutral stimuli begin
to acquire motivating and response-directive properties.
(Bandura, 1971, p. 10).
With the noted exception of the concept of vacarious
experiences, this is fairly standard associationist fair,
despite the fact that it was Bandura's goal to disassociate
his work from the traditional empirical paradigm.

67
He claimed that Social, or "Observational" learning
theory opposed the strict stimulus-response approach on
three central issues:
The social learning analysis of observational learning
differs from contemporary learning interpretations
principally in the locus of response integration, in
the role played by cognitive functions, and in the
manner in which reinforcement influences observa
tional learning. (Bandura, 1971, p. 5).
These three issues represented the inadequacies which
Bandura saw in the stimulus-response models. Specifically
he rejected their lack of attention to information pro
cessing (cognition) as a mediator between stimulus and
response, and its ability to act in the process of rein
forcement. In other words, individuals do not respond to
physical stimulation alone, but to both physical and psy
chical stimulation. Consequently any symbolic represent
ation of physical stimulation must maintain the invariance
of its referent stimulus. This last statement should be
clarified further.
Bandura made the common sense assumption that all we
know cannot be traced to direct experience alone. His
reasons were that we know more than could possibly be ex
perienced and that it would be too dangerous to experience

68
everything directly, e.g. that fire burns. This assumption
reflects a slight shift from the previous theory in that
it does place some importance on the mental life of the or
ganism. It also allows Bandura to account, to some extent,
for the problem of intensionality (i.e. symbolic experience).
But this is essentially a theoretical and not epistemological
shift. In effect Bandura does not move substantially away
from the traditional behaviorist assumption that the stim
ulus is the locus of invariance.
His view is essentially a "correspondence" or "copy"
theory of learning. It is not necessarily "motor-copy",
although this is given as a possibility, but "symbolic"
copying. Objects-in-the-world with specific features are
overtly copied and translated into symbolic thought. This
theory assumes a negative feedback system in that it asserts
the prior possession of adult standards. It does not, in
other words, account for the development of the child's
ability to: a) recognize an object-in-the-worId as an
object (the ability to perceive the figure in a figure/
ground relationship); b) to know which objects are im
portant for the facilitation of the attainment of specific
goals; and c) to symbolically code physical sensa.

69
From the perspective of Social Learning Theory, then,
an observed behavior is only as good as its symbolic repre
sentation is accurate, and as long as some "standard" for
judging the accuracy of this representation is available.
In Bandura *s own words:
The functional value of thought depends upon close
correspondence between the symbolic system and ex
ternal events so that the latter can be substituted
for the former. Thus, subtracting the number 2 from
10 yields the same outcome as physically performing
the operation of removing two objects from a group
of ten. Symbols can be manipulated much more easily
than their physical counterparts, which greatly in
creases the scope and power of symbolic problem
solving. (Bandura, 1971, p. 38).
This requirement of accuracy of correspondence in the cog
nitive process seems to be an overly restrictive one since
any symbolic representation is necessarily abstract and
"abstracted" from a particular phenomenological orienta
tion (i.e. an intentional posture). "Reality" is assumed to
lie entirely with the external stimulus, while cognition
is merely a mental copy. What is required by such a theory
is an accurate phenomenal calculus which is extensional.
While the emphasis on cognitive processes is easy to
detect in this theory, the correspondence requirement also
places a heavy burden on attentional processes. Learning
simply could not occur without it:

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