Development of Geocentric Spatial Language and Cognition

Pierre R. Dasen is Professor Emeritus of anthropology of education and cross-cultural psychology at the University of Geneva. He is the co-author (with J. Berry, Y. Poortinga and M. Segall) of two widely circulated textbooks of cross-cultural psychology. His field of expertise is cross-cultural developmental psychology, and particularly culture and cognition. He has been a research assistant to J. Piaget at the University of Geneva, where he has been teaching for twenty years; he has also been associated with the Australian National University, the Universite de Montreal, the University of Nairobi, and the Universities of Nice, Fribourg, Lyon II and EHESS in Paris. He has carried out research in Australia, Canada, the Cote d'Ivoire, Kenya and Papua New Guinea, in addition to the research in Indonesia, India and Nepal reported in this volume. P. Dasen has been influential in founding the Association pour la Recherche Interculturelle (ARIC), a Francophone association for cross-cultural research. He is also an honorary member of the International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology (IACCP) and a past or current member of many other professional associations. Ramesh C. Mishra is Professor in the Department of Psychology at the Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India. His principal interest is in cultural influences on human development, and he has contributed numerous articles to professional journals, both in India and abroad, in the fields of cognition, acculturation, schooling, and cross-cultural studies.

• Part I. Introduction and Methods: 1. Theory and research questions; 2. Methods; 3. Settings; Part II. Results: 4. Pilot study in Bali and first study (India and Nepal, 1999–2000); 5. Returning to Bali: main study 2002–7; 6. Varanasi; 7. Kathmandu; 8. Panditpur; 9. Geneva; Part III. Additional Studies: 10. Spatial language addressed to children; 11. Geocentric gestures before language?; 12. Spatial organization schemes; 13. Neurophysiological correlates of geocentric space; 14. Geocentric dead reckoning; Part IV. Conclusions: 15. Discussion and conclusions; Appendix 1. Summary of instructions, questionnaires, and coding schemes; Appendix 2. Examples of language in each location; Appendix 3. Extracts from school manuals.

'A remarkable illustration of how research can integrate concepts, methods and findings from cognitive and developmental psychology, as well as from cultural anthropology and linguistics, to explain the development and use of spatial frames of reference in a number of cultures.' John W. Berry, Queen's University, Canada