ABSTRACT
The ability to use symbols is an emergent property of human cognitive and emotional experiences that develops during the first two years of life. The sequence of developments in symbolic ability, proposed by Piaget (1962), emerges from sensorimotor experience and knowledge constructed in earliest infancy. Recent work on “embodied cognition” in adults finds the basis of much semantic knowledge in sensorimotor experience, extended by analogical or metaphoric processes (e.g., Johnson, 2007). This work has not yet linked these adult abilities to developmental origins. The purpose of this chapter is to describe the development of symbolic ability, as emergent from sensorimotor action, and begin exploration of the relationship of these developments to adult embodied cognition.
