Explanations seem to be a large and natural part of our cognitive
lives. As Frank Keil and Robert Wilson write, "When a cognitive
activity is so ubiquitous that it is expressed both in a preschooler's
idle questions and in work that is the culmination of decades of
scholarly effort, one has to ask whether we really have one and the
same phenomenon or merely different cognitively based phenomena that
are loosely, or even metaphorically, related."
This book is unusual in its interdisciplinary approach to that
ubiquitous activity. The essays address five basic questions about
explanation: How do explanatory capacities develop? Are there kinds of
explanation? Do explanations correspond to domains of knowledge? Why do
we seek explanations, and what do they accomplish? How central are
causes to explanation? The essays draw on work in the history and
philosophy of science, the philosophy of mind and language, the
development of concepts in children, conceptual change in adults, and
reasoning in human and artificial systems. They also introduce emerging
perspectives on explanation from computer science, linguistics, and
anthropology.
A critical part of early childhood development is the development of
"theory of mind" (ToM), which is the ability to take the perspective of
another person. The main purpose of this book is to discuss and
integrate findings from prominent research areas in developmental
psychology that are typically studied in isolation, but are clearly
related. Two examples are whether executive functions represent a
precursor of ToM or whether ToM understanding predicts the development
of executive functions, and to what extent children's level of verbal
ability and their working memory are important predictors of
performance on both executive functioning and ToM tasks.
Кабакчи В.В. Практика англоязычной межкультурной коммуникации.
Классика жанра. Автор исследует культурную составляющую языка и проблемы соотносимости культур. Большинство заданий нацелены на русскоговорящего читателя, но даже те, кто не говорит по-русски, найдут здесь море потрясающих текстов о культурных привычках русских, англичан, американцев, французов и тд.Книга может служить источником текстов для чтения, задаст тему для дискуссии в классе, и, кроме того, поможет перевести вещи вроде «кандидат наук» или «заслуженный мастер спорта» - на эту тему советую внимательно пролистать Приложение в конце книги (со стр. 415)
Human language is based on syntax, a complex set of rules about how words can be combined. In theory, the emergence of syntactic communication might have been a comparatively straightforward process.
The book presents an excellent overview of the field and will certainly serve as an important source of reference for speech perception and language acquisition researchers. At the same time, it contains many fascinating theoretical insights into the operation of basic principles of development that have the potential to inspire future research within and beyond the area of speech perception.
