This is a curious debate. On one side, Baillargeon argues that theories couched in the terms of the nativist± empiricist dialogue are wellsprings of empirical hypotheses and findings. She illustrates this point by describing a series of elegant experiments investigating infants' developing knowledge about the relationships between objects and their supports, containers or occluders. In a particularly exciting turn, she reports new objectlearning experiments in which she both observes and manipulates the growth of infants ' knowledge of these relationships. On the other side, Smith argues that theories couched in the terms of the nativist±empiricist dialogue are dead ends. She illustrates this point by describing a series of elegant experiments investigating young children's developing knowledge about the relationships between objects and the words and expressions people use to describe them. In a particularly exciting turn, she reports new word-learning experiments in which she both observes and manipulates the growth of children's knowledge of these relationships. Why do such closely parallel research programs lead their authors to such apparently different conclusions? I see three sources to this debate. First, Baillargeon and Smith disagree over the terms of the nativist± empiricist dialogue, and particularly over the nature of nativist claims. Second, they disagree about the role science can play in illuminating human knowledge. Finally, they disagree about the questions that studies of cognitive development should ask and the questions that should be postponed. I consider each of these differences in turn. Baillargeon and Smith give different meanings to the term `innate'. For Baillargeon, as for generations of contributors to the nativist±empiricist dialogue, `innate' means not learned. For much of Smith's paper, in contrast, `innate ' means preformed. The vast difference between these meanings can be seen through Smith's

Abstract not found

In recent years, the old debate about the beginning of representational capacities in childhood has been revived, fueled by new evidence of early cognitive capacities. This new evidence necessitates further reflection on the nature of the representations involved in early cognitive functioning. One important goal is to determine which situation will provide a better understanding of these representations. We hypothesize that the use of depth cues, especially perspective cues, in a two-dimensional (2-D) display is one of these situations, because the perceiver needs to build a representation from incomplete information. Three experiments were carried out to test the capacity of young infants to use perspective cues to build a three-dimensional (3-D) representation in a 2-D display. In the test phase of the first experiment, infants did not evidence a capacity to extrapolate to apparently further objects a size/apparent distance relation presented to them in the habituation phase. However, in the second experiment, infants dishabituated with apparently nearer objects when this rule was violated. In the third experiment, infants also dishabituated to a situation where an object was apparently growing in size when moving away and decreasing when coming nearer. These results seem to indicate that this representational capacity emerges between