Ontogenetic Development of Human Cognition: Fields of Research, Methods and Perspectives

From its origins, the study of the development of human cognition from an ontogenetic point of view (i.e. from birth to adulthood) has been confronted to both theoretical and methodological issues. The present review offers an overview of the multiplicity and of the limits of the methods and approaches used to investigate the development of human cognition. In the first section, we will describe the main methods traditionally used in developmental psychology for the study of cognition in infants and young children. In a second section, we will describe how some of the work in developmental psychology has started integrating the problematics linked to the study of the evolution of human cognition. In the last section, we will focus on how the scientific advancements during the last decades have led to a new field of research integrating artificial intelligence: developmental robotics. Finally, we will discuss the perspectives and future challenges for the study of the ontogeny of human cognition.