LEARNING-PROCESSES IN COGNITIVE-DEVELOPMENT - A REASSESSMENT WITH SOME UNEXPECTED IMPLICATIONS

The relation between learning and development has been changed fundamentally by the advent of new conceptions of learning, induction, transfer, and strategy acquisition. Learning is no longer seen as simply the acquisition of behaviors. It also includes storing knowledge about relations in the world, as well as acquiring structural representations and mental models. These models can mediate transfer within and between domains providing a basis for understanding and autonomous strategy acquisition. Analogy also plays a key role in knowledge acquisition and transfer, especially between domains. While associative learning imposes only low demands on processing resources, some types of learning, especially those that depend on representation of structure, impose high processing demands. Learning and the growth of processing capacity interact, with capacity providing an enabling role; knowledge acquisition, in contrast, is experience driven. Developmentalists need to attend to learning processes and their interaction with capacity.