Old Problems in the Light of New Discoveries

This chapter is new compared to the first four because it was written for the new edition of the book, almost fifty years later. Its aim was to reexamine previous theses and conclusions in the light of novelties in psychology that are relevant to the understanding of the symbolic function and new data on development of the symbolic function. This review has shown that none of former theoretical assumptions, research findings and conclusions have been brought to question; they withstood the test of time. Novelties in psychology included were the theory of social brain, findings in social neuroscience, system of mirror neurons, theory of mind. The big number of a new research finding on ontogenetic development was analysed. All they strongly confirm earlier conclusions about early sociality and social-cognitive abilities of human infant, and about the forms of pre-semiotic communication. We consider especially significant the findings about triadic cognitive communication: the adult-infant communication about objects from the environment as a step towards real cooperation, and to the first symbolic behaviors. All issues analysed in previous edition are completed with relevant new research findings. Significant, too, are the new researches on language acquisition from the perspective presented in this book. An analysis of child's symbolic game was presented here as a synthesis of the findings on the emergency of symbolic function and on its further development.