Pierre - Yves Oudeyer

To study the behavioral and cognitive structures that form in the childhood of animals, cognitive science has for a long time organized theories by trying to identify what is innate and what is learned, and how nature and nurture interact to influence each other. However, recent advances in developmental sciences are strongly questioning the relevance of this scientific framing based on the nature/nurture divide, including arguments that rely on their interaction, as they are putting the focus on states and causal explanations while key dimensions of development are processes of change and pattern formation. However, as John Spencer, Mark Blumberg and David Shenk argue in the dialogue featured in this newsletter, the nativist/ empiricist perspective, and its associated concepts, are still playing a central role both in cognitive science and in the way it is explained and understood by the larger public.