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Exercise 7. Read the text and write a summary
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| Exercise 7. Read the text and write a summary.
Baby’s First Research A?geneticist?working?at?her?lab?bench?and?and?a?six-month-old?baby?play- ing with his food might seem to have little in common. After all, the scientist is engaged in serious research to uncover the very nature of the physical world, and?the?baby?is,?well,?just?playing…?right??Perhaps,?but?some?developmental? psychologists have argued that this ‘play’ is more like a scientific investigation than one might think. Take?a?closer?look?at?the?baby?playing?at?the?table.?Each?time?the?bowl?of? cereal?is?pushed?over?the?table?edge,?it?falls?to?the?ground?—?and,?in?the?process,? it?reveals?critical?evidence?about?how?physical?objects?interact:?bowls?of?cereal? (as?well?as?pacifiers,?blocks,?books,?bananas,?and?other?physical?objects)?do?not? float?in?mid-air,?but?require?support?to?remain?stable.?It?is?likely?that?babies?are? not?born?knowing?this?basic?fact?of?the?universe;?nor?are?they?ever?explicitly? taught?it.?Instead,?babies?may?form?an?understanding?of?object?support?through? repeated experiments — systematic interactions with the world around them — and?then?build?on?this?knowledge?to?learn?even?more?about?how?objects?inter- act (e.g., how much physical contact is necessary for support, how the shape of?the?objects?affects?one’s?ability?to?support?the?other).?Though?their?scales? and?accoutrements?differ,?the?baby’s?investigation?and?the?physicist’s?experi- ment?appear?to?share?the?same?aim?(to?learn?about?the?natural?world),?overall? approach?(gathering?direct?evidence?from?the?world),?and?logic?(are?my?obser- vations what I expected?). Though the claim is controversial, some psychologists have argued that many?of?children’s?ideas?of?how?the?world?works?resemble?scientific?theories:? •? These?ideas?are?relatively?coherent?explanations?for?some?set?of?phenom- ena in the natural world. •? Children?use?them?to?generate?expectations?about?how?people?and?objects? will?behave.? •? They?can?be?revised?or?rejected?in?favor?of?a?new?explanation?if?the?weight? of evidence goes against the currently accepted explanation. Some?psychologists?propose?that?young?children?learn?about?more?than?just? the physical world in this way — that they investigate human psychology and the?rules?of?language?using?similar?means.?For?example,?it?may?only?be?through? repeated experiments, evidence gathering, and finally overturning a pet theory, that?a?toddler?will?come?to?accept?the?idea?that?other?people?can?have?different? perspectives and desires than he or she has — that, for example, inappropriate behavior?can?be?hidden?from?a?parent’s?view?by?simply?moving?behind?the?sofa? or that, unlike the child, Mommy actually doesn’t like graham crackers. 17 Viewing childhood development as a scientific investigation provides insight into?how?children?learn,?but?it?also?offers?a?provocative?perspective?on?sci- ence?and?scientists.?Why?do?young?children?and?scientists?seem?to?be?so?much? alike??Psychologists?Alison?Gopnik,?Andrew?Meltzoff,?and?Patricia?Kuhl?have? proposed that science as an endeavor — the impulse to explore, explain, and understand our world — is simply a holdover from our infancies. Perhaps evolu- tion?endowed?human?babies?with?curiosity?and?a?natural?drive?to?explain?their? worlds — and adult scientists simply tap into the same explanatory drive that served them as infants. The same cognitive systems that make young children feel?good?about?figuring?something?out?may?have?been?unwittingly?co-opted?by? adult scientists. As Gopnik and her colleagues put it, ‘It is not that children are little?scientists?but?that?scientists?are?big?children.’? [2] жүктеу/скачать 448,67 Kb. Достарыңызбен бөлісу:
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