ABSTRACT

On the basis of the known facts, the most natural genetic interpretation seems at first glance to be of a linear continuity between perception and intelligence, in which perceptual structures extend themselves and become progressively more mobile until they give rise to operational structures. For instance, unless we are mistaken, Köhler interpreted elementary sensory-motor forms of intelligence, and Wertheimer the nature of logico-mathematical structures, on the basis of some such unitary schema. An alternative interpretation would be to distinguish, at all levels of cognitive development, between an operative 1 aspect (from simple motor behaviour to intellectual operations), and a figurative aspect (perception, image, etc.). Operative structures would originate in a filiation between perception and intelligence, a continuous filiation from sensory-motor activities to operational intelligence. Figurative structures, on the other hand, would always be subordinated to operative structures. They would not develop by direct filiation between perception and intelligence but rather by a process of enrichment by operative structures and by interaction with the events of experience.