Why children don't have to solve the frame problems: Cognitive representations are not encodings

Psychology and developmental psychology alike are dominated by a core assumption concerning the nature of representation, an assumption that representation has the nature of an encoding. I argue that this assumption is false and offer an alternative model of representation based on the pragmatics of action. Encodingism yields multitudinous and multifarious problems. problems which I have addressed in detail elsewhere. One of the central problems of encodingism, however. is that it creates a class of fatal problems collectively called ''the frame problems." I argue that the frame problems originate in the inherent requirement that encoding representations carry explicit content-if the content were not explicit, then the encoding would not encode anything and would not be a representation at all. These problems-and others, such that encodings cannot emerge, and, therefore, render development impossible-visit themselves on theories that are constructed within an encodingist set of presuppositions. Conversely, the interactive alternative model of representation that I offer has its own powerful consequences for development-the issues at stake are not trivial. (C) 2001 Academic Press.