Psicologia e neurociência cognitivas: alguns avanços recentes e implicações para a educação

Starting with the contribution from psychologists like Piaget and Vygotsky to understanding psychological development the authors comment on some important recent advances in infant psychology research and confront its results with previous postures. In particular, certain perceptual and cognitive skills’ development are stressed, since there are evidences that their genesis is earlier than previously believed. Additionally, important findings of neuroscience and cognitive neuropsychology are commented upon, as well as brain areas responsible for certain specific cognitive tasks, and some of its associations are identified. The conclusion points out to the need that education professionals and the curriculum take these scientific advances into account in order to ameliorate the effectiveness of the pedagogical process. Keywords: Cognitive Psychology; brain sciences; education.