An introduction to rational constructivism in cognitive development

Rational constructivism is a contemporary theory of cognitive development that aims to reconcile the existence of sophisticated cognitive abilities early in ontological development with the profound cognitive change we observe across childhood. The theory draws inspiration from computational cognitive science to describe children’s reasoning, concept learning, and revision as a form of probabilistic inference. Like previous constructivist theories, rational constructivism proposes that children generate and revise their own theories using the knowledge they obtain from the world; this information is integrated by using efficient, probabilistic inferential learning mechanisms to tweak or radically revise their existing theories, representations and beliefs. The paper begins with a general overview of the theory of rational constructivism, covering its key theoretical commitments and predictions. We then describe how it accounts for the empirically observed patterns of both incremental and radical developmental change observed in childhood and discuss the cognitive mechanisms of those conceptual changes. Finally, we sketch out a general computational framework for it, and address open questions and directions for future research.