Inhibition and cognitive development:: object, number, categorization, and reasoning

In the early 1990s, the concept of inhibition sparked a new surge of interest in cognitive psychology, both in North America and in Europe. In the framework of that research trend, it is proposed here that cognitive development cannot be reduced to the coordination-activation of structural units (as in Jean Piaget's structuralist theory and in the neo-structuralist models), but that development also often involves inhibiting a competing structure or scheme. This approach, which views the processes of selection-inhibition as age- and domain-specific, is illustrated by four experimental examples (from infancy to adulthood): object construction, number, categorization, and reasoning. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.