Connectionist and Dynamic Systems Approaches to Development: On the Cusp of a New Grand Theory or Still Too Distributed?

儿童发展的研究一直围绕着“大问题”和“宏大”的理论理念来组织。在这种背景下，20世纪90年代出现了两种新的理论观点——动态系统理论和联系主义的发展方法。根据这两种理论，儿童是逐步发展的；也就是说，孩子能力的每一次变化都为下一步的发展奠定了基础。重要的是，这个循序渐进的过程并不是由基因或“成熟”预先规定的；相反，随着每个孩子找到他/她自己独特的道路，发展就出现了。这是很自然的，因为发展是许多因素共同作用的产物，产生了行为变化——大脑的变化，身体的变化，环境的变化等等。虽然这两种观点有许多相同的概念，但它们被应用于非常不同的现象。例如，动态系统理论被用来解释运动技能的变化，如伸手、爬行和行走，而联结主义被用来解释语言等认知能力的发展。因此，目前还不清楚这些方法之间究竟是如何相互关联的。约翰·斯宾塞博士组织了一个为期三天的会议，召集了一组与每种方法相关的核心学者，以确定这是两种独立的发展理论还是一个大理论。为了使对话更加深入，来自相关观点——发展系统理论——的演讲者也将参加，第二组具有发展和认知心理学一般专业知识的学者也将参加。此外，将有一大群研究生出席会议，部分资金来自会议旅行奖。牛津大学出版社将出版一本总结会议成果的编辑书。这次会议和出版的书可能会对发展心理学领域做出重大贡献，因为它们将澄清该领域两个最有前途的新理论之间的关系。更广泛地说，这次会议的结果可能会影响儿童的福祉，因为宏大的发展理论塑造了人们对儿童的看法。这些理论影响着国家政策、教育课程和育儿方式，形成了一个真正的孩子学习和成长的框架。因此，关于这两个新的理论竞争者——连接主义和动态系统理论——的辩论和讨论有可能产生深远的影响。

The study of child development has always been organized around "big issues" and "grand" theoretical ideas. In this milieu, two new theoretical perspectives emerged in the 1990's - dynamic systems theory and connectionist approaches to development. According to both theories, children develop step-by-step; that is, each change in the child's ability sets the stage for the next developments. Importantly, this step-by-step process is not specified in advance by genes or "maturation"; rather, development emerges as each child finds his/her own unique pathway. This is natural because development is a product of many factors coming together to produce behavioral change - brain changes, bodily changes, environmental changes, etc. Although these two perspectives share many concepts, they have been applied to very different phenomena. For instance, dynamic systems theory has been used to explain changes in motor skills such as reaching, crawling, and walking, while connectionism has been used to explain the development of cognitive abilities such as language. As such, it is unclear exactly how these approaches relate to one another. Dr. John Spencer has organized a 3-day conference to bring together a set of core scholars affiliated with each approach to determine whether these are two separate theories of development or one grand theory. To sharpen this dialogue, speakers from a related viewpoint - developmental systems theory - will also participate, as will a second group of scholars with general expertise in developmental and cognitive psychology. In addition, there will be a large group of graduate students in attendance, funded in part by conference travel awards. An edited book summarizing results of the conference will be published by Oxford University Press. The conference and published book are likely to make a major contribution to the field of developmental psychology in that they will clarify the relationship between two of the most promising new theories in the field. More broadly, results of this conference are likely to impact the well-being of children because grand theories of development shape how people think about children. These theories influence national policy, educational curricula, and parenting, forming a framework within which real children learn and grow. Thus, debate and discussion about these two new theoretical contenders - connectionism and dynamic systems theory - have the potential for far-reaching influences.