the child and his behaviour

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The Child and his Behavior

Works of A. R. Luria


Written: c. 1930;

Source:Ape, Primitive Man, and Child: Essays in the History of Behaviour. A. R.

Luria and L. S. Vygotsky. Chapters 1 & 2 are by Vygotsky; Chapter 3, reproduced

here, is by Luria;

Published: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1992. Translated by Evelyn Rossiter;

Transcribed: Andy Blunden.

Approaching the Psychology of the Adult

WHEN seeking to study the psychology of the civilized adult, we

must remember that it is the result of a complex evolution, in which at least three

paths converge. The first of these is biological evolution from animal to man; the

second, historico-cultural development, by means of which contemporary civilized

man gradually evolved from the primitives; and the third, the individual

development of each person (ontogenesis), whereby the tiny new-born,

proceeding through a number of phases, develops into a child of school age, andlater into a civilized adult.

Some scientists (supporters of the so-called biogenetic law) believe

that we should not study each of these paths of development separately and in

isolation; that the developing child, in all essential respects, repeats the

developmental traits of his species, and during the few years of his own individual

life follows the path taken by that species for many thousands and tens of

thousands of years.

We do not hold this view. We believe that the development of the ape

into man, of the primitive into a representative of the civilized era, and of the child

into the adult takes a substantially different course, under the influence of unique

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factors, and passes through unique, and often unreproducible forms and phases of

development.

That is why, as we approach the study of the civilized adult, we must

consider, in addition to the evolution of the behavior of animals and primitive man,

the path taken by the development of the behavior in the child.

How does the process of thinking take place in the child? What laws

does the child follow in arriving at conclusions and forming judgments? All that we

have said so far makes it abundantly clear that from the childs point of view there

is no such thing as highly developed logic, with all the limitations it imposes on

thought, and with all its complex conditions and patterns. The primitive precultural

thinking of the child has a far simpler structure: it is a direct reflection of the naivelyperceived world. All the child needs is one detail or one incomplete observation to

draw the corresponding (though entirely wrong) conclusion. Whereas adult thinking

is governed by the laws of a complex combination of accumulated experience and

conclusions drawn from general premises, and is subordinate to the laws of

inductive-deductive logic, the thinking of the small child, on the other hand, is what

the German psychologist Stern has described as transductive. It does not

proceed from the particular to the general, nor from the general to the particular; it

merely concludes from case to case, each time on the basis of new, readily evident

features. In the mind of the child each phenomenon receives a corresponding

explanation which is supplied immediately, bypassing any logical stages or

generalizations.

Steps Toward Culture

We have discussed what is characteristic of the primitive perception

of the small child and his primitive thinking. However, the child develops rapidly,

moving ahead and shifting to new forms of activity; the infant turns into a child, the

child into an adolescent, while the adult merely remembers that he once passed

through childhood, and that at one time he thought, felt and perceived the world

quite differently.

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The childs primitive forms of behavior are gradually replaced by

other, adult, or civilized forms. New skills and new forms of thinking and logic are

developed, together with new attitudes towards the world; science must then

consider the question of the paths along which the childs primitive psyche

gradually changes into the psyche of the civilized adult.

The developing, the child not only grows and matures, but also and

this is the essential point we wish to make in our analysis of the evolution of the

childs psyche he receives a number of new skills and new forms of behavior. In

the process of development the child not only matures, but is re-armed. It is this

re-arming that accounts for a great deal of the development and changes we can

observe as we follow the transition from child to civilized adult. It is precisely in thisrespect that human development differs from that of the animals.

Let us consider the paths of development of animals, and their

adaptation to the conditions in which they live. We may say that in the process of

evolution, all changes in the behavior of animals really amount to two basic

elements: their natural, innate properties develop; and new skills acquired through

individual experience the conditioned reflexes make their appearance.

If we examine an animal which has been obliged to adapt to living

conditions in the forest: we will find that all of its sensory organs, which help it ward

off danger, have become exceptionally sensitive. Its eyesight is keen, its sense of

smell is astonishingly well developed and its hearing can, on occasion, strike us as

incredible. Moreover, we will see the subtlety and agility of the system in which all

of the animals organs of perception are combined with its movements, and see

how they may be mobilized and activated by any sign familiar to the animal.

This is how an animal adapts to nature, by altering its organism,

increasing the subtlety of all its organs of perception, and mobilizing all its motor

capabilities.

One would imagine that in the process of evolution, with the transition

to ever higher levels of development, these natural properties (vision, hearing,

smell, memory, etc.) would become increasingly enhanced; one would accordingly

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expect all these functions to be exceptionally highly developed in man. If we were

to expect this to be so, however, we would be deeply disappointed. Detailed study

of the condition of numerous innate human properties will inevitably compel us to

conclude that very many of them, far from reaching stages of development more

advanced than those found in animals, have at best stagnated; while in most of

them there is clear evidence of worsening, degradation and regression.

How is it possible to compare human vision with that of the eagle or

hawk, or human hearing with that of the dog, which is capable of identifying slight

rustling sounds or differences in tone far beyond the perceptive capacity of civilized

adults, or, lastly, human smell, touch and muscular sensation with the

development of such systems of perception in other, lower animals?

1[23]

Moreover, when one compares these processes in civilized man

say, in an average contemporary Parisian with their condition in some Australian

aborigine at a very primitive level of development, one finds that civilized man is

inferior in respect of virtually all the simplest mental functions. The stories told by

travelling ethnographers abound with reports of astonishingly well developed

hearing and vision in primitives, of their amazing memory, and their exceptional

ability to simultaneously perceive and judge the size of a host of objects (for

example, to tell when a single sheep is missing from a flock). In all of these natural

functions the primitive stands incomparably higher than civilized man; yet we all

know that the latter has a far richer psychic life, that he is far more powerful, and

that he frequently shows superior orientation in the circumstances of life and a

superior ability to subjugate surrounding phenomena.

What is the answer to the riddle of the evolution of the psyche from

the animal to man, from the primitive to the representative of a civilized people?

1 Studies done by the school of Academician I. N. Pavlov have

objectively shown that a dog is capable of unerringly distinguishing

one eighth of a tone, whereas very few humans are capable of such a

feat

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We believe that it lies in the evolution of the existential conditions in

which each of us lives, and at the same time in the evolution of those forms of

behavior that are determined and caused by such external conditions.

Contemporary civilized man does not need to adapt to the external environment in

the same way as an animal or a primitive. He has subjugated nature, and now

applies his tools to the functions once performed by feet or hands, eyes or ears.

Civilized man does not need to strain his eyes to see a far-off object he can put

on glasses, look through binoculars or use a telescope; he does not need to strain

his ears and run at top speed in order to transmit news he now performs all those

functions using tools and means of communication and locomotion that carry out

his will. All artificial tools and the entire cultural environment promote theexpansion of our senses, and contemporary civilized man can afford to have

worse natural properties, while supplementing them with artificial adaptations that

enable him to cope with the external world better than primitive man, who makes

direct use of his natural endowment. [24] Primitive man might break up a tree by

smashing it against a rock, whereas civilized man would pick up an axe or a

mechanical saw and do the job faster, better and with a lower expenditure of

energy.

The differences between civilized and primitive man transcend these

limits, however. The productive and cultural environment gradually alter man

himself; indeed man as we know him is like a stone that has been repeatedly

rounded and reshaped under the influence of that productive and cultural

environment.

In response to external conditions, the ape stood up on its hind limbs

and its body straightened out; those same conditions also caused its extremities to

become differentiated and its hand to develop, in due course, into the human

hand. In the opinion of Engels, at that point the ape turned into something similar

to a human being.

Yet the influence of productive and cultural conditions did not end

there. After the hand, the brain had to change, and the need arose at the same

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time for subtler, more dynamic forms of human adaptation to the environment.

Altered conditions naturally required new forms of adaptation, and, with the

passage of time, such new forms were elaborated. Under direct pressure from the

external conditions of existence, and in an active struggle with the external world,

man learned not to make direct use of his natural endowment in the struggle to

survive, but to elaborate devices, of varying complexity, to help him in that

struggle. In the process of evolution, man invented tools and created a cultural

productive environment; yet that same productive environment altered man

himself, supplanting primitive forms of behavior with complex, cultural forms. Man

gradually learned to make rational use of the properties he had inherited from

nature. The influence of the environment created in man a large number of newmechanisms not found in animals; the environment, as it were, turned inwards, and

behavior became social and cultural by virtue not only of its content, but also of its

mechanisms and devices. Instead of directly remembering something of particular

importance to him, man now elaborated a system of associative and structural

memory; his speech and thinking developed, the abstract concept came to be

elaborated, a series of cultural skills and techniques of adaptation were created

and instead of the primitive, we have civilized man. While the natural innate

functions of both are identical, or sometimes even weakened in the course of

development, on the other hand what makes civilized man so vastly different from

primitive man is his possession of an enormous stock of psychological

mechanisms, created in the course of cultural development, including skills,

behavioral devices, cultural symbols and adaptations, as well as the fact that his

psyche has been altered under the impact of the complex conditions that brought

him into being.

Our digression from our analysis of the childs psyche has been

deliberate. It was intended to show in which areas we should expect to find the

serious and profound changes that occur in the behavior of the child as he turns

into an adult.

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As we have already noted, we are not at all inclined to equate the

development of the species, to which we have just referred, with that of the child,

or even to establish some strict parallel between them. The child is born in a ready

cultural and productive environment, and therein lies the decisive, radical

difference between him and the primitive. However, when born, the child is not in

contact with that environment and is incorporated into it only gradually. That

incorporation into cultural conditions is in no way reminiscent of putting on a new

set of clothes: as it happens, profound changes occur in the childs behavior, which

forms new, fundamental and specific mechanisms. It is, therefore, perfectly natural

for each child to have his own precultural primitive period; while that period lasts

the structure of the childs mental life is marked by certain special features and bypeculiar primitive traits in the perception of thinking. Upon inclusion in the

appropriate environment, the child soon begins to change and develop new traits:

this happens extraordinarily fast because the ready socio-cultural environment

creates in him the necessary forms of adaptation, which have been formed long

ago in the adults around him.

The childs behavior as a whole is altered.. He grows accustomed to

inhibiting the immediate satisfaction of his needs and attractions, and restraining

immediate responses to external stimuli, in order to master the given situation

better and more easily, by means of roundabout paths and suitable cultural

devices.

It is precisely this inhibition of primitive functions, and the elaboration

of complex cultural forms of adaptation that constitutes the essence of the

transition from primitive childlike forms of behavior to the behavior of the civilized

adult.

Mastery of Tools

In the upper reaches of the animal world, but below the human level,

we have already noted an interesting fact: in some instances the ape would adapt

to new and difficult conditions not directly, but by using external tools (sticks,

boxes, etc.).[25]

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This phenomenon, which points to quite highly developed forms of

behavior, is not yet discernible in the small child. The child needs to develop to the

age of 1 1/2 years before he can, for the first time, use external objects as tools,

and assess any given external object not merely as such, but as an object that can

be used to achieve some goal. The first functional attitude to objects is the first

step towards an active, rather than a merely mechanical, connection between the

child and the external world.

It is not surprising that the child, having just begun to assimilate the

external world, and finding it still alien and associated with various fantastic

representations, should still have only a limited ability to act upon it in an organized

manner, or to use individual objects of the external world as tools for his ownpurposes. In order to enter into such complex mutual relationships with the objects

of the external world, and realize that they may be used not only for the immediate

satisfaction of instincts (an apple the child may eat, or a toy that he may play with),

but also as tools, for a specific purpose, the childs development has yet to travel a

very long way. For this to happen, instinctive immediate activity has to be replaced

by intellectual activity, guided by complex intentions and carried out by organized

acts.

Let us consider those first instances in which the child begins to use

the objects of the external world as tools, thereby taking the first steps in the

transition towards complex intellectual behavior.

As we know, a small child already eats from a spoon, uses a plate

and wipes himself with a towel. In so doing, however, he is merely imitating adults,

while his spontaneous use of objects as tools is limited, indeed practically zero. In

all these instances the spoon, plate and towel are so inseparably linked to the act

of eating or washing that they merge with it to form one habitual, integral situation.

On the other hand we all know how difficult it is for a child aged 1 1/2 years to learn

to use a spoon, or to cut something with a knife (rather than tearing it apart), etc.

Mastery of tools is a sign of high psychological development; and we

may safely assume that the processes leading to mastery of the tools of the

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external world, and to the unique elaboration of internal psychological devices,

together with the ability to make functional use of ones own behavior, are all

characteristic elements of the cultural development of the childs psyche.

The Cultural Development of Special Functions: Memory

We have seen how the small child, for whom the world of external

objects was initially alien, gradually comes closer to it, and begins to master those

objects and make functional use of them as tools. This is the first phase in cultural

development, in which new forms of behavior and new behavioral devices come

into being as an aid for both the innate and the simplest acquired movements.

In the second phase of cultural development, intermediate processes

make their appearance in the childs behavior, altering that behavior through theuse of stimulus symbols. These behavioral devices, acquired in the process of

cultural experience, alter the fundamental psychological functions of the child, arm

them with new weapons and develop them. The study of these devices enables us,

in some instances, to resolve issues that had previously seemed enigmatic.

In numerous experiments, we have been able to monitor the

development of these cultural devices linked to the memory of the child, and the

manner in which that memory grows and is strengthened and re armed until it

gradually reaches the level found in adults.

For a long time, psychologists viewed the question of the

paths of development of the childs memory as extremely obscure, almost

enigmatic. Does the childs memory really develop at all? Do we adults have

better memories than children? This question turns out to be not as simple

as it first seems.

We can say that the child follows a similar path (Note: natural

means*), the only difference being that primitive man invented his own

memorization systems, whereas the developing child more often than not is

supplied with ready systems that help him memorize; he merely assimilates them,

and learns how to use and master them, thereby transforming his natural

processes.

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We have confirmed, under experimental conditions, that this

transition to cultural forms of memory is based on the use of various devices

capable of greatly and rapidly enhancing the power of memory.

We read out ten figures, one after the other, to a boy aged 6-7,

seated before us. When we asked the boy, after the experiment, about the figures

he had remembered, it turned out that he had memorized only two or three of

them, or at most four.

When he was convinced that memorizing ten figures was extremely

difficult, we altered the experiment. We gave him some object, such as a piece of

paper or string, or some wood shavings, etc., and told him that the object in

question would help him memorize the figures we were to read out. We set him thetask of using the object as a means towards a certain end, as a means of

memorizing figures.

Thereafter, the sequence of events usually went as follows: at first

the child could not understand precisely how he could functionally use a piece of

paper for memorization. It did not occur to him that the piece of paper, on the one

hand, and the proposed figures, on the other, could have anything in common. The

functional use of things the notion that one thing could be used artificially for

some process or other, to serve a purpose was often too much for him to

comprehend. Admittedly, he knew how to use a spoon when eating, or a towel to

wipe himself dry, but these are all familiar processes, of which the object in

question is itself an integral part. The child still lacked the ability to invent the use

of auxiliary tools in those cases where some new, extraneous object was being

used to assist some process or other, while the functional use of psychological

auxiliaries posed even greater problems for him.

For this reason, the child of this age, more often than not, simply

gives up, saying that the piece of paper does not help him remernber numbers. We

are still faced with the task of ensuring that the child masters the material put

before him as an aid to memorization, and discovers the functional use of some

symbol for purposes of memorization.

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In all of these instances, the child performs external manipulations in

order to master the internal process of memory, which is exactly what

characterizes a primary cultural device used to aid the natural psychic functions.

one important point should be noted: in the transition from the

system of immediate memorization to that of recording by means of certain

marks, the output of memory rose sharply: a certain .fiction of its development

occurred. A child who could remember three to four numbers using his natural

technique of immediate imprinting was of course able to memorize a virtually

endless quantity of numbers once he had transferred to the method of recording.

This was because his memory, having been supplanted by new devices invented

he himself had invented, began to work in a new mode yielding quantitativelymaximum results.

The further development of the childs memory centers less on its

natural improvement than on the alteration of those devices, on the replacement of

primitive devices by other better ones, elaborated in the process of historical

evolution.

the use of external symbols now also begins to alter the internal

processes; whereas at the lowest ages, memorization without external means was

mechanical, the school child now already begins to use certain internal devices: he

no longer memorizes mechanically, but associatively and logically. In actual fact,

his natural memory begins to lose its natural character and becomes a cultural

memory; and in this cultural transformation of primitive processes we are inclined

to see an explanation for the considerable level of development found in natural

memorization in childhood.

This is how culture works, by nurturing in us more and more new

devices, converting natural into cultural memory; and school works the same

way, by grafting on a series of subtle and complex auxiliary devices and opening

up a number of new possibilities for a natural function of man.

We have deliberately explored in some detail the function of memory,

since it provides us with an opportunity to illustrate, by means of a concrete

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example, the relationship between the natural innate forms of mental activity and

the cultural form acquired in the process of social experience. Here we have seen

how development proves to be more than mere maturation: it means cultural

metamorphoses and cultural re-armament. If we now wished to consider the

memory of the civilized adult, we would have to take it as created not by nature,

but by culture. After all, it would be quite wrong to limit it to those laws, pertaining

to the strengthening and reproduction of experience, that are inherent in the

natural mnemic functions.

The Cultural Development of Special Functions: Attention

We shall now dwell very briefly on the phases of the development of

attention in the child. We know that attention performs a most important function inthe life of the organism: that of the organization of behavior, the creation of a

suitable disposition preparing the individual for action or perception.

This kind of attention characteristically is not arbitrary; any sudden,

powerful stimulus promptly attracts the attention of the child and alters his

behavior. On the other hand, as soon as there is any weakening of the stimulus

(which may, for example, be internal or instinctive), the organizing role of attention

fades away, and organized behavior again yields to unorganized, undifferentiated

behavior.

Such a natural type of attention cannot, of course, generate any

durable, stable form of organized behavior. Each new stimulus would repeatedly

disrupt the disposition, causing repeated changes in behavior. These conditions

clearly fail to satisfy the organism until it is removed from social demands, away

from the community and from work. However, when certain demands begin to be

made on the individual, when he is obliged to perform a certain organized task,

however primitive, his primitive non-arbitrary attention proves inadequate, and it

proves necessary to elaborate new and more stable forms of behavior.

Such further development of attention can clearly not involve the

development of non-arbitrary attention. In order to perform the task required of

him, the individual must first elaborate a mode of behavior that will be the exact

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opposite of his former mode. Previously, each powerful stimulus had been able to

organize behavior on its own terms, by generating a certain disposition; now,

however, weaker but biologically or socially important stimuli, requiring a lengthy

organized chain of reactions, would need to do the same. Natural forms of

attention could not satisfy these demands, so certain other artificial, acquired

mechanisms would have to develop alongside them, in order to resolve the

situation. There was a need for arbitrary artificial that is, civilized attention,

which is the essential component of any work.

Let us now try to explore the process of transition to such forms of

attention, if only with regard to the solution of certain problems. None of the

conditions influencing non-arbitrary, natural attention has any effect on the studentin this instance. The problems proposed are not in themselves a stimulus powerful

enough to focus the attention and they do not fall into the area of some instinctive

process capable of organizing all of the behavior of the personality; yet the student

can resolve minor problems in quite an organized way and for quite a long time by

concentrating on them alone, with no distractions. From the standpoint of natural

forms of behavior, this may seem enigmatic. We can find the key to this enigma

only by finding certain forces that bolster attention while certain work is in progress

and whose effect is long-lasting.

The cultural stimuli thus generated enable the individual to

concentrate on a certain activity, sometimes overcoming even serious distracting

obstacles. However, besides complicating the dynamic conditions and creating

new needs in the form of culturally grafted attractions, the influence of the

historical environment also acts by organizing in one further respect. The child

develops specific devices, that enable him to control his psychological operations,

to separate the substantial from the insubstantial, and to perceive complex

situations as being subject to certain basic central factors. By developing culturally,

the child himself also becomes able to create such stimuli, which will in due course

influence him, organize his behavior, and attract his attention.

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How can his attention be strengthened, and how can he be helped

to master his behavior without departing from any of the conditions he has to

meet? The experiment showed that the only way this could be done was by shifting

from immediate to mediate attention, which resorts to the use of certain external

devices.

To help the child solve the problem we offer him colored cards that

he may use as notes, as external conditions for the organization of his attention.

We thereby hand him a certain device, which he quickly masters. His external

actions help him to organize his attention: by operating with these cards externally,

he organizes his internal processes.

As a rule, however, this psychological method of organizing theattention fails to yield the desired results: to be successful, the child, instead of

removing the forbidden elements from the sphere of his attention, must make the

process of attention mediate, concentrating precisely on those forbidden

elements.

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The use of cards as auxiliary symbols does not, however, end there:

in order to solve the second problem, not to repeat the same colors twice, the child

selects from the cards in front of him, one corresponding to the question asked (for

example, a yellow one), and, as a way of signalling that that color has already

been mentioned, he moves the card slightly lower down; then before answering the

questions, he looks at both rows of forbidden colors (C, rows a and c), and then,

having made the process mediate, he successfully avoids all the pitfalls in the

experiment. External operations transform and organize the process of attention.

Yet the process goes further than this. If we were to give the child thesame game to play several times, we would probably notice changes in his

behavior. He would soon stop using the cards, and begin to solve the problem

without external auxiliary devices, returning, as it were, to the previous natural

application of attention. This is only apparently so, however. We can see that the

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operation of our neuropsychic apparatus is entirely created, as a product of cultural

development, and how, once it has been created, it transforms numerous

psychological processes.

The development of the process of abstraction, which occurs only

within the process of the childs growth and cultural development, is closely linked

to the beginning of the use of external tools and the elaboration of complex forms

of behavior. Abstraction itself may here be viewed as one of the cultural devices

grafted onto the child during the process of his development. We can explore the

primary emergence of this process through a concrete example, where the mutual

relationship between the primitive, integral perception of external objects, and the

incipient abstraction crucial to any cultural psychological process, becomesparticularly obvious.

The Cultural Development of Special Functions: Speech and

Thinking

We need to make some concluding remarks about the paths followed

by the development of thinking in the child. In the light of the material included in

our study, a brief summary should be easy; yet we have still not said enough to

offer a general characterization of the development of thinking in the child. To do

that, the question needs to be linked to a mechanism we have not yet discussed

one that is surely the most important means of thinking: speech.

The notion that speech plays an enormous, decisive role in thinking

has become established in recent psychological literature.

There are many reasons for believing that the question is far more

complicated that this theory assumes.

First we can point out that thinking and speech have undeniably

different roots, and that in the earliest phases of development one can very often

exist without the other.

In other words, intellect and thinking, as complex planned forms of

behavior, may either arise in the period before speech, or they may develop quite

separately from speech.

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The most primitive form of speech is, of course, the shout and other

vocal reactions, occurring in connection with movement, powerful emotions, etc.

These include exclamations and interjections at work, crying or laughter, shrieks of

delight after a victory, or of terror during persecution.

Are these related in any way to intellect or thinking? They certainly

are not. At their root lies a simple tendency to discharge tension built up in the

organism; they cannot claim a greater role than that of simple expressive

movements. Their basis is emotional; they do nothing to help man resolve complex

real-life problems in an organized manner. They do not serve to plan the behavior

of the subject, as they take place on another, non-intellectual plane.

On the other hand, many types of speech found in the civilized adultare not directly related to thinking, for example, emotional speech, which serves,

as we have noted, merely as a means of expression, and speech in its simplest

communicative functions.

Speech and thinking may therefore occur separately also in the adult,

though this does not mean that the two processes do not meet and have no

influence on each other. On the contrary, the meeting between speech and

thinking is a major event in the development of the individual; in fact, it is this

connection that raises human thinking to extraordinary heights.

Speech occupies the commanding heights and becomes the most

commonly used cultural device, while enriching and stimulating thinking; and the

childs psyche acquires a new structure. The verbal mechanisms that were vividly

expressed during the period of active speech, or initial accumulation now shift to

internal, inaudible speech, which in turn becomes one of the major auxiliary tools

of thinking. After all, how many complex and subtle intellectual problems would

remain insoluble, were it not for our internal speech, by means of which thinking

may cloak itself in precise and clear forms, and it becomes possible for us to test

and plan various solutions on a verbal (or rather, intellectual) basis.

Whereas, in Marxs classic comparison, the architect, unlike the bee,

builds an entire structure after careful consideration, planning and calculation, to a

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great extent we owe this vast advantage of intellect over instinct to the mechanism

of internal speech. The role of speech mechanisms in human behavior far exceeds

that of mere expressive reactions. They fundamentally differ from all other

reactions in that they play a specific functional role: their action is addressed to the

organization of the further behavior of the personality, and preliminary verbal

planning is the sphere in which man achieves the highest cultural forms of

intellectual behavior.

By turning inwards, speech forms a most important psychological

function as the representative of the external environment within us, stimulating

thinking and, in the opinion of several authors, also laying the foundation for the

development of consciousness.

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Alexander Luria

There is no hope of finding the sources of free action in

the lofty realms of the mind or in the depths of the brain.

The idealist approach of the phenomenologists is as

hopeless as the positive approach of the naturalists. To

discover the sources of free action it is necessary to go

outside the limits of the organism, not into the intimate

sphere of the mind, but into the objective forms of social life;

it is necessary to seek the sources of human consciousness

and freedom in the social history of humanity. To find the

soul it is necessary to lose it". A.R Luria

ALEXANDER LURIA was born in Kazan, an old Russian University

town east of Moscow. He entered Kazan University at the age of 16 and obtained

his degree in 1921 at the age of 19. While still a student, he established the Kazan

Psychoanalytic Association, and planned on a career in psychology. His earliest

research sought to establish objective methods for assessing Freudian ideas about

abnormalities of thought and the effects of fatigue on mental processes.

In 1924 Luria met Lev Semionovich Vygotsky, whose influence was

decisive in shaping his future career. Together with Vygotsky and Alexei

Nikolaivitch Leontiev, Luria sought to establish an approach to psychology that

would enable them to discover the way natural processes such as physical

maturation and sensory mechanisms become intertwined with culturally

determined processes to produce the psychological functions of adults (Luria,

1979, p. 43). Vygotsky and his colleagues referred to this new approach variably

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as cultural, historical, and instrumental psychology. These three labels all

index the centrality of cultural mediation in the constitution of specifically human

psychological processes, and the role of the social environment in structuring the

processes by which children appropriate the cultural tools of their society in the

process of ontogeny. An especially heavy emphasis was placed on the role of

language, the tool of tools in this process: the acquisition of language was seen

as the pivotal moment when phylogeny and cultural history are merged to form

specifically human forms of thought, feeling, and action.

From the late 1920's until his death, in 1977, Luria sought to

elaborate this synthetic, cultural-historical psychology in different content areas of

psychology. In the early 1930's he led two expeditions to Central Asia where heinvestigated changes in perception, problem solving, and memory associated with

historical changes in economic activity and schooling. During this same period he

carried out studies of identical and fraternal twins raised in a large residential

school to reveal the dynamic relations between phylogenetic and cultural-historical

factors in the development of language and thought.

Luria Archive

http://www.marxists.org/archive/luria/works/1930/child/index.htm

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the child and his behaviour

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