Speech/ Development/ Society ALL work together - PROCESS
Michael Cole _ UC San Deigo
2
"The intellectual descendants of
]ohn Locke in England had developed his empiricist explanation of
mind, which emphasized the origin of ideas from environmentally
produced sensations. The major problem of psychological analysis for
these British empiricists was to describe the laws of association by
which simple sensations combine to produce complex ideas. On the
continent the followers of Immanuel Kant argued that ideas of space
and time and concepts of quantity, quality, and relation originate in the
human mind and cannot be decomposed into simpler elements. Neither
side budged from its armchair."
Neither
side budged from its armchair. Both of these philosophical traditions
were operating under the assumption, dating from the work of René
Descartes, that the scientic study of man could apply only to his
physical body. To philosophy was assigned the study of his soul.
Darwin's Origin of Species (essential continuity of man and other animals)
Flechner Die Psychophsik - mathematical description - change in physical events and verbalized "psychic" responses
Reflexes of the Brain Sechenov
" had advanced
understanding of simple sensory-motor reexes by using techniques that
isolated nerve-muscle preparations from the living organism. Sechenov
was convinced that the processes he observed in the isolated tissue of
frogs were the same in principle as those that take place in the central
nervous systems of intact organisms, including humans. If responses of
leg muscles could be accounted for by processes of inhibition and excitation,
might not the same laws apply to the operations of the human
cerebral cortex? Although he lacked direct evidence for these speculations,
Sechenov’s ideas suggested the physiological basis for linking
the natural scientic study of animals"
1
who he worked with:
"He
was a student in the heyday of Wilhelm Wundt, theWof experimental
psychology, and William Iames, the American pragmatist. His
scientic contemporaries included Ivan Pavlov, Vladimir Bekhterev,
and Iohn B. Watson, popularizers of stimulus-response theories of
behavior, as well as Wertheimer, Kiéhler, Koffka, and Lewin, the founders
of the Gestalt psychology movement."
3
" Darwin linked animals and humans in a single conceptual
system regulated by natural laws; Fechner provided an example
of what a natural law describing the relationship between physical
events and human mental functioning might look like; Sechenov, extrapolating
from muscle twitches in frogs, proposed a physiological theory of
how such mental processes worked within the normally functioning
individual. None of these authors considered themselves (or were
considered by their contemporaries) to be psychologists. But they provided
the central questions with which the young science of psychology
became concerned in the second half of the century: What are the
relationships between animal and human behavior? Environmental
and mental events? Physiological and psychological processes?"
lots of explorations of these questions
Wundt
"Indeed, Wundt propounded the explicit view that
complex mental functions, or as they were then known, “higher psychological
processes” (voluntary remembering and deductive reasoning, for
example), could not in principle be studied by experimental psychologists.
They could only be investigated, he maintained, by historical
studies of cultural products such as folktales, customs, and language."
But - beginning of WWI - behaviorism
"In the
United States and Russia psychologists discontented with the controversies
surrounding the correct introspective descriptions of sensations,
and with the sterility of the research this position had produced, renounced
the study of consciousness in favor of the study of behavior."
4
"In one important respect, however,
they agreed with their introspective antagonists: their basic strategy
was to identify the simple building blocks of human activity (substituting
stimulus-response bonds for sensations) and then to specify the
rules by which these elements combined to produce more complex
phenomena. This strategy led to a concentration on processes shared
by animals and humans and, again, to a neglect of higher processes-—
thought, language, and volitional behavior."
but OTHERS said (gesalt psychology)
The second line of attack
on descriptions of the contents of consciousness came from a group of
psychologists who objected to the one point upon which Wundt and
the behaviorists agreed: the appropriateness of analyzing psychological
processes into their basic constituents. This movement, which came to
be known as Gestalt psychology, demonstrated that many intellectual
phenomena (Kohler’s studies with anthropoid apes were an example)
and perceptual phenomena (Wertheimer’s studies of apparent movement
of ickering lights, for example) could not be accounted for in terms of
either the basic elements of consciousness postulated by Wundt or
simple stimulus-response theories of behavior. The Gestalt psychologists
rejected, in principle, the possibility of accounting for complex processes
in terms of simple ones.
from Wikipedia:
"
Gestalt psychology or gestaltism (German: Gestalt – "essence or shape of an entity's complete form") is a theory of mind and brain of the Berlin School; the operational principle of gestalt psychology is that the brain is holistic,
parallel, and analog, with self-organizing tendencies. The principle
maintains that the human eye sees objects in their entirety before
perceiving their individual parts, suggesting the whole is greater than
the sum of its parts. Gestalt psychology tries to understand the laws of
our ability to acquire and maintain stable percepts in a noisy world.
Gestalt psychologists stipulate that perception is the product of
complex interactions among various stimuli. Contrary to the behaviorist
approach to understanding the elements of cognitive processes, gestalt
psychologists sought to understand their organization (Carlson and Heth,
2010). The gestalt effect is the form-generating capability of
our senses, particularly with respect to the visual recognition of
figures and whole forms instead of just a collection of simple lines and
curves. In psychology, gestaltism is often opposed to structuralism. The phrase "The whole is greater than the sum of the parts" is often used when explaining gestalt theory,[1] though this is a mistranslation of Kurt Koffka's original phrase, "The whole is other than the sum of the parts".[2] Gestalt theory allows for the breakup of elements from the whole situation into what it really is.[3]"
Chelpanov
- saw limitations of behaviorism
5
Kornilov -
Kornilov criticized Chelpanov both for the
idealistic basis of his psychological theory and for the restricted role he
assigned to Marxism in psychology. Komilov, who called his own approach
reactology, sought to subsume all branches of psychology within
a Marxist framework that used behavioral reactions as the basic data.
(won the day)
Vygostky dissents
" Komilov, who immediately brought together a corps of young
scientists dedicated to formulating and promoting a behavioral, Marxist
theory of psychology. Vygotsky must have produced quite a sensation
one year later at the second psychoneurologicalt eeting when he gave
a talk entitled “Consciousness as an Object of flle Psychology of Behavior.”"
New: " Borrowing a phrase from his German
contemporaries, he often feferred to the “crisis in psychology” and set
himself the tas"k of a 'eving a synthesis of contending views on a
completely new theorebtgal basis."
" But he felt that the Gestalt psychologists failed to move beyond the
description of complex phenomena to the explanation of them. Even if
one were to accept the Gestalt criticisms of previous approaches, a
crisis would still exist because psychology would remain split into two
irreconcilable halves: a “natural science” branch that could explain
elementary sensory and reex processes, and a “mental science” half
that could describe emergent properties of higher psychological processes.
What Vygotsky sought was a comprehensive approach that
would make possible description and explanation of higher psychological
functions in terms acceptable to natural science."
6
Explanations meant a good deal:
"But he felt that the Gestalt psychologists failed to move beyond the
description of complex phenomena to the explanation of them. Even if
one were to accept the Gestalt criticisms of previous approaches, a
crisis would still exist because psychology would remain split into two
irreconcilable halves: a “natural science” branch that could explain
elementary sensory and reex processes, and a “mental science” half
that could describe emergent properties of higher psychological processes.
What Vygotsky sought was a comprehensive approach that
would make possible description and explanation of higher psychological
functions in terms acceptable to natural science."
"A major reason for the continued relevance of Vygotsky’s work is
that in 1924 and the following decade he constructed a penetrating
critique of the notion that an understanding of the higher psychological
functions in humans can be found by a multiplication and complication
of principles derived from animal psychology, in particular those principles
that represent the mechanical combination of stimulus-response
laws. At the same time he provided a devastating critique of theories
which claim that the properties of adult intellectual functions arise from
maturation alone, or are in any way preformed in the child and simply
waiting for an opportunity to manifest themselves."
" he was ,the rst modem psychologist to suggest the mechanisms
by which culture becomes a part of each pers0n’s nature. Insisting
that psychological functions are a product of the brain’s activity, he
became an early advocate of combining experimental cognitive psychology
with neurology a d physiology." (did believe in underground Marxist theory)
7
" Not only does every phenomenon have
its history, but this history is characterized by changes both qualitative
(changes in form and structure and basic characteristics) and quantitative.
Vygotsky applied this line of reasoning to explain the transformation
of elementary psychological processes into complex ones. The
schism between natural scientic studies of elementary processes and
speculative reection on cultural forms of behavior might be bridged
by tracing the qualitative changes in behavior occuring in the course of
development."
Marxist influence:
" According to Marx,
historical changes in society and material life produce changes in
“human nature” (consciousness and behavior). Although this general
proposition had been echoed by others, Vygotsky was the rst to
attempt to relate it to concrete psychological questions. In this effort he
creatively elaborated on Engels’ concept of human labor and tool use
as the means by which man changes nature and, in so doing, transforms
himself. In chapters 1 through 4 below, Vygotsky exploits the concept of
a tool in a fashion that nds its direct antecedents in Engels: “The
specialization of the hand—this implies the tool, and the tool implies
specic human activity, the transforming reaction of man on nature”"
Really? hmnn..."
" the animal merely uses external nature, and brings about changes in it
simply by his presence; man, by his changes, makes it serve his ends,
masters it. This is the nal, essential distinction between man and other
animals”"
Mediational means - tools systems for culture
"Like tool systems, sign systems (language, writing, number systems) are
created by societies over the course of human history and change with
the form of society and the level of its cultural development. Vygotsky
believed that the interna_@3on of culturally produced sign systems
brings about behavioral transformations and forms the bridge between
early and later forms of individual development. Thus for Vygotsky,
in the tradition of Marx and Engels, the mechanism of individual
developmental change is rooted in society and culture.
psychological functions as mediated
"reveals the close relationship between their fundamentally mediated
nature and the dialectical, materialist conception of historical change"
What Vygotsky says (nove away from patching others):
" The whole of Capital is written according to the following method: Marx
analyzes a single living “cell” of capitalist society—for example, the
nature of value. Within this cell he discovers the structure of the entire
system and all of its economic institutions. He says that to a layman this
analysis may seem a murky tangle of tiny details. Indeed, there may be
tiny details, but they are exactly those which are essential to “microanatomy."
Anyone who could discover what a “psychological” cell is—
the mechanism producing even a single response-—w0uld thereby nd
the key to psychology as a whole. [from unpublished notebooks]"
Vygostky learned from Blonsky:
"an older colleague, P. P. Blonsky, had already
adopted the position that an understanding of complex mental functions
requires developmental analysis"
From Blonsky Vygotsky adopted the
notion that “behavior can be understood only as the history of behavior.”
" Blonsky was also an early advocate of the view that the technological
activities of people were a key to understanding their psychological
makeup,"
9
Vygotsky and many other Soviet theorists of the day were also.
heavily inuenced by the work of westem European sociologists and
anthropologists, like Thurnwald and Levy-Bruhl,4 who were interested
in the history of mental processes as reconstructed from anthropological
evidence of the intellectual activity of primitive peoples
similar moves on linguistics - "where interest centered on the problem of the origin of language and its
inuence on the development of thought. Discussions in linguistics dealt
with concepts similar to Vygotsky’s and also similar to the work of Sapir
and Whorf, who were then becoming inuential in the United States."
science!
applied/ theoretical
" He had been a founder of the Institute of Defectology in
Moscow, with which he was associated throughout his working life. In
such medical problems as congenital blindness, aphasia, an.cLsevere
mental retardation Vygotsky saw opportunities both for understanding
the mental processes of all people and for establishing programs of
treatment and remediation. Thus, it was consistent with his general
theoretical view that his work should be carried out in a society that
sought the elimination of illiteracy and the founding of educational
programs to maximize the potential of individual children."
10
misunderstood
11
sketchy experiments - limited empiricism/ raw data
12
psychological method
" For Vygotsky, the object of experimentation is quite different. The
principles of his basic approach (presented in chapter 5 of this volume)
do not stem from a purely methodological critique of established experimental
practices; they ow from his theory of the nature of higher
psychological processes and the task of scientic explanation in psychology."
origins - map history - experiment showing/ make visible what is hidden
problem solving
"
To serve as an effective means of studying “the course of development
of process,” the experiment must provide maximum opportunity
for the subject to engage in a variety of activities that can be observed,
not just rigidly controlled. One technique Vygotsky effectively used for
this purpose was to introduce obstacles or diiculties into the task that
disrupted routine methods of problem solving."
Reminds me of speak aloud protocols
alternative routines for problem solving
13
Reminds me of children and drawing (and what leads them from drawing) - especially when they are in middle school
" The contrast between conventional experimental
work (focusing on performance) and Vygotsky’s work (focusing on
process) has its contemporary expression in recent studies on children’s
memory by American investigators. Many studies (including a number
of our own) have presented children of various ages with lists of words
to be remembered and have analyzed such performance measures as
number of words recalled and the order of recall. From these indicators
the investigators have sought to make inferences about whether or not,
and to what extent, young children engage in organizing activities as
a memory strategy. On the other hand, ]ohn Flavell and his colleagues,
using procedures very much like those of Vygotsky’s students, provided
children the materials to be remembered, and instructed them to do
whatever they wanted to help them remember. They then observed
children's attempts at classifying the items, the kinds of grouping they
made, and other indices of children’s tendency to use organizational
mediation
( transformed /moved - stimulus response, NOT his intent!)
HUMANS modify while responding!
"VVhat he did intend to convey by this notion was that in higher forms of human behavior,
the individual actively modies the stimulus situation as a
part of the process of responding to it."
data can = scientific fact
"to break down some of the barriers that are traditionally erected between
“_laboratory” and “eld.” Experimental interventions and observations
may often be as well_ or better executed in play, school, and
clinical settings than in the psychologist’s laboratory."
Part one - Mind in Society
19
" This analysis will be concerned with three fundamental issues: (1)
VVhat is the relation between human beings and their environment,
both physical and social? (2) What new forms of activity were responsible
for establishing labor as the fundamental means of relating humans
to nature and what are the psychological consequences of these forms
of activity? (3) VVhat is the nature of the relationship between the use
of tools and the development of speech?"
rejects Stumpf's maturation"The
conception of maturation as a passive process cannot adequately describe
these complex phenomena."
20
zoology - issues of transfer - animal zoology
" VVhen the botanical model was fashionable,
psychologists emphasized the unique character of higher psychological
frmctions and the diiculty of studying them by experimental means.
But this zoological approach to the higher intellectual processes—those
processes that are uniquely human-—has led psychologists to interpret
the higher intellectual functions as a direct continuation of corresponding
processes in animals."
Kohler - apes/ children
Buhler - apes/ children
21
compare tools progression to chimps
"technical thinking"
so - development in terms of -- tools and physical
"K. Buhler established the developmentally important principle that the beginnings of intelligent speech are preceded by technical thinking, and technical thinking comprises the initial phase of cognitive develop- ment. His lead in emphasizing the chimpanzee-like features of children’s behavior has been followed by many others. It is in extrapolating this idea that the dangers of zoological models and analogies between human and animal behaviors nd their clearest expression."
22
break from buhler:
""This analysis
postulating the independence of intelligent action from speech runs
contrary to our own ndings, which reveal the integration of speech
and practical thinking in the course of development."
Shapiro and Gerke
" They theorize
that children’s practical thinking is similar to adult thought in certain
respects and different in others, and emphasize the dominant role of
social experience in human development. In their view, social experience
exerts its effect through imitation; when the child imitates the way
adults use tools and objects, she masters the very principle involved
in a particular activity. They suggest that repeated actions pile up, one
upon another, as in a multi-exposure photograph; the common traits
become clear and the differences become blurred. The result is a crystalized
scheme, a denite principle of activity. The child, as she becomes
more experienced, acquires a greater number of models that
she understands. These models represent, as it were, a rened cumulative
design of all similar actions; at the same time, they are also a rough
blueprint for possible types of action in the future.
critiques the mechanical conception of repitition of s & g
" or them, social experience
serves only to furnish the child with motor schemas; they do
not take into account the changes occurring in the internal structure
of the child’s intellectual operations. In their descriptions of children's
problem solving, the authors are forced to note the “specic role fullled
by speech” in the practical and adaptive efforts of the growing
child. But their description of this role is a strange one. “Speech,” they
say, “replaces and compensates for real adaptation; it does not serve as
a bridge leading to past experience but to a purely social adaptation
which is achieved via the experimenter.” This analysis does not allow
for the contribution speech makes to the development of a new structural
organization of practical activity.
Guillaume and Meyerson
23
speech - aphasia - Vygostsky - speech -- higher order functioning
focuses on the human
calls for holistic look at tools and child development
24
Not only were speech and practical intelligence assumed to have
different origins, but their joint participation in common operations
was considered to be of no basic psychological importance (as in the
work of Shapiro and Gerke).
Although practical intelligence and sign use can operate independently
of each other in young children, the dialectical unity of these
systems in the human adult is the very essence of complex human behavior.
Our analysis accords symbolic activity a specic organizing
function that penetrates the process of tool use and produces fundamentally
new forms of behavior.
Although children’s use of tools during their preverbal period is comparable
to that of apes, as soon as speech and the use of signs are
incorporated into any action, the action becomes transformed and organized
along entirely newlines.
25
Prior to mastering his own behavior, the child begins to master his
surroundings with the help of speech. This produces new relations with
the environment in addition to the new organization of behavior itself.
SPeech and the candy -- Levina - progression
(1) A child’s speech is as important as the role of action in attaining
the goal. Children not only speak about what they are doing; their
speech and action are part of one and the same complex psychological
function, directed toward the solution of the problem at hand.
(2) The more complex the action demanded by the situation andthe less direct its solution, the greater the importance played by speech
in the operation as a whole. Sometimes speech becomes of such vital
importance that, if not permitted to use it, young children cannot accomplish
the given task.
These observations lead me to the conclusion that children solve
practical tasks with the help of their speech, as well as their eyes and
hands.
Interesting -- but on some levels, I don't buy it.
"The rst thing that strikes the experimenter is the incomparably
greater freedom of children’s operations, their greater independence
from the structure of the concrete, visual situation. Children, with the
aid of speech, create greater possibilities than apes can accomplish
through action. One important manifestation of this greater exibility
is that the child is able to ignore the direct line between actor and goal.
Instead, he engages in a number of preliminary acts, using what we
speak of as instrumental, or mediated (indirect), methods.
2. less impulsive than ape
"Direct manipulation is replaced by a complex psychological
process through which inner motivation and intentions, postponed in
time, stimulate their own development and realization. This new kind
of psychological structure is absent in apes, even in rudimentary forms."
27
egocentric speech (internal)
"This is best seen when the experimenter
leaves the room or fails to answer the children's appeals for help. Upon
being deprived of the opportunity to engage in social speech, children
immediately switch over to egocentric speech."
"The rst signicant illustration of the link between these two language
functions occurs when children nd that they are unable to solve a problem
by themselves. They then turn to an adult, and verbally describe the
method that they cannot carry out by themselves. The greatest change
in children’s capacity to use language as a problem-solving tool takes
place somewhat later in their development, when socialized speech
(which has previously been used to address an adult) is turned inward.
Instead of appealing to the adult, children appeal to themselves; language
thus takes on an intrapersonal function in addition to its interpersonal
use.
28
"early stage speech accompanies the child's actions and reects the
vicissitudes of problem solving in a disrupted and chaotic form. At
a later stage speech moves more and more toward the starting point of
the process, so that it comes to precede action. It functions then as an
aid to a plan that has been conceived but not yet realized in behavior."
drawing
"Now speech guides, determines, and
dominates the course of action; the planning function of speech comes
into being in addition to the already existing function of language to
reect the external world.“
"Once children leam how to use the planning function of their
language effectively, their psychological eld changes radically. A
view of the future is now an integral part of their approaches to their
surroundings. In subsequent chapters, I will describe the developmental
course of some of these central psychological functions in greater detail."
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