Judith A. Hudson - Böcker

This volume is a festschrift for Katherine Nelson, an NYU professor who was a pioneer in infant perception and memory. The "mediated mind" is a term coined by Dr. Nelson and it refers to how cognitive development is mediated by the sociocultural context, including language and social interaction. The impact of Nelson's views on the sociocultural basis of cognition and her functionalist perspective on cognitive development are evident in the collection of chapters in this book. The contributors--all leaders in the field of cognitive development--examine ways in which cognition is embedded in everyday, meaningful activities and the role of social context and cultural symbol symptoms, such as language and text influence children's developing concepts and thought. The concept of the mediated mind is examined from a variety of perspectives, including research in concept development, memory development, language learning, the development of literacy, narrative analysis, and children's theory of mind. The significant contribution of this volume is that it addresses all aspects of the mediated mind. Memory--both autobiographical and event-semantic--theory of mind, mental representation, temporality, narrative, and metalinguistic awareness comprise the chapter topics. The breadth of topics represented is a tribute to the impact Nelson's vision has on many developmental "domains." The contributors acknowledge and honor her work. Her theory and research paved the way for the advances in understanding a mediated mind that are evident and that will continue to shape notions of how the human mind develops and evolves within a social, interactive world.

What kinds of memory demands are placed on young children and how are social interactions structured to allow children to develop various memory skills? Are there changes in children's representational abilities that lead to different memory abilities? How do individual differences affect children's memory performance? Are there age-related changes in children's autobiographical memories? These are among the questions addressed in this third volume in the Emory Cognition Project series, originally published in 1990. Although the contributors examine memory in different ways, they share the view that memory can no longer be considered a distinct and separate cognitive process isolated from other cognitive processes; rather, remembering is viewed as a cognitive activity embedded in larger social and cognitive tasks. This view is the culmination of several changes that took place in the field of cognitive development during the decade preceding publication.