Getting Development off the Ground

What is the role of perception in the development of thought? If perception has its own distinctive organisation, what are the consequences for development? These issues are considered in relation to the understanding of objecthood and physical causality in infancy and the preschool period. It is argued that the “modular” organisation of perception has a specially useful role in getting development started in these areas. Modular perception is inherently limited to analysing “appearances” in fixed ways. This has important advantages for allowing the rapid build up of general knowledge, even though such knowledge must eventually go beyond appearances to underlying realities. It also allows the human child to benefit from the long evolution of the perceptual apparatus in lower species, giving rise to a more competent infant.