Infants and Children Prenatal Through Middle Childhood 8Th Edition Berk Solutions Manual Full Chapter PDF

Infants and Children Prenatal through
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CHAPTER 6
COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
IN INFANCY AND TODDLERHOOD
CHAPTER-AT-A-GLANCE
Chapter Outline Instruction Ideas Supplements

Piaget’s Cognitive-Developmental Learning Objectives 6.1–6.3 Test Bank Items 1–40, 115–116
Theory pp. 201–214 Learning Activities 6.1–6.2
Piaget’s Ideas About Cognitive Change • Ask Yourself p. 214 Please contact your Pearson publisher’s
The Sensorimotor Stage • Follow-Up representative for a wide range of video
Research on Infant Cognitive offerings available to adopters.
Development • Evaluation of the
Sensorimotor Stage
Information Processing pp. 214–222 Learning Objectives 6.4–6.6 Test Bank Items 41–54, 117
A General Model of Information Learning Activities 6.3–6.4
Processing • Attention • Memory •
Categorization • Evaluation of
Information-Processing Findings
The Social Context of Early Cognitive Learning Objective 6.7 Test Bank Items 55–62
Development pp. 222–224 Ask Yourself p. 223
Individual Differences in Early Learning Objectives 6.8–6.9 Test Bank Items 63–83, 118–119
Mental Development pp. 225–230 Learning Activity 6.5
Infant and Toddler Intelligence Tests • Ask Yourself p. 230
Early Environment and Mental
Development • Early Intervention for
At-Risk Infants and Toddlers
Language Development pp. 231–241 Learning Objectives 6.10–6.11 Test Bank Items 84–114, 120
Theories of Language Development • Lecture Enhancements 6.1–6.2
Getting Ready to Talk • First Words • Learning Activities 6.6–6.8
The Two-Word Utterance Phase • Ask Yourself p. 241
Comprehension versus Production •
Individual and Cultural Differences •
Supporting Early Language
Development
BRIEF CHAPTER SUMMARY
According to Piaget, from earliest infancy, children actively build psychological structures, or schemes, as they manipulate and
explore their world. Piaget’s sensorimotor stage is divided into six substages. By acting on the world, infants make strides in
intentional behavior and mastery of object permanence. In the final substage, mental representation develops, and toddlers gain
in symbolic understanding.
An alternative theory, the core knowledge perspective, holds that babies are born with a set of innate knowledge systems,
or core domains of thought, that support early, rapid cognitive development. Despite challenges from critics, core knowledge
research has sharpened the field’s focus on clarifying the starting point for human cognition and on carefully tracking the
changes that build on it.
Research findings yield broad agreement that many cognitive changes of infancy are gradual and continuous, rather than
stagelike, and that various aspects of infant cognition change unevenly. These ideas form the basis for the information-
processing approach, which focuses on the development of mental strategies for storing and interpreting information. With age,
infants’ attention becomes more efficient, and memory improves and is supported by a capacity for mental representation.
Babies’ exploration of objects, expanding knowledge of the world, and advancing language skills foster categorization.
Copyright © 2016 Laura E. Berk. All Rights Reserved. 81

Instructor’s Resource Manual for Berk & Meyers / Infants and Children, 8e
Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory emphasizes that children’s social and cultural contexts affect the structure of their
cognitive world. Complex mental activities develop through social interaction with more mature members of society, who help
children master tasks within their zone of proximal development.
Most tests devised to measure individual differences in early mental development predict later intelligence poorly. Tests
focusing on habituation and recovery are better predictors. Intelligence is a complex blend of hereditary and environmental
influences, including the home environment, child care, and early intervention programs for at-risk infants and toddlers.
The nativist perspective of language development as a process largely governed by maturation has been supplanted by the
interactionist view, which emphasizes the joint roles of children’s inner capacities and communicative experiences. Infants
prepare for language in many ways before the first spoken words appear around 1 year. Individual and cultural differences exist
in rate and style of early language progress. A rich social environment and parent–toddler conversation support young
children’s natural readiness to speak their native tongue.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After reading this chapter, you should be able to answer the following:
6.1 According to Piaget, how do schemes change over the course of development? (p. 202)
6.2 Describe major cognitive attainments of the sensorimotor stage. (pp. 203–205)
6.3 What does follow-up research say about infant cognitive development and the accuracy of Piaget’s sensorimotor stage?
(pp. 205–214)
6.4 Describe the information-processing view of cognitive development and the general structure of the information-
processing system. (pp. 214–216)
6.5 What changes in attention, memory, and categorization take place over the first two years? (pp. 216–221)
6.6 Describe the strengths and limitations of the information-processing approach to early cognitive development. (p. 222)
6.7 How does Vygotsky’s concept of the zone of proximal development expand our understanding of early cognitive
development? (pp. 222–224)
6.8 Describe the mental testing approach, the meaning of intelligence test scores, and the extent to which infant tests predict
later performance. (pp. 225–226)
6.9 Discuss environmental influences on early mental development, including home, child care, and early intervention for at-
risk infants and toddlers. (pp. 226–230)
6.10 Describe theories of language development, and indicate the emphasis each places on innate abilities and environmental
influences. (pp. 231–234)
6.11 Describe major milestones of language development in the first two years, individual differences, and ways adults can
support infants’ and toddlers’ emerging capacities. (pp. 235–241)
LECTURE OUTLINE
I. PIAGET’S COGNITIVE-DEVELOPMENTAL THEORY (pp. 201–214)

A. Piaget believed children move through four stages of development between infancy and adolescence, during which
cognition develops in an integrated fashion.
B. During Piaget’s sensorimotor stage, children in the first two years of life “think” with their eyes, ears, and hands but
cannot yet carry out many activities inside their heads.
C. Piaget’s Ideas About Cognitive Change (p. 202)
1. Piaget believed a child’s schemes, or organized ways of making sense of experience, change with age,
progressing from sensorimotor action patterns to deliberate, creative actions.
2. Adaptation involves building schemes through direct interaction with the environment.
a. Assimilation involves using current schemes to interpret the external world.
82 Copyright © 2016 Laura E. Berk. All Rights Reserved.

Chapter 6 Cognitive Development in Infancy and Toddlerhood
b. Accommodation involves creating new schemes or adjusting old ones to better fit with the environment.
c. When children are not changing much, they assimilate more than they accommodate, called equilibrium;
during times of rapid cognitive change, they shift from assimilation to accommodation, called disequilibrium.
3. Organization is an internal process of rearranging and linking together schemes to create a strongly
interconnected cognitive system.
D. The Sensorimotor Stage (pp. 203–205)
1. Piaget divided the sensorimotor stage into six substages.
2. The circular reaction is a special means by which infants adapt their first schemes by trying to repeat chance
events caused by their own motor activity.
3. Repeating Chance Behaviors
a. In Substage 1, babies suck, grasp, and look in much the same way, no matter what experiences they
encounter.
b. In Substage 2, around 1 month, babies start to gain voluntary control over their actions through the primary
circular reaction.
c. In Substage 3, from 4 to 8 months, infants’ motor achievements strengthen the secondary circular reaction,
through which babies try to repeat interesting events caused by their own actions.
4. Intentional Behavior
a. In Substage 4, from 8 to 12 months, babies engage in intentional, or goal-directed, behavior, coordinating
schemes deliberately to solve simple problems, such as Piaget’s object-hiding task.
(1) Retrieving hidden objects reveals that infants have begun to master object permanence.
(2) Babies in this substage still make the A-not-B search error, looking for an object in hiding place (A)
after it has been moved to hiding place (B).
b. In Substage 5, from 12 to 18 months, the tertiary circular reaction, in which toddlers repeat behaviors with
variation, leads to a more advanced understanding of object permanence.
5. Mental Representation
a. Substage 6, from 18 to 24 months, brings the ability to create mental representations.
b. Representation enables older toddlers to solve advanced object permanence problems involving invisible
displacement.
c. Representation also permits deferred imitation—the ability to remember and copy the behavior of models
who are not present—and makes possible make-believe play.
E. Follow-Up Research on Infant Cognitive Development (pp. 205–210)
1. Many studies suggest that infants display a wide array of understandings earlier than Piaget believed.
2. To discover what infants know about hidden objects and other aspects of physical reality, researchers often use
the violation-of-expectation method. They may habituate babies to a physical event, or they may show babies an
expected event and an unexpected event.
a. Heightened attention to an unexpected event suggests that the infant is “surprised” by a deviation from
physical reality and, therefore, is aware of that aspect of the physical world.
b. Some critics believe that this method indicates only limited, nonconscious awareness of physical events;
others maintain that it reveals only babies’ perceptual preference for novelty.
3. Object Permanence
a. In a series of studies using the violation-of-expectation method, Renée Baillargeon and her collaborators
claimed to have found evidence for object permanence in the first few months of life.
b. Around 14 months, toddlers know that objects continue to exist in their hidden locations even after the babies
have left the location.
4. Searching for Objects Hidden in More than One Location
a. Research suggests that once 8- to 12-month-olds search for hidden objects, they make the A-not-B search
error as the result of a complex, dynamic system of factors.
b. Success at object search tasks coincides with rapid development of the frontal lobes of the cerebral cortex,
along with experiences perceiving, acting on, and remembering objects.
5. Mental Representation
a. In Piaget’s theory, infants are unable to mentally represent experience until about 18 months, but research
reveals that babies do construct mental representations of objects and their whereabouts.
b. Deferred and Inferred Imitation
(1) Research reveals that 6-week-old infants demonstrate deferred imitation of facial expressions.

(2) Between 12 and 18 months, toddlers use deferred imitation skillfully, copying the actions of peers and
adults and imitating actions across a change in context.
(3) Toddlers also imitate rationally, by inferring others’ intentions.
c. Problem Solving
(1) Around 8 months, infants develop intentional means–end action sequences.
(2) By 10 to 12 months, babies can solve problems by analogy.
(3) Around the end of the first year, infants form flexible mental representations of how to use tools to get
objects.
d. Symbolic Understanding
(1) Displaced reference, the realization that words can be used to cue mental images of things not
physically present, emerges around the first birthday.
(2) The capacity to use language to modify an existing mental representation improves from the end of the
second into the third year.
(3) A beginning awareness of the symbolic function of pictures emerges in the first year, strengthening in the
second.
(4) In non-Western cultures where pictures are rare, symbolic understanding of pictures is delayed.
(5) Research indicates that babies cannot take full advantage of TV and videos, and amount of TV viewing is
negatively related to 8- to 18-month-olds’ language progress.
F. Evaluation of the Sensorimotor Stage (pp. 211–214)
1. Although some infant capacities develop within Piaget’s time frame, others emerge earlier than Piaget expected.
2. Sensorimotor action helps infants construct some forms of knowledge, but infants comprehend a great deal before
they are capable of the motor behaviors that Piaget assumed led to these understandings.
3. Alternative Explanations
a. Most researchers now believe that infants have some built-in cognitive equipment, but some researchers
argue that babies’ cognitive starting point is limited.
b. Others who take a core knowledge perspective believe that babies are born with a set of innate knowledge
systems, or core domains of thought.
(1) Studies of infants’ physical knowledge suggest that in the first few months infants have some awareness
of basic object properties.
(2) Core knowledge theorists assume that infants have an inherited foundation of linguistic knowledge, as
well as basic psychological and numerical knowledge, but they acknowledge that experience is essential
for children to extend this initial knowledge.
4. Piaget’s Legacy
a. Follow-up research on Piaget’s sensorimotor stage yields broad agreement that many cognitive changes of
infancy are gradual and continuous and that various aspects of infant cognition change unevenly.
b. These ideas serve as the basis for the information-processing approach to cognitive development.
c. Piaget’s observations have been of great practical value for teachers and caregivers.
II. INFORMATION PROCESSING (pp. 214–222)
A. A General Model of Information Processing (pp. 215–216)
1. Most information-processing researchers assume that we hold information in three parts of the mental system: the
sensory register, the short-term memory store, and the long-term memory store.
2. First, information enters the sensory register, where sights and sounds are represented directly and stored briefly.
3. In the short-term memory store, we retain attended-to information briefly so we can actively “work” on it to
reach our goals.
4. The capacity of the short-term store is known as working memory—the number of items that can be briefly held
in mind while also engaging in some effort to monitor or manipulate them.
5. The central executive—the conscious, reflective part of the mental system—directs the flow of information
through the system.
a. It coordinates incoming information with information already in the system.
b. It selects, applies, and monitors strategies that facilitate memory store, comprehension, reasoning, and
problem solving.
6. Automatic processes are so well-learned that they require no space in working memory, so we can focus on other
information while performing them.

7. Long-term memory is our permanent knowledge base, which is unlimited.

a. Because we store so much information in long-term memory, information retrieval can be problematic.
b. To aid retrieval, information in long-term memory is categorized by its contents.
8. Improvements in several aspects of the cognitive system make possible more complex forms of thinking with age.
9. Executive function refers to the cognitive operations and strategies that enable us to achieve our goals in
cognitively challenging situations.
a. These include controlling attention, suppressing impulses, coordinating information in working memory, and
flexibly directing and monitoring thought and behavior.
b. Measures of executive function in childhood predict important cognitive and social outcomes in adolescence
and adulthood.
B. Attention (pp. 216–217)
1. Infants gradually become more efficient at managing their attention, taking information in more quickly with age.
2. The ability to shift attention from one stimulus to another improves by 4 months.
3. In the second year, attraction to novelty declines and sustained attention improves.
C. Memory (pp. 217–219, 220)
1. Operant Conditioning Research
a. Research using operant conditioning to study infant memory reveals dramatic gains in retention from
2 to 18 months of age.
b. At first, infants’ memory for operant responses is highly context-dependent, and infants remember poorly
when tested in a new situation.
2. Habituation Research
a. Infants learn and retain much information simply by watching objects and events, especially the movements
of objects and people.
b. Although infants need not be physically active to acquire new information, motor activity does promote
certain aspects of learning and memory.
3. Recall Memory
a. The simplest form of memory is recognition.
b. By the middle of the first year, babies can engage in recall.
c. Long-term recall depends on neural circuits that develop rapidly during infancy and toddlerhood.
4. Infantile amnesia refers to the inability of most people to retrieve events that happened to them before age 3.
5. Neurological change and social experience contribute to the decline of infantile amnesia and the development of
autobiographical memory—recollections of meaningful one-time past events.
D. Categorization (pp. 219, 221)
1. In the second half of the first year, infants group familiar objects into an impressive array of categories, including
food items, birds, land animals, kitchen utensils, and spatial location.
2. Babies’ earliest categories are based on similar overall appearance or prominent object parts, but around their first
birthday, more categories appear to be based on subtle sets of features.
3. Exploration of objects and expanding knowledge of the world contribute to advances in categorization, as does
vocabulary growth, which highlights new categorical distinctions.
E. Evaluation of Information-Processing Findings (p. 222)
1. Information-processing research has contributed greatly to our view of infants and toddlers as sophisticated
cognitive beings.
2. The central strength of information processing—analyzing cognition into its components—is also its greatest
drawback: It has had difficulty putting these components back together into a broad, comprehensive theory.
III. THE SOCIAL CONTEXT OF EARLY COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT (pp. 222–224)
A. Vygotsky believed that complex mental activities originate in social interaction.
B. Vygotsky’s concept of the zone of proximal development refers to a range of tasks that a child cannot yet handle
alone but can do with the help of more skilled partners.
C. Cultural variations in social experiences affect mental strategies as early as the first year.
D. Vygotsky believed that society provides children with opportunities to represent culturally meaningful activities in
play; current evidence reveals the play is a combination of children’s readiness and social experiences that promote it.
E. For Western middle-SES children, make-believe is cultivated by adults and results in more elaborate play.

IV. INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN EARLY MENTAL DEVELOPMENT (pp. 225–230)

A. Rather than trying to explain the process of development, mental tests focus on cognitive products—behaviors that
reflect development—in order to predict future performance.
B. Infant and Toddler Intelligence Tests (pp. 225–226)
1. Most infant tests emphasize perceptual and motor responses, and some newer tests also tap early language,
cognition, and social behavior.
2. A commonly used test, the Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development, is suitable for children between
1 month and 3½ years. It has three main subtests and two scales that depend on parental report.
3. Computing Intelligence Test Scores
a. Intelligence tests are scored by computing an intelligence quotient (IQ), which indicates the extent to which
the raw score deviates from the typical performance of same-age individuals.
b. Test designers engage in standardization—giving the test to a large, representative sample and using the
results as the standard for interpreting scores.
c. Within the standardization sample, performances at each age level form a normal distribution, in which
most scores cluster around the mean in a bell-shaped distribution.
4. Predicting Later Performance from Infant Tests
a. Because most infant tests predict later intelligence poorly, they are conservatively labeled developmental
quotients (DQs) rather than IQs and are largely used for screening.
b. Information-processing measures, such as speed of habituation and recovery to novel visual stimuli, are
among the best available infant predictors of later IQ.
C. Early Environment and Mental Development (pp. 226–229)
1. Home Environment
a. The Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment (HOME) is a checklist for gathering
information about the quality of children’s home lives through observation and parental interview.
b. An organized, stimulating physical setting and parental affection, involvement, and encouragement of new
skills predict better language and IQ scores in toddlerhood and early childhood.
c. Genetic–environmental correlation may account in part for these findings.
2. Infant and Toddler Child Care
a. Young children exposed to long hours of mediocre to poor-quality child care score lower on measures of
cognitive, language, and social skills from preschool through secondary school.
b. Good child care can reduce the negative impact of a stressed, poverty-stricken home life and sustain the
benefits of growing up in an economically advantaged family.
c. Standards for developmentally appropriate practice specify program characteristics that serve young
children’s developmental and individual needs.
D. Early Intervention for At-Risk Infants and Toddlers (pp. 229–230)
1. Children living in persistent poverty are likely to show gradual declines in intelligence test scores and to achieve
poorly when they reach school age.
2. Children who participate in both center-based and home-based interventions show gains in cognitive and
academic performance.
3. Early Head Start provides child care, educational experiences for infants and toddlers, parenting education, and
family social support through a center-based, home-based, or mixed approach.
V. LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT (pp. 231–241)
A. Toddlers typically say their first word at around 12 months of age and combine two words between 1½ and 2 years.
By age 6, children comprehend about 10,000 words, speak in elaborate sentences, and are skilled conversationalists.
B. Theories of Language Development (pp. 231–235)
1. The Nativist Perspective
a. Linguist Noam Chomsky proposed that all children are born with a language acquisition device (LAD), an
innate system containing a universal grammar, or set of rules common to all languages.
b. In this view, the LAD enables children, no matter which language they hear, to speak in a rule-oriented
fashion as soon as they pick up enough words.
c. Children everywhere reach major language milestones in a similar sequence—evidence that provides support
for the nativist perspective.

d. This includes deaf children: Those exposed to no sign language develop homesign, a spontaneous gestural
communication system, while those experiencing even inexpert sign language attain correct rule usage and
consistent grammar on a comparable timetable to hearing agemates.
e. Language Areas in the Brain
(1) For most people, language is housed in two important structures—Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area—in
the left hemisphere of the cerebral cortex.
(2) Recent brain-imaging research suggests complex relationships between language functions and these
brain structures, neither of which is solely, or even mainly, responsible for specific language capacities.
f. A Sensitive Period for Language Development
(1) Evidence for a sensitive period that coincides with brain lateralization would support the view that
language development has unique biological properties.
(2) Research on both first- and second-language learning reveals a biologically based timeframe for
optimum language development, but the boundaries of this sensitive period remain unclear.
g. Limitations of the Nativist Perspective
(1) Researchers have had difficulty specifying Chomsky’s universal grammar.
(2) Research suggests that language development involves more experimentation and learning than
Chomsky assumed.
2. The Interactionist Perspective
a. In this view, language achievements emerge through interactions between inner capacities and environmental
influences.
b. One type of interactionist theory applies the information-processing perspective to language development,
while a second type emphasizes social interaction.
c. Much support exists for the central premise of the social-interactionist view, in which children’s social
competencies and language experience greatly affect their language progress.
C. Getting Ready to Talk (pp. 235–237)
1. Cooing and Babbling
a. Around 2 months, babies begin to make vowel-like noises, called cooing.
b. At about 6 months, infants begin babbling—repeating consonant–vowel combinations.
c. Babies must be able to hear human speech for babbling to develop further.
d. Babbling is delayed and limited in hearing-impaired infants.
e. As caregivers respond to infant babbles, older infants modify their babbling to include sound patterns like
those in the adult’s speech.
f. Deaf infants exposed to sign language from birth babble with their hands much as hearing infants do through
speech.
2. Becoming a Communicator
a. By 3 to 4 months, infants start to gaze in the same general direction adults are looking.
b. Around 12 months, infants realize that a person’s visual gaze signals a vital connection between the viewer
and his or her surroundings, and they want to participate. This joint attention contributes greatly to early
language development.
c. Around 3 months, caregivers’ interactions with babies begin to include give-and-take, which extends to social
games between 4 and 6 months.
d. At the end of the first year, infants use preverbal gestures to direct adults’ attention, influence their behavior,
and convey helpful information.
D. First Words (p. 237)
1. Children’s first spoken words, around 1 year, usually include people, objects that move, foods, and familiar actions.
2. Young children sometimes apply words too narrowly, an error called underextension.
3. As vocabulary expands, a more common error is overextension—applying a word to a wider collection of objects
and events than is appropriate.
E. The Two-Word Utterance Phase (pp. 237–238)
1. Young toddlers add to their vocabularies at a rate of one to three words a week, and most children show a steady
increase in rate of word learning that continues through the preschool years.
2. In the second year, an improved ability to categorize experience, recall words, and grasp others’ social cues
supports rapid vocabulary growth.
3. Telegraphic speech refers to toddlers’ two-word utterances.

F. Comprehension versus Production (p. 238)

1. Language production refers to the words and word combinations children use, while comprehension refers to
the language they understand, which develops ahead of production.
2. Comprehension requires only that children recognize the meaning of a word, whereas production requires recall
of the word and the concept for which it stands.
G. Individual and Cultural Differences (pp. 239–240)
1. Research indicates that girls are slightly ahead of boys in early vocabulary growth. Temperament, caregiver–child
conversation, and SES also play a role.
2. Toddlers with a referential style of early language learning have vocabularies consisting mainly of words that
refer to objects, whereas those with an expressive style produce many more social formulas and pronouns.
H. Supporting Early Language Development (pp. 240–241)
1. A rich social environment builds on young children’s natural readiness to speak their native tongue.
2. Adults often speak to young children in infant-directed speech (IDS), consisting of short sentences with high-
pitched, exaggerated expression and clear pronunciation.
3. Live interaction with a responsive adult is far better suited to spurring early language development than media
sources.
LECTURE ENHANCEMENTS
LECTURE ENHANCEMENT 6.1

Following a Pointing Gesture: A Major Milestone in Infants’ Communicative Development (p. 236)
Time: 20–30 minutes
Objective: To consider evidence on young infants’ ability to follow a pointing gesture, with implications for development of
communicative skills.
This paper by Bertenthal et al. (2014) can be used in connection with class discussion of the development of joint attention. As
noted in the text (p. 236), 3- to 4-month-olds begin to gaze in the same general direction adults are looking, a skill that becomes
more accurate at 10 or 11 months of age. This capacity, called joint attention, plays an important role in early language
development as adults label the targets of joint gaze. A baby’s ability to follow a point is also vital for early language progress
because adults use pointing to reorient infants to a shared focus of attention. Furthermore, both gaze-following and point-
following contribute to early social understanding. By the end of the first year, infants comprehend each of these gestures as a
shared communicative cue. They also learn to interpret pointing as an expression of another’s specific intention (“Look here!”).
Noting that infants can follow the direction of another’s gaze long before the end of the first year, Bertenthal et al. set out
to investigate the question, “When do infants begin to follow a point?” They designed a series of three experiments with 4- and
6-month-olds to test whether following a pointing gesture develops around the same time as gaze-following or whether it
emerges only near the end of the first year. Their results challenge the current consensus that before age 9 to 12 months, infants
are not capable of following another’s pointing gesture.
Bertenthal et al. observed that both 4- and 6-month-olds followed a photo of a hand making a pointing gesture or a
similarly appearing “foil” (an outline the same shape and size as the pointing hand, filled in with a similar flesh color) when
either stimulus pointed toward a colorful, moving animal picture, as opposed to away from it. By contrast, infants less often
followed a flesh-colored arrow (a clearly nonsocial stimulus) aimed at an attractive animal picture. Contrary to findings of
previous studies, Bertenthal et al. concluded that the ability to follow a pointing gesture does not await improved development
of joint attention at the end of the first year. Rather, infants’ capacity to follow a point first emerges at approximately the same
age (4 to 6 months) as their initial ability to look in the same general direction of a person’s gaze.
Knowledge of the emergence of following a point, these researchers conclude, “is essential to a complete understanding of
joint visual attention and its contributions to social understanding and language development.” Early encounters with pointing
likely offer infants many opportunities to learn about the meaning of shared attention and how to capitalize on it to acquire
language meanings and information about others’ intentions.
Bertenthal, B. I., Boyer, T. W., & Harding, S. (2014). When do infants begin to follow a point? Developmental Psychology, 50,
2036–2048. doi: 10.1037/a0037152

LECTURE ENHANCEMENT 6.2

Infant Language Development in Social Context: The Role of Parental Responsiveness (pp. 240–241)
Time: 20–30 minutes
Objective: To examine the ways in which parental responsiveness facilitates infant language learning.
This paper by Tamis-LeMonda et al. (2014), which examines the role of parental responsiveness in infant language learning,
can be used to enhance the text discussion of supporting early language development (pp. 240–241). These authors identify a
number of benefits associated with parental responsiveness to infants’ exploratory and communicative behaviors—infants’
vocabulary size, the diversity of their communications, and the timing of language milestones—and ask, “What processes
might account for these associations?”
Tamis-LeMonda et al. suggest that responsiveness supports infants’ gains in pragmatics—the understanding that language
is a tool that enables people to share intentions with others. Responses that are prompt and contingent—for example, a parent’s
immediate verbal response to an infant’s babbling—also facilitate semantic development, helping infants figure out “which
words map to which objects or events in the world.” Finally, when infants “act on their worlds” and their parents respond, the
infants come to understand the intentional nature of social interactions.
The authors identify several characteristics of parental responsiveness that seem to promote language development:
(1) Responsive behaviors are contiguous with infant actions (connected within a brief time window) and contingent
(conceptually dependent) on those actions.
(2) Parental responses tend to use didactic language—labeling, describing, or asking about objects or events (“There’s the
ball!”)—and are embodied, coordinating verbal and physical cues, as when a parent simultaneously labels and points
to an object immediately after the infant has engaged with the object.
(3) Responsive behaviors scaffold infants’ development, as parents adapt their responses to accommodate their babies’
advancing skills.
The authors present evidence that these characteristic features of parental responsiveness are universal, although the
specifics vary depending on the sociocultural context. (In one study, for example, U.S. mothers were more responsive to infant
object play than to social play, whereas the opposite was true of Japanese mothers.) Tamis-LeMonda et al. have found that the
value of parental responsiveness for children’s language development can be generalized to infants from diverse cultural
communities, suggesting the universality of these social-learning processes.
Tamis-LeMonda, C. S., Kuchirko, Y., & Song, L. (2014). Why is infant language learning facilitated by parental
responsiveness? Current Directions in Psychological Science, 23, 121–126. doi: 10.1177/0963721414522813
LEARNING ACTIVITIES
LEARNING ACTIVITY 6.1

Applying Piaget’s Concepts of Assimilation and Accommodation (p. 202)
Piagetian concepts can be complex and challenging to grasp. Often, new ideas are best understood when they are applied to
one’s personal experiences. Ask students to consider their own learning in relation to Piaget’s theory. For example, each
semester students find themselves in a challenging state of disequilibrium as they enroll in new courses. They have to
accommodate quickly, creating new schemes so they can make sense of new realms of knowledge (that is, course material).
Once they do so, their new cognitive structures enable them to assimilate, or see the world in a different light, and they
experience the thrill of mastery. And when students combine new concepts into organized wholes, their sense of equilibrium is
enhanced. Under these conditions, they probably do best on exams.
Suggest that students illustrate Piaget’s concepts of cognitive change through one of their own learning experiences. Then
ask them to imagine themselves in the place of the young infant, for whom creating and organizing schemes are awesome tasks.
Unlike the student who enrolls in a new course of study that is similar to courses she has taken before, the baby encounters
aspects of the environment that are altogether unfamiliar and mysterious. In response, thousands of schemes must be created,
revised, and put together.


Testing Infants for Object Permanence (p. 204)
Arrange for several infants to visit your class for a demonstration of object permanence. If possible, infants should range in age
from 6 to 24 months of age.
(1) Successive object-hiding task. After attracting the baby’s attention, hide a rattle or other attractive toy beneath a cup or
under a cloth. See if the baby will set aside the obstacle and retrieve the object. Infants between 8 and 12 months of
age generally succeed at this task; younger ones have difficulty.
(2) Hiding-by-cloth and hiding-by-hand task. Place the toy on a table or desk, next to a folded cloth. Then unfold the cloth
over the toy. By 10 months, babies will usually retrieve the toy. Next, using your hand, carry the toy toward and under
the cloth, and bring your hand out without the toy (leave the toy under the cloth). Not until age 14 months will most
babies search for the toy. In the second, more difficult task, younger infants seem to expect the object to appear in the
hand because that is where the object initially disappeared.
(3) Successive object-hiding task. This time, set two cups on the table. Place the toy under one cup (A) and then move it
beneath the other (B). Infants between 12 and 18 months of age easily find the object in the second location; younger
ones frequently make the well-known A-not-B search error by looking in the first hiding place.
(4) Invisible object-hiding task. Hide the toy in a small box, place the box under a cover, and, while out of the baby’s
sight, dump the toy out of the box. Then show the baby the empty box. With the capacity to represent sensorimotor
actions internally, infants between 18 months and 2 years of age can solve this problem.

Matching: A General Model of Information Processing (pp. 215–216)
Present the following exercise as an in-class activity or quiz.
Directions: Match each of the following terms with its correct description.
_____ 1. Sensory register
_____ 2. Short-term memory store
_____ 3. Working memory
_____ 4. Central executive
_____ 5. Automatic processes
_____ 6. Long-term memory
_____ 7. Executive function
Descriptions:
A. The number of items that can be briefly held in mind while also engaging in some effort to monitor or manipulate
those items
B. Actions that are so well-learned that they require no space in working memory and, therefore, permit us to focus on
other information while performing them
C. The part of the mind in which we retain attended-to information briefly so we can actively “work” on it to reach our
goals
D. The part of the mental system in which sights and sounds are represented directly and stored briefly
E. The mental structure that enables complex, flexible thinking by directing the flow of information—coordinating
incoming information with information already in the system and selecting, applying, and monitoring strategies that
facilitate memory storage, comprehension, reasoning, and problem solving
F. The diverse cognitive operations and strategies that enable us to achieve our goals in cognitively challenging situations
G. Our permanent knowledge base, which is unlimited
Answers:
1. D 5. B
2. C 6. G
3. A 7. F
4. E


Observing Early Categorization Skills (pp. 219, 221)
This demonstration can be combined with Learning Activity 6.2, or you can suggest that students locate a toddler for
observation. Place a set of objects, such as four boxes and four balls, in front of the child. Research indicates that 12-month-
olds will touch objects that belong together, but they do not yet group them. A little later, single-category grouping can be seen.
For example, 16-month-olds are likely to put all the balls together but not the boxes. Finally, around 18 months, children sort
the objects exhaustively into two classes. Advanced categorization skills are believed to contribute to the vocabulary spurt that
typically occurs between 18 months and 2 years.

Supporting Mental Development in Infants and Toddlers (pp. 226–230)
Ask students to imagine that they have been invited to speak to a group of parents of very young children. Using research in the
text as a guide, ask students to describe environmental factors that promote favorable mental development in infants and
toddlers. What environmental factors tend to undermine mental development? Why are high-quality child care or early
intervention especially important for low-income infants and toddlers?

Matching: Language Development (pp. 231–241)
Present the following exercise as an in-class activity or quiz.
Directions: Match each of the following terms with its correct description.
_____ 1. Language acquisition device (LAD)
_____ 2. Cooing
_____ 3. Babbling
_____ 4. Joint attention
_____ 5. Underextension
_____ 6. Overextension
_____ 7. Telegraphic speech
_____ 8. Referential style
_____ 9. Expressive style
_____ 10. Infant-directed speech (IDS)
Descriptions:
A. Toddlers’ application of a word to a wider collection of objects and events than is appropriate
B. Two-word utterances that focus on high-content words and omit smaller, less important words
C. Starting around 6 months, infants’ repetition of consonant–vowel combinations, often in long strings, such as
“bababababa” or “nanananana”
D. An innate system that contains a universal grammar, or set of rules common to all languages
E. A style of early language learning in which the child’s vocabulary consists mainly of words that refer to objects
F. An interaction in which infants and toddlers attend to the same object or event as the caregiver, who often labels it—
an experience that contributes greatly to early language development
G. A style of early language learning in which toddlers produce many social formulas and pronouns
H. The vowel-like noises that babies make, starting around age 2 months
I. Toddlers’ tendency to apply a new word too narrowly
J. A form of communication typically used by adults in speaking to young children, made up of short sentences with
high-pitched, exaggerated expression, clear pronunciation, distinct pauses between speech segments, clear gestures to
support verbal meaning, and repetition of new words in a variety of contexts
Answers:
1. D 6. A
2. H 7. B
3. C 8. E
4. F 9. G
5. I 10. J


Interviewing Parents About Their Toddler’s Early Vocabulary (pp. 237–241)
Using research in the text, ask students to interview the parent of a toddler about early vocabulary development. If any students
have access to parents from different cultural or linguistic backgrounds, the class interviews can be aggregated for a
demonstration of cultural similarities and differences in first words.
During the interview, parents can be asked to list the words their child produces and the contexts in which the child uses
them. Students should note examples of object words (“ball,” “bread”), action words (“hit,” “hug”), and social routines
(“thanks,” “hello”) and of early two-word combinations (“more juice,” “go car”). Once students have completed the activity,
ask them to share their findings with the class. What individual differences in early language development are evident from the
interviews? Are some categories or types of words more prevalent than others? Were students surprised by any of their
findings?

Comprehension versus Production (p. 238)
At all ages, language comprehension develops ahead of language production. To illustrate this concept, ask students to discuss
their own learning experiences. For example, when acquiring a second language, students comprehend words, phrases, and
conversations with greater ease and accuracy than when asked to produce the same words, phrases, and conversations. In
addition, although students may comprehend the key elements in a lecture or assigned reading, they may have difficulty
reproducing these elements in a testing situation. Furthermore, as pointed out in the text, recall is more difficult than
recognition. Therefore, if we rely solely on what children or students produce or recall, we may greatly underestimate what they
actually know or comprehend.
ASK YOURSELF . . .
REVIEW: Using the text discussion on pages 203–210, construct your own summary table of infant and toddler
cognitive development. Which entries in your table are consistent with Piaget’s sensorimotor stage? Which ones develop
earlier than Piaget anticipated? (pp. 203–210)
This is an open-ended question with no right or wrong answer.
CONNECT: Recall from Chapter 5 (pages 195–196) that around the middle of the first year, infants identify objects by
their features and by their paths of movement, even when they cannot observe the entire path. How might these
attainments contribute to infants’ understanding of object permanence? (pp. 204–207)
Infants are fascinated by moving objects. As they observe objects’ motions, they pick up additional information about the
objects’ boundaries, such as shape, color, and texture. As improvements in scanning enable infants to integrate each object’s
features into a unified whole, they rely more on shape, color, and pattern and less on motion. From 4 to 11 months, infants
increasingly use featural information to detect the identity of an object traveling behind a screen. With age, babies’
understanding becomes increasingly complex: They become able to perceive an object’s identity by integrating feature and
movement information, distinguish the object from the barrier concealing it and the surface on which it rests, keep track of the
object’s whereabouts, and use this knowledge to obtain the object. Experience in watching objects move in and out of view
contributes to babies’ development of object permanence—the understanding that objects continue to exist even when they are
out of sight.
APPLY: Several times, after her father hid a teething biscuit under a red cup, 12-month-old Mimi retrieved it easily.
Then Mimi’s father hid the biscuit under a nearby yellow cup. Why did Mimi persist in searching for it under the red
cup? (pp. 205–206)
Searching for hidden objects seems to represent a true advance in object permanence understanding because infants solve
some object-hiding tasks before others. For example, 10-month-olds search for an object placed on a table and covered by a
cloth before they search for an object that a hand deposits under a cloth. In the second, more difficult task, infants seem to
expect the object to reappear in the hand from which it initially disappeared. When the hand emerges without the object, they
conclude that there is no other place the object could be. At 12 months, Mimi is not yet able to infer that her father has put the
biscuit under a different cup—an understanding that typically develops later, around 14 months.

REFLECT: What advice would you give the typical U.S. parent about permitting an infant or toddler to watch as much
as 1 to 1½ hours of TV or video per day? Explain. (p. 210)
REVIEW: What impact does toddlers’ more advanced play have on the development of attention? (pp. 216–217)
With the transition to toddlerhood, children become increasingly capable of intentional behavior. As a result, attraction to
novelty declines (though it does not disappear) and sustained attention improves, especially when children play with toys. A
toddler who engages even in simple goal-directed behavior, such as stacking blocks or putting them in a container, must sustain
attention to reach the goal. As plans and activities gradually become more complex, the duration of attention increases.
CONNECT: List techniques that parents can use to scaffold the development of categorization in infancy and
toddlerhood, and explain why each is effective. (pp. 219, 221)
Babies’ earliest categories are based on similar overall appearance or prominent object parts: legs for animals, wheels for
vehicles. But as infants approach their first birthday, more categories appear to be based on subtle sets of features. Adults can
scaffold the development of categorization as early as 3 to 4 months of age by labeling a set of objects with a consistently
applied word (“Look at the car!” “Do you see the car?”). This technique calls babies’ attention to commonalities among
objects, which fosters categorization. At 14 months, toddlers can switch from classifying on one basis (for example, shape) to
another (material: soft versus hard). Adults can scaffold this development by calling toddlers’ attention to the new basis for
grouping—for example, by saying, “Look at these round ones!” while pointing to both rubber and plastic balls, and then
grouping rubber balls with rubber blocks and pointing out, “All of these are soft!”
APPLY: When Timmy was 18 months old, his mother stood behind him, helping him throw a large ball into a box. As
his skill improved, she stepped back, letting him try on his own. Using Vygotsky’s ideas, explain how Timmy’s mother is
supporting his cognitive development. (pp. 222–223)
Vygotsky’s concept of the zone of proximal development refers to a range of tasks that the child cannot yet handle alone
but can do with the help of more skilled partners. In this example, Timmy’s mother is capitalizing on a task that Timmy has
chosen. As she guides and supports Timmy in throwing the ball, he joins in the interaction and picks up mental strategies. Then,
as Timmy’s competence increases, his mother can step back, permitting Timmy to take more responsibility for the task. This
form of teaching, known as scaffolding, promotes learning at all ages.
REFLECT: Describe your earliest autobiographical memory. How old were you when the event occurred? Do your
responses fit with research on infantile amnesia? (p. 220)
REVIEW: What probably accounts for the finding that speed of habituation and recovery to visual stimuli predicts
later IQ better than an infant mental test score? (p. 226)
Infants and toddlers easily become distracted, fatigued, or bored during testing, so their scores often do not reflect their true
abilities. And infant perceptual and motor items differ from the tasks given to older children, which increasingly emphasize
verbal, conceptual, and problem-solving skills. In contrast, speed of habituation and recovery to novel visual stimuli is among
the best available infant predictors of IQ from early childhood to early adulthood. Habituation and recovery seem to be an
especially effective early index of intelligence because they assess memory as well as quickness and flexibility of thinking,
which underlie intelligent behavior at all ages.
CONNECT: Using what you learned about brain development in Chapter 5, explain why it is best to initiate
intervention for poverty-stricken children in the first two years rather than later. (pp. 229–230)
During the first two years, brain growth occurs at an astounding pace. Although few neurons are produced after the
prenatal period, connections between neurons, myelination of neural fibers, development of the prefrontal cortex, and
lateralization of the hemispheres are underway. As neurons form connections, those that are stimulated by input from the
surrounding environment continue to establish new synapses, forming increasingly elaborate systems of communication that
lead to more complex abilities. For this process to proceed, appropriate stimulation of the child’s brain is vital during periods in
which the formation of synapses is at its peak. This is a prime reason that very early intervention is necessary to help poverty-
stricken children reach their cognitive potential.

APPLY: Fifteen-month-old Joey’s developmental quotient (DQ) is 115. His mother wants to know exactly what this
means and what she should do to support his intellectual development. How would you respond? (pp. 226–227)
Joey’s DQ of 115 indicates that he did better than 84 percent of children of the same age on a test of early mental
development. However, intelligence is a complex blend of hereditary and environmental influences, and most infant and toddler
tests are poor predictors of later intelligence test scores. Therefore, Joey’s mother should be advised to provide Joey with a safe
play environment, appropriate toys and interesting activities, and opportunities for variety in daily stimulation, such as regular
outings with a parent. She should be emotionally and verbally responsive, interacting sensitively with Joey while not being
intrusive or pressuring him. As research with the Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment (HOME) checklist
indicates, these features of a high-quality home life will support Joey’s mental development by encouraging his cognitive
growth and curiosity.
REFLECT: Suppose you were seeking a child-care setting for your baby. What would you want it to be like, and why?
(p. 229)
REVIEW: Why is the social-interactionist perspective attractive to many investigators of language development? Cite
evidence that supports it. (pp. 231–232, 234)
In the 1950s, researchers did not take seriously the idea that very young children might be able to figure out important
properties of language. Children’s regular and rapid attainment of language milestones seemed to support linguist Noam
Chomsky’s nativist theory, in which language is a uniquely human accomplishment, etched into the structure of the brain and
largely governed by maturation. In this view, the human brain is prewired for language development. In contrast, the social-
interactionist perspective emphasizes the central role of children’s social skills and language experiences. In this view, an active
child strives to communicate, which cues her caregivers to provide appropriate language experiences, which in turn help her
relate the content and structure of language to its social meanings. Much support exists for the central premise of the social-
interactionist belief that children’s social competencies and language experiences greatly affect their language progress.
CONNECT: Cognition and language are interrelated. List examples of how cognition fosters language development.
Next, list examples of how language fosters cognitive development. (pp. 237–238)
Infants’ first spoken words, around 1 year, build on sensorimotor foundations and on categories infants have formed.
Earliest words usually include people, objects that move, foods, animals (in families with pets), familiar actions, outcomes of
such actions (“hot,” “wet”), and social terms. At first, young children often apply words too narrowly, an error called
underextension. As vocabulary expands, a more common error is overextension—applying a word to a wider collection of
objects or events than is appropriate. Toddlers’ overextensions reflect their sensitivity to categories.
Toddlers’ impressive gains in word production between 18 and 24 months reflect cognitive gains, including their growing
ability to categorize experience, recall words, and grasp others’ social cues to meaning, such as eye gaze, pointing, and
handling objects. Once toddlers can produce 200 to 250 words, they start to combine two words: “Mommy shoe,” “go car,”
“more cookie.” Toddlers are absorbed in figuring out word meanings and using their limited vocabularies in whatever way
possible to get their thoughts across.
APPLY: Fran frequently corrects her 17-month-old son Jeremy’s attempts to talk and—fearing that he won’t use
words—refuses to respond to his gestures. How might Fran be contributing to Jeremy’s slow language progress?
(pp. 236–237, 240–241)
Fran’s impatience with Jeremy’s efforts to talk may impede his language progress by leading him to stop trying to
communicate, resulting in immature language skills. Instead, to promote Jeremy’s language progress, Fran can respond to his
gestures and also label them. For example, if Jeremy points to a box of cookies on the counter to indicate that he wants a
cookie, Fran might say, “Oh, you want a cookie!” In this way, Jeremy learns that using language leads to desired results.
Gradually, gestures will recede and words become dominant. The greater the number of items toddlers gesture about and the
earlier they form word–gesture combinations, the faster their vocabulary growth, the sooner they produce two-word utterances
at the end of the second year, and the more complex their sentences are at age 3½.

Fran should also make a point of using infant-directed speech (IDS)—speaking to Jeremy in short sentences with high-
pitched, exaggerated expression, clear pronunciation, distinct pauses between speech segments, clear gestures to support verbal
meaning, and repetition of new words in a variety of contexts. Parent–toddler conversation promotes language skills by
providing many examples of speech that are just ahead of the child’s current level and a sympathetic environment in which to
try out new skills. Dialogues about picture books are particularly effective. Through IDS and conversation with Jeremy, Fran
can create a zone of proximal development in which Jeremy’s language will expand.
REFLECT: Find an opportunity to speak to an infant or toddler. Did you use IDS? What features of your speech are
likely to promote early language development, and why? (pp. 240–241)
MEDIA MATERIALS
For details on individual video segments that accompany the DVDs for Infants, Children, and Adolescents, Eighth Edition,
please see the DVD Guide for Explorations in Child Development. The DVD and DVD Guide are available through your
Pearson sales representative.
Additional DVDs and streaming videos that may be useful in your class are listed below. They are not available through
your Pearson sales representative, but you can order them directly from the distributor. (See contact information at the end of
this manual.)
The Brain: Developing Memory in Developing Brains (2010, Insight Media, 21 min.). This program offers tips for helping
infants and young children develop memory skills. It identifies the parts of the brain, differentiates between long- and short-
term memory, and considers the value of various memory strategies.
Infants: Cognitive Development (2010, Insight Media, 30 min.). This program traces cognitive development from simple
reflexes to the beginnings of thought. It explores infant intelligence, information processing, and memory; follows the
progression of infant communication; and examines the role of caregivers in cognitive development.
The Mind’s Storehouse: Memory (2006, Insight Media, 30 min.). Starting with the question of whether memory is reliable, this
program includes interviews with memory researchers that cover such topics as encoding, storage, and retrieval of memories. It
features Elizabeth Loftus, who discusses her extensive research on false memories.
Thinking and Language (2006, Insight Media, 30 min.). In this program, Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman discusses his
research in cognitive psychology, and linguist Noam Chomsky describes his theory of language acquisition. The film also
features the story of a young girl who, as a result of abuse, did not learn to speak.
Toddlers (2011, Insight Media/Learning Seed, 36 min.). This program looks at the physical, cognitive, social, and emotional
development of toddlers. It explores language changes, shows how children start to communicate with others, and explains how
children learn to manage their feelings.
Toddlers: Cognitive Development (2009, Learning Seed, 24 min.). This program examines how the brain is structured to help
children retain what they learn. It also explores theories of cognitive development and the process of language acquisition. It
features toddlers as they engage in activities that foster memory and the retrieval of information.
Why Do We Talk? The Science of Speech (2009, Films Media Group/BBC–Science Channel coproduction, 52 min.). This
program discusses the structures—sociological, anatomical, developmental, and intellectual—that underlie speech. It highlights
the work of speech researchers, including Deb Roy and the Human Speechome Project; Tecumseh Fitch, who is conducting
research on vocal tract positioning in animals; Cathy Price, who is piecing together a speech-related map of the brain; and
Faraneh Vargha-Khadem, who is working on the isolation of a speech gene, FOXP2. Noam Chomsky also appears.

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sequins. He found time while there for the preparation of translations
of the Rhetoric of Aristotle, and of a number of other Greek works.
Filelfo’s arrogance and bad temper, and his fondness for invective
and satire, soon brought him into trouble with the literary circle of
Florence, and finally with the Medici, and he was compelled to
withdraw to Siena, where he remained four years with a stipend of
350 florins. From there, after a brief visit to Bologna, he removed to
Milan, where his emoluments were much larger than any heretofore
received, and where, in the absence of any other scholars of equal
attainments or assumptions, he had the satisfaction of being the
accepted literary leader of the capital. In addition to his professional
salary, he received large sums and presents for addresses, orations,
and commemorative poems, which he was always ready to prepare.
Such a combination of rhetoric and literature was peculiarly
characteristic of the Italy of the time, and may be said to constitute a
distinct phase in the history of compensation for intellectual
productions. Filelfo published, in two ponderous volumes, his
Satires, Odes, and other fugitive pieces, under the title of Convivia
Mediolanensia.
Notwithstanding the considerable sums which Filelfo earned
through his lectures and through his various rhetorical productions,
he seems always to have been in need of money. His tastes were
expensive, while his three wives had borne him no less than twenty-
four children. In his later years he gained the reputation of being very
greedy of gold and of making impudent demands which bore very
much the character of blackmail. Gregorio Lollio, writing (in 1452) to
the Cardinal of Pavia, describes Filelfo in the following words: “He is
calumnious, envious, vain, and so greedy of gold that he metes out
praise or blame according to the gifts he gets, both despicable as
proceeding from a tainted source.”[419]
From Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan, he received a liberal
stipend. Pope Nicholas V., after reading some of his Satires (which
Symonds characterises as “infamous”) presented him with 500
ducats. Travelling from Rome to Naples, Filelfo received more
presents from Alfonso, who dubbed him a knight. Continuing his
journey, he secured honours and rewards in Ferrara from Duke
Borso, in Mantua from Marchese Gonzaga, and in Rimini from
Gismondo Malatesta. After the death of Sforza, he accepted, in
1475, from Pope Sixtus IV., a professional Chair in Rome, with a
salary of 600 florins. He soon, however, quarrelled with the Pope,
and withdrew to Florence, where Lorenzo de’ Medici provided a post
for him as Professor of Greek Literature.
Filelfo died in Florence in his eighty-third year. He had probably
received larger emoluments for his work as an instructor, as a
rhetorician, and as a man of letters, than any man of his generation,
but he died without any means, and was buried by the charity of the
Florentines. His career, in its activities, vicissitudes, controversies,
successes, and bitternesses, was very typical of the lives of the
Italian scholars of the period.
At the time of Filelfo’s death, while in many other cities the
influence of the Renaissance was bringing together collections of
books and circles of scholars, and literary productiveness was
increasing throughout Italy, Florence still remained the capital of
learning and of refined culture. Lorenzo de’ Medici had, in 1469,
succeeded to Pietro, and of all the Medici it was Lorenzo whose
influence was the most important in furthering the intellectual and
artistic movements of the time. Symonds speaks of him as “a man of
marvellous variety and range of mental power, in whom ... the
versatility of the Renaissance found its fullest incarnation.”
Lorenzo attracted to his villa the greatest scholars and most
brilliant men of the time, a circle which included Poliziano, Landino,
Ficino, Pico della Mirandola, Alberti, Pulci, and Michael Angelo. The
interests of this circle, as of all similar Italian circles of the time, were
largely absorbed in the philosophy and literature of Greece, and
special attention was devoted to the teachings of Plato. Plato’s
writings were translated into Latin by Ficino, and the translation was
printed in 1482, at the cost of Filippo Valvio. Ficino was too poor
himself to undertake the publication of his works, and this was the
case with not a few of the distinguished authors of the age. The
presentation of books to the public required at this time what might
be called the endowment of literature, an endowment which was
supplied by the liberality of wealthy patrons possessed of literary
appreciation or public-spirited ambition, or of both. As Symonds
expresses it, “Great literary undertakings involved in that century the
substantial assistance of wealthy men, whose liberality was
rewarded by a notice in the colophon or in the title-page.” The formal
dedication was an invention of a somewhat later date.
The Ficino edition of Plotinus, printed at the expense of Lorenzo
de’ Medici, and published a few weeks after his death, bears the
inscription, Magnifici sumptu Laurentii patriæ servatoris. The edition
of Homer of Lorenzo Alopa, issued in 1488, was printed at the
expense of either Bernardo Nerli or Giovanni Acciajuoli. These
examples of printed publications belong, however, to a later chapter.
Ficino followed up his translation of Plato’s work with a Life of Plato,
and an essay on the Platonic Doctrine of Immortality.
In 1484, appeared in the Florentine circle the beautiful and brilliant
Pico della Mirandola, a man who through his exceptional gifts, his
varied learning, and the charm of his personality, exercised a very
wide influence over his generation, and who may possibly be
accepted as at once the type and the flower of the Renaissance.
Pico studied at Bologna, and later at Paris. He printed, in 1489, in
defence of his philosophical theories, certain theses which were
condemned as heretical by Innocent VIII. In 1493, the ban of
heterodoxy was renewed by a brief of Alexander VI. Pico’s enquiring
mind and scholarly ardour covered a wide range of research,
including the philosophy of the Platonists, the mysteries of the
Cabbala, and the system and theories of Aquinas, Scotus, Albertus
Magnus, and Averrhoes, and he proposed to devote his learning and
his life to the task of reconciling classical traditions with the Christian
creeds. Didot quotes the following characteristic sentence from a
letter written by Pico, February 11, 1491, to Aldus Manutius:
“Philosophia veritatem quærit, theologia invenit, religio possidet.”
(Philosophy seeks truth, theology discovers it, religion possesses it.)
Pico died at the age of thirty-one, before the book had been
written in which he proposed to demonstrate these positions. He was
able, however, to render a great service to Italy and to Europe in
securing for his friend Aldus the aid required for the establishment of
the Aldine Press in Venice. The details of the relations of the two
men are given in the chapter on Aldus.
Other noteworthy members of the literary circle which surrounded
Lorenzo de’ Medici, were Christoforo Landino, Leo Battista Alberti,
and Angelo Poliziano. Landino edited Horace and Virgil and
translated Pliny’s Natural History, and in 1481 published an edition of
Dante, and Battista Alberti, (whose comedy of Philodoxius, which
passed for an antique, was published by the Aldi, in 1588, as the
work of Lepidus Comicus), wrote three treatises on painting, and
several volumes on architecture. Alberti was more distinguished as
an artist, architect, and musician, than as an author. It was
characteristic, however, of the men of this group to be universal in
their genius.
Symonds speaks of Poliziano as emphatically the representative
of the highest achievements of the age in scholarship, and as the
first Italian to combine perfect mastery over Latin and a correct
sense of Greek, with splendid genius for his native literature. His
published works included annotated editions of Ovid, Suetonius,
Statius, Pliny, and Quintilian, translations of Epictetus, Galen, and
Hippocrates, a series of Miscellanea, and most important of all, the
edition, printed from the famous Amalfi manuscript, of the Pandects
of Justinian.
Among the smaller cities in which the Humanistic movement
influenced literature and furthered the development of learning, may
be mentioned Carpi, afterwards the home of Musurus and Aldus;
Mirandola, the birthplace of the brilliant Pico; Pesaro, where
Alessandro and Constanzo Sforza brought together a library rivalling
that of the Medici; Rimini, where Sigismondo Malatesta gathered
about his fortress a circle of scholars; and Urbino, where the good
Duke Frederick brought together one of the finest collections of
manuscripts which Europe had known, a collection valued at over
30,000 ducats. Vespasiano, who served for some time as librarian,
says that for fourteen years the Duke kept from thirty to forty copyists
employed in transcribing Greek and Latin Manuscripts. The work of
these copyists went on for some years after the introduction of
printing into Italy, for Frederick, in common with not a few other of
the scholarly nobles who were collectors of manuscripts, distrusted
and looked down upon the new art, and had no interest in books
which were merely mechanical reproductions.
Vespasiano da Bisticci, whose aid Frederick had secured in the
preparation of his library, was noted as an author, as a scribe, and as
a bookseller. Symonds speaks of the “rare merit” of the biographical
work in Vespasiano’s Lives of Illustrious Men, the memoirs of which
Symonds utilised largely in the preparation of his Renaissance.
Vespasiano’s literary work must have been done “in the intervals of
business,” for his business undertakings were important. He was the
largest dealer in manuscripts of his time. His purchasing agents and
correspondents were armed with instructions to secure authenticated
codices wherever these were obtainable, and the monasteries not
only of Italy but of Switzerland, South Germany, Hungary,
Transylvania, and the East were carefully searched for possible
literary treasures. He employed a large force of skilled copyists in the
production of copies of famous works, which copies were distributed
through correspondents and customers in the different scholarly
centres of Europe. Possessing himself a wide and exact scholarship,
he gave his personal attention to the selection of his texts, the
training of his copyists and the supervision of their work, so that a
manuscript coming from Vespasiano carried with it the prestige of
accuracy and completeness.
Vespasiano’s scholarly knowledge and his special experience in
palæography were utilised by such clients as Nicholas V., Cosimo
de’ Medici, Frederick of Urbino, and other lovers of literature, in the
formation of and development of their libraries. Vespasiano united,
therefore, the functions of a scholarly editor and commentator, a
collector, a book-manufacturer, a publisher and a bookseller, a series
of responsibilities which called for a wide range of learning,
accomplishments, and executive ability. It is evident from his career
and from the testimony of his friends and clients (terms in this case
practically identical) that he was devoted to literature for its own
sake. He accepted the rewards secured by his skill and enterprise,
and promptly expended these in fresh efforts for the development
and extension of liberal scholarship. Vespasiano may be called the
last, as he was probably the greatest of the book-dealers of the
manuscript period. Born in 1421 and living until 1498, he witnessed
the introduction of printing into Italy, and may easily have had
opportunities of handling the earlier productions of the Venetian
printing-press. Vespasiano was a fitting successor of Atticus and a
worthy precursor of Aldus, whose work in the distribution of scholarly
literature was, in fact, a direct continuation of his own.
As before mentioned, the trade in the production of manuscript
copies went on for a number of years after the introduction of
printing. The noblemen and wealthy scholars who had inherited, or
who had themselves brought together, collections of famous works in
manuscript, were for some time, not unnaturally, unwilling to believe
that ordinary people could, by means of the new invention, with a
comparatively trifling expenditure secure perfect and beautiful copies
of the same works. Before the death of Vespasiano, in 1498,
however, the work of the printing-press had come to be understood
and cordially appreciated by book-buyers and students of all classes,
and the trade of the copyists and of the manuscript-dealers had,
excepting for newly discovered texts, practically come to an end. The
career of Vespasiano belongs strictly to the chapter on the
publishers of manuscripts, of whom he was the most important. The
man himself, however, through his character and services, belongs
essentially to the movement of the Renaissance, of which movement
he was at once a product and a leader.
During the reigns of Pope Innocent VIII., 1484-1492, and of
Alexander VI. (Borgia), 1492-1503, little or nothing was done in
Rome to further the development of literature. To the latter was in
fact due the initiating of the system of the subjection of the press to
ecclesiastical censorship, a system which for centuries to come was
to exercise the most baneful influence over literature and intellectual
activities and to interfere enormously with the establishment of any
assured foundation for property in literature. Some account of the
long contests carried on by the publishers of Venice against this
claim for ecclesiastical control of the productions of their presses, is
given in a later chapter.
Venice stood almost alone among the cities of Italy in resisting the
censorship of the Church, and even in Venice, the Church in the end
succeeded in the more important of its contentions. In Spain, the
ecclesiastical control was hardly questioned. In France, it was, after
a century of contest, practically merged in the censorship exercised
by the Crown, a control which was in itself fully as much as the
publishing trade could bear and continue to exist. In Austria and
South Germany, after the crushing out of the various reformation
movements, the Church and State worked in practical accord in
keeping a close supervision of the printing-presses. In North
Germany, on the other hand, ecclesiastical censorship never
became important. The evils produced by it were, however, serious
and long enduring throughout a large portion of the territory of
Europe, and the papal Borgia, though by no means a considerable
personage, is responsible for bringing into existence an evil which
assumed enormous proportions in the intellectual history of Europe.
Towards the close of the fifteenth century begins in Italy the age of
academies, associations of scholars and littérateurs for the furthering
of scholarly pursuits and of literary undertakings. One of the earlier
of these Academies was instituted in Rome, in 1468, by Julius
Pomponius Lætus (a pupil of Valla), for the special purpose of
promoting the study of Latin literature and Latin antiquities.
Comedies of Plautus and of other Latin dramatists were revived, and
the attempt was made to make Latin, at least for the scholarly circle,
again a living language. The Academy was suspected by Pope Paul
II. to have some political purpose, and it was for a time suppressed,
but resumed its activities some years later under the papacy of
Alexander VI.
The Academy of Naples was instituted in 1470, under the
leadership of Beccadelli and Juvianus Pontanus, and with a
membership comprising a number of the brilliant scholars whom
Alphonso the Magnanimous had attracted to his Court. This society
also devoted itself particularly to the revival of an interest in Latin
literature, and not a few of the members became better known under
the Latinised names there adopted by them than by their Italian
cognomens. Pomponius had written little and hoped to be
remembered through his pupils. Pontanus on the other hand, wrote
on many subjects, using for the purpose Latin, of which he was a
master. Symonds says that he chiefly deserves to be remembered
for his ethical treatises, but he seems himself to have attached
special importance to his amatory elegiacs and to a series of
astronomical hexameters entitled Urania.
In Florence, the Platonic Academy continued to flourish under the
auspices of the Rucellai family. It was suppressed in 1522, at the
time of the conspiracy against Giulio de’ Medici, but again revived in
1540. In 1572, was organised in Florence the famous academy
called Della Crusca, which secured for itself a European reputation.
In Bologna, in 1504, the society of the Viridario was instituted, with
the purpose of studying printed texts and of furthering the art of
printing. Bologna had a considerable number of other literary
societies, for the study of jurisprudence, chivalry, and other subjects.
Throughout Italy at this period academies multiplied, but the greater
number exercised no continued influence.
It is probable, however, that they all proved of service in preparing
the way for the printed literature which the Italian presses were, after
1490, beginning to distribute, and that in widening the range of
popular interest in scholarship and in books generally, they did not a
little to render possible the work of Aldus and other early Italian
publishers. The academy founded by Aldus in Venice, for the
prosecution of Greek studies, will be referred to in the chapter on
Aldus.
“The fifteenth century rediscovered antiquity; the sixteenth was
absorbed in slowly deciphering it. In the fifteenth century ‘educated
Europe’ is but a synonym for Italy. What literature there was north of
the Alps was in great part derived from, or was largely dependent
upon, the Italian movement. The fact that the movement originated in
the Latin peninsula, was decisive of the character of the first age of
classical learning (1400-1550). It was a revival of Latin as opposed
to Greek literature. It is now well understood that the fall of
Constantinople, though an influential incident of the movement,
ranks for little among the causes of the Renaissance. What was
revived in Italy in the fifteenth century was the interest of the Schools
of the early Empire—of the second and third century.... But in one
decisive feature, the literary sentiment of the fifteenth century was a
reproduction of that of the Empire. It was rhetorical, not scientific.
Latin literature as a whole is rhetorical.... The divorce of the literature
of knowledge and the literature of form which characterised the
epoch of decay under the early empire, characterised equally the
epoch of revival in the Italy of the Popes.... The knowledge and
wisdom buried in the Greek writers presented a striking contrast to
the barren sophistic which formed the curriculum of the Latin
schools. It became the task of the scholars of the second period of
the classical revival to disinter this knowledge.... Philology had
meant composition and verbal emendation; it now meant the
apprehension of the ideas and usages of the ancient world. Scholars
had exerted themselves to write, they now bent all their effort to
know.... There came now into existence what has ever since been
known as ‘learning,’ in the special sense of the term. The first period
of humanism in which the words of the ancient authors had been
studied, was thus the preparatory school for the humanism of the
second period, in which the matter was the object of attention.
As Italy had been the home of classical taste in the first period,
France became the home of classical learning in the second. Single
names can be mentioned, such as Victorius or Sigonius in Italy,
Mursius or Vulcanius in the Low Countries, who were distinguished
representatives of ‘learning,’ but in Bulæus, Turnebus, Lambrinus,
Scaliger, Casaubon, and Saumaise, France produced a constellation
of humanists whose fame justly eclipsed that of all their
contemporaries.
If we ask why Italy did not continue to be the centre of the
humanist movement, which she had so brilliantly inaugurated, the
answer is that the intelligence was crushed by the reviviscence of
ecclesiastical ideas. Learning is the result of research, and research
must be free and cannot coexist with the claim of the Catholic clergy
to be superior to enquiry. The French school, it will be observed, is
wholly in fact or in intention Protestant. As soon as it was decided
(as it was before 1600) that France was to be a Catholic country, and
the University of Paris a Catholic university, learning was
extinguished in France. France saw without regret and without
repentance the expatriation of her unrivalled scholars. With Scaliger
and Saumaise, the seat of learning was transferred from France to
Holland. The third period of classical learning thus coincides with the
Dutch school. From 1593, the date of Scaliger’s removal to Leyden,
the supremacy in the republic of learning was possessed by the
Dutch. In the course of the eighteenth century, the Dutch school was
gradually supplanted by the North German, which from that time
forward has taken, and still possesses, the lead in philological
science.”[420]
CHAPTER II.
THE INVENTION OF PRINTING AND THE WORK OF THE
FIRST PRINTERS OF HOLLAND AND GERMANY.
1440-1528.
“
FOUR men, Gutenberg, Columbus, Luther, and Copernicus,
stand at the dividing line of the Middle Ages, and serve as boundary
stones marking the entrance of mankind into a higher and finer
epoch of its development.”[421]
It would be difficult to say which one of the four has made the
largest contribution to this development or has done the most to lift
up the spirit of mankind and to open for men the doors to the new
realms that were in readiness. The Genoese seaman and discoverer
opens new realms to our knowledge and imagination, leads Europe
from the narrow restrictions of the Middle Ages out into the vast
space of Western oceans, and in adding to the material realms
controlled by civilisation, widens still more largely the range of its
thought and fancy. The Reformer of Wittenberg, in breaking the
bonds which had chained the spirits of his fellow-men and in
securing for them again their rights as individual Christians,
conquers for them a spiritual realm and brings them into renewed
relations with their Creator. The great astronomer shatters, through
his discoveries, the fixed and petty conceptions of the universe
which had ruled the minds of mankind, and in bringing to them fresh
light on the nature and extent of created things, widens at the same
time their whole understanding of themselves and of duty. The
citizen of Mayence may claim to have unchained intelligence and
given to it wings. He utilised lead no longer as a death-bringing ball,
but in the form of life-quickening letters which were to bring before
thousands of minds the teachings of the world’s thinkers. Each one
of the four had his part in bringing to the world light, knowledge, and
development.
At the time when the art of printing finally took shape in the mind of
Gutenberg, the direction of literary and intellectual interests of
Germany rested, as we have seen, largely with Italy. The fact,
however, that the new art had its birthplace, not in Florence, which
was at that time the centre of the literary activities of Europe, but in
Mayence, heretofore a town which had hardly been connected at all
with literature, and the further fact that the printing-presses were
carrying on their work in Germany for nearly fifteen years before two
printers, themselves Germans, set up the first press in Italy,
exercised, of necessity, an important influence in inciting literary
activities throughout Germany and in the relations borne by
Germany to the scholarship of the world.
The details of the life and early work of Gutenberg are at best but
fragmentary, and have been a subject of much discussion. It is not
necessary, for the purpose of this treatise, to give detailed
consideration to the long series of controversies as to the respective
claims of Gutenberg of Mayence, of Koster of Haarlem, or of other
competitors, as to the measure of credit to be assigned to each in
the original discovery or of the practical development of the the
printing-press. It seems in any case evident that whatever minds
elsewhere were at that time puzzling over the same problem, it was
the good fortune of Gutenberg to make the first practical application
of the printing-press to the production of impressions from movable
type, while it was certainly from Mayence that the art spread
throughout the cities, first of Germany, and later of Italy and France.
It is to be borne in mind (and I speak here for the non-technical
reader) that, as indicated in the above reference, the distinction and
important part of the invention of Gutenberg was, not the production
of a press for the multiplication of impressions, but the use of
movable type and the preparation of the form from which the
impressions were struck off. The art of printing from blocks, since
classified as xylographic printing, had been practised in certain
quarters of Europe for fifty years or more before the time of
Gutenberg, and if Europe had had communication with China,
xylography might have been introduced four or five centuries earlier.
With the block-books, the essential thing was the illustrations, and
what text or letterpress accompanied these was usually limited to a
few explanatory or descriptive words engraved on the block, above,
beneath or around the picture. Occasionally, however, as in the Ars
Moriendi, there were entire pages of text engraved, like the designs,
on the solid block. The earlier engraving was done on hard wood,
but, later, copper was also employed. It is probable that the block-
books originated in the Netherlands, and it is certain that in such
towns as Bruges, Antwerp, and Amsterdam, the art was developed
more rapidly than elsewhere, so that during the first half of the
fifteenth century, the production of wood engravings and of books
made up of engravings (printed only on one side, and accompanied
by a few words of text), began to form an important article of trade.
The subjects of these designs were for the most part Biblical, or at
least religious. One of the earlier of the block-book publications and
probably the most characteristic specimen of the class, is the volume
known as the Biblia Pauperum. This was a close imitation of a
manuscript book that had for five or six centuries been popular as a
work of religious instruction. It had been composed about 850, by S.
Ausgarius, a monk of Corbie, who afterwards became Bishop of
Hamburg. The scriptorium established by him at Corbie was said to
have been the means of preserving from destruction a number of
classics, including the Annals of Tacitus.[422] The use, five centuries
later, as one of the first productions of the printing-press, of the
monk’s own composition, may be considered as a fitting
acknowledgement of the service thus rendered by him to the world’s
literature. Examples of manuscript copies of the Biblia Pauperum are
in existence in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, in Munich, in the
British Museum, and elsewhere, and there is no difficulty in
comparing these with the printed copies produced in the
Netherlands, which are also represented in these collections.
It is probable that Laurence Koster of Haarlem, whose name is,
later, associated with printing from movable type, was himself an
engraver of block-books. Humphreys is, in fact, inclined to believe
that the first block-book edition of the Biblia Pauperum was actually
Koster’s work, basing this opinion on the similarity of the
compositions and of their arrangement to those of the Speculum
Humanæ Salvationis, which was the first work printed from movable
type, and the production of which is now generally credited to
Koster.[423] The Biblia Pauperum was printed from blocks in
Germany as late as 1475, but before that date an edition had been
printed from movable type by Pfister in Bamberg.
As has been pointed out by many of the writers on the subject, the
so-called invention of printing was not so much the result of an
individual inspiration, as the almost inevitable consequence of a long
series of experiments and of partial processes which had been
conducted in various places where the community was interesting
itself in the multiplication of literature.
If, as is probably the case, the first book printed from movable type
is to be credited to Koster, it remains none the less the case that
Gutenberg’s process must have been worked out for itself, and that
the German possessed, what the Hollander appears to have lacked,
not merely the persistence and the practical understanding required
to produce a single book, but the power to overcome obstacles and
to instruct others, and was thus able to establish the new art on a
lasting foundation.
The claims of the Hollanders under which Koster is to be regarded
as the first printer, or at least (bearing in mind the Chinese
precedents in the tenth century) the first European printer, from
movable type, claims which Humphreys accepts as well founded, are
in substance as follows: Laurence Koster was born, somewhere in
Holland, about 1370, and died in Haarlem about 1440. He is
believed to have made his first experiments with movable wooden
types about 1426, and to have worked with metal types about ten
years later. The principal of the earlier authorities concerning
Koster’s career is a certain Hadrian Junius, who completed, in 1569,
a history of Holland, which was published in 1588. He speaks of
Koster as being a man of an honourable family, in which the office of
Sacristan (custos, Coster or Koster) was hereditary, and he
describes in detail the development of the invention of type, from the
cutting of pieces of beech-bark into the form of letters, to the final
production of the metal fonts. Junius goes on to relate the method
under which Koster’s first book (from type), Speculum Humanæ
Salvationis, was printed, in 1430. This book, the origin of which is not
known, had for many years been popular among the Benedictines,
and few of their monasteries were without a copy. As a result of this
popularity, many examples of the manuscript copies have been
preserved, some of which are in the Arundel collection in the British
Museum. Zani says that the Speculum was compiled for the
assistance of poor preachers, and in support of this view he quotes
certain lines, which may serve also as an example of Latinity and of
the general style:
Predictum prohemium hujus libri de contentis compilavi

Et propter pauperes predicatores hoc opponere curavi.[424]
Koster appears to have produced, about 1428, an edition of a portion

of the Speculum in which the entire pages (presenting on the upper
half two designs, and on the lower two columns of text) are printed
from solid wooden blocks. Humphreys gives examples of these
pages. The cutting of the text, all the letters of which had, of course,
to be cut in reverse, is a wonderful piece of work. About 1430, was
completed the first issue printed from movable types. The
arrangement of the pages is the same, the upper half is occupied
with two designs (printed in brown ink, from wooden blocks), and the
lower half is given to the text, printed in black ink, from the metal
type. The first typographic edition contains a number of xylographic
pages. In the type-pages, the block-illustration was printed first, and
the sheet was then imposed again for the printing of the text. Both
the designs and the text were modelled to follow very closely the
character of the manuscripts of the period. The volume is
undoubtedly the earliest European example of printing from type,
and the evidence that it was the work of Koster, and that it was
produced not later than 1430, or about twenty years earlier than the
Bible of Gutenberg, is, I understand, now accepted by the best
authorities as practically conclusive. Three editions of the book were
printed by Koster before his death in 1440, the third being printed in
Dutch (instead of Latin), and being entirely typographic. This is the
edition seen and described (128 years later) by Junius. After
specifying the method employed by Koster (according to his own
views concerning movable type), Junius goes on to say, “It was by
this method that he produced impressions of engraved plates, to
which he added ‘separate’ letters. I have seen a book of this kind,
the first rude effort of his invention, printed by him on one side only;
this book was entitled the Mirror of Our Salvation.” While this
evidence of Junius comes first into record one hundred and twenty-
eight years after the time assigned to the printing of Koster’s first
book, it is the conclusion of Humphreys, Blades, and other historians
that, in consideration of the circumstances under which Junius wrote,
and the nature of the information which was evidently at that time
available for him, his testimony may safely be accepted as
conclusive. Junius goes on to say that Koster, having perfected his
system, and finding a rapidly increasing demand for his printed
books, was unable to manage the work with the aid of the members
of his own family. He took foreign workmen into his employ, which
eventually led to the abstraction of his secret and caused the credit
of his invention to be given to others.[425] Junius gives further details
concerning the channels through which he secured the record of the
work of Koster. He refers to a certain Nicholas Galius who had been
his first preceptor, and who remembered having heard the facts
connected with Koster’s discovery from a certain Cornelius when the
latter was over eighty years of age. Cornelius testified that he had
himself been a binder in the establishment of Koster, and the Dutch
historian, Meerman, has discovered in the records of the church of
Haarlem a memorandum dated 1474, which is evidence that there
was at that date a binder in the town called Cornelius.[426]
In claiming for Holland the prestige of inventing the several
distinctive processes connected with the printing of books,
Humphreys sums up as follows: It is beyond dispute that the Dutch
were the first to produce block-books, and thus were virtually the first
printers of books. It is also a matter of record that it was the printers
of Holland who first devised the art of stereotyping, a process which
was applied by John Miller of Amsterdam towards the close of the
seventeenth century. There is, therefore, apart from the details
above specified and from the evidence of tradition, a strong natural
presumption in favour of the development in Holland of the
intervening step of substituting movable types for carved pages of
letters. Humphreys points out that there are other references to the
production in the Netherlands of books from movable metal types,
before the date at which Gutenberg’s first volume was completed in
Mayence. In a record of accounts of Jean Robert, Abbé of Cambrai,
the manuscript of which has been preserved in the archives of the
city of Lille, appears the entry: “Item, for a printed (getté en molle)
Doctrinal that I sent for to Bruges by Macquart, who is a writer at
Valenciennes, in the month of January, 1445, for Jacquet, twenty
sous, Tournois. Little Alexander had one the same, that the church
paid for.” It is stated later in the record that one of these books
proved to be so “full of faults” that it had to be replaced by a written
copy.[427] The purport of the term getté en molle (which might
possibly have been written jetté or guetté) was first elucidated by M.
Besuard, who pointed out that it evidently stood for “cast in a mould,”
the reference being to the metallic types, which were so cast. In the
letters of naturalisation accorded, in 1474, to the first printers with
movable types established in Paris, the term used is escritoire en
molle, or writing by means of moulds or moulded letters. Humphreys
is inclined to give credit to the theory, which is presented by many of
the advocates of Koster, that the first suggestion of the new art was
brought to Gutenberg in Strasburg by a workman who had been
employed by Koster in Haarlem, but he admits that this theory is
supported by practically nothing that can be called evidence, and
depends for its authority simply upon the sequence of events, and
upon the surmises and probabilities suggested by Junius. It remains
the case that after the death of Koster, which occurred either in 1440
or in 1439, the production of books from type came to an end in
Holland, and that for instruction in the new art Europe was indebted
not to Haarlem but to Mayence. We may accept as conclusive the
evidence which gives to Koster the credit of producing the first book
printed (outside of China) from movable type, without lessening the
value of the service rendered by Gutenberg. The shores of our
Western Continent were undoubtedly visited by Eric and his
Northmen, but it was Columbus who gave to Europe the New World.
The production of printed books, which changed the whole
condition of literary production and of literary ownership, is to be
traced directly to the operations of Gutenberg and Fust. Kapp
mentions that if it were not for the records of certain court processes
of Strasburg and of Mayence, we should have hardly any trustworthy
references whatsoever to the work or the relations of Gutenberg
prior to 1450.
By means of these court records, however, it has proved possible
to secure some data concerning various undertakings in which
Gutenberg was engaged before he devoted himself to his printing-
office. He belonged to a noble family of Mayence, the family name of
which was originally Gensfleisch, a name Latinised by some writers
of the time as Ansicarus. For more than a century, the Gensfleische
stood at the head of the nobility of the city in the long series of
contests carried on with the guilds and citizens.
Until the sacking of the city, after the outbreak of October, 1462,
Mayence was the most important of the free cities and of the
commercial centres of the middle Rhine district, and was an
important competitor for the general trade of central Europe with
Strasburg on the upper river and with Cologne in the region below.
The citizens felt themselves strong enough, with the beginning of the
fifteenth century, to make a sturdy fight against the old-time control
claimed by the nobility, and as early as 1420, they had overcome the
patricians in a contest which turned upon the reception of the newly
chosen Elector, Conrad III. As one result of this struggle, a number
of the Gensfleische found themselves among the exiles.
Gutenberg’s father, whose name was Frilo, had held the office of
Tax Receiver or General Accountant in the city, and was among
those who were banished in 1420. Gutenberg himself was born
either in 1397 or 1398. He appears to have passed a portion of his
youth at the little village of Eltville, and from there went to Strasburg.
In the year 1433, an entry in the tax record of Mayence speaks of
Henne Gensfleisch, called Gutenberg, who was an uncle of the
printer. About the year 1440, Gutenberg was engaged in Strasburg
in the manufacture of looking-glasses, and is already referred to as a
man of scientific attainments and learned in inventions.
One of the court records above referred to gives the details of a
suit brought by the brothers Dritzehn against Gutenberg, in
connection with this first manufacturing business. Another Dritzehn,
a brother or a cousin of the above, had as early as 1437 applied to
Gutenberg to be instructed (in consideration of the payment of an
honorarium) in a “certain art” (in etlicher kunst). Shortly thereafter
Gutenberg entered into an arrangement with a certain Hans Riffe of
Lichtenau, and instructed him in the trade of manufacturing mirrors,
Riffe making an investment in the business and sharing the profits.
Dritzehn made in all, three contracts with Gutenberg; under the
first, he was instructed in the art of stone-polishing, and took some
interest in this branch of Gutenberg’s business; under the second, he
interested himself in the manufacturing of mirrors; while the third
contract refers to certain arts and undertakings (kunste und afentur)
in which Dritzehn also received instruction, and to the carrying on of
which he also contributed an investment.
It is the opinion of some of the students on the subject that the
researches of Gutenberg, which resulted in 1450 in the production of
a working printing-press, had begun at least ten years back, and
that, in connection with these researches, he had been obliged to
borrow money or to accept investments from Dritzehn and from other
associates. The vague terms used in referring to the undertakings
which were associated with or which followed the mirror
manufacturing business (“a certain art”) indicate that these
associates had been cautioned to give no information as to the
precise nature of the work in which Gutenberg was experimenting.
Humphreys is of opinion that the term “manufacture of looking-
glasses” was used partly as a blind and partly as a joke, and that
Gutenberg was actually engaged in the production (with the aid of
one of Koster’s assistants) of copies of the Speculum (Mirror).
Against this view is the fact that Gutenberg did not print the
Speculum at all. If Gutenberg were already working over the printing-
press invention at the time of his association with Dritzehn and with

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Infants and Children Prenatal Through Middle Childhood 8Th Edition Berk Solutions Manual Full Chapter PDF

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Infants and Children Prenatal through

Middle Childhood 8th Edition Berk

Chapter Outline Instruction Ideas Supplements

BRIEF CHAPTER SUMMARY

Copyright © 2016 Laura E. Berk. All Rights Reserved. 81

I. PIAGET’S COGNITIVE-DEVELOPMENTAL THEORY (pp. 201–214)

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Copyright © 2016 Laura E. Berk. All Rights Reserved. 83

84 Copyright © 2016 Laura E. Berk. All Rights Reserved.

7. Long-term memory is our permanent knowledge base, which is unlimited.

Copyright © 2016 Laura E. Berk. All Rights Reserved. 85

IV. INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN EARLY MENTAL DEVELOPMENT (pp. 225–230)

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Copyright © 2016 Laura E. Berk. All Rights Reserved. 87

F. Comprehension versus Production (p. 238)

LECTURE ENHANCEMENT 6.1

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LECTURE ENHANCEMENT 6.2

LEARNING ACTIVITY 6.1

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LEARNING ACTIVITY 6.2

LEARNING ACTIVITY 6.3

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LEARNING ACTIVITY 6.4

LEARNING ACTIVITY 6.5

LEARNING ACTIVITY 6.6

Copyright © 2016 Laura E. Berk. All Rights Reserved. 91

LEARNING ACTIVITY 6.7

LEARNING ACTIVITY 6.8

92 Copyright © 2016 Laura E. Berk. All Rights Reserved.

Copyright © 2016 Laura E. Berk. All Rights Reserved. 93

94 Copyright © 2016 Laura E. Berk. All Rights Reserved.

Copyright © 2016 Laura E. Berk. All Rights Reserved. 95

Predictum prohemium hujus libri de contentis compilavi

Koster appears to have produced, about 1428, an edition of a portion

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