Connecting the Dots: Finding Continuity Across Visuospatial Tasks and Development

The study of cognition and its development has long been partitioned into sub-domains, with different tasks designed to assess different constructs and for use during different developmental periods. A central challenge is to understand how a single cognitive system organizes itself across many contexts and developmental periods in which we study it. This article takes a step toward tackling this challenge through a theoretical review of simulations of a dynamic neural field (DNF) model of visuospatial cognitive development. The DNF model simulates basic neurocognitive processes of encoding, maintenance, and long-term memory formation that are coupled to different behavioral systems to generate behaviors required across different tasks used with different age groups. The model simulations reviewed here were initially focused on explaining performance in specific experimental conditions within a developmental period. This article brings to the forefront the larger theoretical goal to understand how a set of basic neurocognitive processes can underlie performance in a wide array of contexts. This review connects behavioral signatures and developmental phenomena from spatial cognition, infant visual exploration, and capacity limits in visual working memory into a single theoretical account of the development of basic visuospatial cognitive processes. Our synthesis yielded three new insights not evident when considering the model simulations in isolation. First, we identified behavior as an emergent product of the neurocognitive processes at work in the model, task context, and development. Second, we show the role of stability of perceptual and memory representations to support behavior within a task and across development. Third, we highlight continuity of ongoing real-time processes at work within and across tasks and over development.