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........ published in NEWSLETTER # 50

DEVELOPMENTAL NEUROCOGNITION: SPEECH AND FACE PROCESSING IN THE FIRST YEAR OF LIFE
by Dr. B. de Boysson_Bardies, Experimental Psychology Laboratory, Paris (France)

Research on normal and abnormal cognitive development is now becoming one of the key approaches in the study of the neurobiological basis of human cognition.

This volume (NATO ASI SERIES D69) shows how fruitful an interdisciplinary approach to cognitive developmental problems can be. Much research has been carried out on mechanisms whereby organisms are able to recognize and relate to their conspecifics, in particular by acquiring language and face recognition abilities. In both areas there exists evidence that sophisticated abilities are present from birth. The authors who have contributed to the present volume have addressed several crucial questions: Are the mechanisms underlying these early competences modality_specific, object_specific or otherwise? What are the characteristics of the earliest brain mechanisms that underlie infants' interactions with speech and faces in the environment? How does experience modify early competences and abilities, and how much continuity is there between the early and later competences? Do some independent mechanisms emerge successively? How is the maturational timetable of a given competence controlled, and which factors regulate this emergence? This volume is of great interest because it compares and contrasts possible answers to these questions in the two areas of face and speech processing and takes stock of the state of the art in both areas.
Reference books: D28, D69

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