Thinking Developmentally From Constructivism To Neuroconstructivism Selected Works of Annette Karmiloff Smith Annette Karmiloff-Smith

Thinking Developmentally from
Constructivism to Neuroconstructivism
Selected Works of Annette Karmiloff
Smith Annette Karmiloff-Smith
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Thinking Developmentally from
Constructivism to Neuroconstructivism
In the World Library of Psychologists series, international experts present

career-long collections of what they judge to be their finest pieces – extracts
from books, key articles, salient research findings, and their major practical
theoretical contributions.
This influential volume of papers, chosen by Professor Annette Karmiloff-
Smith before she passed away, recognises her major contribution to the field of
developmental psychology. Published over a 40-year period, the papers included
here address the major themes that permeate through Annette’s work: from typi-
cal to atypical development, genetics and computation modelling approaches, and
neuroimaging of the developing brain. A newly written introduction by Michael
S. C. Thomas and Mark H. Johnson gives an overview of her research journey and
contextualises her selection of papers in relation to changes in the field over time.
Thinking Developmentally from Constructivism to Neuroconstructivism:
Selected Works of Annette Karmiloff-Smith is of great interest to researchers and
postgraduates in child development specialising in atypical development, devel-
opmental disorders, and developmental neuroscience. It also has appeal to clinical
neuropsychologists and rehabilitation professionals.
Annette Karmiloff-Smith was a world leading researcher in the field of develop-

mental neuroscience. She worked with Jean Piaget, and held positions at the Max
Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen, followed by the MRC Cognitive
Development Unit in London, the UCL Institute of Child Health, and the Centre
for Brain & Cognitive Development, at Birkbeck, University of London.
Michael S. C. Thomas, Developmental Neurocognition Lab, Centre for Brain

and Cognitive Development, Department of Psychological Sciences, Birkbeck,
University of London.
Mark H. Johnson, Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, and

Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development, Birkbeck, University of London.
World Library of Psychologists
The World Library of Psychologists series celebrates the important contributions

to psychology made by leading experts in their individual fields of study. Each
scholar has compiled a career-long collection of what they consider to be their fin-
est pieces: extracts from books, journals, articles, major theoretical and practical
contributions, and salient research findings.
For the first time ever the work of each contributor is presented in a single vol-
ume so readers can follow the themes and progress of their work and identify the
contributions made to, and the development of, the fields themselves.
Each book in the series features a specially written introduction by the contrib-
utor giving an overview of their career, contextualizing their selection within the
development of the field, and showing how their thinking developed over time.
From Obscurity to Clarity in Psychometric Testing

Selected Works of Professor Peter Saville
Professor Peter Saville, with Tom Hopton
Discovering the Social Mind

Selected Works of Christopher D. Frith
Christopher D. Frith
Towards a Deeper Understanding of Consciousness

Selected Works of Max Velmans
Max Velmans
Thinking Developmentally from Constructivism to Neuroconstructivism

Selected Works of Annette Karmiloff-Smith
Edited by Annette Karmiloff-Smith, Michael S. C. Thomas, Mark H. Johnson
Acquired Language Disorders in Adulthood and Childhood

Selected Works of Elaine Funnell
Edited by Nicola Pitchford, Andrew W Ellis
Exploring Working Memory

Selected Works of Alan Baddeley
Alan Baddeley
Thinking Developmentally
from Constructivism to
Neuroconstructivism
Selected Works of Annette
Karmiloff-Smith
Edited by Annette Karmiloff-Smith,

Michael S. C. Thomas and
Mark H. Johnson
First published 2018
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
 2018 selection, Annette Karmiloff-Smith; introductory chapter, Michael
S. C. Thomas and Mark H. Johnson
The right of Annette Karmiloff-Smith to be identified as author of the
editorial material and of Michael S. C. Thomas and Mark H. Johnson
as authors of the introductory chapter to this work has been asserted by
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ISBN: 978-1-138-69947-2 (hbk)

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Typeset in Times New Roman

by Swales & Willis Ltd, Exeter, Devon, UK
Contents
Acknowledgements viii
Introduction: Karmiloff-Smith from Piaget to

neuroconstructivism – a history of ideas 1
MICHAEL S. C. THOMAS AND MARK H. JOHNSON
PART I
From implicit to explicit knowledge: typical development 21
1 “If you want to get ahead, get a theory” (1975) 23

ANNETTE KARMILOFF-SMITH AND BÄRBEL INHELDER
2 Constraints on representational change: evidence

from children's drawing (1990) 40
ANNETTE KARMILOFF-SMITH
3 Précis of Beyond modularity: A developmental perspective

on cognitive science (1994) 64
PART II
From typical to atypical development 95
4 Development itself is the key to understanding

developmental disorders (1998) 97
5 Dethroning the myth: cognitive dissociations and innate

modularity in Williams syndrome (2003) 118
ANNETTE KARMILOFF-SMITH, JANICE H. BROWN, SARAH GRICE,
AND SARAH PATERSON
vi Contents
6 Exploring the Williams syndrome face-processing
debate: the importance of building developmental
trajectories (2004) 132
ANNETTE KARMILOFF-SMITH, MICHAEL THOMAS, DAGMARA
ANNAZ, KATE HUMPHREYS, SANDRA EWING, NICOLA BRACE, MIKE VAN
DUUREN, GRAHAM PIKE, SARAH GRICE, AND RUTH CAMPBELL
PART III
Genetics and computational modelling approaches 161
7 Different approaches to relating genotype to phenotype in

developmental disorders (2002) 163
ANNETTE KARMILOFF-SMITH, GAIA SCERIF, AND MICHAEL THOMAS
8 Using case study comparisons to explore

genotype-phenotype correlations in Williams-Beuren
syndrome (2003) 182
ANNETTE KARMILOFF-SMITH, JULIA GRANT, SANDRA EWING,
MARTIN J. CARETTE, KAY METCALFE, DIAN DONNAI,
ANDREW P. READ, AND MAY TASSABEHJI
9 Mechanisms of developmental regression in autism

and the broader phenotype: a neural network modeling
approach (2011) 192
MICHAEL S. C. THOMAS, VICTORIA C. P. KNOWLAND, AND
PART IV
Taking the brain seriously 229
10 Neuroimaging of the developing brain: taking

“developing” seriously (2010) 231
PART V
Taking the environment seriously 245
11 Genetic and environmental vulnerabilities in children

with neurodevelopmental disorders (2012) 247
ANNETTE KARMILOFF-SMITH, DEAN D’SOUZA, TESSA M. DEKKER,
JO VAN HERWEGEN, FEI XU, MAJA RODIC, AND DANIEL ANSARI
Contents vii
PART VI
And, always, taking development seriously 259
12 Ontogeny, genetics, and evolution: a perspective from

developmental cognitive neuroscience (2006) 261
13 Nativism versus neuroconstructivism: rethinking the

study of developmental disorders (2009) 273
14 An alternative to domain-general or domain-specific

frameworks for theorizing about human evolution and
ontogenesis (2015) 289
Index 305
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1, “If you want to get ahead, get a theory” by Karmiloff-Smith, A. &
Inhelder, B. in Cognition, 3(3), 195–212 (1975), reprinted by permission of
Elsevier.
Chapter 2, “Constraints on representational change: evidence from children’s

drawing” by Karmiloff-Smith, A. in Cognition, 34, 1–27 (1990), reprinted by
permission of Elsevier.
Chapter 3, “Précis of Beyond modularity: A developmental perspective on cogni-

tive science” by Karmiloff-Smith, A. in Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 17(4),
693–706 (1994), reprinted by permission of Cambridge University Press.
Chapter 4, “Development itself is the key to understanding developmental dis-

orders” by Karmiloff-Smith, A. in Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 2(10), 389–398
(1998), reprinted by permission of Elsevier.
Chapter 5, “Dethroning the myth: cognitive dissociations and innate modularity in

Williams syndrome” by Karmiloff-Smith, A., Brown, J. H., Grice, S., & Paterson,
S. in Developmental Neuropsychology, 23(1&2), 229–244 (2003), reprinted by
permission of Taylor and Francis.
Chapter 6, “Exploring the Williams syndrome face-processing debate: the impor-

tance of building developmental trajectories” by Karmiloff-Smith, A., Thomas,
M., Annaz, D., Humphreys, K., Ewing, S., Brace, N., van Duuren, M., Pike, G.,
Grice, S., & Campbell, R. in Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 45(7),
1258–1274 (2004), reprinted by permission of Wiley.
Chapter 7, “Different approaches to relating genotype to phenotype in developmental

disorders” by Karmiloff-Smith, A., Scerif, G., & Thomas, M. S. C. in Developmental
Psychobiology, 40, 311–322 (2002), reprinted by permission of Wiley.
Chapter 8, “Using case study comparisons to explore genotype-phenotype correla-

tions in Williams-Beuren syndrome” by Karmiloff-Smith, A., Grant, J., Ewing, S.,
Carette, M. J., Metcalfe, K., Donnai, D., Read, A. P., & Tassabehji, M. Journal of
Medical Genetics, 40(2), 136–140 (2003), reprinted by permission of BMJ Journals.
Acknowledgements ix
Chapter 9, “Mechanisms of developmental regression in autism and the broader
phenotype: a neural modeling approach” by Karmiloff-Smith, A., Thomas, M.
S. C., & Knowland, V. C. P. in Psychology Review, 118(4), 637–654 (2011),
reprinted by permission of PsychNet.
Chapter 10, “Neuroimaging of the developing brain: taking ‘developing’ seri-

ously” by Karmiloff-Smith, A. in Human Brain Mapping, 31(6), 934–941 (2010),
reprinted by permission of Wiley.
Chapter 11, “Genetic and environmental vulnerabilities in children with neurode-

velopmental disorders” by Karmiloff-Smith, A., D’Souza, D., Dekker, T. M., Van
Herwegen, J., Xu, F., Rodic, M., & Ansari, D. in PNAS, 109(2), 17261–17265
(2012), reprinted by permission of the authors.
Chapter 12, “Ontogeny, genetics and evolution: a perspective from developmen-

tal cognitive neuroscience” by Karmiloff-Smith, A. in Biological Theory, 1(1),
44–51 (2006), reprinted by permission of Springer.
Chapter 13, “Nativism versus neuroconstructivism: rethinking the study of devel-

opmental disorders” by Karmiloff-Smith, A. in Special Issue on the Interplay
of Biology and Environment, Developmental Psychology, 45(1), 56–63 (2009),
reprinted by permission of PsychNet.
Chapter 14, “An alternative to domain-general or domain-specific frameworks

for theorizing about human evolution and ontogenesis” by Karmiloff-Smith, A. in
AIMS Neuroscience, 2(2), 91–104 (2015), doi:10.3934/Neuroscience.2015.2.91.
Originally published Open Access under the Creative Commons Attribution
License.
Q Taylor & Francis
Taylor & Francis Group
� http://taylorandfrancis.com
Introduction: Karmiloff-Smith from
Piaget to neuroconstructivism
A history of ideas
Michael S. C. Thomas and Mark H. Johnson
Introduction
Annette Karmiloff-Smith was a seminal thinker in the field of child develop-
ment in a career spanning more than 45 years. She was the recipient of many
awards, including the European Science Foundation Latsis Prize for Cognitive
Sciences (the first woman to be awarded this prize), Fellowships of the British
Academy, the Cognitive Science Society, the Academy of Medical Sciences, and
the Royal Society of Arts, as well as honorary doctorates from universities across
the world. She was awarded a CBE for services to cognitive development in the
2004 Queen’s Birthday Honours list. Annette passed away in December 2016,
but she had already selected a set of papers that charted the evolution of her ideas,
which are collected in this volume.
At the time of her death, Annette was engaged in an innovative research project
studying development and ageing in Down syndrome (DS) as a model to study
the causes of Alzheimer’s disease. This multidisciplinary project, advanced by the
LonDownS consortium, brought together experts in cognitive development, psy-
chiatry, brain imaging, genetics, cellular biology, and mouse modelling. Annette’s
focus in this project was to explore early development in infants and toddlers with
DS. How could this inform Alzheimer’s disease? The logic is a mark of Annette’s
brilliant theoretical insight. One of the genes implicated in Alzheimer’s disease (the
amyloid precursor protein or APP gene) is on chromosome 21. DS is caused by a
genetic mutation where there is an extra copy of chromosome 21, and therefore of
the APP gene. With extra APP production, the incidence of dementia in DS is much
elevated. By age 40, nearly all adults with DS show evidence of protein build-up
in their brains, the so-called plaques and tangles associated with Alzheimer’s. Yet,
notably, not all adults with DS go on to show the cognitive decline associated with
dementia. This suggests that there are resilience factors in some individuals with DS
which mean their cognitive functioning is resistant to the protein build-up. Annette
speculated that these resilience factors should be visible in the early developmental
profiles of infants and toddlers with DS, both in the emergence of their memory
abilities and in functional brain activations. To understand dementia in DS, there-
fore, Annette argued for the importance of taking a developmental perspective.
This multidisciplinary project, rooted in developmental cognitive neuroscience,
was far removed from Annette’s early work in the laboratory of the renowned
2 Introduction
developmental psychologist, Jean Piaget. This volume charts Annette’s physical
journey, from Geneva, to Nijmegen, London, San Diego, and back to London. And
it charts the journey of her ideas, from Piaget, to a reconciliation of nativist and con-
structivist theories of development in her ground-breaking book, Beyond Modularity;
to her extension from typical to atypical development, her gradual move to a multi-
disciplinary investigation of the mind; and her continued focus on understanding the
process of development, rather than treating it as a set of static snapshots.
Let us start in a bookshop in Geneva in 1969. At that time, Annette was work-
ing as a simultaneous interpreter for the United Nations. In her own words:
I was bored, because I was always repeating other people’s thoughts and not
allowed, as an interpreter, to have any of my own. So I decided to go back
to university. I originally thought of medicine, particularly child psychiatry.
I was therefore often in the university bookshop looking at books under “P”
for Psychiatry. Naturally, I also noticed those by Piaget on Psychology. Well,
one day he walked into the bookshop (I recognized him from photos on his
books), picked up a book he had ordered and then crossed to the University
building. I followed him and audited his class. I was utterly amazed. Un cou
de foudre! [A thunderbolt!] Psychology turned out to be much more than
measuring reaction times. For Piaget, it included epistemology, logic, philo
sophy of mind, and philosophy of science. I was hooked, signed up that
autumn and did my degree (Licence) in psychology at Geneva University. It
was there I developed my absolute passion for research.
(Borovsky, 2005, p. 1)
Jean Piaget was a founding figure of developmental psychology, and his theo-
ries dominated the field during most of the 20th century. Throughout her career,
Annette’s work was deeply influenced by Piagetian thinking in several ways. Like
Piaget, she believed that the key to development was to understand the mechanisms
that underlie the trajectory of changes across developmental time and which give
rise to increasing complexity in behaviour. As we will see, she modernised this view
by helping to establish the ‘neuroconstructivist’ approach to human development.
Also, like Piaget, Annette believed that the study of development is inherently an
interdisciplinary topic requiring input from many disciplines including philosophy,
linguistics, genetics, and cognitive and developmental neuroscience – all fields to
which she contributed. Finally, like Piaget she believed in the scientific value of
observation (as a key supplement to experiments); one of her early contributions
was to pioneer a radically different research strategy for understanding develop-
ment, the so-called ‘microgenetic’ approach.
Part I: From implicit to explicit knowledge: typical

development
Annette completed her PhD at Geneva University in Piaget’s laboratory, under
the supervision of Bärbel Inhelder and Hermine Sinclair De Zwart. Her thesis was
Introduction 3
published in 1979 under the title “A functional approach to child language”. After
her thesis defence, Annette was recruited by Bärbel Inhelder to participate in a
research program on the cognitive strategies used by children to move from one
stage of cognitive development to the next.
At the end of the first paper in this volume, “If you want to get ahead, get a
theory”, published with Inhelder, there is a list of projects in progress in Piaget’s
laboratory. It gives an indication of the research emphasis and methods at that
time. Among the studies are: building bridges with materials of varying physical
properties; balancing blocks of varying physical properties; constructing instru-
ments to move objects; controlling water levels by immersion of combinations of
objects with varying properties; spontaneous exploratory activities in observed
play with Russian Matriona dolls; and modifying the order of locomotives and
carriages in a closed circuit. Development was being studied in terms of gaining
an understanding of physical systems, operations, and transformations.
In this first paper, Annette reports research carried out on children of differ-
ent ages as they work with a balance beam. In the balance beam task, children
are given blocks of wood and asked to balance them on a thin metal bar. Some
of the blocks are heavier at one end than the other, either because their shapes
are asymmetric or because weights are hidden inside. The first intuition is to
balance the beams in the middle. But of course, some of them need an off-
set because of the uneven weight distribution. Annette watched as children
figured out the problem, testing children of three different ages: 4–5-year-olds,
6–7-year-olds, and 8–9-year-olds. The key methodological innovation of this
paper was not just to focus on macro-development – change across age – but
also micro-development, “children’s spontaneous organizing activity in goal-
oriented tasks with relatively little intervention from the experimenter [where]
the focus is not on success or failure per se but on the interplay between action
sequences and children’s theories-in-action” as they explore and figure out how
the balance beam task works (p. 23, this volume).
Four- and five-year-olds could solve the balance beam task using propriocep-
tive information, that is, by feel. The children move the block over the metal bar,
releasing and catching it until eventually when they release it, the beam balances. In
other words, 4–5-year-olds could eventually achieve mastery of the task. However,
6–7-year-olds in some respects performed more poorly. These children came to the
task with a theory, a belief that objects should balance at their geometric centre.
They would continually start by trying to balance beams in the middle, causing
them to make more errors than the younger children. By contrast, 8–9-year-olds
were more sophisticated, pausing first to weigh up the options (so to speak), and
sometimes explicitly verbalising: “you have to be careful, sometimes it’s just as
heavy on each side, sometimes it’s heavier on one side”. While these children also
had a theory, they could talk about the theory and extend it flexibly.
The key theoretical insight Annette gained from this study was that in develop-
ment, behavioural mastery of a task is not enough. Children need to move beyond
this to form a deeper understanding, and sometimes, in doing so, will get worse at
the task. When a sophisticated theory is in place, accuracy will return, and with it,
4 Introduction
both an ability to extend knowledge to new situations and verbalise it. Annette made
links between this pattern of ‘U-shaped’ learning and a similar pattern observed
in children’s learning of inflectional morphology in language. For example, when
learning the past tense of English verbs, children first learn to produce a small num-
ber of high frequency past tenses correctly, including irregular verbs (e.g., thought);
later, irregular verbs are then sometimes inflected erroneously (e.g., thinked); before
finally all past tenses are produced accurately. Analogously, children implicitly
seek a more general principle that moves beyond initial mastery of a small number
of verbs. The principle is the regular past tense rule, which is then inappropriately
applied to irregulars. The children finally adjust the scope of the rule to exclude
irregular verbs. This parallel between physical systems and language acquisition
gave the first hint that Annette was striving for a more general theory of develop-
mental change, as the paper concludes: “leading us closer to the general processes
underlying cognitive and linguistic behaviour” (p. 37, this volume).
Annette left Geneva to take up the position of Visiting Scientist at the Max
Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen (1981–1982). Before we con-
sider the next step her research took, we might reflect for a moment on Annette’s
relationship with Jean Piaget. Piagetian theory was a launching point, and in
Beyond Modularity, Annette would later seek to identify which parts of the theory
should be taken forward and which let go. In Annette’s own words:
I spent some 13 years immersed in Piagetian theory at Geneva University,

first as a student and then as a research collaborator. During that time, the
home-grown Piagetians always considered me a heretic, both personally
and theoretically. I refused to address Piaget as Patron, meaning “Boss”,
as he expected everyone in his department to do; I dared to put in writing
that Piaget had underestimated the role of language in cognitive develop-
ment; and, worse, I argued that sensorimotor development alone could never
explain how language acquisition initially got off the ground – that there had
to be some innate component, even if more general processes might operate.
(Preface to Beyond Modularity)
It is perhaps unfortunate that at the time Annette was in Geneva the Piagetian
School was under attack from a number of prominent ‘anti-Piagetians’, who
demonstrated apparently precocious infant and toddler abilities before Piagetian
stage theory had predicted. These attacks led to a closing of ranks within Geneva
around defending a precise and literal interpretation of Piaget’s statements. As
a student of Piaget who questioned aspects of the theory, it was inevitable that
conflict with her mentors would arise. Her filed correspondence reveals angry
exchanges over a mysteriously withdrawn conference abstract on the limits of
the Piagetian account of language acquisition, a position that she later articulated
in the book based on her PhD thesis – “A functional approach to child language”
(Cambridge University Press, 1979). The quote above alludes to these troubled
years, and her uncomfortable position straddling between the Piagetian School
and its critics. Happily, over more recent years as Piaget’s contribution to the field
Introduction 5
is seen more as foundational, rather than literal gospel, Karmiloff-Smith was wel-
comed back to Geneva and her visits increased. It is unfortunate that her terminal
illness prevented her delivering a lecture at a major tribute conference to Piaget
in the summer of 2016. Her correspondence and working notes from the Geneva
period are now lodged with the Piaget Archives.
When Annette left Geneva, there was perhaps an opportunity missed. As
Jean-Paul Bronckart from the University of Geneva recently wrote:
During her Geneva period, Annette was distinguished by her intelligence and
by a theoretical requirement that sometimes led her to take positions different
from those of her thesis director, and even from “le patron” (Piaget) she nev-
ertheless venerated. Appreciated by a few, Annette’s liberty was only moder-
ately pleasing to the Piagetian “guardians of the temple” … Annette gradually
took her distance from Geneva and, with her departure for Nijmegen, began
the long and rich scientific journey that was to make her famous. Had she
succeeded Inhelder, she would no doubt have been able to ensure a genuine
critical continuity to the Piagetian project, now almost abandoned.
(Bronckart, 2017)
At the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen, Annette focused

on language acquisition, collecting data that were subsequently published in a
1986 paper entitled “From meta-process to conscious access: Evidence from chil-
dren’s metalinguistic and repair data” (Karmiloff-Smith, 1986). This paper gave
a much fuller exposition of Annette’s theoretical ideas. The research considered
French-speaking children’s gradual construction of a system of nominal markers,
including definite and indefinite articles and possessive adjectives (in English:
the, a, my, her). In French, these markers must agree with the grammatical gender
and number of the noun to which they refer. While focused on language acquisi-
tion, the theoretical goals of her work were much wider, and the beginning of the
paper lays out a more fully formed model of what happens when children proceed
beyond behavioural mastery, including introduction of the key theoretical idea of
representational redescription (RR).
The empirical data driving these ideas revolved around a developmental asyn-
chrony in three types of behaviour – that is, behaviours that emerged at different
ages. Children were presented with situations to elicit language using articles and
possessives. Annette would then ask the children why they chose the words they
did. The first emerging pattern of behaviour was increasingly levels of accuracy:
between 4 and 5 years, children were starting to produce the correct linguistic
form. However, later emerging was the phenomenon of self-repair: children
would sometimes start to output a certain linguistic form and then stop and correct
themselves, as if they were monitoring their own output and had spotted an error.
Still later emerging was the demonstration of meta-linguistic awareness, where
the child was able to verbalise why they chose the linguistic form they did (e.g., a
child of 8 years 4 months says: “I said the book because all the other things aren’t
books, there’s just one”; Karmiloff-Smith, 1986, p. 123).
6 Introduction
The developmental asynchrony between these three types of behaviour, where
behavioural mastery is only the first, led Annette to think in much more detail
about what might be happening at a representational level. The paper argues for
a “recurrent 3-phase model, which stresses the distinction between implicitly
defined representations and progressive representational explicitation at several
levels of processing, culminating in the possibility of conscious access” (p. 95).
Behavioural mastery could be achieved by implicit representations, but some
intrinsic process would continue to recode this knowledge, making it more gen-
eral and more flexible, taking knowledge that was in the system and making it
available to the system. This was the proposed process of RR. The two types
of behaviour Annette observed beyond mastery, self-repair followed by explicit,
verbalisable meta-linguistic knowledge, suggested to her that the process was
iterative and involved several levels, listing in the paper at least four: Implicit (I),
Primary explicitation (E-i), Secondary explicitation (E-ii), and Tertiary explicita-
tion (E-iii), with knowledge in each case more general and more flexible.
As Tomasello and Rochat (1994, p. 38) comment, this proposal marks a diver-
gence from Piagetian theory:
cognitive changes in terms of redescription occur when a stable state is

achieved, this stability being viewed as necessary for the RR process to
occur. This position is in sharp contrast to views that emphasize conflicts
and contradictions as major sources of progress in development (i.e., Piaget’s
model of equilibration).
Two points are notable in the 1986 paper. First, Annette appears to endorse
Fodor’s idea that there might be at least some innate ‘modules’: specialised, self-
contained cognitive processing devices dedicated to specific cognitive domains
(Fodor, 1983). But she proposes for the first time that such innate modules might
also be complemented by another sort of module, those that arise as product of
development.
Second, the terminology of this paper makes it evident that Annette is striving
for a notion of mechanism. Here she appeals to the information processing ter-
minology of the time, in terms of symbolic computer programs. There are terms
like scanning, recoding, control, closed feedback loops; information is stored,
indexed, accessed, restructured; there are procedures and routines. Sometimes
this leads to rather painful exposition:
It thus follows from the model that unconscious metaprocedural processes

could operate on the representations of conscious inter-domain metacogni-
tion, thereby defining in E-i form new connections which remained implicitly
defined for as long as the representations were in different codes.
(Karmiloff-Smith, 1986, p. 143)
Annette would ultimately give up on the specific model of RR articulated in this

paper, with its particular set of phases and levels, and become more interested in
Introduction 7
computational approaches constrained by the properties of the neural substrate
(e.g., connectionism). As we shall see, there was little further discussion of RR
in the middle part of her career, until it re-emerges in the final paper included in
this volume.
The second paper in the volume is also addressed to RR, but now in the domain
of children’s drawing: “Constraints on representational change: Evidence from
children’s drawing”. The goal of the study was to hone in further on how repre-
sentations change during the iterative process of RR. Imagine a child has mastered
a motor program for drawing a human, or a house, or an animal (however rudi-
mentary). Under the RR scheme, the initial representation is inflexible and only
allows for the sequential execution of the program. Annette asked children in two
age groups, 4–6 and 8–10 years, to produce such drawings. But crucially, she
then asked them also to draw a human, house, or animal ‘that does not exist’. By
definition, the pictures should now be novel. She then examined what the children
altered to make their pictures novel.
In the 4–6-year-olds, the novel picture was always drawn in the same
sequence; merely the size or shape of the elements was altered (e.g., a human
might have a larger head, or a square head). In the 8–10-year-olds, however,
both the position and orientation of elements could be altered, and children
could add elements from other conceptual categories (e.g., they might draw a
human with two heads, or a half human half four-legged animal). Construed as
RR, 4–6-year-olds had carried out a redescription of ‘drawing a human’ that
gave some flexibility, but the program was still constrained by the list of ele-
ments and their order. The further redescription of the older children released
those constraints and additionally allowed links across categories, or as the
paper describes it, ‘inter-representational flexibility’.
Perhaps the young children were simply less inventive? In a fascinating sec-
ond experiment, Annette recruited another group of 4–6-year-old children, and
specifically asked them to draw a human with two heads. If, at this age, their
motor program had not been re-represented sufficiently to allow flexibility over
the elements of drawing a human, this challenge should have been beyond them.
Annette continues:
As the first young subject began to draw a second head, I was reminded
of T. E. Huxley’s lament: “the great tragedy of science; the slaying of a
beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact”! However the first subject, and all but
one of the seven others tested, then went on laboriously and very slowly to
draw two bodies, two arms and legs on each body, etc.; that is, they used
a complete man-drawing procedure for each head, and they kept starting
again because dissatisfied with the result.
(p. 48, this volume)
Once more, this paper strived for the more general picture, drawing parallels
with similar phenomena in other domains where flexibility in sequencing only
seems to emerge with developmental time. Examples include seriation, number,
8 Introduction
phonological knowledge, and learning to play tunes on the piano. Once more,
mechanism is discussed in terms of symbolic computation (data structures, data
formats, procedural sequences and sub-routines, compiled and automatised pro-
grams). Indeed, here Annette makes explicit links to artificial intelligence research,
noting that in AI, there is a distinction between procedures that generate outcomes
and those that operate on other procedures, thereby changing those procedures
(p. 41, this volume). We find Annette once more willing to entertain the possibility
of innate modularity alongside her theory of representational change, a possibil-
ity she would go on to reject in later years: “My view is that the basic syntactic
component of language is innately specified and modular” (p. 56, this volume).
The culmination of this line of theorising came with the publication of
Annette’s 1992 book, Beyond Modularity, which integrated her multiple lines
of research to date. This book was largely written during a sabbatical year at
Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh during which Annette was more
frequently exposed to the emerging field of cognitive neuroscience, and the asso-
ciated advances in brain-inspired connectionist computational modelling. These
fields offered new ways of mechanistic thinking that Annette integrated into her
book. The third paper in this volume is a précis of the main arguments, published
in 1994. Beyond Modularity remains a highly influential book. As Ansari recently
commented: “[it] represents, in my view, the most complete post-Piagetian theory
of developmental change and is still a must read for anybody studying cognitive
development, almost 25 years following its publication” (2017).
The majority of the book comprises a consideration of RR in several domains,
summarising empirical findings with the child viewed as a linguist, a physicist, a
mathematician, a psychologist, and a notator. Each characterises the initial state
of the infant, subsequent domain-specific learning, and then explores empirical
data on older children's problem solving and theory building, with particular focus
on evolving cognitive flexibility and metacognition. Annette describes it as her
“best shot at giving an integrated account of data across a wide variety of domains
which in isolation may be better accounted for by a series of different explana-
tions” (Karmiloff-Smith, 1994, p. 740).
However, the book had two more far-reaching aims. The first was to situate
development more firmly within cognitive science, encouraging researchers to go
beyond characterising the on-line processing of steady state systems and to inves-
tigate mechanisms of developmental change at the cognitive/representational
level, rather than simply the behavioural level, or as she puts it, to
treat cognitive development as a serious theoretical science contributing to

the discussion of how the human mind/brain develops and is organized inter-
nally, and not merely as a cute empirical database addressing the question of
the age at which external behaviour can be observed.
The second was to attempt a reconciliation of the then dominant and opposing
theoretical views of development, those of Fodor and Piaget. In Fodor’s nativist
Introduction 9
theory, the mind/brain is made up of genetically specified, independently func-
tioning, special-purpose modules, with their own dedicated processes and pro-
prietary inputs. Each module then outputs data in a common format suitable
for central, domain-general processing. In Piaget’s constructivist theory, all data
are processed by the same mechanisms, while development involves domain-
general changes in representational structures. Annette’s solution to the oppos-
ing positions was to accept some degree of Fodor’s modularity as an endstate in
adults, but now to argue that this was always the outcome of a domain-general
developmental process of modularisation from a less specialised initial state. “I
hypothesize that if the human mind/brain ends up with any modular structure,
then this is the result of a process of modularization as development proceeds”
(p. 68, this volume). Emergent specialisation would be complemented by RR,
with sharing of information proceeding beyond mastery to generate the (perhaps
unique degree of) cognitive flexibility observed in humans. With some presci-
ence, Annette argued that the degree of specialisation in the infant would only
be established with the emergence of technologies for measuring on-line brain
activation with neonates and young infants.
If Fodor’s thesis of pre-specified modules is correct, such studies should

show that, from the very outset (or the moment at which the infant shows
sensitivity to particular forms of input), specific brain circuits are activated in
response to domain-specific inputs.
By contrast, her emergentist view would predict less differentiated and special-
ised brain activation in infants. When these technologies arrived, the results would
broadly prove her right (see, e.g., Dehaene-Lambertz, 2017).
The précis of Beyond Modularity was published in Behavioral and Brain
Sciences as a target article, and was accompanied by a range of commentaries,
along with Annette’s response. It is instructive to consider some of those com-
mentaries, for they ultimately picked up on the direction in which Annette’s
thinking was already headed. Johnston (1994) argued that a serious theory of
development situated in cognitive science could not incorporate any notion of
‘innateness’. This is a non-developmental concept that stands in place of an
account of how gene activity contributes to cognitive development via brain-
cognition relationships at the cellular and molecular level. Similarly, Quartz
and Sejnowski (1994) argued that modularity is ultimately a thesis about how
information is processed in the brain. The then available data from neurobiol-
ogy suggested that the nativist position and the related modularity thesis were
highly implausible. Shultz (1994) endorsed Annette’s growing belief in the
importance of formal models, arguing that the latest computational models in
the field – connectionist or artificial neural network models – were powerful
enough to capture patterns of experience-dependent developmental change.
Annette accepted many of these suggestions, but if anything, she was looking
for more:
10 Introduction
I have been somewhat disappointed in that, with a few exceptions, many
commentators reiterated what I had already stated in Modularity, by simply
pointing to the under-specification of my framework rather than suggesting
potential solutions from their domain of expertise.
(Karmiloff-Smith, 1994, p. 732)
Nevertheless, the pointers here were clear: the next step was towards an approach
that integrated multiple disciplines, embracing developmental cognitive neurosci-
ence, neurocomputation, and genetics.
The theory of RR was not completed in Beyond Modularity, but the book rep-
resented a monumental effort in attempting to reconcile Fodorian nativism and
Piagetian constructivist approaches. A sprinkling of doubts remained: where is
the role of culture in Karmiloff-Smith’s development theory? Is there no place
for domain-general skills such as executive functioning, whose development can
constrain the emergence of other skills? What about exogenous environmental
drivers of development, rather than just the internal processes of modularisation
and RR? What limits the rate of RR, such that it can be differentiated from learn-
ing and expertise (if indeed they differ)? Why do there remain in adults areas
of well-established behavioural mastery where no explicitation has taken place,
such as the notorious complexities of syntax? What are the overarching principles
revealing why RR should work in the way it does and not some other way?
However, we should note the magnitude of the challenge RR took on – to
explain the emergence of cognitive flexibility. The challenge has still not been
met. Even in the field of machine learning, with its recent great advances, cog-
nitive flexibility remains out of reach. Cutting-edge AI methods, such as deep
neural networks, have learned behavioural mastery in individual domains such as
image recognition, voice recognition, and chess playing. Yet they cannot demon-
strate flexibility to draw links across domains. As Aaron Sloman, a philosopher
and researcher on artificial intelligence and cognitive science, commented on
Beyond Modularity:
The theory in Beyond Modularity is a considerable advance both on Piaget’s

general ideas on development and also an advance on the presuppositions of
many of the people working on machines (including robots) that perceive,
act, develop, or learn – because most of those researchers think only about
how to get robots to achieve behavioural mastery (e.g. catching a ball, jug-
gling, walking, running, following a human, picking things up, carrying
things, going through doorways, avoiding obstacles, obeying instructions,
answering simple questions, etc.). Such behavioural mastery can be achieved
without giving a machine the ability to think about what it has done, what it
has not done, what it might have done, what the consequences would have
been, what it could not have done, etc. Those additional competences require
something like what Karmiloff-Smith calls Representational Redescription,
and we need to find ways to get robots to go through such processes if we
wish to give them the kind of intelligence young humans, nest-building birds,
Introduction 11
hunting mammals, monkeys, and other primates seem to have. Developing
such mechanisms will help us understand the processes that occur in children
and other animals in a new, deep way. The book does not provide mecha-
nisms, but Karmiloff-Smith is clearly aware of the need to do so.
(Sloman, 2015)
Part II: From typical to atypical development

Annette completed Beyond Modularity while at the MRC Cognitive Development
Unit in London. There, several colleagues were working on autism and DS, which
began to deepen her thinking about atypical development. Previously, she had
referred to developmental disorders as possibly informative about domain speci-
ficity and modularity by virtue of the uneven cognitive profiles that could be
observed, such as particular developmental weaknesses in social cognition or lan-
guage; or as offering cases such as savant ability where behavioural mastery was
not followed by RR and increasing flexibility. But now she was struck by limita-
tions in theorising of the time, which viewed developmental disorders in a static,
profoundly non-developmental way.
Another change in her thinking was crystallised by her collaborative book
Rethinking Innateness, jointly written with Jeff Elman, Elizabeth Bates, Mark
Johnson, Dominic Parisi, and Kim Plunkett (Elman et al., 1996). This was an
influential volume that married a constructivist view of human development
with connectionist modelling and developmental neuroscience. While previously
sceptical that connectionist modelling could address anything other than implicit
learning, Annette’s enthusiasm for it had been spurred by a study visit to San
Diego, working with Jeff Elman and Liz Bates. Rethinking Innateness bridges
Annette’s transition into developmental cognitive neuroscience, representing an
attempt to consider development in terms of a complex, multi-level, dynamic
process. The period marks her increasing conviction that the study of atypical
development was a key avenue to shed light on the nature of the developmental
process – and by the same token, that the developmental process itself was the key
to understanding atypical development.
The first paper in this section is seminal in the field of developmental disorder
research. “Development itself is the key to understanding developmental disor-
ders” was published in 1998, the year that Annette moved to become Head of
the Neurocognitive Development Unit at the Institute of Child Health in London.
During her eight years at the Institute of Child Health, Annette investigated a num-
ber of genetic syndromes, including Williams syndrome (WS), Fragile X, and DS.
Up until this point, the study of cognitive impairments in developmental dis-
orders had proceeded as if they could be viewed as directly analogous to cases of
acquired deficits in adults (e.g., Temple, 1997). Selective deficits in adults were
viewed as a principal source of evidence for the presence of modules: a selective
deficit was explained by damage to a single module. Cognitive deficits in devel-
opmental disorders were therefore analogously viewed as damage to an innate
module, whereby the relevant ability did not develop typically in the first place.
12 Introduction
Annette rejected this view on several grounds. The first was that such an
account either takes no account of development at all, or poses a developmental
theory that is obviously wrong (that development occurs independently in separate
modules). Given that, since Beyond Modularity, Annette had rejected modularity
as a plausible start state in infancy, the alternative was to view uneven cognitive
profiles as the product of an atypical developmental process. The second grounds
was that, given the way gene expression tends to have widespread influence on
brain development, it was implausible that it would lead to very narrow/specific
effects on cognitive outcomes. The alternative was that the effects were wide-
spread, but the changed properties of the brain impacted the development of some
abilities more than others.
Beyond Modularity had pitted Fodor’s domain specificity against Piaget’s
domain generality. Here was a new idea, the middle ground of domain relevance.
In this view, the start state is differentiated to some degree, but processing prop-
erties have different degrees of relevance to some abilities than others. Across
development, regions and pathways specialise so that domain-relevant properties
become domain specific (Box 4.2 of the paper illustrates the idea with respect
to a connectionist model of visual cortex). Widespread disruptions to domain-
relevant properties would produce greater effects on the development of abilities
with greater reliance on those properties, and perhaps more subtle anomalies in
other abilities with weaker reliance. The arguments are well captured by Annette’s
views on WS, a disorder showing a markedly uneven cognitive profile:
Brain volume, brain anatomy, brain chemistry, hemispheric asymmetry, and

the temporal patterns of brain activity are all atypical in people with Williams
syndrome. How could the resulting cognitive system be described in terms
of a normal brain with parts intact and parts impaired, as the popular view
holds? Rather, the brains of infants with WS develop differently from the
outset, which has subtle, widespread repercussions at the cognitive level.
Several methodological implications stemmed from these insights. First, the

investigation of developmental deficits should proceed by studying infants and
then tracing the unfolding of atypical trajectories, rather than by characterising
cognitive deficits in the endstate of adulthood. Second, researchers should not
focus merely on deficits or weaknesses, but should also use sensitive measures
to probe for subtle anomalies in areas of strength. Here we see an idea reappear-
ing from Annette’s early work on RR. Recall, U-shaped developmental profiles
suggested the same levels of accuracy – each side of the U – could be produced
by different types of representation, initially implicitly, later re-represented. In
the developmental disorder context, Annette now raised the possibility that sim-
ilar levels of behavioural accuracy, for instance in domains of apparent strength
in a disorder, could be produced by qualitatively atypical underlying representa-
tions. And this could particularly be the case where a researcher employs coarse
standardised tests to establish cognitive profiles, since such tests are insensitive
Introduction 13
to the nature of underlying processes. The third methodological implication
was that the key data to reveal the constraints operating on development are
cross-domain: the longitudinal study of multiple domains can separate domain-
general changes from domain-specific ones. Cross-sectional data alone cannot
address this crucial issue.
The final methodological implication is also a theoretical one, and corresponds
to the laying out of a new framework: neuroconstructivism (see Box 4.6 of the
paper). Annette argued that plausible cognitive theories of developmental deficits
have to be constrained by an understanding of – and therefore data from – genetic
influences on brain development and function; and must take into account the
history of an individual’s dynamic interactions with their environment. Future
research in developmental disorders would therefore have to be multidisciplinary.
The two further papers in this section exemplify these ideas in the research
Annette and her team carried out with infants, children, and adults with WS. WS
is a rare genetic disorder caused by the deletion of a small number of genes from
one copy of chromosome 7. It leads to a characteristic pattern of physical and cog-
nitive deficits, including an average IQ of 70. Notably, the WS cognitive profile
is uneven, with relative strengths in language and face processing, and relative
weaknesses in visuospatial processing and problem solving. In addition to its
clinical significance, WS was theoretically important since it had been used by
nativist researchers to argue that it represented one part of a genetic dissociation
between language and general cognition (Pinker, 1994). Juxtaposed with Specific
Language Impairment, a heritable language disorder with relative strength in non-
verbal cognition but weakness in language, Pinker (1999) argued that the two
represented a genetic double dissociation between language and cognition, and
were evidence in favour of innate modularity.
In “Dethroning the myth”, Annette marshals a range of empirical evidence
to argue forcefully that this is a mischaracterisation of WS, and a miscon-
ceived explanation of the uneven cognitive profile. For both language and face
processing, development is traced back to early childhood, and evidence pre-
sented that skills are atypical from early on, sometimes subtly. In support of her
criticism of focusing on adult endstates in developmental disorders, Annette
describes a study carried out in her lab that contrasted language and number
processing skills in WS and DS (Paterson et al., 1999). In adults, language skills
were shown to be stronger in individuals with WS than DS, while the opposite
was true for number skills. However, when these two domains were assessed
in infants with the disorders, infants with DS outscored infants with WS on a
number task, while there was no difference in language abilities. The respec-
tive uneven cognitive profiles were different at different ages. A snapshot of
the adult cognitive profile was therefore actively misleading with respect to
developmental origins.
In “Exploring the Williams syndrome face-processing debate”, Annette
shifts to focus on an area of relative strength in the disorder, face recogni-
tion skills. There are three points of interest in this paper. First, sensitive tests
showed that where children and adults with WS were scoring at chronological
14 Introduction
age level expectations in a standardised test of face recognition (i.e., showing no
deficit), the underlying cognitive processes nevertheless appeared to be atypi-
cal, lacking the expected expertise in processing configurations of facial features.
Second, the paper showed how atypical development could be described statis-
tically using cross-sectional trajectory analysis, to show how the level, rate, or
shape of development could be different, or to assess atypicalities in the relation-
ship between skills. These trajectory methods were later developed more fully in
Thomas et al. (2009). Third, for the first time, Annette integrates brain-imaging
evidence to support the proposal that cognitive level skills develop atypically.
Here, notably, electrophysiology is used to argue that processes of face recogni-
tion are less localised (to the right hemisphere) and less specialised (to faces but
not cars or houses) in WS than in typically developing controls. Since localisation
and specialisation would both be expected markers of modular functioning, this
evidence suggests that emergent modularisation is disrupted in WS.
Part III: Genetics and computational modelling approaches

The next set of three papers considers the multiple methods and data sets that Annette
used to link genotype to phenotype. Here we see more biological terminology present
in Annette’s writing, as she considers the relationship between sources of genetic
variation or mutation in an individual (the genotype) and the subsequent cognitive
profile (phenotype). In the first paper, “Different approaches to relating genotype
to phenotype in developmental disorders”, Annette and her colleagues criticise sim-
plistic one-to-one mappings between genes and specific cognitive outcomes. These
simplistic mappings can be found when researchers use phrases like “a gene (or set
of genes) for X where X is a purported higher level cognitive module such as face
processing, grammar, number, or so on” (p. 163, this volume), such as those found in
the proposals of Pinker (1999) and Marcus (2006). Instead, Annette and colleagues
argue that the pathway from genes to cognition is complex and indirect.
The paper then summarises the multiple methods that are required to unpack
this pathway. These include quantitative genetics (population level measures of
the heritability of phenotypes); molecular genetics (the study of DNA variation
correlated with phenotypes); animal models, such as transgenic mice created to
have identical or analogous mutations to human disorders; and computational
modelling, viewed as an intermediate level at which hypotheses may be generated
concerning the link between low-level neurocomputational differences and high-
level cognitive outcomes.
In support of the concept of domain-relevance, the example of Fragile X is
discussed in some detail. This developmental disorder is caused by the muta-
tion (silencing) of a single gene, FMR1, yet it leads to an uneven cognitive
profile with strengths and weaknesses. Notably, FMR1 appears to impact on
experience-dependent plasticity, with lack of this protein affecting dendritic
spines, structures involved in the signalling between neurons. Research is
described where a mouse model of Fragile X was used to investigate the impact
of the mutation on these low-level brain structures. Crucially, the effect of the
Introduction 15
Fragile X mutation is widespread in the brain yet, through the developmental
process, the impact on cognition is uneven.
In line with Piaget, Annette was more inclusive than usual in the different
approaches that she took to understand human development. While empirical
controlled experiments were a mainstay, individual observations and case stud-
ies were also considered important sources of insight. Annette’s person-centred
approach to atypical development was as rewarding for her science as it was for
the children and families that she studied. A particular fascination was why no
two children with DS, Fragile X, or WS were the same, and to what extent genetic
or environmental differences could influence their later outcomes.
In the next paper, “Using case study comparisons to explore genotype-phenotype
correlations in Williams-Beuren syndrome”, Annette and her colleagues focus on
the specific case of relating the genetic mutation in WS to its characteristic uneven
cognitive profile. Recall, WS is caused by the deletion of a small number of genes
from one copy of chromosome 7. By the time of publishing this paper, 19 had been
characterised within the deleted region of DNA, while that number now stands
at 27 (Broadbent et al., 2014). Annette addressed a particular argument present
at the time that the mapping between genes and physical and cognitive outcomes
might be straightforward. Specifically, deletion of one of the genes, elastin (ELN),
is associated with the connective-tissue abnormalities and cardiovascular disease
(supravalvular aortic stenosis [SVAS]). Deletion of another gene, LIM kinase-1
(LIMK1), would account for the particular weakness in visuospatial cognition.
This simple mapping was evaluated via two case studies. The first was a
43-year-old adult with WS who was particularly high functioning, recording an
overall IQ of 93. She had the typical genetic deletion of WS and correspond-
ingly, exhibited the characteristic visuospatial deficit. The second case was an
11-year-old girl who had a deletion of 60% of the region of DNA normally
deleted in WS, including both ELN and LIMK1. While the girl exhibited SVAS,
her cognitive profile was in the normal range, and there was no evidence of a
deficit in visuospatial cognition. LIMK1 alone could not explain the spatial
deficit. Together, the case studies reveal the scale of the challenge in relat-
ing uneven cognitive profiles to specific genes. Indeed, a decade later, Annette
and her team reported two further case studies of children with partial dele-
tions of the stretch of DNA associated with WS (Broadbent et al., 2014). Here,
visuospatial cognition was explored in greater depth, distinguishing between
small-scale and large-scale space. Notably, different partial deletions revealed
contrasting profiles across these scales, suggesting a “complex, dynamic, and
combinatorial role of different genes within the WS critical region on disparate
phenotypic expression within the visuospatial domain” (Broadbent et al., 2014).
The complexity only increased!
The third paper in this section exemplifies Annette’s belief that formal mod-
els represent an important tool to link data from multiple levels of description
within causal mechanistic accounts. The paper, “Mechanisms of developmen-
tal regression in autism and the broader phenotype: a neural network modeling
approach” presents a connectionist model of developmental regression in
16 Introduction
autism. In a minority of children with autism (20%–40%), cognitive skills
decline in the second year of life after a period of apparently normal-looking
early development. The paper, co-authored with Thomas and Knowland, con-
siders the hypothesis that such regression is caused by the exaggeration of an
otherwise normal phase of brain development, synaptic pruning. Computer
modelling is first used to establish the mechanistic viability of the idea, linking
a low-level neurocomputational property to a high-level deficit in behaviour
via an implemented developmental process. Second, it is employed to explore
the idea that individual differences in other neurocomputational parameters can
add risk or protective factors in determining whether the pathology, atypical
synaptic pruning, results in atypical cognitive development, thereby accounting
for variation in the atypical phenotype and patterns of family inheritance (see
also Thomas et al., 2016). For Annette, this model linked with her ideas of spe-
cialisation and localisation of function (generated here by pruning), combined
with the crucial importance of timing in development. Should the brain commit
too rapidly to specialisation and localisation of function, the result would be
less flexibility for processing novel stimuli. Moreover, the pivotal role of the
time course of developmental change demonstrated once more the need to pro-
gress theory beyond the simple metaphor of static intact and impaired modules
(Karmiloff-Smith, 2015).
Part IV: Taking the brain seriously

In 2006, Annette left the Institute of Child Health to join Birkbeck, University
of London, as a Professorial Research Fellow. At Birkbeck, she was based in
the Developmental Neurocognition Lab in the Centre for Brain and Cognitive
Development. The papers in this and the next section exemplify Annette’s contin-
ued broadening of her multi-level, dynamic approach to development, embracing
epigenetics, brain structure/function, network connectivity, cognition, behaviour,
and the environment. “Neuroimaging of the developing brain: taking ‘develop-
ing’ seriously” considers the utility of functional brain imaging for studying
developmental change. Paradoxically, in this paper she views many current brain
imaging studies of infants and children as non-developmental, and as merely
portraying snapshots of brain function at different ages, instead of revealing pro-
cesses of progressive change. In a review of the strengths and weaknesses of
the main brain imaging methodologies (functional magnetic resonance imaging,
function near-infrared spectroscopy, event-related electrophysiology), her key
themes emerge. Imaging must be hypothesis-driven and test mechanistic accounts
(or as she says, “as a tool, brain imaging is no better than a pencil or a fishing
trip, unless it is hypothesis driven”, p. 231, this volume). Neural data can be most
informative when they show that similar-looking behaviour is generated by alter-
native underlying circuitries, as in the case of atypical development, or the case
of compensatory changes in healthy ageing. Given limits in spatial or temporal
resolution, development is best studied by a multi-method converging approach,
combining imaging methods and the study of trajectories of change. In this paper,
Introduction 17
Annette also looks to the future: the possibility that brain imaging can test her RR
hypothesis through studying emerging hierarchical network structure in ‘resting
state’ brain networks; and the possibility that advances in wireless technology will
eventually allow imaging to move beyond a child lying flat in a scanner into the
real world, with the child interacting naturally in their environment.
Part V: Taking the environment seriously

Annette’s neuroconstructivist framework for explaining developmental disorders
stressed the importance of considering the environment as much as the internal
causes of the disorders. In the paper in this section, “Genetic and environmen-
tal vulnerabilities in children with neurodevelopmental disorders”, Annette and
her colleagues work through this idea in greater detail. They focus on the meth-
odological approach of tracing cognitive level functions back to their basic level
roots in infancy and then probing their ontogenetic progression. The importance
of interaction with the environment is considered in three examples. In the first,
numeracy skills are contrasted in two disorders, WS and DS. In adults with WS,
there are difficulties with large approximate number discrimination, whereas in
DS there are difficulties with small exact numbers. The origins of the profiles
are traced to a single basic level problem for each syndrome. During infancy,
visual attention shifting deficits in WS lead to difficulties in discriminating large
approximate quantities, while visual sustained attention deficits produce difficul-
ties in individuating objects in small displays in DS. The low-level deficits alter
the history of experience in number processing in each disorder, leading to later
diverging patterns of deficit in high-level numeracy skills. In the second example,
Annette and colleagues consider the possibility that social deprivation can some-
times produce cognitive impairments that show similarities to those observed
in genetics disorders. The authors describe an experimental paradigm designed
with the ambition to distinguish syndrome-specific versus general and modality-
specific versus general characteristics of deficits originating in genetic versus
environmental causes (see also Karmiloff-Smith et al., 2014). In the third example,
the authors present evidence to suggest that, when a child has a genetic disorder,
aspects of their environment are simultaneously changed. Developmental profiles
are a product of the combination and interaction of these effects. Evidence comes
from how parents constrain their infant’s exploration of the physical environment,
and how parents respond to errors in their toddler’s productive naming skills. As
the authors say, “nothing is static in biology or psychology, and this finding holds
equally for the environment” (p. 255, this volume).
Part VI: And, always, taking development seriously

The three papers of the final section represent the fruition of Annette’s neurocon-
structivist approach, and the multiple lines of research it spawned. In “Ontogeny,
genetics, and evolution: a perspective from developmental cognitive neurosci-
ence”, Annette demonstrates how the accumulating body of empirical evidence
18 Introduction
led away from the simple notion of innate modularity to an emergentist account of
adult specialisation of function, considered, respectively, in the fields of evolution,
genetics, and development. In “Nativism versus neuroconstructivism: rethinking
the study of developmental disorders”, Annette revisits her seminal 1998 paper
some ten years later, reviewing progress in the field of disorder research and
validation of its primary methodological lessons. In “An alternative to domain-
general or domain-specific frameworks for theorizing about human evolution and
ontogenesis”, Annette focuses on the notion of domain-relevance, the intermedi-
ate position between domain generality and specificity. She grounds the idea more
firmly at computational, neural, genetic, and evolutionary levels. She then shows
how it synthesises with contemporary accounts, such as Dehaene’s neuronal
recycling hypothesis (Dehaene, 2009). In the neuronal recycling hypothesis, cul-
tural inventions such as reading and writing invade older cortical circuits, thereby
inheriting their structural constraints. As Annette says, “the notion that these new
functions seek out a ‘neuronal niche’, i.e., a cortical area in the brain relevant to
the processing required, is clearly along the same lines as the domain-relevant
approach” (p. 293, this volume). Finally, in the context of Dehaene’s proposal of
a global workspace for flexible use of knowledge (and indeed, conscious access),
Annette sees the possibility of a brain basis for her concept of RR (Dehaene et al.,
2014). Domain-specific systems enable plasticity and flexibility through a pro-
cess of cross-domain interactions in a global workspace, where information is
available to conscious access.
Conclusion
The history of Annette’s ideas also charts the history of the emergence of
developmental cognitive neuroscience as a field. What started as observations
about the behaviour of children at different ages became the study of mecha-
nisms of change in a multi-level dynamic framework, embracing neuroscience,
genetics, and evolution. Rudimentary concepts of modularity were replaced
with neurally grounded concepts of increased localisation and specialisation,
while clunking metaphors of procedures, data structures, and subroutines were
replaced by the language of brain-inspired computation. A research career that
began with a chance meeting with Jean Piaget in a bookshop in Geneva, and
ended with a sophisticated multidisciplinary investigation of DS as a molecular
model for Alzheimer’s disease almost half a century later, has set the stage for
a future understanding of development that unifies the many disciplines of the
cognitive and biological sciences.
Acknowledgements
The writing of this chapter was partially funded by a Wellcome Trust Strategic
Award (Grant Number: 098330/Z/12/Z) conferred upon The London Down
Syndrome (LonDownS) Consortium.
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I feel the rebuke—
George, I must leave thee—I hear footsteps. Farewell—
So soon—so very soon! Say to her, I beseech you—say to her as
you have said to me, that she may confess if she will; that we have
been together, and that we have both agreed in the opinion that she
had better confess and throw herself on the mercy of her judges, till
the fury of the storm hath passed over.—It will soon have passed
over, I am sure now—
No George, no; but I will say this. I will say to her—
Go on—go on, I beseech you—
—I will say to her—Elizabeth, my dear Sister; go down upon thy
knees and pray to the Lord to be nigh to thee, and give thee
strength, and to lead thee in the path which is best for his glory; and
after that, if thee should feel free to preserve thy life by such means
—being on the guard against the love of life, and the fear of death—
the Tempter of souls, and the weapons of the flesh—it will be thy
duty so to preserve it.
Burroughs groaned aloud—but he could prevail no further. Enough,
said he, at last: write as much on this paper, and let me carry it with
me.
Carry it with thee—what do thee mean?
I hardly know what I mean; I would see her and urge her to live, but
when I consider what must follow, though I have permission to see
her, my heart fails me.
Thee is to meet her with me, I suppose?
No, I believe not—
How—alone?—
No no—not alone, said the jailor, whom they supposed to be outside
of the door, till he spoke.
More of the tender mercies of the law! They would entrap thee
George—
And you too Rachel, if it lay in their power—
Give me that book—it is the Bible that I gave thee, is it not?
It is—
It belonged to my mother. I will write what I have to say in the blank
leaf.
She did so; and giving it into the hands of the Jailor she said to him
—I would have her abide on earth—my dear, dear sister!—I would
pray to her to live and be happy, if she can; for she—O she will have
much to make life dear to her, even though she be left alone by the
way-side for a little time—what disturbs thee George?——
I am afraid of this man. He will betray us—
No—no—we have nothing to fear—
Nothing to fear, when he must have been at our elbow and
overheard everything we have whispered to each other.
Look at him George, and thee will be satisfied.
Burroughs looked up, and saw by the vacant gravity of his hard
visage, that the man had not understood a syllable to their prejudice.
But Elizabeth—I would have her continue on earth, I say—I would—
if so it may please our Father above; but I am in great fear, and I
would have thee tell her so, after she has read what I have written
there in that book. She will have sympathy, whatever may occur to
us—true sympathy, unmixed with fear; but as for me, I have no such
hope—and why should I wrestle with my duty—I—who have no
desire to see the light of another day?
None Rachel?
None—but for the sake of Mary Elizabeth Dyer—and so—and so
George, we are to part now—and there—therefore—the sooner we
part, the better. Her voice died away in a low deeply-drawn heavy
breathing.
Even so dear—even so, my beloved sister—
George—
Nay, nay—why leave me at all?—why not abide here? Why may we
not die together?
George, I say—
Well—what-say?
Suffer me to kiss thee—my brother—before we part....
He made no reply, but he gasped for breath and shook all over, and
stretched out his arms with a giddy convulsive motion toward her.
—Before we part forever George—dear George, putting her hand
affectionately upon his shoulder and looking him steadily in the face.
We are now very near to the threshold of death, and I do believe—I
do—though I would not have said as much an hour ago, for the
wealth of all this world ... nay, not even to save my life ... no ... nor
my sister’s life ... nor thy life ... that I shall die the happier and the
better for having kissed thee ... my brother.
Still he spoke not ... he had no tongue for speech. The dreadful truth
broke upon him all at once now, a truth which penetrated his heart
like an arrow ... and he strove to throw his arms about her; to draw
her up to his bosom—but the chains that he wore prevented him,
and so he leaned his head upon her shoulder ... and kissed her
cheek, and then lifted himself up, and held her with one arm to his
heart, and kissed her forehead and her eyes and her mouth, in a
holy transport of affection.
Dear George ... I am happy now ... very, very happy now, said the
poor girl, shutting her eyes and letting two or three large tears fall
upon his locked hands, which were held by her as if ... as if ... while
her mouth was pressed to them with a dreadful earnestness, her
power to let them drop was no more. And then she appeared to
recollect herself, and her strength appeared to come back to her,
and she rose up and set her lips to his forehead with a smile, that
was remembered by the rough jailor to his dying day, so piteous and
so death-like was it, and said to Burroughs, in her mild quiet way—
her mouth trembling and her large tears dropping at every word—
very, very happy now, and all ready for death. I would say more ...
much more if I might, for I have not said the half I had to say. Thee
will see her ... I shall not see her again....
How—
Not if thee should prevail with her to stay, George. It would be of no
use—it would only grieve her, and it might unsettle us both—
What can I say to you?
Nothing—Thee will see her; and thee will take her to thy heart as
thee did me, and she will be happy—very happy—even as I am now.
Father—Father! O, why was I not prepared for this! Do thou stay me
—do thou support me—it is more than I can bear! cried Burroughs,
turning away from the admirable creature who stood before him
trying to bear up without his aid, though she shook from head to foot
with uncontrollable emotion.
Thee’s very near and very dear to Mary Elizabeth Dyer; and she—
she will be happy—she cannot be otherwise, alive or dead—for all
that know her, pity her and love her——
And so do all that know you—
No, no, George, love and pity are not for such as I—such pity I
mean, or such love as we need here—need I say, whatever we may
pretend, whatever the multitude may suppose, and however ill we
may be fitted for inspiring it—I—I—
Her voice faltered, she grew very pale, and caught by the frame of
the door—
—There may be love, George, there may be pity, there may be some
hope on earth for a beautiful witch ... with golden hair ... with large
blue eyes ... and a sweet mouth ... but for a ... for a ... for a freckled
witch ... with red hair and a hump on her back—what hope is there,
what hope on this side of the grave?
She tried to smile when she said this ... but she could not, and the
preacher saw and the jailor saw that her heart was broken.
Before the former could reply, and before the latter could stay her,
she was gone.
The rest of the story is soon told. The preacher saw Elizabeth and
tried to prevail with her, but he could not. She had all the courage of
her sister, and would not live by untruth. And yet she escaped, for
she was very ill, and before she recovered, the fearful infatuation
was over, the people had waked up, the judges and the preachers of
the Lord; and the chief-judge, Sewall had publicly read a recantation
for the part he had played in the terrible drama. But she saw her
brave sister no more; she saw Burroughs no more—he was put to
death on the afternoon of the morrow, behaving with high and steady
courage to the last—praying for all and forgiving all, and predicting in
a voice like that of one crying in the wilderness, a speedy overthrow
to the belief in witchcraft—a prophecy that came to be fulfilled before
the season had gone by, and his last words were—“Father forgive
them, for they know not what they do!”
Being dead, a messenger of the court was ordered away to apprise
Rachel Dyer that on the morrow at the same hour, and at the same
place, her life would be required of her.
She was reading the Bible when he appeared, and when he
delivered the message, the book fell out of her lap and she sat as if
stupified for a minute or more; but she did not speak, and so he
withdrew, saying to her as he went away, that he should be with her
early in the morning.
So on the morrow, when the people had gathered together before
the jail, and prepared for the coming forth of Rachel Dyer, the High-
Sheriff was called upon to wake her, that she might be ready for
death; she being asleep the man said. So the High-Sheriff went up
and spoke to her as she lay upon the bed; with a smile about her
mouth and her arm over a large book ... but she made no reply. The
bed was drawn forth to the light—the book removed (it was the
Bible) and she was lifted up and carried out into the cool morning air.
She was dead.
HISTORICAL FACTS.
That the reader may not be led to suppose the book he has just
gone through with, a sheer fabrication, the author has thought it
adviseable to give a few of the many facts upon which the tale is
founded, in the very language of history.
The true name of Mr. Paris was Samuel, instead of Matthew, and he
spelt it with two r’s; that of his child was Elizabeth and that of her
cousin, Abigail Williams. With these corrections to prepare the
reader for what is to follow, we may now go to the historical records
alluded to.
And first—Of the manner in which the accused were treated on their
examination, and of the methods employed to make them confess.
John Proctor, who was executed for witchcraft, gives the following
account of the procedure had with his family, in a letter to Mr. Cotton
Mather, Mr. Moody, Mr. Willard, and others.
“Reverend Gentlemen,—The innocency of our case, with the enmity
of our accusers and our judges and jury, whom nothing but our
innocent blood will serve, having condemned us already before our
trials, being so much incensed and enraged against us by the devil,
makes us bold to beg and implore your favourable assistance of this
our humble petition to his excellency, that if it be possible our innocent
blood may be spared, which undoubtedly otherwise will be shed, if the
Lord doth not mercifully step in; the magistrates, ministers, juries, and
all the people in general, being so much enraged and incensed
against us by the delusion of the devil, which we can term no other, by
reason we know in our own consciences we are all innocent persons.
Here are five persons who have lately confessed themselves to be
witches, and do accuse some of us of being along with them at a
sacrament, since we were committed into close prison, which we
know to be lies. Two of the five are (Carrier’s sons) young men, who
would not confess any thing till they tied them neck and heels, till the
blood was ready to come out of their noses; and it is credibly believed
and reported this was the occasion of making them confess what they
never did, by reason they said one had been a witch a month, and
another five weeks, and that their mother had made them so, who has
been confined here this nine weeks. My son William Proctor, when he
was examined, because he would not confess that he was guilty,
when he was innocent, they tied him neck and heels till the blood
gushed out at his nose, and would have kept him so twenty-four
hours, if one, more merciful than the rest, had not taken pity on him,
and caused him to be unbound. These actions are very like the popish
cruelties. They have already undone us in our estates, and that will
not serve their turns without our innocent blood. If it cannot be granted
that we have our trials at Boston, we humbly beg that you would
endeavor to have these magistrates changed, and others in their
rooms; begging also and beseeching you would be pleased to be
here, if not all, some of you, at our trials, hoping thereby you may be
the means of saving the shedding of innocent blood. Desiring your
prayers to the Lord in our behalf, we rest your poor afflicted servants,
John Proctor, &c.
Jonathan Cary, whose wife was under the charge, but escaped, has
left a very affecting narrative of her trial, and of the behavior of the
judges.
“Being brought before the justices, her chief accusers were two girls.
My wife declared to the justices, that she never had any knowledge of
them before that day. She was forced to stand with her arms stretched
out. I requested that I might hold one of her hands, but it was denied
me; then she desired me to wipe the tears from her eyes, and the
sweat from her face, which I did; then she desired that she might lean
herself on me, saying she should faint.
Justice Hathorn replied, she had strength enough to torment those
persons, and she should have strength enough to stand. I speaking
something against their cruel proceedings, they commanded me to be
silent, or else I should be turned out of the room. The Indian before
mentioned was also brought in, to be one of her accusers: being come
in, he now (when before the justices) fell down and tumbled about like
a hog, but said nothing. The justices asked the girls who afflicted the
Indian; they answered she, (meaning my wife) and that she now lay
upon him; the justices ordered her to touch him, in order to his cure,
but her head must be turned another way, lest, instead of curing, she
should make him worse, by her looking on him, her hand being guided
to take hold of his; but the Indian took hold of her hand, and pulled her
down on the floor, in a barbarous manner; then his hand was taken
off, and her hand put on his, and the cure was quickly wrought. I,
being extremely troubled at their inhuman dealings, uttered a hasty
speech, That God would take vengeance on them, and desired that
God would deliver us out of the hands of unmerciful men. Then her
mittimus was writ. I did with difficulty and chagrin obtain the liberty of a
room, but no beds in it; if there had been, could have taken but little
rest that night. She was committed to Boston prison; but I obtained a
habeas corpus to remove her to Cambridge prison, which is in our
county of Middlesex. Having been there one night, next morning the
jailer put irons on her legs (having received such a command;) the
weight of them was about eight pounds; these irons and her other
afflictions soon brought her into convulsion fits, so that I thought she
would have died that night. I sent to entreat that the irons might be
taken off; but all entreaties were in vain, if it would have saved her life,
so that in this condition she must continue. The trials at Salem coming
on, I went thither, to see how things were managed; and finding that
the spectre evidence was there received, together with idle, if not
malicious stories, against people’s lives, I did easily perceive which
way the rest would go; for the same evidence that served for one,
would serve for all the rest. I acquainted her with her danger; and that
if she were carried to Salem to be tried, I feared she would never
return. I did my utmost that she might have her trial in our own county,
I with several others petitioning the judge for it, and were put in hopes
for it; but I soon saw so much, that I understood thereby it was not
intended, which put me upon consulting the means of her escape;
which through the goodness of God was effected, and she got to
Rhode-Island, but soon found herself not safe when there, by reason
of the pursuit after her; from thence she went to New-York, along with
some others that had escaped their cruel hands.
Of the trial of “good-wife Proctor,” the following interpretation was
had.
“About this time, besides the experiment of the afflicted falling at the
sight, &c. they put the accused upon saying the Lord’s prayer, which
one among them performed, except in that petition, deliver us from
evil, she expressed it thus, deliver us from all evil: this was looked
upon as if she prayed against what she was now justly under, and
being put upon it again, and repeating those words, hallowed be thy
name, she expressed it, hollowed be thy name: this was counted a
depraving the words, as signifying to make void, and so a curse rather
than a prayer: upon the whole it was concluded that she also could
not say it, &c. Proceeding in this work of examination and
commitment, many were sent to prison.
“In August, 1697, the superior court sat at Hartford, in the colony of
Connecticut, where one mistress Benom was tried for witchcraft. She
had been accused by some children that pretended to the spectral
sight: they searched her several times for teats; they tried the
experiment of casting her into the water, and after this she was
excommunicated by the minister of Wallinsford. Upon her trial nothing
material appeared against her, save spectre evidence. She was
acquitted, as also her daughter, a girl of twelve or thirteen years old,
who had been likewise accused; but upon renewed complaints
against them, they both flew into New-York government.
Second—Of the Confessions.—The following is a letter written by six

of the confessing witches, by which it may be understood in some
degree how they came to accuse themselves.
“We, whose names are under written, inhabitants of Andover, when as
that horrible and tremendous judgment beginning at Salem Village, in
the year 1692, (by some called witchcraft) first breaking forth at Mr.
Parris’s house, several young persons being seemingly afflicted, did
accuse several persons for afflicting them, and many there believing it
so to be; we being informed that if a person were sick, the afflicted
person could tell what or who was the cause of that sickness: Joseph
Ballard of Andover (his wife being sick at the same time) he either
from himself, or by the advice of others, fetched two of the persons,
called the afflicted persons, from Salem Village to Andover: which was
the beginning of that dreadful calamity that befel us in Andover. And
the authority in Andover, believing the said accusations to be true,
sent for the said persons to come together to the meeting-house in
Andover (the afflicted persons being there.) After Mr. Barnard had
been at prayer, we were blindfolded, and our hands were laid upon
the afflicted persons, they being in their fits, and falling into their fits at
our coming into their presence [as they said] and some led us and laid
our hands upon them, and then they said they were well, and that we
were guilty of afflicting of them whereupon we were all seized as
prisoners, by a warrant from a justice of the peace, and forthwith
carried to Salem. And by reason of that sudden surprisal, we knowing
ourselves altogether innocent of that crime, we were all exceedingly
astonished and amazed, and affrighted even out of our reason; and
our nearest and dearest relations, seeing us in that dreadful condition,
and knowing our great danger, apprehending that there was no other
way to save our lives, as the case was then circumstanced, but by our
confessing ourselves to be such and such persons, as the afflicted
represented us to be, they out of tender love and pity persuaded us to
confess what we did confess. And indeed that confession, that it is
said we made, was no other than what was suggested to us by some
gentlemen; they telling us, that we were witches, and they knew it,
and we knew it, and they knew that we knew it, which made us think
that it was so; and our understanding, our reason and our faculties
almost gone, we were not capable of judging our condition; as also
the hard measures they used with us rendered us uncapable of
making our defence; but said anything which they desired: and most
of what we said was but in effect a consenting to what they said.
Sometime after, when we were better composed, they telling of us
what we had confessed, we did profess that we were innocent, and
ignorant of such things. And we hearing that Samuel Wardwell had
renounced his confession, and quickly after was condemned and
executed, some of us were told that we were going after Wardwell.
Mary Osgood, Abigail Barker,
Mary Tiler, Sarah Wilson,
Deliv. Dane, Hannah Tiler.”
“It may here be further added, concerning those that did confess, that
besides that powerful argument, of life (and freedom from hardships,
not only promised, but also performed to all that owned their guilt)
there are numerous instances, too many to be here inserted, of the
tedious examinations before private persons, many hours together;
they all that time urging them to confess (and taking turns to persuade
them) till the accused were wearied out by being forced to stand so
long or for want of sleep, &c. and so brought to give an assent to what
they said; they then asking them, Were you at such a witch meeting?
or, Have you signed the devil’s book? &c. Upon their replying, Yes, the
whole was drawn into form, as their confession.
“But that which did mightily further such confessions was, their
nearest relations urging them to it. These, seeing no other way of
escape for them, thought it the best advice that could be given; hence
it was that the husbands of some, by counsel often urging, and utmost
earnestness, and children upon their knees intreating, have at length
prevailed with them to say they were guilty.
Third—Of the character of Burroughs;—about which there has been

from that day to this, a great difference of opinion. His readiness to
forgive.
“Margaret Jacobs being one that had confessed her own guilt, and
testified against her grandfather Jacobs, Mr. Burroughs and John
Willard, she the day before execution came to Mr. Burroughs,
acknowledging that she had belied them, and begged Mr. Burroughs’s
forgiveness; who not only forgave her, but also prayed with and for
her.
Apparitions at the trial.—
“Accordingly several of the bewitched had given in their testimony,
that they had been troubled with the apparitions of two women, who
said they were G. B.’s two wives; and that he had been the death of
them; and that the magistrates must be told of it, before whom, if B.
upon his trial denied it, they did not know but that they should appear
again in the court. Now G. B. had been infamous, for the barbarous
usage of his two successive wives, all the country over. Moreover, it
was testified the spectre of G. B. threatening the sufferers, told them
he had killed [besides others] Mrs. Lawson and her daughter Ann. And
it was noted, that these were the virtuous wife and daughter of one, at
whom this G. B. might have a prejudice, for being serviceable at
Salem Village, from whence himself had in ill terms removed some
years before; and that when they died, which was long since, there
were some odd circumstances about them, which made some of the
attendants there suspect something of witchcraft, though none
imagined from what quarter it should come.
“Well, G. B. being now upon his trial, one of the bewitched persons
was cast into horror at the ghosts of B.’s two deceased wives, then
appearing before him, and crying for vengeance against him.
Hereupon several of the bewitched persons were successively called
in, who all, not knowing what the former had seen and said, concurred
in their horror of the apparition, which they affirmed that he had
before. But he, though much appalled, utterly denied that he
discerned any thing of it, nor was it any part of his conviction.
His bodily strength.—

“A famous divine recites this among the convictions of a witch; the
testimony of the party bewitched, whether pining or dying; together
with the joint oaths of sufficient persons, that have seen certain
prodigious pranks, or feats, wrought by the party accused. Now God
had been pleased so to leave G. B. that he had ensnared himself, by
several instances, which he had formerly given, of a preternatural
strength; and which were now produced against him. He was a very
puny man yet he had often done things beyond the strength of a giant.
A gun of about seven feet barrel, and so heavy that strong men could
not steadily hold it out, with both hands; there were several
testimonies given in by persons of credit and honour, that he made
nothing of taking up such a gun behind the lock with but one hand,
and holding it out, like a pistol, at arm’s end. G. B. in his vindication
was so foolish as to say, that an Indian was there, and held it out, at
the same time; whereas, none of the spectators ever saw any such
Indian; but they supposed the black man (as the witches call the devil,
and they generally say he resembles an Indian) might give him that
assistance. There was evidence likewise brought in, that he made
nothing of taking up whole barrels filled with molasses, or cider, in
very disadvantageous postures, and carrying them off, through the
most difficult places, out of a canoe to the shore.
“Yea, there were two testimonies, that G. B. with only putting the fore-
finger of his right hand into the muzzle of a heavy gun, a fowling piece
of about six or seven feet barrel, lifted up the gun, and held it out at
arm’s end; a gun which the deponents, though strong men, could not
with both hands lift up, and hold out at the butt-end, as is usual.
Indeed one of these witnesses was over-persuaded by some persons
to be out of the way upon G. B.’s trial; but he came afterwards, with
sorrow for his withdrawing, and gave in his testimony.
His death.—
“Mr. Burroughs was carried in a cart with the others, through the
streets of Salem to execution. When he was upon the ladder, he made
a speech for the clearing of his innocency, with such solemn and
serious expressions, as were to the admiration of all present: his
prayer [which he concluded by repeating the Lord’s prayer] was so
well worded, and uttered with such composedness, and such [at least
seeming] fervency of spirit, as was very affecting, and drew tears from
many, so that it seemed to some that the spectators would hinder the
execution. The accusers said the Black Man stood and dictated to
him. As soon as he was turned off, Mr. Cotton Mather, being mounted
upon a horse, addressed himself to the people, partly to declare that
he [Burroughs] was no ordained minister, and partly to possess the
people of his guilt, saying that the devil has often been transformed
into an angel of light; and this somewhat appeased the people, and
the executions went on.
Fourth—A trial at length. Indictment of Elizabeth How.

ESSEX ss. Anno Regni Regis & Reginæ Willielmi & Mariæ, nunc
Angliæ, &c, quarto——
The jurors for our sovereign lord and lady the king and queen present,
that Elizabeth How, wife of James How, of Ipswich, in the county of
Essex, the thirty-first day of May, in the fourth year of the reign of our
sovereign lord and lady William and Mary, by the grace of God, of
England, Scotland, France and Ireland, king and queen, defenders of
the faith, &c. and divers other days and times, as well before as after,
certain destestable arts, called witchcrafts and sorceries, wickedly and
feloniously hath used, practised and exercised, at and within the
township of Salem, in, upon and against one Mary Wolcott, of Salem
Village, in the county aforesaid, single woman; by which said wicked
arts the said Mary Wolcott, the said thirty-first day of May, in the fourth
year above-said, and divers other days and times, as well before as
after, was and is tortured, afflicted, pined, consumed, wasted and
tormented; and also for sundry other acts of witchcrafts, by said
Elizabeth How committed and done before and since that time,
against the peace of our sovereign lord and lady, the king and queen,
and against the form of the statute in that case made and provided.
Witnesses—Mary Wolcott, Ann Putman, Abigail Williams, Samuel
Pearly, and his wife Ruth, Joseph Andrews, and wife Sarah, John
Sherrin, Joseph Safford, Francis Lane, Lydia Foster, Isaac Cummins,
jr·
Fifth—Recantation of the chief judge and the jurors.—A general fast

was appointed by the following proclamation, after the accusers had
become so bold as to accuse even the wife of Gov. Phips.—
By the honourable the lieutenant governor, council and assembly of
his majesty’s province of the Massachusetts-Bay, in general court
assembled.
Whereas the anger of God is not yet turned away, but his hand is still
stretched out against his people in manifold judgments, particularly in
drawing out to such a length the troubles of Europe, by a perplexing
war; and more especially respecting ourselves in this province, in that
God is pleased still to go on in diminishing our substance, cutting
short our harvest, blasting our most promising undertakings more
ways than one, unsettling us, and by his more immediate hand
snatching away many out of our embraces by sudden and violent
deaths, even at this time when the sword is devouring so many both
at home and abroad, and that after many days of public and solemn
addressing him: and although, considering the many sins prevailing in
the midst of us, we cannot but wonder at the patience and mercy
moderating these rebukes, yet we cannot but also fear that there is
something still wanting to accompany our supplications; and doubtless
there are some particular sins, which God is angry with our Israel for,
that have not been duly seen and repented by us, about which God
expects to be sought, if ever he turn again our captivity:
Wherefore it is commanded and appointed, that Thursday, the
fourteenth of January next, be observed as a day of prayer, with
fasting, throughout this province; strictly forbidding all servile labour
thereon; that so all God’s people may offer up fervent supplications
unto him, for the preservation and prosperity of his majesty’s royal
person and government, and success to attend his affairs both at
home and abroad; that all iniquity may be put away, which hath stirred
God’s holy jealousy against this land; that he would shew us what we
know not, and help us wherein we have done amiss to do so no more;
and especially that whatever mistakes on either hand have been fallen
into, either by the body of this people, or any orders of men, referring
to the late tragedy, raised among us by Satan and his instruments,
through the awful judgment of God, he would humble us therefor, and
pardon all the errors of his servants and people, that desire to love his
name; that he would remove the rod of the wicked from off the lot of
the righteous; that he would bring in the American heathen, and cause
them to hear and obey his voice.
Given at Boston, December 12, 1696, in the eighth year
of his Majesty’s reign.
Isaac Addington, Secretary.
“Upon the day of the fast, in the full assembly at the south meeting-
house in Boston, one of the honorable judges, [the chief justice
Sewall] who had sat in judicature in Salem, delivered in a paper, and
while it was in reading stood up; but the copy being not to be obtained
at present, it can only be reported by memory to this effect, viz. It was
to desire the prayers of God’s people for him and his; and that God
having visited his family, &c, he was apprehensive that he might have
fallen into some errors in the matters at Salem, and pray that the guilt
of such miscarriages may not be imputed either to the country in
general, or to him or his family in particular.
“Some, that had been of several juries, have given forth a paper,
signed with their own hands, in these words:
“We, whose names are under written, being in the year 1692 called to
serve as jurors in court at Salem on trial of many, who were by some
suspected guilty of doing acts of witchcraft upon the bodies of sundry
persons:
“We confess that we ourselves were not capable to understand, nor
able to withstand, the mysterious delusions of the powers of darkness,
and prince of the air; but were, for want of knowledge in ourselves,
and better information from others, prevailed with to take up with such
evidence against the accused, as, on further consideration and better
information, we justly fear was insufficient for the touching the lives of
any, (Deut. xvii. 8) whereby we fear we have been instrumental with
others, though ignorantly and unwittingly, to bring upon ourselves and
this people of the Lord the guilt of innocent blood; which sin the Lord
saith, in scripture, he would not pardon, (2 Kings, xxiv. 4) that is, we
suppose, in regard of his temporal judgments. We do therefore hereby
signify to all in general (and to the surviving sufferers in special) our
deep sense of, and sorrow for, our errors, in acting on such evidence
to the condemning of any person; and do hereby declare, that we
justly fear that we were sadly deluded and mistaken; for which we are
much disquieted and distressed in our minds; and do therefore
humbly beg forgiveness, first of God for Christ’s sake, for this our
error; and pray that God would not impute the guilt of it to ourselves,
nor others; and we also pray that we may be considered candidly and
aright, by the living sufferers, as being then under the power of a
strong and general delusion, utterly unacquainted with, and not
experienced in matters of that nature.
“We do heartily ask forgiveness of you all, whom we have justly
offended; and do declare, according to our present minds, we would
none of us do such things again on such grounds for the whole world;
praying you to accept of this in way of satisfaction for our offence, and
that you would bless the inheritance of the Lord, that he may be
entreated for the land.
Foreman, Thomas Fisk, Th. Pearly, sen,
William Fisk, John Peabody,
John Bacheler, Thomas Perkins,
Thomas Fisk, jr, Samuel Sayer,
John Dane, Andrew Eliot,
Joseph Evelith, H. Herrick, sen.”
Transcriber’s Notes:
Variations in spelling and hyphenation are retained.
Perceived typographical errors have been changed.
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Thinking Developmentally From Constructivism To Neuroconstructivism Selected Works of Annette Karmiloff Smith Annette Karmiloff-Smith

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Thinking Developmentally from

The Structure of Argument Annette T. Rottenberg

An Introduction to Generalized Linear Models Annette J.

Studies of Thinking Selected works of Kenneth Gilhooly

Smith and Williams Introduction to the Principles of

Potted Make Your Own Stylish Garden Containers Annette

Build Your Own Database From Scratch James Smith

Zero To Rich 1st Edition Smith

Veterinary Clinical Epidemiology: From Patient to

In the World Library of Psychologists series, international experts present

Annette Karmiloff-Smith was a world leading researcher in the field of develop-

Michael S. C. Thomas, Developmental Neurocognition Lab, Centre for Brain

Mark H. Johnson, Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, and

The World Library of Psychologists series celebrates the important contributions

From Obscurity to Clarity in Psychometric Testing

Discovering the Social Mind

Towards a Deeper Understanding of Consciousness

Thinking Developmentally from Constructivism to Neuroconstructivism

Acquired Language Disorders in Adulthood and Childhood

Exploring Working Memory

Edited by Annette Karmiloff-Smith,

ISBN: 978-1-138-69947-2 (hbk)

Typeset in Times New Roman

Introduction: Karmiloff-Smith from Piaget to

1 “If you want to get ahead, get a theory” (1975) 23

2 Constraints on representational change: evidence

3 Précis of Beyond modularity: A developmental perspective

4 Development itself is the key to understanding

5 Dethroning the myth: cognitive dissociations and innate

7 Different approaches to relating genotype to phenotype in

8 Using case study comparisons to explore

9 Mechanisms of developmental regression in autism

10 Neuroimaging of the developing brain: taking

11 Genetic and environmental vulnerabilities in children

12 Ontogeny, genetics, and evolution: a perspective from

13 Nativism versus neuroconstructivism: rethinking the

14 An alternative to domain-general or domain-specific

Chapter 2, “Constraints on representational change: evidence from children’s

Chapter 3, “Précis of Beyond modularity: A developmental perspective on cogni-

Chapter 4, “Development itself is the key to understanding developmental dis-

Chapter 5, “Dethroning the myth: cognitive dissociations and innate modularity in

Chapter 6, “Exploring the Williams syndrome face-processing debate: the impor-

Chapter 7, “Different approaches to relating genotype to phenotype in developmental

Chapter 8, “Using case study comparisons to explore genotype-phenotype correla-

Chapter 10, “Neuroimaging of the developing brain: taking ‘developing’ seri-

Chapter 11, “Genetic and environmental vulnerabilities in children with neurode-

Chapter 12, “Ontogeny, genetics and evolution: a perspective from developmen-

Chapter 13, “Nativism versus neuroconstructivism: rethinking the study of devel-

Chapter 14, “An alternative to domain-general or domain-specific frameworks

Part I: From implicit to explicit knowledge: typical

I spent some 13 years immersed in Piagetian theory at Geneva University,

At the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen, Annette focused

cognitive changes in terms of redescription occur when a stable state is

It thus follows from the model that unconscious metaprocedural processes

Annette would ultimately give up on the specific model of RR articulated in this

treat cognitive development as a serious theoretical science contributing to

If Fodor’s thesis of pre-specified modules is correct, such studies should

The theory in Beyond Modularity is a considerable advance both on Piaget’s