Chapter 3: Mastery of Memory and Thinking
From WikEd
In this chapter, the description of basic laws which shows the structure and development of child’s sign operations is discussed through a concept of memory. In this way, the social origin of signs and their important role in individual’s development can be understood.
Contents |
[edit] Social Origin of Indirect (Mediated) Memory
According to Vygotsky, there are two classes of memory: the natural memory and the other types of memory. These distinctions of memory can be seen at the earliest stages of social development. Being very close to perception, natural memory can be characterized by the nonmediated impression of materials, and it arises from the direct influence of external stimuli. This direct interaction with the external stimuli results in the “immediacy” of this memory. The second type of memory, although it coexists with natural memory, has a totally different developmental line. People use various memory aids and by doing so they go beyond their natural psychological functions. This memory type results in the development of some culturally elaborated behaviors such as use of “notched sticks and knots”. Usage of memory aids is absent even at the highest species of animals which shows us that this kind of a memory is a product of the specific social development among human beings. Development of signs which essentially are “artificial and self generated stimuli” is a manifestation of this second type of memory.
[edit] Structure of Sign Operations
Although there is a direct reaction between a stimulus and response in the elementary form of behavior, sign operations require an intermediate link between the stimulus and the response: a second order stimulus. This second order stimulus has reverse action which means that it operates on the individuals but not the environment. While the direct action to the reaction is withdrawn, auxiliary stimulus is included to facilitate the completion of operation by indirect means. This type of organization is basic to all higher psychological processes.
[edit] Early Sign Operations in Children
Role of signs in voluntary attention and memory is shown by the following experiments. According to experiment of A.N. Leontiev, subjects from different age groups (5-6, 8-9, 10-13 and 22-27) were asked a set of questions and they were asked not to use certain forbidden words in their answers and not to repeat the same answer for different questions. At the stages of 3 and 4 of the experiment, 9 colored cards were given to the subjects as a memory aid. The experimenters looked for correlations between the errors in the answers of the subjects and their use of colored cards as aids. Although the use of colored cards decreased the number of errors in the school-age children, the error rate was similar for the preschool children and adult subjects. According to the results of this experiment; there are 3 stages in the “development of mediated remembering”. The first stage is the preschool age at which the children are unable to use colored cards as an auxiliary stimulus. Even though the cards act as a stimulus; they do not acquire an instrumental function for the tasks. The second stage is when the availability of colored cards as an external auxiliary stimulus considerably increases the achievement of children. The external signs gain psychological instrument for these children. At the third stage; (among adults) auxiliary external stimulus are internalized by adults as a means of remembering. Thus they do not need to use the cards as a reminder any more.
[edit] The Natural History of Sign Operations
Sign operations do not occur by logic but as a result of complex and prolonged processes. They are not simply invented or passed from adults to children, although they become signs after some “qualitative” changes take place in operations that were not signs previously. There are two general processes of development: the elementary processes which have biological origin and the higher psychological functions which have sociocultural origin. “The history of child behavior” takes place during the transition from the elementary to the higher psychological functions, and multiple systems are developed during this transition. This process forms the natural history of sign, and there have been some experiments to show certain stages of this history. N.G. Morozova asked children to remember some words by providing some auxiliary pictures which could be used as mediators. But preschool children were unable to use these auxiliary pictures as aids to remember the words. Besides, L.V. Zankov showed that children between the ages of four and six refuse to use of signs as aids if there were no meaningful relation between a reminder and the word to be remembered. Thus children look for “an eidetic-like representation in the auxiliary sign”.
[edit] Memory and Thinking
When children grow up, the development takes place not only with single functions but also with changes in the “interfunctional” relations of memory with the other functions that are in touch with the memory. Memory in young children constitutes a basis for other psychological functions. For these very young children, Vygotsky argued that their thinking capacity is determined by their memory unlike the older children. Thus “thinking” is the same as “remembering” for these children. Because they are not capable of mastering abstraction, their perceptions of world are consisted of remembering concrete events in their life. For example, when a child is asked what a grandmother is, the answer would be something like “She has a soft lap”. Children do not explain the concepts according to their logical structure but they would explicate what is in their memory. Thus it is concluded that “memory rather than abstract thought is the definitive characteristics of the early stages of cognitive development”. After the childhood, there is reverse direction in the functions related to the memory; “for the adolescence to recall means to think”. Adolescences are now capable of making and finding logical relations to remember a concept. Humans have higher psychological functions since we can remember something by the help of an external stimulus which acts as a temporary link between an object and a reminder. This is one of the unique features of human kind that separates us from the other animals.
[edit] Questions and Comments:
- Could Vygotsky underestimate the thinking ability of the young children?
- Is an eidetic-like representation in the auxiliary sign also important for the older children?
- How can we increase usage of the auxiliary stimulus in very young children?
