CHAPTER 5
Percept and Mental Image Differentiation
In chapter 4, I described Piaget’s studies of the stages in the child’s search for toys under screens. In Stage 6 (16-24 months), the child who watched Piaget hide a toy under a screen, but did not see him displace the toy under a different screen, searched under both screens, or until she found the toy. When she was in Stage 5, she searched only under the screen where she saw the toy disappear. Piaget concluded that, in Stage 6, the child had a mental image scheme —that is, she had an abiding conscious representation of the toy in her mind that allowed her to continue her search. To have a mental image —a type of thought —is a fundamental achievement. Piaget proposed a special theory to account for the formation of mental images in Stage 6.
In this chapter, I will contrast Piaget’s theory of mental image formation with my own. In addition to proposing a different mechanism than he proposed, I will propose that the cognitive reorganization, which culminates in mental images in Stage 6, takes place much earlier —that the reorganization takes place in Stage 4.
Piaget’s Mechanism
Piaget did not rely solely on assimilation and accommodation to explain the formation of mental images. He proposed that, in Stage 6, mental images are formed by Interiorized of action schemes. He supported his proposal by citing his observation of his Stage-5 daughter opening and closing her mouth as she puzzled over how to get an object out of a matchbox. 47 She then used her finger to open the box and retrieved the desired object. When she opened and closed her mouth, she appeared to be using an action symbol for opening and closing. Piaget hypothesized that in Stage 6, when an action symbol or scheme —such as opening and closing one’s mouth —no longer shows, the scheme is interiorized (See footnote 18 for the difference between interiorized and internalized). He hypothesized that mental images are interiorized action schemes. When the child interiorizes the motor action, the child is opening her mouth and/or the box in her mind. Piaget’s concept that mental images are interiorized action schemes is very similar to Freud’s concept that thought is an experimental way of acting.
Although in his descriptions of the sensorimotor schemes, Piaget made many references to instances of the child’s awareness or consciousness, he did not incorporate these references into his theory of mental image formation. He treated these instances of consciousness as incidental —as merely ephemeral pictures. He referred to the sensorimotor schemes as action schemes. Thelen’s (1998) motor action patterns, which were mentioned in chapter 2, are very much like Piaget’s action schemes.
Why Piaget thought of consciousness prior to Stage 6 as just "pictures" that did not play a role in the construction of mental images, and why he proposed that interiorization of action schemes was what generally formed mental images, is unclear. Perhaps he wanted to frame his theory in such a way that the schemes would retain their connection to action —that is, to motor behavior. If the mental image was formed from an interiorized action scheme, the action, though inhibited in expression, would continue as a part of the mental image —part of a conscious scheme. In that way, he could account for some conscious control of action.
It is also unclear why Piaget proposed that perception is in place in Stage 5. Perhaps the answer is related to his insistence that the sensorimotor schemes were action schemes. 48 If perception is in place in Stage 5, when recovery of a hidden object is first divorced from any successful physical action on it, then the scheme of having seen the object is a perception. Later in this chapter, I will propose that percept is not yet an autonomous construct in Stage 5.
My Mechanism
In chapter 4, I proposed that prior to 6 weeks, when waking-state schemes are not distinct from sleeping-state schemes, the concept of conscious schemes has no meaning. Also prior to 6 weeks, the infant is awake for very short periods. So, any distinction between the schemes that are active in the waking state and those that are active in the sleeping state is minimal, at best. At about 6 weeks to 2 months, however, the change in the sucking reflex (the loss of the sucking reflex when awake and its persistence during sleep) and the appearance of the social smile mark reasonably clear distinctions between schemes in the waking state and schemes in the sleeping state —distinction between conscious and unconscious cognition. These two changes in behavior that can be attributed to differentiation or emergence of conscious schemes, take place just before the beginning of Stage 3.
In chapter 4, I also proposed that Stage-3-typical schemes are conscious. The behaviors that characterize Stage 3 require that the child be awake, not asleep or unconscious. Hence, Stage-3-typical schemes are assumed to have the waking state as one of their components. In addition, the kinds of behavior that characterize the later stages are unlikely to occur unless the waking state is part of the scheme. Thus beginning with Stage 3, the cerebral cortical activity that characterizes waking, or consciousness, is part of every stage-typical scheme.
Differentiation of Mental Image and Percept
I have explained why I think that, beginning in Stage 3, Piaget charted only waking-state, or conscious, schemes. In earlier chapters, I described the qualitative changes in schemes, much as Piaget described them. These changes culminate in Stage 6, when mental images and percepts are constructs that are reasonably distinct from each other.
Both Freud and Piaget advanced theories to account for the distinction between percepts and mental images. I believe that they were both off on their time lines. Piaget proposed that perception is in place in Stage 5. I propose that when the Stage-5 child fails to search under a second screen, his percept and mental image schemes remain undifferentiated from each other. In Stage 5, what is pictured in the presence of the object —a percept —is not distinct from what is pictured in the absence of the object —a mental image. These schemes can be referred to as proto-percepts and proto-mentalimages. They are like hallucinations. When one hallucinates, one senses a picture or some words in one’s mind as a kind of perception —that is, as belonging to the outside world. It should not be surprising that the boundaries of schemes in Stage 5 are permeable. As I mentioned in chapters 4, a Stage-5 child will attempt to put a ring on a stick by touching the ring to the side of the stick. Schemes of objects can pass through each other.
Stage 5 is an interesting stage. It is a stage when the child actively experiments. The child discovers that she must pass the inside edge of the ring around the end of the stick, in order put the ring on the stick. Similarly, if a child happens to flip a box by pressing on its edge, she will push on various parts of the box until she discovers that she must push on the edge to make the box flip.
Keeping in mind the Stage-5 child’s propensity to experiment —to test what works —I propose that, by Stage 6, the child has discovered that proto-percepts are more gratifying than proto-mental images. The scheme of an object that is present may be picked up, thrown, or eaten. The conscious scheme of an object in the object’s absence is not as gratifying as the conscious scheme of an object when the object is present. The scheme of an object that is not present cannot be picked up, thrown, or eaten.
In Stage 6, when the proto-percept of an object is recognized as more gratifying, the proto-percept of that object becomes a percept of that object. At the same time, the proto-mental image, once it is recognized as being less gratifying than the percept, becomes a mental image. Based on relative gratification, percept and mental image are thus differentiated from each other. Of course, this differentiation takes place in the mind. Yet the percept schemes belong primarily to the outside world, and the mental image schemes belong primarily to the self.
My theory of the differentiation of perception from mental image is basically the same as Freud’s. Freud (1934b) proposed that the hungry newborn, in the absence of the breast, hallucinates the breast. At some point early in the first year, the child experiences a hallucinated breast as less gratifying than a perception of the breast. At that point, the hallucination becomes a mental image —a form of thought. Piaget objected to Freud’s proposal. Piaget stressed that percepts (of the breast) are not givens, but must be constructed.
I propose that this differentiation between proto-percept and proto-mental image takes place in Stage 6, at around 16 months to 2 years of age —much later in development than Freud thought it did.
My proposal also borrows from Piaget, but it differs from Piaget in several ways. Piaget proposed that percept was constructed in Stage 5. As I explained above, I propose that percept and mental image are still undifferentiated from each other in Stage 5. Further, I propose that in Stage 5, the scheme organization —a combined scheme that does not distinguish percept from mental image —does not work very well. Emotional indicators of success and failure lead to Stage 6, in which percept and mental image are differentiated from each other. In effect, the development of Stage 6 from Stage 5 is an adaptation, an incremental extension of accommodations that begin in Stage 4, when articulations of schemes begin to be exploited. The cognitive shift from Stage 5 to Stage 6 need not require a special mechanism, as Piaget proposed.
Before I return to the two mysteries involving consciousness, it is time to take stock. I have proposed that full myelination of the visual and touch sensory tracts to the cerebral cortex assists a major reorganization of cognition in Stage 4, and that merely incremental assimilation and accommodation account for the shift from Stage-5 to Stage-6 cognition. In contrast, Piaget proposed psychological mechanisms accounted for the change from Stage-3 to Stage-4 cognition and for the change from Stage-4 to Stage-5 cognition. Additionally, he apparently thought of the change from Stage 5 to Stage 6, not the change 3 to Stage 4, constituted a major reorganization of cognition.
Regardless of which proposal is correct, what is essential to grasp about Piaget’s insights and his observations is that he showed how schemes, which are undifferentiated to begin with, through interaction with themselves and through sensory and motor interaction with the outside world, transform themselves. In stages, they transform into basically distinct object-schemes (including the self as an object-scheme), percept-schemes, and mental-image-schemes. By Stage 6, the child has constructed relatively distinct conscious schemes —in my terms, relatively distinct waking neuronal circuit activity —for different objects, and for percepts and mental images. These schemes tend to operate using such partitioning, partitioning that one might not regularly expect of operation of schemes that are unconscious or that occur in states of altered consciousness.
Returning to the Two Mysteries
When I related waking to consciousness in chapter 4, I offered a solution to the mystery of how matter —the brain —could give rise to consciousness. I proposed that prior to 6 weeks, conscious/waking-state schemes are not differentiated from unconscious/sleeping-state schemes. After 6 weeks to 2 months —in the middle of Stage 2 —conscious schemes begin to be differentiated from unconscious schemes. Then, late in Stage 3, with help from the complete myelination of the visual tracts, and possibly complete myelination of the somatosensory tracts, conscious schemes differentiate in stages into schemes that assist the child to succeed in his or her interactions with the environment. This differentiation culminates in Stage 6, when the child searches under any number of screens for an object. At that point, mental image schemes and percept schemes are differentiated from one another. I have described when I think that waking/conscious schemes become distinct from sleeping/unconscious schemes, and then how the conscious schemes differentiate into two forms —mental images and percepts.
The second mystery is the flip side of the first. How is it possible for the mind to influence the brain? As I have explained, in the newborn, motor control and proprioception of motor action are integral to Piaget’s schemes. In the newborn, there is no division between (what will be) conscious/waking portions of a scheme or (what will be) unconscious/sleeping portions of a scheme and the motor or action control portions of that scheme. It is therefore unnecessary to explain how the conscious portions and the motor control portions of schemes become connected. They are connected to each other to begin with. It follows then that when conscious schemes and unconscious schemes differentiate from each other, the conscious schemes could be expected to retain some of their motor components, just as unconscious —merely mechanical —schemes retain their motor components. To account for conscious schemes influencing matter —for the fact that the mind can influence the brain —we simply have to trace the forms that waking-state schemes take as they differentiate.
Piaget did this chore for us. I proposed that, beginning in Stage 3, Piaget traced changes in waking-state schemes —changes in conscious cognitive structures. At the same time, by default, we may see that he traced additions to unconscious processing that are distinct from whether the child is awake or asleep. As cognitive development proceeds, more differentiated waking-state scheme organizations that prove to be successful shape what tends to be conscious, while the child is awake. The less differentiated, hence less successful scheme organizations, tend to be unconscious. For example in Stage 3, the striking while watching or listening and the watching or listening while striking is merely a kind of amalgam. There is no ordering of its components. In contrast, the waking-state schemes of Stage 4 are more ordered. For example, reaching directly for the toy when there is another object in the way is unsuccessful. To be successful, the child must strike the intervening object before attempting to retrieve the toy. The child must take into account a distinction between the scheme of the intervening object and the scheme of the toy. In Stage 4, striking, watching, and listening actions are no longer interchangeable, as they were in Stage 3. In Stage 5, when an object disappears under a screen, the child’s past success at retrieving the hidden object is no longer part of the object. In Stage 6, hallucinatory object schemes —that is, undifferentiated proto-percepts and proto-mental images —are organized out of conscious processing. Presumably these more primitive neuronal circuitry organizations are not eliminated. To some extent, they probably often continue to operate unconsciously, but are organized out of conscious processing.
I have proposed that the visual tracts, which are fully myelinated just before Stage 4, are exploited to culminate in Stage 6. The exploitation reorganizes out of ordinary consciousness the early, less differentiated Stage-4- and Stage-5-scheme organizations. The Stage-6 organization leaves available conscious mental images (as part of the self) and percepts of objects (including the self as an object).
This is a new scheme organization, pieces or wholes of which may be accessed and ordered in thinking and behaving. 49 However, because as yet we know of no organic basis for the transition from Stage-5 to Stage-6 processing, the constructed divisions of conscious schemes into mental images and percepts would not be locked-in by a change such as myelination, which generally solidifies downstream neuronal circuitry. Boundaries between mental images and percepts would still remain somewhat permeable. I will return to this in chapter 7, after I discuss myelination of the auditory tract.
My attempt to solve the mystery of consciousness is essentially a parceling-out of functions, with the waking state being a portion of certain schemes, in contrast to all the many functions that occur unconsciously —that is, mechanically —both awake and asleep. In equating initial consciousness with the waking state, governed by the activity of the RAS, I connect material givens with what we think of as nonmaterial processes —thinking as a phenomenon and thinking as an agent that can act on the material world.
Other Theorists’ Ideas About Self-Object Differentiation
While constructivists, particularly Piaget, have gone to considerable trouble to trace the development of self-object differentiation, other theorists propose that "self, objects and people…are differentiated from birth and even possibly in the womb" (Rochat, 2001, p. 27). Rochat argued that if the infant does not know inside from outside, he or she is subject to William James’s buzzing, booming confusion. That is, infants experience what we adults experience when we don’t know the inside from the outside. But as I explained, Piaget’s notion that the infant’s schemes are active —that is, selective at their level of organization —does not militate toward a state of confusion. It militates toward a kind of organization.
Stern (1985) proposed that, beginning at about 2 months, various forms of self emerge at different times. These forms of self then continue throughout one’s life. Stern focused primarily on the development of forms of social self. His proposal that these selves persist throughout life implies that one’s social self is never absolutely distinct from the selves of other social beings. This position is at odds with my contention that some persons have cognitive-motivational structures that are autonomous. I will discuss these persons in chapter 9.
Stern (1985) proposed that an innate "yoking" of patterns of activity that belong to the organism —for example, "the finger or fist, as seen or sucked" (p. 52), forms the emergent self at about 2 months. He proposed that the finger or fist as seen or sucked, since the activities center around the finger and fist, somehow form a unity, an emergent self. He proposed that the other —the nonself —emerges from the yoking of an already-integrated experience with unlearned visual and tactile sensations from the breast. Stern accorded a prominent role to the surges of affect, which he called vitality affects, that the "infant experiences…from within, as well as in the behavior of other persons" (p. 54). He acknowledged that self-object relationships are constructed to some extent. However, he held that the given internal coherence of the organism is the primary source of the self, and of the different forms of self.
To explain how the infant understands the object world, Stern cited the yoking of different sensory modalities. Some of the studies that he cited depended on habituation. For example, an infant’s heart rate will increase when the infant is exposed to repeated flashes of light. After prolonged exposure, the infant’s heart rate will return to normal. The infant has then habituated to the repeated flashes of light. These studies found that during the first few weeks of life, infants will cross-habituate to a particular temporal correspondence of visual and auditory patterns of activity. This holds true whether the correspondence is in duration or in rhythm (Allen, Walker, Symonds, & Marcell, 1977; Demany, McKensie, & Vurpillot, 1977; Humphrey, Tees, & Werker, 1979; Stern, 1985). For example, if a light is flashed at a certain frequency, the infant’s heart rate accelerates at first and after prolonged exposure, returns to normal. After the infant’s heart rate returns to normal, if a sound is made at the same frequency as the light flashes to which the infant habituated, the infant’s heart rate remains normal. The habituation is to rhythm, not to the sensory domain. Stern cited other examples of the yoking of different sensory modalities. A blindfolded 3-week-old was provided with a nubby nipple on her bottle. When the blindfold was removed, she stared longer at a nubby nipple than at a smooth nipple (Meltzoff & Borton, 1979). In this case, the irregularity of proprioception and touch configuration of nubbiness in the infant’s mouth was yoked to an irregular visual pattern when the infant looked at the nubby nipple. Other examples cited by Stern was a newborn’s tendency to imitate the mouth and tongue movements of an investigator (Meltzoff & Moore, 1977), and a newborn’s tendency to track a facial configuration (Johnson, 1998).
Stern proposed that prewired responses to a sensory pattern (to rhythm, to nubbiness, or to a facial configuration) indicated that the child somehow uses the yoking of different sensory systems to recognize that the outside world is outside —that it is nonself.
These examples of pattern-prewiring of different sensory systems in the infant can be interpreted in a different way. They can be seen as additional evidence of the undifferentiated state of an infant’s psyche. Different entry ports —for example, vision and proprioception —as well as exit ports —that is, the motor systems —are all interconnected in the newborn. In the examples noted above, the visual system is pattern-prewired to the auditory system when a light is flashed. The visual system is also pattern-prewired to the proprioception and to the motor systems in the examples of staring at a nubby nipple, of imitating an investigator’s sticking out his tongue, and of tracking a facial configuration.
Consider these last three examples. The feeling of nubbiness, the sticking out of one’s tongue, and the moving of one’s head and eyes are largely understood by adults as belonging to self. In the infant, they are yoked to seeing a nubby nipple, an investigator’s tongue sticking out, and a movement of a face, respectively. Seeing a nubby nipple, an investigator’s tongue sticking out, and a movement of a face are understood by adults as largely belonging to outside the self. These examples of yoking cut across an adult’s understanding of self and object. The yoking in the newborn suggests undifferentiation of inside and outside —undifferentiation of self and object.
It should also be noted that the imitation of mouth movements fades, 50 and the following of a facial configuration with the head and eyes disappears about the time that the grasping reflex disappears (Johnson, 1998). As noted in chapter 4, Johnson also found that anencephalics follow a facial configuration. How much these early, primitive sensory and motor relationships contribute to distinctions between self and object in normal development is unknown.
Rochat (2001) agreed with Stern that the yoking of visual and auditory patterns forms an early outside world for the infant. "Infants perceive a unified world across modalities. " Rochat also agreed with Stern’s proposal that the self is manifest very early —the evidence being the yoking of behaviors that belong to the self. As I noted in chapter 4, Rochat interpreted the behavior of the 2- to 3-month-old child who repeatedly watches his hands and feet and shakes his head, and appears to have such a good time doing so, as evidence of an emerging self.
Clearly, to the outside observer, this behavior and its scheme belong more to the infant’s self than they do to the outside world. Perhaps, some of the very early schemes that are reflected in such coherent behavior continue as content of the self scheme. Rochat ascribed volition to such behavior. Rochat also reported that a 2-month-old may be entranced by the moving shadow of a curtain on a wall. Clearly, to the outside observer, this response to the shadow belongs to outside the self. Perhaps, some of that kind of experience continues as content of the child’s object schemes.
However, I interpret Rochat’s observations as evidence that the infant’s consciousness is better defined at 2 or 3 months than it was earlier. 51 Unlike Rochat, I do not interpret the infant’s watching her hands and feet, and having such a good time doing so, as evidence of volition. It is true that there is a difference between watching one’s hands and feet move and being entranced by the movement of a curtain. But whether the infant recognizes that the one belongs to the self and the other to the outside is another matter. Does the infant know who owns the hands and feet that are moving? Does she know whose tongue is protruding? Does she know that lights and sounds that go on and off at the same frequency belong to the outside world? These responses are not evidence of the kind of fundamental distinction between self and object that begins to appear in Stage 4 and that becomes much more definitive in Stage 6.
Rochat objected to Piaget’s proposal that the infant has separate spaces —a scheme centering around sucking, a scheme centering around grasping, and so on —that are not united until later. I agree that this was an inconsistency on Piaget’s part. If the initial schemes are global and undifferentiated, as Piaget proposed, then they do not have to be united later. A basic part of the argument in chapter 4 depended upon the early scheme’s extreme degree of undifferentiation. Sometimes, however, they are somewhat separate. For example, at first, the hand must be in the same visual field as the toy before the infant will reach for the toy. In this instance, the reaching scheme must be coordinated with the grasping scheme before the infant will reach for a toy that he sees. As I described in chapter 1, the schemes are generally undifferentiated and global, as they assimilate aliment from different sensory modalities and from motor control.
Rochat (2001) reported that he and Hesbos found that when a newborn’s hand touched her cheek, the newborn did not root as often as she did when a foreign object touched her cheek. This behavior could indicate a distinction between self and outside. The behavior also suggests that the newborn in this experiment is object - or outside - seeking.
Much like Rochat, Damasio (1999) suggested that the self takes form from emotions and proprioception. Certainly both emotions and proprioception belong to the self —to the inside, and not to the outside. By definition, an organism (even a one-celled structure) is differentiated from the outside. Whether the organism knows that its self is different from the outside, or that the outside is different from its self, is another matter. When the 2-month-old hears or sees something, does he know that the sound or light comes from outside? When he watches his feet and hands and experiences the movement of his joints and muscles, does he know that seeing belongs to the outside and proprioception belongs to the inside? When he experiences joy as he watches his hands and feet move, and anger when his head is restrained, does he know that joy and anger belong to the inside —that is, to a self —as distinct from the outside?
As it is difficult to imagine what consciousness might be without a concept of unconsciousness, so it is difficult to imagine what a self might be without a concept of another object. Accordingly, at any point where the child differentiates objects, he is on the road to differentiating the self. Much of Piaget’s entire enterprise may be seen as charting the differentiation of constructs of the object world —and hence as contributing to the differentiation of the constructs of the self. So, in some measure, any differentiation of the newborn’s state —a state, in which the sucking scheme is both the object being sucked and the self doing the sucking —could be seen as a differentiation of the self. This is, of course, not what Stern, Rochat, or Damasio mean. But if one wishes, one could view the differentiation of self from object as beginning before or shortly after birth, depending on what one means by a distinction between self and object.
I propose that beginning in Stage 3, conscious cognitive-emotional schemes are relatively distinct from unconscious cognitive-emotional schemes. I propose that in Stage 4, the conscious cognitive-emotional scheme for self begins to become significantly more distinct from the conscious cognitive-emotional schemes for other objects, and that the distinctions become still more definitive in Stage 6. These distinctions, however, remain incomplete even during the later stages of cognitive development and may not be entirely complete in normal adults. Indeed as I explain in chapter 9, in the social domain particularly, differentiation of self from other objects or external events remains incomplete in most adults .
Piaget’s later stages of cognitive development are described in chapter 6. In the course of describing these later stages I will suggest that a major cognitive reorganization begins earlier than proposed by Piaget. The description of the later stages of cognitive development will prepare the reader for chapter 7, where I attribute a role in cognitive change to complete myelination of the auditory tracts, and for chapter 9, where I address Ahern’s and my theory of character formation.
47 The child’s imitation of the opening and closing of a box by opening and closing her mouth is an example of cross-modal patterned wiring of different sensory and motor systems. The seeing-the-opening-and-closing (of a box) pattern is wired to the neuromuscular opening-and-closing (of the mouth) pattern. As will be evident toward the end of this chapter, observation of cross-modal patterned wiring is not rare. One example is Piaget’s observation that when he winked at his child, she closed and opened her hand.
48 Piaget emphasized that schemes are active in two ways. First, Piaget’s observations of the newborn’s looking behavior led him to conclude that, like sucking and grasping, the visual system appears to seek —that the newborn has a reflexlike need to look. Recall that Piaget reported that from the first week, his son’s expression changed when he saw luminous objects, and that he sought them as soon as they moved, though he was unable to follow them. Second, at times Piaget used the term to act on an object with the eyes. This term conveys not only the active quality of the looking scheme, but also the idea that looking includes motor control of the muscles that move the eyes and the head and neck, along with proprioceptive monitoring. From the beginning action —motor control of behavior —is an intrinsic part of the scheme. Piaget’s emphasis on the action aspect of early schemes has sometimes misled readers into thinking that the schemes are activations of the muscles, rather than activations of the brain, an intrinsic part of which activation is proprioceptive and motor control activation.
49 Block distinguishes four types of consciousness (Clement & Malerstein, 2003). Phenomenal consciousness refers to the experiential properties —the qualia or the what-it-is-like of a conscious state. Access consciousness refers to a state in which a representation is (a) poised for use as a premise of reasoning, (b) poised for rational control of action, and (c) poised for rational control of speech. Self consciousness refers to the possession of the concept of the self and the ability to use it in thinking about oneself. Finally, monitoring consciousness refers to reflecting about one’s own thinking.
By Stage 6, the first three types of consciousness are in place, although none of the three is fully formed. The child experiences these types of consciousness. But the child probably does not understand the distinctions between phenomenal, access, and self consciousness until monitoring consciousness is in place. I propose the following: Phenomenal consciousness is first manifest at about 6 weeks, when conscious schemes are distinct from unconscious schemes. Access consciousness is clearly manifest in Stage 4, when the child knocks an intervening object out of the way and when he searches for a toy under a screen. Self consciousness is first clearly manifest in Stage 6, when the child searches under a series of screens, uses personal pronouns, and distinguishes mental images from percepts, although some notion of consciousness of self is manifest in Stage 4, when intentional behavior is manifest. Monitoring consciousness apparently begins at about Age 4, as measured by Perner’s (1991) "The False Belief Test. " This test is discussed in chapter 6, Footnote 53.
50 Maratos first observed her young infant imitate another person sticking out her tongue when the infant was lying on the floor of Inhelder’s apartment. (Inhelder was Piaget’s long-time associate.) (Inhelder, conversation with author, November, 1985).
51 While watching her own hands and feet, or a curtain, occurs a bit before Stage 3, it takes place after 6 weeks, and it obviously takes place while the infant is awake. It is therefore consistent with my idea that conscious schemes have become somewhat more distinct from unconscious schemes by 6 weeks.
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