An historical review of the concepts of self-consciousness is presented, highlighting the important role of the body (particularly, body perception but also body action) and the social other in the construction of self-consciousness. More precisely, body perception, especially intermodal sensory perception including kinesthetic perception, is involved in the construction of a sense of self allowing self-nonself differentiation. Furthermore, the social other, through very early social and emotional interactions, provides meaning to the infant’s perception and contributes to the development of his/her (...) symbolization capacities. This is a necessary condition for body image representation and awareness of a permanent self in a time-space continuum (invariant over time and space). Self-image recognition impairments in the mirror are also discussed regarding a comprehensive developmental theory of self-consciousness. Then, a neuropsychological and neurophysiological approach to self-consciousness reviews the role of complex brain activation/integration pathways and the mirror neuron system in self-consciousness. Finally, this article offers new perspectives on self-consciousness evaluation using the mirror as an experimental paradigm to study self- and other- image and body recognition. (shrink)

Dans cet article est présentée et discutée une approche pour le choix d’une planification didactique efficace à l’enseignement des sciences physiques et naturelles dans la classe. Cette analyse propose un grand effort au niveau de la recherche éducative dirigée avant tout vers l’approfondissement de nos connaissances quant aux questions au sujet de la nature de l’apprentissage et surtout de l’apprentissage scientifique pendant le développement de l’enfant. Elle s’oriente aussi vers les modalités et les fonctions de l’apprentissage aux différents degrés de (...) l’éducation, sur la base de l’apport de diverses connaissances et compétences qui vont de l’épistémologie et la psychologie à la didactique contemporaine. In this article is presented and discussed an approach to the choice of an effective didactic project for the teaching of sciences at the school. This analysis propose a great effort at the level of educational research directed primarily towards deepening our knowledge on issues about the nature of learning and especially the scientific learning during the child development. The analysis also turned to the modalities and functions of learning at different levels of education, on the basis of the contribution of various knowledge and skills ranging from epistemology and psychology in the contemporary didactics. (shrink)