Wouldn't experimental psychology (the "lab" setting) have a necessary bias AGAINST the existence and availability of some SKILLS & against any thinking of (across/about) multiple circumstances?
I contend: There are some skills developed (or discriminated) across circumstances or between circumstances, that develop over more time and/or more circumstances (usually both), than can be detected or manipulated in the "lab" (using presently used procedures, at least) . AND, there may well be thinking of concepts FORMED (naturalistically) ABOUT existing or not existing "things" AND/OR (also) relationships (relatedness (or NOT)) which involve mentally comparing [representations] between situations/circumstances that are very important in REAL, ACTUAL conceptualizations and thinking (in real "internal" phenomenology -- though based on ACTUAL EXTERNAL SITUATIONS/CIRCUMSTANCES that could be seen if OBSERVATIONS were more realistic __and__ [(relatedly)] imagination about imagination was more reasonably thorough). WE CANNOT SEE THIS (presently); we may NOT MANIPULATE THIS action by the organism IN THE LAB.
There is no doubt we (including AT LEAST even older children) must, can, and do these things BUT WE CANNOT DETECT (measure)(yet, at present) any KEY behavior patterns related to such activities AND we cannot, and will not be able to, fundamentally manipulate such activities.
It is quite possible (if not likely): MOST HUMAN THOUGHT, realistically OR naturalistically considered, IS THEREFORE IS NOT THUS CONSIDERED (at all, or at all realistically) IN THE "LAB". (Thus, the existence of the homuculus (or humuculi) of executive control and all the "meta" this-es or "meta" thats -- NEITHER strange type of concept NECESSARY IN ETHOGRAM THEORY.)
This IS NOT A LIMITATION OF SCIENCE or OBSERVATION, but a limitation of the lab and of typical experimental psychology.
Based on testable particular hypotheses from Ethogram Theory:
I should add that [still], based on the nature of the Memories, at least THE INCEPTION of each new qualitatively different level/stage of cognition would occur at some KEY times and "places" "locally" in circumstances, i.e. could be seen within the time/space frame of the lab: AS DIRECTLY OBSERVABLE OVERT BEHAVIOR PATTERNS -- and these discoveries, by using new sophisticated eye tracking (and, perhaps, computer-assisted analysis) technologies (
I apologize for adding to, and doing some editing, of the essay presenting this question for over 4 hours after its first posting.
Right, I think plenty of psychology researchers would agree that certain phenomena are better observed outside of the lab. To observe the kinds of changes you're talking about, a longitudinal design might be more in order.
http://www.lse.ac.uk/media@lse/research/EUKidsOnline/BestPracticeGuide/FAQ/FAQ-8.pdf
The longitudinal design helps us observe things that emerge over time, such as the way someone's personality changes (or doesn't change) from childhood to adolescence to adulthood, etc. For example, this study uses longitudinal data to claim a relationship between being bullied as a child and development of psychosis in young adulthood (van dam et al., Psychological Medicine, 2012): https://tinyurl.com/wu3fbz9
Of course, longitudinal studies have their own set of disadvantages. They're fantastically expensive and time-consuming, for instance. And by the time you're done collecting data, it's possible that the measures you originally used may now be out of date. Plus you can't control for extraneous variables or anything you didn't think to measure/account for at the time. But hey, that's the trade-off; there's no such thing as a perfect research design.
In case you're interested, here are some longitudinal studies conducted in the UK:
https://ukdataservice.ac.uk/get-data/key-data/cohort-and-longitudinal-studies
Hope this helps!
Here (below) is some research on abstract vs concrete words and how they differ in situational specificity IN THE WAY I DESCRIBE IN THE QUESTION BEGINNING THIS THREAD. (Ethogram Theory does not just hypothesize about qualitative shifts in cognition and thinking BUT THE SHIFT POINTS are directly related to the development of abstract thought in particular too (this is at least a good part of what-about-and-why the qualitatively-different/new thinking-"inducing" perceptual/attentional shifts occur, adaptively speaking, and for the new level of cognition and processing which finally results) -- thus I would expect the nature of the concrete vs abstract concepts to be like in this Article):
Preprint Situational systematicity: A role for schema in understandin...
P.S. One should note the MESS of different and unclear and uncertain and not-clearly-specified notions about "abstract abilities", OTHERWISE (i.e. not related to the similar perspectives, above).
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