Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-ndw9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T02:18:58.446Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Consciousness and control: The argument from developmental psychology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 October 1999

Philip David Zelazo
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada M5S 3G3 [email protected] psych.utoronto.ca/~zelazo/
Douglas Frye
Affiliation:
Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104 [email protected]

Abstract

Limitations of Dienes & Perner's (D&P's) theory are traced to the assumption that the higher-order thought (HOT) theory of consciousness is true. D&P claim that 18-month-old children are capable of explicitly representing factuality, from which it follows (on D&P's theory) that they are capable of explicitly representing content, attitude, and self. D&P then attempt to explain 3-year-olds' failures on tests of voluntary control such as the dimensional change card sort by suggesting that at this age children cannot represent content and attitude explicitly. We provide a better levels-of-consciousness account for age-related abulic dissociations between knowledge and action.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
© 1999 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)