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Aesthetic Incunabula

2001; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 25; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/phl.2001.0026

1086-329X

Ellen Dissanayake,

Themes in Literature Analysis

Over the past thirty years, developmental psychologists have discovered remarkable cognitive abilities in young infants. Before these investigations, common pediatric wisdom accepted that apart from a few innate "reflexes"--for crying, suckling, clinging, startling--babies were pretty much tabulae rasae for their elders to inscribe as they (and their cultures) decreed. Today, however, it is well established that newborns come into the world with decided preferences and motivations, so that one can speak intelligently of "neonatal" (or even "fetal") psychology. 1