Schöner Gregor, Dineva Evelina
Institut für Neuroinformatik, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany.
Dev Sci. 2007 Jan;10(1):69-74. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-7687.2007.00566.x.
That competences may emerge given appropriate environmental and behavioral context is a long-standing theme in developmental research. Work in the motor domain, but also in cognitive development, has made it possible to transform this idea into a mechanistic account closely linked to empirical evidence. In dynamic systems thinking, such capacities as keeping a motor goal in mind, remembering a location, or resisting a motor habit, are all understood in terms of the generation of stable patterns of neuronal activation. These may be input-driven, but also be stabilized by interactions within neuronal representations. A key theoretical insight is that whether a particular pattern of activation is stable or not is not determined by any single factor, learning process, or structural parameter. Instead, ongoing activity, recent activation history, current input, all may affect when a particular dynamic regime is reachable. In spite of such broad interdependence, sharp transitions may characterize the onset of a skill in any given context. Dynamic instabilities are the mechanistic basis for this phenomenon and thus form the basis for understanding development in terms of emergence. We exemplify the concepts of instability and emergence around the phenomenon of infant perseverative reaching and discuss implications for identifying key markers of development and their link to neuronal processes.
在适当的环境和行为背景下，能力可能会出现，这是发展研究中一个长期存在的主题。运动领域以及认知发展领域的研究工作，已使将这一观点转化为与经验证据紧密相连的机制性解释成为可能。在动态系统思维中，诸如牢记运动目标、记住位置或抵制运动习惯等能力，都依据神经元激活的稳定模式的生成来理解。这些模式可能由输入驱动，但也会通过神经元表征内部的相互作用而得以稳定。一个关键的理论见解是，特定激活模式是否稳定并非由任何单一因素、学习过程或结构参数所决定。相反，持续的活动、近期的激活历史、当前的输入，都可能影响特定动态状态何时能够达成。尽管存在如此广泛的相互依存关系，但在任何给定情境中，技能的出现可能具有明显的转变特征。动态不稳定性是这一现象的机制基础，因而构成了从出现的角度理解发展的基础。我们围绕婴儿持续性够物现象举例说明不稳定性和出现的概念，并讨论其对于识别发展的关键标志及其与神经元过程的联系的意义。
