ABSTRACT
I have been given the assignment of commenting on chapters by Keen (chap. 11) and Liben (chap. 12). I discuss the chapters in the context of a concern, expressed by several participants at this conference, with theories that invoke mental representations in explaining behavior. The point of view expressed by these participants startled me because the notion of mental representation is vital to the study of cognition and its development. Although the notion lacks precise definition, the idea conveyed is one of internal processes that preserve information about the world and underlie a wide range of behaviors. For example, a person may remember the locations of various places in a familiar city and use this information to travel efficiently from place to place, comprehend and produce verbal descriptions of particular routes, and interpret and construct maps of the area. To banish mental representation from the explanation of human behavior seems implausible, but it may be valuable to reexamine the notion in considering the chapters assigned to me.
