The concept of microgenesis refers to the development on a brief present-time
scale of a percept, a thought, an object of imagination, or an expression. It defines
the occurrence of immediate experience as dynamic unfolding and differentiation in
which the ‘germ' of the final experience is already embodied in the early stages of
its development. Immediate experience typically concerns the focal experience of
an object that is thematized as a ‘figure' in the global field of consciousness; this
can involve a percept, thought, object of imagination, or expression (verbal and/or
gestural). Yet, whatever its modality or content, focal experience is postulated to
develop and stabilize through dynamic differentiation and unfolding. Such a
microgenetic description of immediate experience substantiates a phenomenological
and genetic theory of cognition where any process of perception, thought,
expression or imagination is primarily a process of genetic differentiation and
development, rather than one of detection (of a stimulus array or information),
transformation, and integration (of multiple primitive components) as theories of
cognitivist kind have contended. My purpose in this essay is to provide an overview of the main constructs of
microgenetic theory, to outline its potential avenues of future development in the
field of cognitive science, and to illustrate an application of the theory to research,
using visual processes in reading as an example.