Stanley Greenspan and Stuart Shanker’s book The
First Idea is a grand work of extensive erudition, ambition and of
experience. Both have been authors of numerous books earlier in such diverse
fields as history of psychology, autism spectrum disorder and language
development in primates. In this book the authors have tried to integrate all
their understandings of these fields to synthesize a common theory of human
development through a framework called functional/emotional development. The
book almost single-mindedly focuses on one thing — the evolution of symbolic
knowledge in humans because of cultural learning rather than genetic
transmission and most importantly on the role of emotions in their
development.  Though after surveying important twentieth century thoughts in
the fields of cognitive psychology and linguistics, one finds that such ideas
are not completely new. As the influence of culture and socio-historical forces
on basic human nature is less acknowledged in these days of generativism. 
There have been many who were completely dissatisfied with the biological nativitist
theories of Chomsky as well as the constructivist experimental approaches of
Piaget.  This work has managed to distance itself from both the Chomskyan and Piagetian
schools in its basic tenets. The authors of this book have been strong
advocates of the third view of human development. The view that does not
dehumanize the human potential rather respects it and tries to understand it
from very fundamental notions like emotions and cultural practices. Extensive
analysis of archeological, historical, and cultural findings and data from
primate research and children with autistic spectrum disorder have been used to
support this alternative explanation of growth of complex symbol use as a
result of emotional exchanges.

There are fifteen chapters in the book, divided into
four broad theme areas. In a rather long introduction the authors clearly
outline all the theoretical frameworks and research questions and hypotheses
that they are going to examine in later chapters. The authors claim such
theorists as Robert Boyd, Peter Richardson, Gilbert Gottlieb and Eric Kandel as
pioneers in this understanding of cultural formation of human symbolic behavior
and their criticism of Chomsky and Pinker on the other hand. Part one is called
"Origin and Development of Symbols" and puts the authors’
perspectives on the social origins of cognition, the role of emotion,
development of emotional signaling, the role of the caregiver and such related
issues. The second chapter is devoted to more longitudinal studies of human
emotional development and the authors put forth sixteen stages of emotional
development in humans chronologically relating to biological development. It
starts with the birth and with a "regulation and interest in the world"
and ends with "wisdom of the ages". This developmental classification
seems rather original in its approach and is based on current understandings of
development of self and consciousness. There is a problem is accepting all
these ideas on face value as till now not all of it is supported by
experimental research and one needs to view them only as hypotheses. But by
reading this book what we learn is a completely new theoretical perspective
that one can observe with any young child and development of important mental
functions are concerned. Much evidence the authors use comes from their
observations rather than experimentations. The basic notions of emotional
development and its further transformation into verbal symbolic behavior seem
based of existing theories of developmental psychiatry. And one of the authors
is a practicing psychiatrist. There is a tabular representation of timeline of
human motional development. This timeline is based on the finding that, the
higher mental capacities that we consider specific to humans like logical
thinking and symbol use is actually quite old in terms of human evolutionary
history. And the authors argue that, symbol formation during the course of
hominoid evolution results from a series of interactive stages of affective transformation,
which they term as functional/emotional developmental levels. This argument
runs through almost all the chapters. This gradualist view of human
development, more particularly the development of symbolic behavior, based on
recent paleoanthropological data makes the author’s claim rather unique and far
different from the views of other schools of thoughts.

Part two is titled " A new
Direction for Evolutionary Theory" and has two chapters. In these chapters
the authors extensively examine findings from primate research as far as it
supports their hypotheses of symbol formations and evolutions of parallels to
human skills as they are observed now. These pages narrate in picturesque words
one of the author’s long field experience with Sue Savage-Rumbaugh’s now famous
Language Research Center (LRC) at Atlanta and his many first hand experiences
with the primates use of symbols.   A careful review of findings in this area
reveals that many of these higher primates display complex social and emotional
behavior along with humanlike ability to manipulate symbols. As far as
development of emotion and its relations to the primate’s social behavior is
concerned the author’s write  " even non human primates are able to
transform emotions from catastrophic level, which would be operative under
conditions of threat, to more differentiated affective expressions in a variety
of patterns of co-regulation that typically permit the complex social
negotiation". Greenspan and Shanker then provide a comparative treatment
of emotional development in several types of primates like Tamarins Marmosets
and Rhesus Monkeys. Then we have tables showing comparisons of molar eruption
sequences, dental development against cognitive development and ontogenetic
characters for cognitive development in monkeys, great apes and humans. These
evidences show evolutionary similarities and differences among these species
and what we can learn now about human behavior.  There is discussion on the
species-specific care giving behavior among primates that is an observable
species-specific capability. Now these evidences have been referred less by
scientists and collogues in related fields when they talk about human symbol
use as an exclusive field. The modern generative theory of Chomsky and his many
amazed followers in cognitive psychology and elsewhere don’t even bother to
think that there is any biological capacity in chimps that can make them use
language as we do.

            When did our early ancestors start to think
logically and developed complex collaborative skills? Answer to this question
is from the fossil records and quite convincing as the authors tell.  The
development of pattern recognition skills (one of the central themes of AI
research) in early hominoids can be traced to the fourth stage of functional
/emotional development as proposed in the book. But the authors note that
because of a largely mechanist psychological explanation of emergence of such
skills we know less about the role of emotions. To support this point we have
descriptions of Kanji’s (the Bonobo at LRC) use of lexigram, Origin of tool use
among the H.habilies and development of care giving practices among primates.
Really fossil records tell a lot about what we are today. Chapter six develops
the fifth stage of the framework of functional/emotional development and
focuses on the development of meaningful speech in humans, again with support
from primate data and fossil record. Again these developments were for
emotional reasons as we are told. The theory that the gradual descent of the
larynx helped humans to articulate speech sounds is explained.  The subject
matter of chapter six is the sixth stage of functional/emotional development
that deals with emergence of larger thinking categories in language an also the
understanding of the symbolic sense of "self’ and "other". The
cave paintings of Altamira, discovery of ironstones at the African cave of Makapansgat
and the Venus of Willendorf all indicate the gradual development of causal
thinking in our ancestors. Then the authors return to the use of logical
thinking in great apes; for example, the paintings made by the Gorillas Koko
and Michel. Part three deals with explanation of functional/emotional framework
as it explains the development of language and intelligence. Again the old
debate of continuity Vs discontinuity theories of language development is taken
up. Here the approach is totally anti Chomskyan. The authors take support from
the research of Jerome Brunner and provide reasoning against the generativists’
views of language development. Here the arguments are more towards the cultural
formations of language and against a genetic or biological one. Speech,
according to Greenspan and Shanker rather has a functional/emotional origin and
comes as an expression of nurturance. Chapter nine discusses the role of
emotion in language development and a wholesome criticism of Chomsky’s
generative grammar again follows. The authors take an orientation towards the
cognitive theories of language acquisition and more openly the interactionist
views of Brunner to support the argument that affective emotional gesturing is
the root of language development.

After language it is intelligence. And from a
functional/emotional perspective it is "the progressive transformations of
our emotions from global reaction to sensations to high-level reflective
thinking." Piaget’s impersonal and analytic models of intelligence
completely overlook the emotional aspects of it. There are multiple forms of
intelligence as Gardner has shown us. But what about a model of intelligence
that has roots with emotions and is gradualist in nature that can be applied
across species? Greenspan and Shanker have the answer in understanding
affective emotions in making one intelligent. After language and intelligence
it is the evidence from cognitive neurosciences.  And brain imaging that shows
a role of emotion in the conscious organization and activity of the various
parts of the cortical systems in our mental functions. The authors integrate
these experimental findings in their stags of functional/emotional framework
and claim it as a missing link in the theories of Piaget.  Chapter twelve is on
the autism spectrum disorders where we see the developmental derailment of
functional /emotional factors. Current brain imaging in people with autism
shows a biological defect but the real problem lies in integrating emotion.
This chapter also gives an alternate therapy model that integrates these
emotional factors with traditional speech language therapy.

Part four is called "The development of Social
Groups" and is more philosophical in tone and analyses the usefulness of
functional/emotional framework while answering some of the important
psychological problems that we currently face in a highly complex and global
world.   The development of group behavior and their importance in current
times require a new psychological to analyze. And here we know again of the
emotional factors that bind group together and allows social cohesion. Then
there is a lengthy and speculative analysis of a new doctrine of global living.

This is large book with a very broad canvas. One must
be ready to exercise the mind a bit to completely comprehend the theories and
ideas that are proposed here. And though this idea of everything having an emotional
root is not out rightly radical but certainly fresh and new. This book gives an
alternative lens to look at human existence in all its forms. This book is also
an excellent research resource also with its coverage of all recent
developments in several fields.  And this book attempts to humanize
contemporary psychology. Most importantly this work indicated the weakening of
the strictly biological view of twentieth century psychology, linguistics and
philosophy.

© 2005 Ramesh Kumar Mishra

Ramesh Kumar Mishra , Ph.D., Lecturer
in Linguistics, Dept. of Speech Pathology, All India Institute of Speech and
Hearing, Mysore, Karnataka, India

Categories: Psychology