Relationships Between Perceptual and Conceptual Cognitive Processes

Abstract

Many theorists, psychologists and specialists in education currently assume that mastery of perceptual-motor processes is necessary prior to acquisition of higher cognitive processes and, hence, to scholastic achievement. An experimental design allowing variation in perceptual-motor functioning and scholastic ability tested this assumption. Contrary to the tested assumption some subjects perform well in school despite perceptual-motor deficiencies. In addition, it is scholastic achievement rather than perceptual-motor achievement (assumed to be crucial to learning) which discriminated between our groups in terms of their reliance on perceptual-motor or conceptual means on specially designed learning tasks.