Describes a theory of the understanding and use of representations, drawing heavily on Paul Ricoeur's and James Mark Baldwin's theories. Presents this theory as construing representation as intrinsically mimetic, characterizing the development of representational understanding as internalization, and emphasizing the importance of self-reflection and psychological distancing for decontextualization of representations from the circumstances in which they were created. Describes self-reflection in terms of a process model of recursive consciousness. (Author/KB)