Soviet Developmental Psychology. An Anthology 087332093X

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Soviet Developmental Psychology AN ANTHOLOGY

EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY

Michael Cole

M.E. Sharpe WHITE PLAINS, NEW YORK

INC.

BP 713 St,�

Copyright© 1977 by M. E. Sharpe, Inc., 901 North Broadway, White Plains, New York 10603 This anthology is drawn from Soviet Psychology, a quarterly journal published by M. E. Sharpe, Inc. Translations© 1963, 1964, 1965, 1967, 1968, 1970,

1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976 by International Arts and Sciences Press, Inc. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may

be reproduced in any form without permission of the p ublisher. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 77-85709 International Standard Book Number:

0-87332-093-X

Printed in the United States of America

Contents

Soviet Developmental P sychology: Selections from Soviet P sychology Michael Cole Exp erimental Reflexological Resear ch on the Newborn M . P . Denisova & N. L . Figurin

ix 3

Experimental Reflexological Study of Early Dis criminative Reflexes in Infancy N. L . Figurin & M. P. Denisova

16

A Child' s Speech Responses and the Social Environment A. R . Luria

32

The Variability of Mental Functions a s the Child Develop s (Based on a Comparative Study of Twins) A. R . Luria

65

Play and Its Role in the Mental Development of the Child L . S. Vygotsky

76

The Developm ent of Voluntary Memory in Prescho ol - ag e Children Z . M. Istomina

100

W ords as Conditioned Inhibitor s in Infants During the First Thr ee Year s of Life E . N. Degtiar '

160

v

Conditions for the Format ion of the Simplest Voluntary Actions in Very Young Childre n S. V. Yakovlev a

168

Per ception and Naming of Color in Early Childhood Z . M. Istomina

203

The Developme nt o f Associatio ns in Very Young Children E . N. Degtiar '

220

Certain Physiological Me chanisms in the Initial Development of the Mental Life of the Child V. K. Fedorov

232

The Formation and Development o f P erceptual Activity V. P . Zinchenko, Van Chzhi -tsin, & V . V. Tar akanov

243

On the Development of Proper Pronunciation in Childr en One and a Half to Thr ee Year s Old' G. M. Liamina & N. I. Gagua

263

The Development in Preschool-age Childr en of the Ability to Analyz e Words by Their Sounds L . E . Zhurova

2 87

E cholalia as a Stage in the Formation of the Second- Signal System B. F . Por shnev

306

Stimuli Evoking Positive Emotions in Infants in the First Months of Life M . Iu. Kistiakovskaia

3 20

Comparative Analysis of the Activity of the Pr escho8l Child with Real Obj ects and Their Schematic Repr esentations A. A. Litvinyuk

3 39

·

vi

Master y of the Syllabi c Compositio n of Words at an E arly Age A. K. Markova

355

A Study of the Influence of Sociohistorical Conditions on Child Development ( Compar ative Investigation, 1929 and 1966) R . G. Gurova

369

The Emergence of P er ceptual Actions L . A . Venger

393

Some Problems in L earning Russian as a Foreign Language ( E s says on Psycholinguisti cs) Aleksei A. L eont' ev

457

/

Causes of Childr en's Word Invention (A Psychophysiologi ­ cal Model of the Genesis of the Syntactically Structured Verbal Utterance) 5 16 T. N. Ushakova Toward the Problem of Stages in the Mental Development of the Child D . B . El'konin

538

Acquisition of the Communicative Function ·Of Language by Schoolchil dr en A. K. Markova

564

Babbling in the H earing Child V. I. Bel'tyukov & A. D . Salakhov a

587

An Experim ental Study of the P lanning Function of Thinkin g in Young Schoolchildr en V. Kh. Magkaev

606

vii

SOVIET DEVELOPM ENTAL PSYCHOLOGY : SELECTIONS FROM SOVIE T P SY CHOLOGY Michael Cole This volume contains a sample of articles on developmental psyc hology that have appeared in Soviet Psychology over the past 15 years. The articles repr�s ent a much greater time­ span of de velopmental psychology in the Soviet Union, beginning with two classic papers by Denisova & Figurin published in the mid- 1920 s . T o appreciate the contribution represented by the material in this c ollection, it is useful to keep in mind certain features of Soviet psychology as they have manifested themselves in the 60 years sinc e the founding of the Soviet Union. A book such as this , which samples a vast literature, must perforce be used as a way to get acquainted with the terrain. This introduction will s eek to pro vide a crude map of that terrain so that readers may more easily orient the sample to the whole . De velopmental pr oblems have been a central interest of Soviet s cientists concerned with human behavior since the in­ ception of Soviet p sychology. Contributions to the study of what Ame ricans think of as developmental p sychology have been made by Soviet s ci entists who considered themselves physiologist s , doctors, neurologis ts , and educators in addition to those who work in institutions bearing the label "psycholo gy. " Two sources of this interest, one "applied," the other "theo­ r etical , " are e vident from the earliest postrevolutionary period. First, ther e was overriding c oncern to improve the educa­ tional system of the country, to eradicate illiteracy , which was ix

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extremely widespread, and, more broadly, to raise new gener­ ations of children free of the taints of pr er e volutionary , bour­ geois values and ideals . Developmental psychology was a s ci ­ ence in which Lenin' s dictum that one should carry theory into practice was a natural organizing principle. This orientation was certainly helped by the active interest of Lenin' s wife, N. K. Krupskaya, who s upported developmental- educational research throughout the 192 0s, when Soviet psychology was in its formative period. Second, many Soviet scholars believed that a developmental approach to the study of psychological functions was a method­ ological and theoretical necessity . This view was expressed very early by P . P . Blonsky , who wrote, "Behavior can be un­ derstood only as the history of behavior" ( Blon�ky , 19 2 1 ) . Characteristically , Blonsky was deeply involved in educational reform as w ell as in theoretical and experimental w ork . Blonsky' s assertion of the centrality of developmental-psy ­ chological analysis was given strong impetus in the latter half of the 1920s and the early 193 0s by L . S . Vygotsky , who als o argued that complex adult psychological processes could not be analyz ed without understanding their developmental history (see Vygotsky , 1978 , which includes several of these essays) . By emphasizing c omplex processes , Vygotsky declared his concern with processes ( memory , attention, r easoning) that were, in fact, syste ms of elementary processes. Once these systems have become w ell articulated, the operation of the ele­ ments that constitute them is no longer available for analysis . It is even possible that tpe surface manifestations of the sys ­ tem may obscure its inner workings , misleading the analyst. Developmental studies that trace the steps in the formation of the system are required to reveal the true inner workings of now - solidified psychological structures . According to Vygotsky , the developmental analysis of com­ plex adult functions benefits from the fact that all such functions arise initially as the child interacts with his s ocial environment· every complex psychological function, he said, first emerges as a social function shared between child and adult. Only in the '

Soviet Developmental P sychology

xi

course of development do these interpsychic functions become the intrapsychic functions of the adult . In addition to providing a striking theory of social influences on psychological processes, this view suggested that because functions are shared between adults and children, they are accessible for analysis if the in­ vestigator can invent ways to observe children interact with instructing adults . These ideas are w ell illustrated in the present volume in the fifth and sixth selections, the fir st by Vygotsky (P. 76) , the second by Istomina (P . 1 00) , a student of L eont' ev' s whose work repre ­ s ents one of the best examples of Vygotsky ' s strategy of devel­ opmental r es earch. Vygotsky ' s topic is play, but it is play as a type of acti vity whos e characteristics change as the child grows older; it is play as an example of functions shared be­ tween c hild and others ; it is play, as an illustration of all the basic features of Vygotsky ' s approach to the analysis of higher psychological functions . Istomina ' s article is remarkable both as an example of Vygotsky' s approach to experimentation and as an illustration of his basic theoretical notions . Her experiments demonstrate how the experimenter, relying on characteristic modes of adult­ child interaction , can make the structure of psychological ac­ tivity (in this case, memory) available for analysis . Her dem­ onstration of an interaction between the degree to whic h the r emembering task is e mbedded in a meaningful social context and children ' s efficiency in remembering at different ages sup­ ports Vygotsky' s idea of the internalization of socially acquired systems of cognitive functioning. Another aspect of Vygotsky ' s approach was his emphasis on language as a basic means of acquiring socially created knowl­ edge and as a "tool of thought. " A. R. Luria ' s article on children' s speech responses (P . 3 2 ) r epresents an early line of research on the influenc e of s ocial environment on the development of language (in this case, language as r epresented by features of the child' s lexic on) . Luria ' s work i s an early extension of the free-asso­ c iation tec hnique , w hich had gained prominence as a tool for the analysis of psychodynamic processes , to the study of mental

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development. His analysis of developme ntal changes in the nature of children' s respons es and the dependence of thes e changes on environmental circumstan ces anticipated similar work in the United States by more than a quarter of a century . This article is cited in Luria ' s 1932 monograph The nature of human c onflicts , which is worth c onsulting for a broader picture of early research on language and behavior . Although the w ork o f Vygotsky and his students represents the most enduring line of work to e merge from Soviet develop­ mental psychology ( as a dis cipline ) in the 1920s, it was by no means the only influential work c onducted during this era if we consider psychological research more broadly . From Pavlov' s laboratory came exploratory experiments with children, by Krasnogorsky and Ivanov- Smolensky ( 1 9 3 3 ) . But Pavlovian contributions to developmental psychology be­ came prominent only in the 1950s ; our s elections from this s chool of thought have been taken from the later period. A reflex-based approach that attributed special importance to de velopmental iss ues was proposed by V. M. Bekhterev, a physiologist-neurologist-psychiatrist and one of the most pro­ lific and influential scientists in p ostrevolutionary Russia. The first two articles in the present volume ( Pp . 3 , 16 ) r epresent Bekhterev' s approach, called "age-re flexology , " via the w ork of his followers Figurin & Denisova. ( See Schniermann, 193 0 , for a review b y one o f Bekhterev ' s collaborators that conveys some sense of Bekhterev ' s goals . ) This work is of particular interest to American psychologists at the present time because recent years have s een a great re­ vival of interest in the study of infancy. Despite the fact that it was written s o many years ago, much of Denis ova & Figurin' s material has a very c ontemporary ring. First of all , they insist on an approach that we would now term " methodologic al behav­ iorism. " The work of Stern, Preyer, and others is criticized as inadequate in principle because those researcher s attempt to take as their basic data states of c onsciousne ss of the infant . Unlike s ome contempor ary researche rs on infancy , Denis ova & Figurin made good use of systemati c obs er vational data as a

Soviet Developmental P sychology

xiii

basic s our c e of information about infant behavior . The inter­ esting additional point is made that an introspectionist approach to the study of infant development will very often mislead the investigator with respect to what the basic phenomena ar e; Denisova & Figurin mistr ust s uch research because of the strong s electivity operating in the investigator . Another general theoretical point of interest is the fact that Figurin & Denis ova ' s work provided Bekhterev with a genuinely developmental theory (in the sense used by Werner and others) that implies that there is more to development than the simple accretion of stimulus- response connections . In particular , they c laim that ther e is a lawful change in the degree of complexity of the types of c onditioned responses that the infant is capable of, and that thes e basic sti mulus -response c onnections become associated in hierar chies to prod uce the mor e complex behav­ ior of the older child. On the e mpirical side, a number of extremely interesting points are made in the researc h of Figurin & Denisova. This research, which has been referred to repeatedly in already translated Russian writing on infancy , has not previously been a vailable in English. Among the most interesting empirical points raised by these authors are: ( 1) the difference in the e � s e of forming simultaneous and successive discriminations, and ( 2 ) data conc erning the nature of early unconditioned re­ spons es . On the first p oint there i s considerable American literature , most o f it using lower animals as s ubj ects, concerning differ­ ences in the diffic ulty of forming simultaneous and s uccessive discriminations . Although the matter has not been r es olved, Figurin & Denisova make an interesting suggestion when they relate eas e of learning the tw o types of discrimination to what T olman has called vicarious trial and er ror. Figurin & Deni­ sova ' s des cription appears to be a very early statement of this problem and, moreover, points to the importance of such re­ s ponses in the human infant. This is , to the best of my knowl­ edge, still a " new s uggestion" 3 0 years later. Equally interesting is their idea that the nature of an uncon·

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ditioned response depends on the state of the cortex at the time the unconditioned stimulus is presented. Reference here is to the infant ' s response to stimulation of the skin s urrounding the mouth, which elicits s ucking if the infant is awake and head­ turning and puckering of the lips if the infant is asleep. If s uch obser vations are r eplicable, they should provide an extremely important opportunity to test basic notions about the formation of conditioned reflexes and the relation between for mation of conditioned reflexes and the functional state of the brain. On these and on many other points , the dis c ussion pr esented in Denisova & Figurin ' s articles seems to be of great conte mpo­ rary interest. The combination of observational and experimental approaches to the study of children is one of the "innovations_ " of American developmental psychology in the 1970s . Although developmental psychology , especially as it is related to educational issues , has always been a central feature of So­ viet general psy chology , a complicated set of factors led both to a dearth of Soviet publications in de velopmental psychology from the early 1930s to the mid- 1940s and to American indif­ ference to its reemergenc e until the 19 50s. First, ther e was the well- publiciz ed decree of the C entral Committee of the Soviet Communist Party , in 193 6 , banning psychological testing. Even before this time, ideological dis ­ putes had closed several j ournals in which psy chological re­ s earch was reported and dis c ussed. The maj or target of the decr ee was a movement w ithin psy­ chology called pedology , the science o f education, which s ought to determine the optimal means of educating children by tailor­ ing education to their individual abilities . The decree accused psychologists of accepting a narrow , biological- determinist perspective . The ac cusation, almost certainly true to s ome extent , was not applied in a measured fashion: psychologists critical of standardized tests as well as those who translated and applied tests from Europe and the United States in a rather mechani cal fashion were deprived of means of pub ­ lishing their work.

Soviet Develop mental P sychology

xv

Natura lly enough , de velopmental psychology was not a prom­ inent activity of Soviet scienti sts during World War II, when medica l, rather than educati onal, proble ms were paramount. Se veral psychol ogists participated in e fforts to apply ideas from general psychology to the diagnosi s of brain damage and the r estoration o f damaged psycholog ical functions . Vygotsky ' s students ( Luria, Leont ' e v , Zaporozh ets) were especially prom­ inent in this e ffort . When the war was over, the attention of psychologists again turned to proble ms of development, though there was a continu­ ing scarcity o f outlets for publication and their mandate was rather uncertain. Many of the people who had figured promi­ _ nently in the science before the mid- 1930s were dead. Experi­ ments that s macked of "tests" were still anathema. Ne verthele s s , the immediate postwar period saw a flowering of publications in developmental psychology , sponsored by the Acade my of Pedagogical Sciences. Research initiated in the 1930s and work carried out during the war now came to light . This light was not apparent to those few American observers w ho watched e vents on the Soviet psychological scene , however. The style of such work remained the style of the 192 0s and ' 3 0s : s mall groups of s ubj ects and concentration on complex psycho­ logical functions , with an aversion to stimulus - response learn­ ing theories and close ties to education. To Americans of the 1940s and ' 50s , Soviet de velopmental psychology appeared to be no more than a mentalistic, historical relic . One irony of this j udgment is that A merican psychology in the 1970s has returned to an interest in exactly those iss ues of cognitive psychology that were the central concern of Soviet de velopmental psychology between 1924 and 1948'. This is why Istomina ' s research on memory in the sixth article ( P . 100) has s uch a contemporary ring. We can expect more research of this kind to be redis co vered by American scholars in coming years , but little has been published to date. A second irony is the convergenc e of Soviet and A merican tastes in psychologi cal theorizing in the early 1950s , a con­ vergenc e with j ust as much political motivation on the Soviet

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s ide as the earlier ban on psychological testing. In American psychology, the new direction simply happened to fit nicely into ongoing dis cussions. In 1950, Stalin ' s interest in the scientific study of human nature, which had already influenced e vents in biology and lin­ guistics, began to encompass psychology . An extraordinary series of meetings were held in which Pavlovian neurophysiology was promoted as the s cientific approach to psychology . Non­ Pavlovian views within neurophysiology were purged, and a very rapid conversion of psychologists to a Pavlovian style of re­ search was effected. One of the main actors in this exercise was I vanov- Smolensky ( 19 3 3 ), an orthodox Pavlovian w ho had de veloped techniques for the study of children' s motor and ver­ bal behavior during the 1920s . Since de velopmental research had not been a prominent aspect of Pavlovian re search up to that time, a great deal of activity was directed toward uncover­ ing aspects of Pavlov' s work relevant to children. It happened that A. R. Luria had also done a good deal of work with verbal and motor responses in the ' 192 0s, although his e mphasis was more on problems of motivation than prob ­ lems o f learning (see Luria, 1932). It was thus not too large a change for Luria and other psychologists to revert to earlier methods and to look for some way to combine the theoretical interests they had been de veloping with relevant parts of Pavlo­ vian theory . A maj or point of contact between the Pavlovian research tradition and psychology was Pavlov's concept of a "second" signal syste m, language , that constituted a higher order of c onditioning unique to humans. In an influential (and still con­ troversial) series of studies, Luria ( 195 7) combined the notion of a second- signal system with Vygotsky ' s idea that speech be­ comes a central tool in the de velopment of mediated, self­ guided behavior to provide new e vidence on the role of speech in the child' s cognitive de velopment. These studies are s u m­ marized in a number of publications (see especially Luria, 19 5 7) and are not reproduced here . Rather , we include an article by Yakovleva ( P . 1 6 8) , one of Luria' s students , that con -

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tains more details concer ning the methods of study than are given in Luria ' s summaries . Since controv ersy s urrounds these studie s , attentio n to details of method and rationale is especially important . A good deal of research not connected with older tradition s of Soviet developmental psychology ap­ peared at the same time as Luria's research, representing, in part , Ivanov-Sm olensky ' s involvement with the "Pavlovian­ ization" of Soviet psychology . This style of research attracted the attention of British and American psychologists rather quickly. The early 1950s was a period in which "neobehaviorism " was atte mpting to elaborate stimulu s - response theories to account for the acquisition of language and the e mergence of conceptual behaviors . It became fashionable to theorize about " mediated" stimulus- response . relations , a notion that appeared' to coincide with Pavlov' s ideas of second- order conditioning and the s econd- signal system and with Vygotsky ' s concept of mediated cognitive proces ses . In the mid- 1950s political conditions in the USSR changed again . Thes e changes expressed themselves in psychology in a nu mber of ways . Psychology again acquired a j ournal of its own . Schools of psy chological thought that had not been actively purs ued in 20 years began to function again. The first of two volumes of Vygotsky' s work , most of it never previously pub­ lished, appeared in 19 56 . The following year the Soviet Society of Psyc hologists was for med. Since the mid- 19 50s the a mount and diversity of activity in Soviet psychology have increased enormously , to the point where , in 197 7 , it covers a range of studies fully as broad as those characterizin g developmental psychology in the United States . The r emaining articles in the present volume sample this diversity . Some follow Pavlo vian or "neo- Pavlovian" lines; s ome de velop ideas advanced by Vygotsky 50 years earlier ; and s ome , such a s Luria' s piece comparing identical and fra­ ternal twins ( P . 6 5 ) , are r eports of work carried out many years pre viously (which is w hy this 1962 publicat ion is placed with Luria ' s 1930 article) . Others pursue problems of language

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development in ways that are interesting from the points of view of both pedagogy, theor etical psy cholinguistics , and psy ­ chology. Representative of the Pavlovian studies are the s elections by Degtiar ' (P . 2 20), Fedorov (P . 232), Zinchenko and co -worker s ( P . 243 ) , Litvinyuk (P . 339), and Markova ( P . 3 55 ) . Although broadly Pavlovian in spirit, the style and content of thes e studies vary considerably . Fedorov's article , for example , r eads almost like a baby biography , in which his obser vations are recorded in Pavlovian ter minology . A general concern with language learning is p rominent in this work ; but it is not until Ushakova's article (P . 5 16 ) that we s ee this work making connections with modern linguistic theory . Ushakova tackles a problem that is very difficult _for stimulus­ response theories - to account for the generative capacity of language . She uses the enormously productive potential of Russian language based on a system of roots to trace the origins of children's neologisms in a systematic way . E ven if the r eader has no special interest in the applicability of Pavlov's idea of a dynamic stereotype to explaining language production, Ushakova ' s data are interesting in their own right . Studies inspired directly or indirectly by Vygotsky form another prominent s ubset of the studies conducted sinc e the mid- 19 50s . Istomina' s 1960 arti cle (P. 203) returns to the issue of the changing r elationships between speech and other psychological functions in childhood. She demonstrates that by the criterion of matching, children demonstrate color dis crimination from a very early age , but that their ability to name colors develops much mor e s lowly . In view of current American e vidence that certain "focal" colors anchor our perception of the color spec­ trum, Istomina' s data showing that the order o f acquisition of color names follows the order prescribed by focal color theory give added contemporary r elevance to the work . The study by Zinchenko, Chzhi-tsin, & Tarakanov (P . 243) ex ­ tends Vygotsky' s contention that what psy chologists r efer to as psychological processes or abilities ar e, in reality , systems

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of activiti es , and that it is the components of the system s (in­ cluding the interac tions a mong them) that change with develop ­ ment. This princip le is illustrated in Zinchenko and associa tes' w ork on the perceptual activity children engage in when they look at pictures showing familiar or unfamiliar objects or de­ picting familiar or unfamiliar stories . If the stories (or ob­ jects) were familiar to the children, no difference s in perceptual activity were dis cernible; but when unfamiliar materials were used, age differences appeared. This is just the kind of result Vygotsky w ould predict on the basis of his assumption that the behavioral products of any environmental- personal interaction depend on the joint effects of the p er son's level of development, knowledge of the environment, and the demands of a particular task . ' Venger' s arti cle (P. 393) on this same problem tries to specify the major kinds of activity that best match different states in the child' s development . According to Venger, the earliest forms of perceptual acts r epresent a kind of "premeasuring" that adapts motor acts to spe cific obje ct properties . The selective adaptation of motor acts serves as the basis for selecting the properties of ob­ jects that will be attended to in visual p erception. As the child g rows older , the overt motor components of this system become less im­ portant; and the child begins to r ely on object - oriented mental tem­ plates that serve as the standards against which to evaluate percep ­ tual acts . It i s on this latter basis that the child begins to engage in productive perceptual activity (writing, drawing) , which again cor ­ responds to changes in the structure of perceptual activity as a whole. In older children social "templates " come to control selec ­ tive perception, as manifested in visual search behavior . Although the topic changes from "pe rceptual" to "conceptual" development , Litvinyuk ' s arti cle (P . 39 3) i s within the same gen­ eral framework. He is conc erned with the problem of transfer of training . Transfer is measured by the efficiency with which s ubjects traverse a complex maze that is represented by either a stimulus object (s imilar to a Porteus maz e) or a diagram of the maz e . Positive transfer when the child begins with the dia­ gram and proceeds to the real maze , but not in the opposite

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direction, is attributed to the s uccess of the diagram in orga­ nizing behavior in a generalized way that is not true of the "template" constructed on the basis of movements through a real maz e . Luria' s article o n twins (P . 6 5 ) and Gurova' s article (P . 369 ) comparing the test performance of central Asian children in 192 9 and 1966 represent two unus ual examples of research in­ spired by Vygotsky's theory . Luria uses data on twins to test the original hypothesis that one can distinguish "natural" ( elementary ) psy chological func ­ tions from "cultural" ( complex ) functions by the different re­ lationships that are obtained between them in the de velopment of identical and fraternal twins . Associating natural functions with "genetically determined" and cultural functions with " en­ vironmentally deter mined" factors, Luria summarizes e vidence that natural processes are more closely correlated in identical twins and cultural processes, in fraternal twins . Gurova's study is unusual in two respects . First, she uses a translated version of a standard I.Q. test in a study of the de­ velopmental status of children at a time when such studies w er e still interdicted by the 193 6 decree against such tests . She makes it very clear , how ever, that she is simply taking advantage of a unique opportunity to assess cultural change, since this same test had been used with the same group of peo­ ple more than thirty years earlier, before the ar ea had under ­ gone the social and ec onomic transformations associated with the advent of collectivization. Social change was every bit as much a part of Vygotsky's· framework as individual change ; but with the exception of this study and Luria ' s w ork in the early 1930s (see Luria, 19 76 ) , almost no e mpirical work with peoples from different cultural groups has appeared in the USSR. Gurova eschews presentation of summary s c ores in favor of a report of performance on specific s ubtests as they relate to aspects of Altai c ulture . For example, she finds that vis ual memory is better among the Altai than among Mus covites whereas arithmetic skills are more developed among the latter ; and she interprets these findings as the result of differential

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practic e of the underly ing skills provide d by different environ ­ ments . She adopts a strongly Whorfian position with respect to language -thought relations , claiming that the Altai do not have many words for abstract conc epts and thus do not manifest as high a le vel of thought as those Altai who speak Russian. This kind of conclusion was extremely controversi al in the 193 0s , but s eems to evoke no special comment in the mid- 19 70s. Vygotsky ' s article on play finds its echo in El 'konin' s arti ­ cle (P . 538), written many years later. El 'konin is concerned with the separation of cognitive and motivational development in extant developmental theories . He emphasizes the inter­ action of cognitive and motivational factors that occurs in the "leading activity " of children at different ages, using the intel­ lectual/moti vational nexus as the basis for his characterization of stages of development . The remaining artic les deal, in one way or another, with language in its educational context. For example, Markova (P. 564) trace s step s in the development of language analysis skills , and L eont' ev (P . 4 5 7) offer s a number of interesting sug­ gestions c oncerning the context of activity in terms of which learning a second language is likely to be most effective. This introduction by no means touches on all the interesting iss ues raised by Soviet deve lopmental psychology , j ust as this book makes no claims to covering all the topics of possible in­ terest from the much more extensive literature it samples. This b ook is , however, a unique collection of studies in Soviet de velopmental-p sychological research in English and, as such, should certainly repay study. /

References Blonsky, p . p . [ An essay in scientific psychology J. Moscow : Gosiz dat, 192 1 . Ivanov- Smolensky , A. G. [ Methods for studying human con­ ditione d reflex es J. Mosc ow : Medgiz , 1933 . Luria, A. R . The nature of human conflicts . New Y ork: Liveright, 1932.

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Luria, A. R. The role of speech in the development of normal and abnormal behavior . London: Pergamon, 195 7 . Luria, A . R. Cognitive development: Its cultural and social foundations . Cambridge, Mas s . : Harvard University Press , 19 76. Schniermann, Alexander L . Bekhterev' s reflexological s chool . In C . Murchison ( Ed. ) , Psychologies of 193 0. Wor c ester , Mas s . : Clark University Press , 193 0 . Vygotsky, L. S. Mind in s ociety. Cambridge, Mass . : Harvard University Press. To appear in 1978 . Readers interested in summaries of Soviet developmental­ psychological research may consult s uch s our ces as: Cole, M., & Maltzman, I. ( Eds . ) Handbook of contem ­ porary Soviet psychology. New Yo�k: Basi c Books, 1969 . Zaporozhets, A . V., & Elkonin, D . B . The psychology of preschool children. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 19 7 1 .

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Novoe v refleks ologii i fiziolo gii nervnoi si stemy [ New develop ments in the reflexology and physiolo gy of the nervous system J edited by V. M . Bekhter ev. Leningr ad: Gosizdat, RSFSR, 19 2 5. Pp . 1 54 -64 ,

M. P. Denisova and N. L. Figurin EXPERIMENT AL RE FLEXOLOGICAL RESEARCH ON T HE NEWBORN*

In carrying out reflexological r esearch on children from birth onward, the Infant Division of the Leningrad Pedological Institute found it necessary to make a very careful study of the first moments of a child's life . It i s only this period that offer s the opportunity to study the child ' s basic , primary, "in­ herent" reac tions that serve as the groundwork for the accumu­ lation of "personal experienc e" in response to repeated stimuli from the physical and social environment. In addition, our work made clear the importance of studying the various states of a newborn child in order to understand the problem of waking and sleep. On the sugge stion of N. M . Shchelovanov , director of the Re ­ flexological Depar tment of the Pedological Institute , depart­ mental assistant N. L . Figurin and I carried out a special study on newborns in the delivery clinic of the Academy of Military Medicine for the purposes of elaborating and refining the data already on hand in the Infant Division c onc erning problems of the newborn. *Author ' s abstract of a report given at the Second All-Rus ­ sian C onferenc e on Pedology and Psychoneurology, Leningrad, January 1 92 4 . 3

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We were faced with two tasks : ( 1 ) to study the various states of a newborn and his behavioral acts independen t of evident ex­ ternal stimuli, and ( 2 ) to study the responses of a newborn to specific external stimuli , i . e ., his r eflexes . To solve the first problem we kept a continuous, day-and­ night record of two normal newborns for the fir st seven days of life; then we observed and recorded the state s of other new ­ borns for hourly periods and longer for purposes of c ompar ison . Experimentation was almost completely excluded during the ob­ servation period. Data were recorded in a special form on graph paper each division of whi ch was designed for recording responses for every 1 0 - sec interval. All of the child' s behav ­ ioral acts , whether simultaneous or successive , were re corded on this graph p aper . To solve the second problem we had to make an experimental study of the reflexe s of the newborn during the first day of life . For this we applied external stimuli to various sensitive ar eas of ten normal , full -term infants of good weight. The infants were only a few hour s old when the experiments were be ­ gun . Data wer e recorded on a special proto col , in a form usual for the Infant Division. The data on r eflexes in the. present r eport are almost exclusively from the fir st day, al ­ though we conventionally apply the term "newborn" to chil ­ dren up to nine days old. States During his fir st day th� child may be either awake or asleep . In contrast to an adult , when a newborn sleep s , well swaddled and dry , he is constantly stirring , with movements that are sometimes local , sometimes general , and from time to time are accompanied by a cry . Periods of immobility in sleep do not last longer than 5 min , the average being no more than li2 min. The duration of movements varies according to their type: local movements last 1 , 3 , or 5 sec , whereas gener al movements per sist from 1 5 -2 0 sec to a minute or longer . Crie s occur in sleep only after vigorous general movements ,

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and are less frequent and shorter (no mor e than 5 - 1 5 sec) than in a w aking state; also, a cry does not always pass over into a w aking state . When awake the child is almost never immobi le . He is con­ stantly moving his eyes or head , sometim es making local , mim­ icking movemen ts , and at other times making general move­ ments of varying vigor . Cries are more frequent and longer (but no longer than 5 - 7 min at a stretch) than in sleep . T he r elative distribution of time spent asleep and awake dur­ ing the fir st day was 16 � hour s asleep and 7� hour s awake for one of our infants , and 14 and 1 0 hour s , respectively , for the other . But during the fir st day, in contrast to later observations ( at the end of the first month) , these states w ere not concentrated in continuous p eriods : sleep continually alternated with wake­ fulness both night and day and lasted no longer than 2 �-3 hours at a time, and p eriods of wakefulness lasted no longer than 1 i hour s . During the first week almost no changes were observed in the distribution of time between sleeping and being awake , although periodic feeding was begun on the second day. T hus , characteristic for a newborn during the fir st day of life is an absence of nor mal , full sleep , as in adults , and a c oncen­ tration of sleep in prolonged periods of time . T he r easons for periodic movements and crying during both s leeping and waking states without any external stimuli being evident become more or less c lear from an examination of the patterns of these behavioral acts . Fir st, nausea and vomiting (of swallowed amniotic fluid) are relatively frequent in all newborns . One of our infants experi­ enced nausea every 6 - 7 min , on the average , during the first day; for the others it was slightly less frequent. Nausea and vomiting occur in the newborn both when the infant is asleep and when he is awake , and in both cases often after crying (prob ­ ably as a result of irradiation from the vomiting c enter ) . Awak­ ening does not always follow vomiting accompanied by a cry dur ing sleep , although in the majority of cases a newborn does , during the fir st day , awake after vomiting. Second , an infant of ten makes general , nonspeci fic moveme nts

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whose distinguishing characteristic is that they begin with a sigh , an acceleration in r espiration, etc . , and the r eaction de­ velops further , to different degree s . For example , sometimes only the head moves , and this may be fallow ed by movement of the entire body, or by a grimac e . Also, from time to time a more or less prolonged cry is added . T hese acts were , in our observations , prec eded by more uneven and less frequent res ­ piration (before acceleration); henc e it is possible that w e have here evidence of irradiation of excitation from the respiratory c enter , with periodic abatement and then r enewed and more in­ tense excitation because of an oxygen deficit in the blood . Of course , it is possible that some unknown, internal factor s ini ­ tially act on the r espiratory c enter and then , by irradiation , on other centers . Such movements are more prono:inced in sleep , since when the infant is awake w e c onstantly observe very un­ even breathing in addition to almost constant movement. Our kymographic r espiratory curves (although they w ere limited to the ninth and tenth days) during sleep and when the infant was awake corroborate this observation. On this point, Cheyne­ Stokes respiration in much older children during sleep w arrants mention. Third , general movements without primary excitation of the respiratory center are sometimes observed in all states , in ad­ dition to isolated movements of the head and limbs , mimetic twitchings , etc . , the causes of which are still unknown to us . Fourth, food movements (searching, in which the head is turned to the side with opened mouth , and sucking) often occur in a newborn in the first hour s of life (even before f eeding) . Searching movements occur only when the infant is awake (anal ­ ogous to orienting food reflexes from touch of the facial skin) , and then only in a more or less strongly exc ited state , fre ­ quently accompanied by a cry , although the crying does abate during searching movements (evidently , for thes e movements to occur , a c ertain level of excitation in the nervous syste m is necessary) . Sucking movements occur in all states , sometimes in isola­ tion, but at other times as part of general movements , and fre-

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quently before and after a cry. Fifth , sneezing and yawning arise from certain specific move ­ ments . ( Sneezing occur s only when the infant is awake . ) These apparently ar e r eflexes . Thus w e see that the chief origins of initial excitation in the nervous system of a newborn (disre garding those that are at­ tributable to external stimuli) ar e the vomiting and r espiratory cente r s . The state s o f a newborn can be characterized a s follows on the basis of an examination of individual behavioral acts : 1 . In an awake state we observe almost uninterrupted , ex­ pansive movements , intensification and increase in the fre ­ quency o f re spiration and vomiting , etc . ; in addition , orienting food movements that require the participation of broad areas of the nervous system can also oc cur . C omplex reflexes ( sneez ­ ing , etc . ) are also possible . This all suggests that waking is a functional state of the nervous system that entails c ontinuous excitation of broad areas , in which the ocular apparatus partic­ ipate s , and an increase in excitability and c onductivity of all sections of the nervous system that are sufficiently developed at the time of bir th . 2 . Sleep , on the other hand, does not involve c ontinuous ex­ citation of any nervous c enter s (exc ept the autonomic) . Reac ­ tions that occur tend to fade out; and simple or c omplex, non­ specific , outward manifestations predominate . These charac ­ teristics indicate a decr ease in the excitability and c onductivity of the nervous system. This state is not c ompletely analogous to the sle ep of an adult , because of the frequent movements ( s ometimes even accompanied by a short cry , as has been men­ tioned) of the newborn. It is evident that even in sleep every exc itation occurring in the nervous system of a newborn has a greater chance of irradiating than is true for adults . The transition of a newborn from one state to another is ap­ par ently associated with the occur rence and abatement of pro­ cesses of excitation . Thus , a transition from sleep to a waking state is possible : ( 1 ) after strong vomiting movements and a cry ; ( 2 ) some times (less frequently) after broad, general move·

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ments initiated by changes in breathing; and (3 ) after certain external stimuli. Among the latter can be mentioned a general chill (on becoming uncover ed) , wet diapers (after urination) , i . e . , general, br oad, skin irritation , rapid and fr equent changes in position (not always) , or , finally , prolonged stimulation of the alimentary system ( sucking on a nipple ) . Auditory, light , or r e ­ stricted skin stimuli do not, in most cases , awaken the infant. Consequently , waking occur s when broad sections of the nervous system ar e stimulated. The transition fr om a w aking state to sleep oc cur s w hen ex ­ ternal stimuli are cut off or when excitation from internal stim­ uli subsides. The transition is often gradual , but sometimes occurs suddenly. It is possible that if ther e were no internal or external stimuli , a child would never awaken , and sleep w ould . be total. The follow ing changes occur in the general states of a new ­ born during the first eight days : Vomiting becomes less fr e ­ quent from the second day on (beginning of feeding) and finally cease s completely. The periods of immobility during sleep be­ come longer (6 - 1 0 min by the end of a week) , and the periods of crying when awake bec ome less frequent but longer , and dis ­ appear during sleep . A new factor causing the infant t o awaken also appear s : excitation of the nervous system by what appear to be chemical factor s from the blood after 3 -4 hour s of ab ­ I. P . Pavlov); this excita­ stinenc e from food ( "hungry blood" tion is manifested in general restlessness , with whimpering and an increase in the frequency of sear ching movements . -

Reflexes Let us now turn to reflexes of the newborn during the fir st day . There are several systems of reflexes . T actile stimula­ tion of the lips and the skin around the lips gives rise to certain preci sely oriented movements under appropriate c onditions , e . g. , opening of the mouth or contortion of the lip s , with movement of the head in the direction of the stimulus (for ex ­ ample , when the corner of the mouth is tickled , opening and

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c ontortion of the mouth oc cur , and the head turns toward the stimulus ; when the upper lip is tickled , it is raised , and the head is thrust backwar d; tickling of the lower lip causes it and the lower j aw to drop , etc . ). Sometime s the head is kept in the same position after a reflex occur s , and sucking movements take plac e . These reflexes are called orienting food reflexes . W e distinguish them from skin reflexes because of their spec­ ific ity , but also because , under other c onditions , other reflexes arise from these areas - specifically , food movements occur only in a w aking and , in addition, motor state . If the child is sle eping or totally immobile , he does not open his mouth if his lips are touched but , on the c ontrary, c ompresses his lips. When the skin around the lips is tickled , either there is no re­ action at all or a general pursing of the lips and nonspecific head movements are evident, as when other areas of the facial skin are irritated. When the lingual mucosa and , sometimes , the hard palate are touched by a nipple (or anything else) , another reaction can oc­ cur : actual sucking motions , or a food-rec eiving reaction. It should be stated that in all newborn infants this reaction is not fully formed : at first , the embracing of the nipple does not co­ inc ide with the sucking motions of the tongue and lower j aw , but is delayed , sometimes by half a minute; and it is only later that all components of the sucking act work together in harmony. Like searching (orienting) motions , sucking oc curs in all full ­ ter m newborns during the very first moments of life . In pre­ matur e infants such motions are absent for several days. Sucking of a nipple can be induc ed when the infant is awake or asleep ; but during sleep the reaction is weak (fewer sucking motions in suc c ession) and quickly subsides . The relationship between sucking motions and orienting re­ sponses can be clarified somewhat by the following fact: suck­ ing that precedes stimuli on the dermal areas of the lips always enhanc e s the excitability of orienting food reflexes . Thus , if the latter have not oc curred before a sucking motion in a waking state , they invariably appear afterwar d. The excitability of both kinds of food reflexes depends on the

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level of general excitation of a newborn. For example , in a very calm state , excitability diminishes and r eflexes become unstable and faint, whereas in a state of general r estlessness ac c ompanied by crying , w hatever its cause (becoming unc overed , for instance) , the excitability of food r eflexes incr eases (and sometimes again diminishes if the cry is very forceful) . In this case a prolonged "search" often occurs during and after orient­ ing reflexes are evoked , whereupon crying usually subsides and becomes a peculiar moan (more pronounc ed from the sec ond day on) or ceases after a time . During sucking , crying, of course , c eases entirely , as do all other movements (of limbs , head , etc . ) . This effect can be at­ tributed to alimentary functions . Thus w e see that with r espect to food r espons�s , ther e exist from birth a large number of individual , c orrectly functioning , for the most part complex r eflexes aimed at food intake , and that this sytem is , from a functional perspec tive , broadly linked with all other sections of the c entral nervous system of a new ­ born and , moreover , i s functionally predominant. The system of r eflexes activated by stimulation of the retina is also interesting. These ar e defensive r eflexes : squinting and c ontraction of the pupils in strong light, with throwing back or drawing in of the head and general, irradiated movements in both waking and sleeping states , plus several orienting mov e ­ ments such a s turning the eyes and head toward the light, in which case , if the light source is large (for example , from a window ) , this position is held for a r elatively long time (similar to heliotropic phenomena); following with the eyes and head a shining or bright obj ec t moving to the side or upward in the field of vision for a distanc e of � -2 feet; or turning the eyes and head toward a moving (vibrating) obj ect at the periphery of the field of vision (for example , an oscillating pencil ) . Orienting reactions from the retina are quite unstable (they are distinct only in a calm, waking state) , but in general oc cur in all newborns from the fir st day of life on , with the exc eption of infants with crossed or uncoordinated eyes , which are quite rar e .

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The r eaction does not develop beyond these limited respons es to stimulat ion, the gaze barely rests on an obj ect (there is no c oncentra tion) , and preceding reaction s (moveme nts , crying) ar e not suppres sed. Thus there is a series of defensive and orienting r eflexes (the latter being precise and c oordinated) , evidently without extensive functional r elations. Skin reflexes present a somewhat different picture . Because of the extensiveness of the skin area , reflexes vary , depending mainly on the p oint of application of a stimulus or the siz e of the area stimulated. The skin has several r eflexogenic areas especially sensitive to localized, tactile (with a small brush) stimuli . On the face , the areas are around the eyes , eyelids , nose , and lip s . Reac ­ tions appear as local responses (squinting , deepening of the nasolabial fold) , often accompanied by a general grimac e , move­ ment of the head or hands (a foreshadowing of rubbing of the irritated facial area , which develop s in the third month) or sometime s even of the feet, and changes in r espiration. Stimulation of the palm produc es a palmar r eflex , whereas stimulation of the back of the hand and fingers produces a r e ­ flex that is the opposite of the palmar reflex ( straightening of the fingers ) . This r eflex has not previously been described; i t i s somewhat l e s s stable than the palmar reflex . A stroking stimulus on the sole produces the Babinski reflex; stimulation of the abdominal surfac e elicits abdominal reflexes (very un­ stable) . In the maj ority of case s , these reactions are still ac ­ companied by faint, general movements , and sometimes by a change in r espiration (faint sigh, etc . ) . On other skin areas, tac tile stimuli (a small brush) elicit either no reaction at all or only a nonspecific r eaction (general movements , etc . ) . All these r eflexes to tac tile stimuli quickly subside after prolonged , c ontinuous stimulatio n or after repeateq stimulations less often than every half-minute . The Robinson reflex (lifting a child by its hands) is unstable ; moreove r , this r eflex is a response to a complex skin - muscle -j oint stimulu s . Strong and broad skin stimuli produce another pic ture. As

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soon as the child is uncovered, i. e . , exposed to an overall chill, he will begin quickly to move and cry, no matter what state he is in. Movements are irregular , and flexors predominate over extensors . The legs alternately bend and s traighten, and the hands sometimes touch the fac e. The cry varies from infant to infant. We have here a rapid irradiation of excitation through­ out the entire nervous syste m , accompanied by str ong excitation of the respiratory center and the complex reac tion of crying (as is known, obstetricians make use of this characteristic of broad and strong skin stimuli to induce breathing if it doe s not begin spontaneously). We did not explore reac tions to the stimuli of heat and pain (pricks , etc .) , for obvious reasons . We did not observe inhibition by skin stimuli . . Thus , in the province of skin reflexes we have : ( 1 ) several local (sometimes somewhat irradiating) resp onses to restricted stimuli; (2) a general , faint, nonspecific reaction to some of the same stimuli; and ( 3 ) rapid irradiation of excitation to respiratory c enters and crying in response to strong or broad stimuli. Only strong auditory stimuli elicit a reaction in the newborn; when they are awake , some r espond to sharp , individual sounds by blinking; other s quiver throughout the whole body . These differ ences evidently depend in part on the state of the auditory apparatus itself and in part on the degree of maturity of the nervous sytem. Repeated stimulations produce a reaction (of any sort) only at an impulse frequency of no less than 1 � sec , but for some newborns intervals of 3 -5 sec or more are re ­ quir ed if the reaction is not to subside quickly . Prolonged bell sounds cause the same reaction at the moment the stimulus is presented w hen the infant is awake; during sleep , however , such stimuli can sometimes cause faint general move ­ m ents and grimacing. An auditory stimulus cannot stop crying or arrest movements before the ninth or tenth day; in newborn infants only irradiated types of response can be produc ed . Extensive c on ­ nections in th e central nervous system evidently d o not exist. ·

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Reactio ns from the semicir cular canals ar e sometim es spe ­ cific in the newborn . A quick change in position (bringing the infant to a vertical position , or vice ver sa; rapid shaking of the crib) almost always causes the eyes to open immediately. The wa.King state sometime s per sists , but not alway s . Rotation pro­ duc e s nystagmus for 5 - 1 0 sec afterward . Quickly turning the c hild on his side w hile holding him elicits a complex reflex (not previously described) in the form of a rapid straightening and outward bending of the upper arm followed by flexion of the up­ per le g at all j oints . Rocking almost always stop s crying. H enc e , a general inhibitory effect on the central nervous sys ­ tem of a newborn can be elicited by such stimuli in addition to their effects in ac tivation of individual complex reflex mecha­ nisms (for the most part w ith participation of the ocular appa­ ratus ) . With regard to muscle -j oint reflexes , i t i s inter esting that Kernig's sign (inability to extend the knee when the thigh is flexed), which was first noted in children by Bekhterev , is ab­ s ent in the newborn during the first few hour s of life (fr om one to five or six hours) . In addition, passive movement of the limbs at all j oints during this period meets w ith absolutely no resistanc e , even during crying. It is only afterward that flexors begin to show considerable resistance to passive movement (concurrently with the appearanc e of the Kernig- Bekhterev sign), s o that in general the muscle tone of a child up to the age of four months is sharply elevated compared with that of adults . It is depressed during this period only in atrophie s [ atrofiki J (data from observations of children at the Mother and Child H ome s in Leningrad) . Tendon reflexes are difficult to elicit during the fir st day , with the exception of the knee j erk reflex, which , acc ording to our data and data from ear lier reports , occurs from the very fir s t moments of life . Unfor tunately , we have dealt little (for technical reasons) with chemic al (on the tongue) and olfactory stimuli; and pertinent data are as yet inadequate . It can be stated only that newborn infants exhibit no spec ific respon se (for exampl e , turning of the

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head or sucking motions) to the smell of mother ' s milk during the first day of life . Reactions to various c omplex stimuli not of an experimental nature (general chill with exposur e [ from uncovering ] , warm bath, etc . ) ar e difficult to classify because of the c omplexity and lack of coordination in the elicited movements , which are usually accompanied by crying. In these c ase s (with the excep ­ tion of the very first hours of life ) all limbs are predominantly in a flexed position. In general it may be said that isolated movements are very rar e in the newborn, even in r e sponse to re stricted stimuli . Irradiated and c omplex reactions predominate . Conclusions 1 . During the first week or so of the life of a newborn, sleep is not normal and c omplete . During sleep both general and local movements occur . These movements must be chiefly at­ tributed, it seems, to the imperfect adjustm�nt of the respira­ tory mechanism (and , in addition, of the vomiting c enter on the first day). 2 . T he waking state of a newborn is c haracteriz ed by con ­ stant motor activity , with continuous excitation of the ocular apparatus . Orienting food reflexes can occur only w hen the in ­ fant is awake . The se r eflexes are c onstituents of a functional state of broad sections of the nervous syste m w ith elevated excitability and an increased possibility of irradiation of the entire exc itatory proc e s s . 3 . The transition from sleep to w aking in a newborn occ ur s a s a result of extensive external or strong internal stimuli (hunger is also such a stimulus from the second or third day on) . The transition from a waking state to sleep oc cur s w hen these stimuli are absent or have subsided . 4 . The food reflex system in a newborn is better acc ommo­ dated than other systems . Mechanisms of sucking an� orient­ ing food reflexes are ready at birth. Functional c onnections are widely developed, and the syste m predominates functionally over others.

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5 . A c hild is born with a functionally complete ocular appa­ ratus (a group of local orienting reflexes) , but c onnections are as yet inadequate for visual c oncentration . 6 . T he auditory apparatus is also r eady at birth; but, here als o , neural connec tions are inadequate . Auditory inhibition is not observed until the ninth or tenth day. 7 . Localized r eflexes (scratching of an irritated area) from the skin do not occur in the newborn, and local reflexes tend to fade after r epeated stimuli . Extensive stimulation of the skin always causes a broad , irradiated r eaction with excitation of the respiratory c enter . 8 . Muscle tone is elevated in a newborn, with the exception of the first tw o to six hours after birth , when Kernig-Bekhterev signs and tension during passive movements are absent. 9 . Several c omplex , specific reflexes, with participation of the ocular apparatus , are elicited from the semicircular canals of the newborn . 1 0 . Processes of external inhibition in a newborn are possible only through stimulation of the alimentary system and semi­ c ircular canals . T his is probably r elated to the possibility of waking a c hild by the same kind of stimuli . 1 1 . All newborn infants , from the very fir st day of life , ex­ hibit a r eflex to turning over and a reflex that is the oppo site of the p almar r eflex. 12 . Isolated movements are not observed in a newborn. All of an infant 's behavioral acts are c omplex , irradiated , and often uncoord inated. Translated by Michel Vale

Novae v refleksologii i fiziologii nervnoi si stemy. Pp . 1 6 5- 78

N. L . Figurin and M . P . Denisova EXPERIMENTAL RE FLEXOLOGICAL STUDY OF EARL Y DISCRIMINATIVE RE FLEXES IN INFANCY*

The present report is a preliminary communication on ex­ perimental research being carried out on the discrimination of combinative reflexes to colors and shapes in' infants at the In­ fant Division of the Leningrad Pedological Institute by the direc ­ tor , M . Denisova, and me [ N. L . F . ] at the suggestion , and under the guidance , of the director of the Reflexologic al Division, N . M . Shchelovanov . In contrast to all earlier psychological studies of c olor dis ­ crimination, whose purpose has been to determine at what age and what colors a child begins to discriminate , we were inter ­ ested chiefly in how the actual process of discrimination of com­ binative reflexes to c olor , shape , and other attributes of external stimuli develop s , and under what c onditions discrimination occur s . Proc edure The procedure we used was as follow s : When a c hild began *Author ' s abstrac t of a report given at the Second All- Rus ­ sian Conference on Pedology and P sychoneurology , L eningrad , January 192 4 . 16

E arly Dis crimi native Refle xes

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to feed himse lf (usuall y at the beginning of the seventh month) , we always envelop ed the feeding bottle in a wooden or paper j acket of some geometric shape and of one of the basic color s , with the exc eption of red , which has a predom inantly dynamo ­ genic effect. T o determ ine the presenc e or absenc e of discrim ina­ tion of shapes and c olor s , other nonfeeding bottles w ere pre ­ sented periodically to the c hild during feeding, either together with the usual feeding bottle or separately . The nonfeeding bot­ tles were presented one or a few at a time; they differed from the regular feeding bottle in one attribute - c olor , shape, siz e , intensity of c olor , or design. The exp eriment itself was c arried out as follows. At feeding tim e , which was always rigidly observed , the child was plac ed on a c hair (at the age of six months the infant is usually able to sit up , though w ith support) ; and two or several obj ects , one of which was the regular feeding bottle , w ere presented . W hen two or more obj ects (and also only one) w ere presented to the child , a nipple was placed in his mouth depending on whi ch of the obj ects he reached for , i . e . , the response was either r e ­ inforc ed , i f h e reached toward the feeding bottle , or extin­ guished , if he reached toward a nonfeeding bottle . As the re­ sponse was r einforc ed or extinguished, the nipple was r emoved several times from the infant's mouth, and the obj ec t was pre ­ sented again . In this way all the milk was gradually consumed; the first reinforc ement lasted about 1 min and the following one s , less than 5 - 1 0 sec , whereas extinction lasted , for the most part, until "refusal , " i . e . , until the nipple was rej ected . A running r eport was kept of the experiment. This proc edure c ompares favorably with other procedures used to study color discrimination c hiefly because a response to a food obj ect instead of an indifferent obj ect is used , so that ther e c an be no doubt of the necessity of the c hild 's making a choice and , what is more , a c orrect one . In Germany , Relman (Ophthalmo logische Klinik, 1903 ) used this proc edure to study color discrimination and c oncluded that a c hild discriminates all c olors as soon as he becomes con­ scious ( ?) . But Relman was inter ested only in the existence of

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color discrimination and was not c oncerned with its c ondition s . A n analysis of observational data led us t o the fallowing c on­ clusions . Among the w hole variety of r e sponses to a food ob­ j ect, the following are c onsidered to be direct, manifest, food responses : grasping the obj ect with the hand and drawing it to the mouth; stretching toward the obj ect with the whole body and with the mouth open to seize the nipple; and simple opening of the mouth without stretching of the body, frequently w ith accom ­ panying sucking motions . W e shall take the first two of these actions as indications of the presence of a food resp ons e . hl the third instance ( simple opening of the mouth) , it cannot be ascertained to which of several presented obj ec ts the r e sp onse is directed. In addition to these food response s , a c hild sometimes exhib ­ its a nonfood relationship to the obj ect, manif e s fed as play : grasping, rubbing, patting, squeezing of the nipple . Sometimes the child simply c oncentrates on the obj ect. Development The food response itself evolves with age in the follow ing manner . A child possesses several local orienting food reflexes from birth. hl addition , opening of the mouth before feeding (often with searching and sucking motions) w ithout a food obj ect (breast) occur s during the first days after birth . Thereafter , this latter resp onse (in the fourth month) occur s during c oncen­ tration on an obj ect, i .e . , on the mother 's breast or the bottle nipple (if the infant is w e � ed early); at the same time , if the nipple or breast is withheld, a broadly generalized resp onse accompanied by a cry occur s . At the beginning of the fifth month, when the act of grasping develop s , the c hild r e sp onds to a nipple by reaching for it with both hands , fir st without grasping, then with grasping but without draw ing it to the mouth , and then with both opening of the mouth and sucking motion s . If the c hild is fed in a sitting position, the food resp onse often takes the form of str etching of the whole body with opened mouth, sometimes with a cry and with or w ithout r eaching w ith

Early Discrimi native Reflexes

19

the hand s . In the fifth month , w hen two feeding bottles are pre­ sented , the child is still Wlable to shift his gaze alternately from one obj ect to anoth er . This r eaction makes its appearance only in the sixth month , at fir st very infrequently . Thereafter the child begins to draw the grasped obj ect to his mouth. In the seventh month the child is able to reach for the obj ect with both hands instead of only one , and shifts his gaz e from one ob­ j ec t to another quite fre ely . However , there is still no arrest of the motor food response . This appear s in the eighth month, when subtle discrimination of shapes and c olors also fir st appears . The development of discrimination show s the fallowing f ea­ tur e s . A t first the child does not discriminate either the nipple or the bottle as food obj ects. Then the nipple is discriminated , and the child r eaches only for the nipple , regardless of the ob­ j ect on w hich it rests . Next, a rough discrimination of the bot­ tle ( even without a nipple) from other obj ects , such as a bell, flask, etc . , occur s . Finally, in the seventh month , shapes and c olor s are discriminated. The present experiment was carried out on four subj ects . W e shall present here material gathered in our nursery from the day of birth of Boris Nikolaev . The heredity of the child was quite auspic ious; w eight and length at birth w er e 2 ,900 g and 50 c m , r e sp ec tively . The child was breast-fed, and suffered from no illnesse s , either acute or chronic . His nervous system exhibited exc itability , and the child began to sit and grasp at the usual age . H i s weight had doubled by the sixth month , and his length had grown to 6 5 cm. H e was , in general , a normal , healthy child . Feeding from a bottle , green and cylindrical in shap e , began at six and a half months. The middle of the sev ­ enth month marked the fir st discrimination of this bottle from an empty bottle in the shape of a prism of the same c olor . The systema tic experim ents on the basis of which this report has been made were begun at the beginning of the ninth month. Presen c e of Discri mination W e carrie d out 14 tests on Boris N.

-

6 on discri mination

N. L. Figurin & M. P . Denisova

20

of colors and 8 on discrimination of forms . The c olors used w ere green , red , blue , and yellow ; and the shapes were a c one , a prism , a cylinder , and a sphere . '

Table 1 Color

.......

0 z s:: 0 . .... U}

0 S.. U} Q) -+-' ..0 C,) 8 .Q) ,..., ::I ..0 z 0

tf.l

Q)

w.

1 2 3 4 5 6

State Restles s , w himpering Calm after eating j ello Calm after sle ep Calm after sleep C alm after sleep Calm after sleep Totals

.......

0 S.. Q)

U} s:: 0 .

.... -+-'

cd -+-' s:: ..0 Q) U} 8 Q) ::I S.. z p.

U} Q) C,) . .... 0

0 ..i:: C,) S.. -+-' Q) C,)

.......

..0

8

::I z

.OJ

S.. S.. 0 C,)

2 2 2 2 3 4

31 10 14 6 10 8

23 4 10 5 7 4

-

79

53

U} Q) C,) . .... 0

..i::

C,) 0 -+-' C,) S.. Q) Q) S.. ..0 S.. 8 0 ::I C,) s:: z .....

.......

U} Q) U} s:: 0

p.

U} Q) S..

Q) C,) .... 0

.

.......

0 ..i:: C,) S.. -+-' Q) ::I ..0 0

8

..i:: -+-'

::I ..... z �

1 3

2 5 2 1 2 1

13

13

6 1 2 -

If it is borne in mind that in experiemental

sessions 1 and 5 with forms (Table 2 ) , the child was sated, and hence there was no food set , and that in experim�nt 3 with forms , the 3 1 instances of incorrect choice were due to a very quick , aggressive food response to one site (the left) in whi ch the child hardly looked at the obj e ct, the figures given in Table 2 demonstrate quite convincingly that up to nine months our child dis criminated the main color s and shapes noted above , but that dis crimination was inconsistent. C onditions of Discrimination Let us turn to the most interesting que stions : What are the

E arly Dis criminative Reflexes

21

T able 2 Forms

Ul

:@

'tj 0 0 �

U1 Q) U1 � 0 0.. U1 Q) M

U1 Q) U1

'80 § 0.. 'E U1 0 z

Q) M

1 3 1 11 1 7 5

-

1

5 8 6 3 1 3 1 15 2 10 9

11

63

42

21

-

1 1 -

1 7 5 -

4 1 1 3 -

4 1 3 4

Thus , if during an experim ent in w hich the c hild discrim i ­ nates betwee n two obj ects one rather than two obj ects is sud­ denly presen ted (either of the two) , a food r espons e will take

E arly Dis criminative Reflexe s

23

place in resp onse to either a food or nonfood obj ect, i . e . , the discrim ination breaks down. In most cases discrimination occur s when two discriminable stimuli are pr esented simultaneously , not when they are pre ­ sented a t different times . Otherwis e , discrimination by repro­ duction is difficult for the child . * Choice Resp onses T o elucidate the causes of this phenomenon , let us analyze differenc es in the behavior of the child when one or two obj ects ar e presented. We have already mentioned that a food response occur s mor e quickly when one obj ect is presented than when two obj ects are presented . What causes the delay in the food resp onse in the latter case ? WhEfo two obj ects are presented , a food resp onse is delayed and inhibited by alternating visual c oncentration in w hich the gaze shifts from one obj ect to the other , all other movements being arrested. This overall pro­ c es s of delay , caused and accompanied by alternating visual c oncentration, w e have termed a choice resp onse . In a choice resp onse , i . e . , w hen a food response is delayed or inhibited and , at the same time, the gaz e c onc entrates on the obj ects , discrimination also occur s , and the child makes a c orrect choice. On the other hand, w hen there is no delay (there being no out­ ward reason for delay , of c ourse, when one obj ect is presented) , discrimination breaks down. Some extracts from protocols follow . We see that when two obj ects are presented, alternating c on­ c entration occurs , after which a c orrect choic e is made . How ­ ever , when only one obj ect is presented, the food response oc ­ cur s in response to either obj ect without delay. Analogou sly, when tw o obj ects are presented several times *The intent of this s entence is to indicate that succ essive dis­ crimination is more difficult because the child must "reproduce" the r epresentation of the fir st obj ect at the time he is viewing the second in order to make the discriminative resp onse . - Ed.

N. L . Figurin & M . P . Denis ova

24

Table 5 What was presented

Reinforcement and extinction

Response Experiment , June 2 4 . Forms Alternating c oncentration, then r eaches with mouth toward food obj ect

Reinforcement

N

Reaches with mouth

Extinction

p

Concentration , then reaches with mouth

Reinforcement

Reaches with mouth

E;xtinction

Alternating concentration, then reaches with mouth toward food obj ect

Reinforcement

Experiment, June 22 . C olors Reaches with mouth toward P

Reinforcement

Alternating concentration, reaches with mouth toward food obj ect

Reinforc ement

N

Reaches with mouth

Extinction

N

Reaches with mouth

Extinc tion

N

Reaches with- mouth

Extinction

p

Reaches with mouth

Reinforc ement

N

Reaches with mouth

Extinction

Alternating concentration , reaches with mouth toward food obj ect

Reinforce ment

P and N*

N N and P

N and P P and N

P and N

*Note : In all the tables , P denotes presentation of a food ob ­ j ec t; N, a nonfood obj ect; and NN , a new nonfood obj ect.

E arly Dis criminative Reflexes

25

Table 6 W hat w as presented

Response

Reinforcement and extinction

Experiment, June 23 . Colors P and N N and P N and P

Reaches with the mouth toward N

Extinction

Alternating c onc entration, then r eaches with mouth toward P

Reinforc ement

Immediately r eaches with mouth toward N

Extinction

Alternating c oncentration, then r eaches with mouth toward P

Reinforcement

,·

P and N

Experiment, July 2 . Colors P and N

Alternating c onc entration, then c onc entration on N , immobile , then concentration on P and reaching toward P Reinforcement

N and P

Immediately reaches with mouth Extinc tion toward N Experiment, June 2 6 . Forms

P and N

Alternating c onc entration, then reac hing toward P with mouth Reinforcement

N and P

Alternating c oncentration, then r eaching toward P with mouth Reinforc ement

P and N

Looks at N, reaches toward N with mouth

Extinc tion

NM U LIBRARY

N. L . Figurin & M. P . Denisova

26

in succession , a c orrect c hoice is almost always preceded by alternating c oncentration. When the latter is absent, the c hild often reaches inc orrectly toward the nonfood obj ect (see Table 6) . In experiments with three obj ects (we very seldom used four obj ects) a choice response was almost always observed , the number of inc orrect choices was even low er , and nonfood rela­ tionships to obj ects (play) appeared even less frequently. Below is a r e'sum e' of experiments with thr ee obj ects . Table 7 T otal number Number of c orrect choices Number of Without After of presentaalternating inc orrect Food alternating tions of three obj ects c oncentration c oncentration choices r esponse 23

16

3

1

3

Thus we see that delay of a food resp onse caused by alternat­ ing c oncentration almost always leads to a c orrect c hoic e . Sometimes alternating visual c onc entration is extremely long ( 1 0-12 sec ) , after which the food r esponse does not occur at all and the child is distracted . In other w ords , excessive str ain of the inhibitory process leads to a breakdown of the main r e ­ sponse (the food response) . Such long delays, leading to br eak ­ down of the main response , were observed especially often in experiments involving forms . Degree of Satiation and Discrimination we look at the variations in discrimination during an ex­ periment, we see that at the beginning of the experiment , dis ­ crimination i s very unstable . After a six-hour interruption w e obtained a s many c orrect choices as incorrect c hoic es on the first presentation. There are two possible explanations for this : either a prolonged interruption (six hour s) impair s the discrimination, or hunger disrupts the discrimination by for e If

Table 8 June 26 . Forms . Middle of ses sion

June 24 . C olor s . End of session

......,

......, i::: Q)

a

tf.l

Q) CJ

"O ro w � ......, Q) ro oo Q)

Response

p

Reaches with mouth

§

N

Reaches with mouth

N

Reaches with mouth

N

Reaches with mouth

N

Plays with nipple

N

Plays with bottle

Reinforc e ment )

I

i::: 0 ....... ......, CJ i::: ....... ......, >< �

-

� a

P P P P P

and N and N and N and N and N

P and N N

-

Plays with nipple

-

i::: 0 ......, 0 CJ i::: "E ..... .. :c "O Q) >< Q) 0::: .......

M

I::

p

N

Q) CJ

"O ro w � ......, Q) ro m ..c Q)

'E

..c

s

tf.l

. ...... M ......, 0 CJ i::: ....... "O :c Q) i::: >< 0::: ro w

I::

� a

i::: Q)

Response Reaches with mouth toward N Reaches with mouth toward N Reaches with mouth toward N Turns away Plays with nipple of P , then with nipple of N Alternating c oncentration, then distraction Concentration , then distraction , then c oncentration again, followed ]Jy play Concentration, then distraction

@

i::: 0 ......, CJ i::: ....... .......

......,

>< � -

-

!'.\:> -:J

28

N . L . Figurin & M . P . Deni sova

ing a food response without delay . We are now undertaking an analysis of this phenomenon; we favor the second explanation. During the c ourse of an experimental session , however , the discrimination bec omes inc reasingly more stable . During the second half of a session , the proportion of correct c hoices in­ creases , in spite of the fact that the child is r elatively satiated by the end of the ses sion. This indicates that satiation does not disturb discrimination, although the food set is weakened. Obviously , a r eduction in the delay of a food response and the c oncomitant r eduction in the occurrence of alternating visual c oncentration (choice r e ­ sponses) play a role here; of cour s e , improvement in discrimi­ nation during the second half of the experiment also depends on the number of reinfor cements. At the very end of the experiment, the child is always dis­ tracted or plays with the obj ects; although the food response does not occur , there is no increase in the number of inc orrect choice s . Explanation of C er tain Instanc es of Nonfood Responses We have already stated that sometimes the child exhibits a nonfood response (play) , even toward a food obj ect, during a session. Let us elucidate some of the more interesting cases . First, a food response can be generally extinguished. If a food response to a nonfood obj ect is extinguished several times in suc c ession, it will finally disappear completely , and the child will either be distracted or begin to play with the obj ects . If a food obj ect is then presented, the response either does not ap ­ pear at all or appears with a delay , and the child c ontinues to address the obj ects as toys for a c ertain time . H ere are some extracts from our r ec ords (see Table 8) . These data indicate that inhibition caused by extinction of the basic food response p ersists for a long time; and w ith this in­ hibition as a background, a different type of response to the obj ects - play - appears instead of a food response . The second case involves the appearanc e of a new obj ect ( a

E arly Dis criminative Reflexes

29

Table 9

W hat w as presented

Reinforcement and extinction

Response

Experiment, June 23 . Forms ( be ginning of session ) p

N and P p

P and N

Reaches with mouth Reinforc ement Alternating concentration , then distraction Reaches immediately with mouth Reinforcement toward P Reaches immediately with mouth toward P Reinforcement /

NN and P and N

Plays with nipple on NN

Experiment, June 2 6 . For ms ( end of session) P and N P and N P and N P and NN

Reaches with mouth toward N Alternating conc entration, then reaches with mouth toward P Reache s w ith mouth toward N C onc entrates on NN, brow s raised

Extinction Reinforcement Extinction

Experiment, July 2 . Forms ( middle of session) N and P N and P

NN, N and P

Alternating concentration, then r eaches w ith mouth toward P Alternating c onc entration, then, reviving, reaches with mouth toward P Alternating c oncentration, then concentration on NN, followed by play w ith NN , and, finally, r eaches tow ard P with a cry

Reinforcement

Reinforcement

Reinforcement

30

N. L . Figurin & M . P . Denisova

bottle of different c olor and form) among the previou sly pre ­ sented obj ects during the experiment. Concentration is almost always drawn to the new obj ect, which inhibits the food r e ­ sponse and gives r ise to a play response in the presence of the new obj ect. H ere are some extracts from protoc ols (see Table 9 ) . Thu s , if a nonfood response (play) to obj ects appear s during a session , it is against a background of inhibition of the basic food response , i . e . , inhibition of either an internal (extinc tion or satiation) or external (new obj ect) type . C onclusions 1 . A nine -month-old child discriminates among the basic colors (blue , yellow , red , and green) and forms (.cube , sphere , prism, cylinder , and c one) . 2 . In the maj ority of cases discrimination occur s w hen tw o discriminable stimuli are presented simultaneously , not a t dif­ ferent times . 3 . One of the chief conditions for oc currenc e of discrimina­ tion is the presenc e of a choice response , i . e . , a temporary de­ lay or inhibition of the basic food response , caused by alternat­ ing c onc entration on the stimuli , after which a correct choice usually ensues . 4 . Gradual satiation during a session does not disturb dis ­ crimination. 5 . Discrimination becomes more stable during a session in proportion to the number of reinforcements . 6 . Inhibition of a food re sponse either as a result of extinc ­ tion ( sucking of a nonfood obj ect) or an external , inhibitory stimulus (new obj ect) gives rise to an ordinary nonfood (play) relationship to the obj ects presented for a c er tain time . In c oncluding, I should onc e again like to point out that the present repor t is only a preliminary communicat ion on w ork currently in progress , but far from completed . H enc e we have not dealt at all w ith c ertain interesting problems only alluded to in passing - for example , sexual and individual peculiari­ ties in the elaboratio n of discriminations , and the r ole of prac -

E arly Di s criminative Reflexes

31

tic e - and w e have touched only bri efly on the gradual develop­ ment of the food response itself , on the development of the al­ ternating c onc entration response with age , or on the relation­ ship of this development to the ability to evolve discriminations . In addition , because of lack of suffic ient data , we have not dealt with the question of discriminating according to siz e and shades of c olor ; and we have omitted data obtained by an essentially similar proc edure with small circles and spoons . In this r ep ort w e have presented chiefly factual data, stress­ ing the pos sibility of studying very c omplex problems c onc ern­ ing centr al nervous system activity by a purely obj ective , re­ flexological method; this activity includes such complex re ­ sponses as a choic e response , which plays a fundamental r ole in the c omplex behavioral mechanisms of adults . It is pr ecisely the developm ental method that makes for this possibility , since by using it we are able to see how a c omplex resp ons e , which is initially lacking in an infant, is c onstituted , and are thereby directly able to trace all the stages in its de­ velopment, from the moment of its first appearanc e, and to as ­ certain precisely the c onditions under which it develop s . Translated by Mi chel Vale

Rech ' i intell ekt derev e nskogo , go rodskogo i besprizor nogo r ebenka [ Speec h and i ntelle ct amon g rural , urban , and homel ess childr en J . Mos cow ­ L eningr ad: Gosizd at RSFSR , 1930 A. R. Luria A CHILD' S SPEECH RESPONSES AND THE SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT The Influence of the Environm ent in Speech Responses Modern ps ychology has come to the firm view that human pe rsonality is shaped by its concrete sociohistorical circum ­ stan ces . We can think of no form of behavior that can be studied in isolation from this historical context, by its elf, in­ dependent of the specific so ciohistorical conditions dete rmin ­ ing it. The dialectical method obliges us to rej ect a static con ­ c ept of behavior in which the various types of behavior are studied independently of the environ mental conditions and general context within which they develop. Both our theoret ­ ical premis es and practical expe rience have brought us to the definite conclus ion that no ps ychological function can be understood except in terms of its development (the genetic approach) and its particular so cial conditions (the sociological approach) . Only by tackling the problem of the role played by concrete sociohistorical and cultural conditions in trans ­ forming behavior can we hope to arrive at an adequate appre ­ ciation of how behavior patterns are s haped. In the first part of this study (_�), in which we undertook a genetic analys is of a child' s speech res pons es, we attempted to trace the general lines of developme nt of c hildren ' s speech. In this second part , our aim will be to shed some light on the soc ial factors involved in this proces s . Again , our emphas is 32

The E nvironment and Childr en ' s Speech

33

will be on the psychological aspects of speech rather than on its phonetic and grammatical aspe cts . We shall attempt to ex­ plore the psychological as pects of the speech of children from diffe rent social groups , and o n the basis of this material we hope to be able to ascertain some of the distinctive features of the speech pattern ( and to a certain extent the thought patterns ) of children reared in different social environments . Mo re than any other aspect of our behavio r , speech is the product of the specific historical circumstances in which it develops. Since its primary function is to promote communica­ tion, an individual' s speech develops under conditions of maxi­ mum interaction with othe rs . The more intimate , the more lively this interaction, the more rapidly will speech develop, and the richer will be its content. Drawing its content , as it does , from dire ct social experience, speech naturally reflects the richness or barrenness of the social environment in which the experience takes place ; accordingly, it should not be sur­ pris ing if the speech of children from different social classes were not at all s imilar . Indeed, if we examine the speech of thes e children , we find that it faithfully reflects the distinctive features of the environment from which it has sprung. Social conditions play a tremendously important role in s hap­ ing spee ch; indeed, speech is social in nature, and communica­ tive in both function and o rigin. But this is not the only reason why speech is so dependent on social factors; it is , in fact, also an extremely vital tool of thought; it is intimately involved in all of a child' s intellectual operations - indeed, in all his intel­ le ctual experience. And s ince this intellectual experience is di­ re ctly linked with specific features of the social environment, it is reasonable to assume that the particular environment in which a child grows up also plays a maximum role in the devel­ opment of speech, which in turn gives shape and form to the in­ � ividual ' s social experience. Accordingly, it should oc cas ion no surprise that the speech of a working-class child in a lar ge c ity , the speech of a c hild fr om a backward country area, and the speec h of a homeless urchin w ho has been de-

34

A. R. Luria

prived of a stable social envir onment should be r adically dis ­ similar . Finally, the re is one other factor that des erves detailed s crutiny in this study. If we are right in saying that speech is thought' s most vital cultural tool, it should follow that it is one of the most readily influenced of psychological process es. Any structured pedagogical environment or, to put it in other terms , any place ment of a child in a structured social s ituation will stimulate and structure that child' s speech, which will then s e rve as a vehicle for the subs equent transformation of his intellectual opera­ tions . Conversely, any inadequately structured environ­ ment will lead to the opposite result: if special intel­ lectual uses of speech are not developed , it will remain entrapped in its rudimentary state . Speech m ay fulfill its communicative functions quite adequately, yet be poorly suited fo r complex intellectual activity. We therefore thought it might be instructive to compare the speech and intelligence of a child who had been exposed to structured pedagogical influences over a prolonged period with the speech and intelligence of a child who had been deprived of an adequately structured environment within which to grow and develop. By carefully comparing and contrast­ ing children in thes e two categories we hoped to s hed light on some of the specific features of the speech and intelli­ gence of children brought up under diffe rent circumstances and to clarify the role played by a structured pedagogical environment in the transfo rmation of a child ' s psycholog­ ical processes . Our subjects in this study were s choolchildren and homeless urchins . Our method was extremely simple , but adequate to our pur ­ poses. We had decided to investigate what direct speech re­ sponses children from different social groups would give to var­ ious verbal stimuli. In emphas izing the immediacy, the s pon ­ taneity e ven, of a child' s speech responses , w e of cour s e there-

The Envir onme nt and Children's Speech

35

b y exclud ed any direct study o f knowledge learne d in school. We decided to limit ours elves as far as possible to an investi ­ gation of the natural course followed by associative proces ses when they we re not influenc ed by the particu lars of any specific s ituation . We therefor e neither asked the children any ques ­ tions , assigned them problems or tasks , nor imposed any re ­ striction s on their intelle ctual activity during the experime nt by giving specific inst .i:- uctions . The three groups - urban chil­ dren, rural children , and homeless children - were placed in a s ituation in which their intelligence had free play. Our goal was to obtain an "intellectual profile," an " instantaneous por ­ t rait , " s o t o s peak, o f the natural associative pro cesses of chil­ d ren living in different social environments . This obliged us to employ a simple ass ociation experiment as our method; and the results , which we shall analyze in de­ tail in the present essay, demonstrate that this method was quite suited to des c ribing the specific features of the speech and in­ telle ctual activities of children from different social environ­ ments . Indeed , if we took a rigorously deterministic position, we w ould have to c oncede that ideas that cropped up "spontane ­ ously " in our minds were ac tually a long way from being spontane ­ ous . Their occurrenc e is determined wholly by our previous social experience , and the "spontaneous" ideas of an urban, a rural, and a homeless c hild will be entirely different. A person's class and his particular social experience fill his mind with a quite specific content, and the study of this content not only is of cons ide rable interest fo r the infant s c ience of psychology of classes but is also of indisputable pedagogical interest, since it sheds light on specific features of the intellectual resources of the children from diffe rent so cial environments with whom our pedagogue will come into contact. What we here mean by intelle ctual resources has nothing whatever to do with the skills a child learns in scho ol. If we analyze these resource s we can get an idea what asso ciations are the most vivid for a child of a given social background and what his socially s haped expe rience has been. Thus the indices we wo rked out fo r assessing this general expe riential background

36

A . R . Luria

first of all characte riz ed the environment in which the child was b rought up and only secondarily reflected the child ' s stage of developmen t. We should be prepared to find that the results obtained in a study of children of diffe rent ages but the same social backgrounds would have much more in common than the corresponding information obtained about children of the same age but different social backgrounds. However , we undertook the s e ries of involved experiments and calculations that such a study requires not just be caus e we wanted to analyz e the elemental content of the intellectual re ­ sources of children from different social environments . A peas ant child ' s richest and most vivid as sociations will be rooted in his rural environment, and it is just thes e ass o ciations that will be the most barren in the urban c hild; on the other hand , in the s choolchild thes e differences will tend to be e vened out by what he learns in s chool, gaps in his experience will be filled , his experience will become more harmonious , and his intellectual resources will become riche r - thes e obs e rvations certainly did not require any deep and detailed investigation. But the fact is that we expected our experiments to yield other data as well. We do not believe that the social environment supplies merely the content of every individual' s experience and nothing more; on the contrary, it dete rmines a vast range of characteristics inherent in the basic me chanis ms unde rlying a person's reac ­ tions and , ultimately, the overall patte rn of the reactions of the social group to which the individual belongs . Let us cons ider each of these facto rs individually and attempt briefly to explain just what we mean by thes e statements . Associative Mechanis ms and Environmental Influences First, the social cir cumstance s in which a c hild grows up will inevitably leave their mark on the mechanis ms unde rlying co m­ plex psycholo gi cal processe s , not just on the content of those

The E nvironment and Childr en' s Speech

37

pro cesses . T his i s especially true of asso ciative processes, which in both their genesis and their function are the most directly expose d to the influen ce of environmental factors acting on them . Let us take a relatively s imple example. A child's speech respons es o c cur at a definite pace or speed; this speed co r­ responds both to the custo mary pace of his intellectual activity and to the extent of his command over his linguistic and asso ­ ciative pr ocesses . (�) We may even go one step farther . Ther e c an be no question that the particular so cial conditions in which the child has had to develop are also inevitably reflected in the pace and the extent of his co mmand of his language. It is quite unde rstandable that the relatively s low and quiet pace of country life is hardly conducive to the development of quick and lively behavio r ; and the behavior of a person living under the condi­ tions of an individual hous ehold economy, often even in an al­ most natural e conomy, with very few surplus items available to be marketed, a sparse population, and a very low cultural level, will always be somewhat slow and relatively relaxed. And if on top of this we consider the fact that, be cause of the rela­ tive lack of tension in social relations and the cultural back­ wardness of country life , the spee ch of a child from this environ­ ment will begin to de velop s ix months - sometimes even a year later than that of a city child, we will not be surpris ed if the figures obtained in our experiments quite faithfully reflect the s lower pace of speech and intellectual activity of the rural child compared with his city peer. T able 1 gives us a compa rison of such figures . Table 1 Average S peed of Speech Res ponses in Children of Different Social Environments Respons e time (sec) Subje cts C ity children 9 - 1 2 years (44 subj ects ) Rural c hildren 1 0 - 1 2 years (40 subjects) Homeless children 1 0 - 1 2 years (46 subj e cts)

1.9 2 . 34 3 . 01

38

A . R . Luria

We see that the average response time (regardless of the difficulty of the test word and the content of the asso ciation) of the rural child is much slower than that of his urban counter­ part. Later we s hall see that in a formal sens e the co mplexity of the asso ciative processes we observed in eithe r cas e was in general of about the same level; hence the speed of asso ciative processes , which is quite different for the rural and the urban child, is really in this case a refle ction of the distinctive pace (primarily the speed of association and s peech) of behavior pat­ . terns s haped under conditions of different social tension. One figure, in particular, strikes our attention: the mean r e ­ action time for homeless children was 3 . 0 1 s e c compared with 1 . 9 sec for ordinary children (i.e. , approximately 60 % higher than that of a schoolchild of the s ame age) . This figure has im­ plications that provide some interesting clues to the specific mechanisms concealed behind the bare statistical data. The fact that the reaction time of homeless children was quite long is by no means attributable to the s ame factors that are respon­ sible for the s lowe r reactions of the rural child; these pheno m­ ena, outwardly s imilar, actually conceal facto rs that are radi­ cally different from one another. In fact, to s ay that the urchin lives at a depressed, slowed pace is misleading; all the evidence indicates that the direct opposite is the case. However , at this point we come up against two other factors that influenced the results of our experiments with the homeless children, and in the light of which the overall slowness of this group be comes clear. The street child is deprived of the training other chil­ dren re ceive in s chool. He is a strange r to everything as so­ c iated with study or with the knowledge and skills acquired in s chools . He is not more backward than the s choolchild; this we know from the facts . He is just different : he does not know how to reason formally - that is taught in school. Anything even r esembling a problem divorced fr om real life is a novelty to him. His linguistic experienc e has had nothing to do with ab ­ strac t logical operation s of the type cultivated in school . T his is why the urchin, who is quick and deft in coping with the situ­ ations of e veryday life , becomes quickly disoriented and pro -

The E nvironment and Childr en' s Speech

39

c eeds slowly in the contrived s ituations of an experiment, in which, moreover, we employed abstract linguistic (associative) operations . Howeve r , there is also another factor that will help us solve the puzz le of the urc hin ' s slow performance and throw the con­ tours of his mind into r elief. Not only is he a stranger to ab­ stract, formal operations but when he is suddenly exposed to the unnatural c onditions of a test, he displays a marked emotion ­ al tension indicating acute and complex affective reactions that he conceals from outs ide view. The urchin has had to wage a bitte r struggle with life , and that struggle has left its s pecific emotional traces on him. A strong inner dis cipline (especially in his relations with his closest comrades ) and an equally strong distrust of everything coming from without have left their mark on his o verall behavio r . In our experiments the u rchin was not the ave rage experimental subje ct, embarking on a test half con­ fident , half unsure; from the very beginning he adopted an atti­ tude of mistrust and hostility toward the experimenter; he was afraid to let fall an imprope r word , to give so mething away and all the mo re so considering that many of these children had any number of questionable deeds in their past that they did not want to reveal and hence c arefully s hielded from discovery. The affective complexes associated with the past experience of these c hildren had left their mark on their behavior and caused them to hold back in their responses in our tests . A close anal­ ys is of the reactions of thes e children will demonstrate the tre­ mendously important role played by the affe ctive traces of their past experienc e . But w e might first ask ourselves whether the rural c hild o r the homeless child i s backward in terms o f the indices we used. Indeed, j ust such a view is quite widespread e ven to this day among many lev els of educators and educational and experi­ mental psychologists , and, moreover, is considerably reinfor ced by the r esults of certain tests that seem effectively to demon­ strate that rural c hildren and s treet children are quite back­ ward. But is this really the case ? If we ask ourselves on ex­ actly what these evaluations are based we immediately encounter

40

A. R. L uria

a serious dis crepancy. Although the street child may s core an average of 69 on the Binet-Burt intelligen ce tests , this is not in its elf a s ign of his deficient intelligence . We can expect the street child to be quite backward in any s chool-acqui red skills ; and a set of tests designed to evaluate s chool development rath­ er than natural development will of cours e give us comparatively low scores for both the str eet child and , frequently , the r ural c hild as well . But a completely differ ent pictur e is obtained if we take more than j ust a formal approach to the s cores , in particular , if we compare the associative patte rns of these chil­ dren's thought processes. A study carried out by A. N. Mirenova gives a detailed and qualitative analys is of data obtained on Binet test scores fo r street children. This analys is convincingly dem ,.i::..

Table 1 Development of Associations among Indifferent Stimuli in Children Age One Year and Nine Months to Three Years and Two Months

Name

Age

Association I : Association II: Association III: Development bell and 120of conditioned bell and bell and gurgling beat metronome reflex to bell whistle

Control experiment

:olia R.

1 yr , 9 mo

26

24

18

20

Association I very unstable 2 -3 time s an experiment

iuba B.

2 yr s , 2 mo

27

15

24

21

None

ania K.

2 yrs , 3 mo

33

26

20

18

None

G alia E .

2 yr s , 3 mo

25

24

None . 4 8 combinations tried

15

Associations I and II

3 yrs

26

33

30

22

Associations II and III

24

17

30

13

As sociation III

s tsha

s

T.

!rezha A. 3 yr s , 2 mo

The Devel opme nt of Associations

225

Natash a K. , in whom, despite the fact that the associated stim­ uli were applied 56 times, no r eaction was achieved. In 6 of 7 child ren, the third association was formed after 4 -20 applica­ tions of the associate d stimuli (Table 2 ) . In Natasha K. it also prove d impossib le to develop the third associati on, despite the fact that the associate d stimuli wer e presented 40 times. After the developmen t of the 3 associations desc ribed , the conditioned blinking reflex was developed in the children of this gr oup after 5 -22 c ombinations of a sound and its verbal denotation with the puffing of a flow of air into the eye . Verification of all three associations in control experiments showed that the transfer of the blinking reflex to stimuli pre ­ viously associated with the bell was observed in five of seven children . In thr ee of the childrep (Kolia L . , Andriusha G. , Iura V . ) the blinking motions of the eyelids occurred in response not only to the bell and the word desi gnating it but to the sounds previously associated ther ewith (120-beat metronome , the whistle , gurgling, and the words denoting them) , which had never been directly reinforced by puffing air into the eye . It is of interest to note that in two children (Kolia L . and Iura V . ) the formation of all three associations was accom­ panied not only by rotation of the head toward the second acous­ tic stimulus but by naming of the stimulus to follow the bell even before it had been heard. Thus , for example , when the bell rang, the child said, "It's ringing, it's ringing" and, at the end of the ringing of the bell , turned his head toward the sec ond acousti c stimulus and , before it began to be heard, stated, "It' s ticking, it's ticking, " in expectation of the ticking of the metro­ nome , etc . In two childr en (Natasha K. and Marina B . ) no trans­ fer of reac tions to associated stimuli could be detected in the c ontrol experim ents . In Natasha K. it proved possible to produce only the first as­ sociation between the bell and the sound of the metronome , and even this took longer than with other childre n. The second as­ sociation (bell and whistle ) was offered to this child 70 times , and the third (bell and gurgling) , 4 0 times ; but i t proved impos ­ sible to develop any assoc iation. Transfer to other stimuli

Table 2 Development of Associations among Indifferent Stimuli and Their Verbal Designations in Children from Two Years and Seven Months to Three Years and Three Months of Age

Name

Age

Association I : bell and Association II: Association III: 120-beat bell and bell and metronome gurgling whistle (word) (word) (word)

Development of conditioned reflex in Control response to bell and word experiment

2 yrs , 7 mo

22

16

10

22

Association s I and II

2 yrs , 8 mo

11 (talks)

4 (talks)

3 (talks)

8

All

ndriusha G. 2 yrs , 8 mo

10

6

4

10

All

ania S.

2 yrs , 9 mo

28

19

20

21

Association II

.ra V .

3 yrs, 1 mo

14 (talks)

7 (talks)

4 (talks)

5

All

riusia

v.

:olia L .

Nltasha

K.

M arina B .

3 yr s , 3 mo

31

None . 56 combinations

None . 40 combinations

22

None

3 yrs , 3 m o

26

15

14

16

None

Ni Ni (j)

The Devel opm ent of Associations

227

was also impossible with this child. With Marina B. all three associations were develop ed quite easily . How ever , it did not prove possible to achieve transfer of the reactions in the c ontrol experiment. The conditioned re­ flex in re sponse to the bell was formed quickly : after 16 appli ­ cations of the c onditioned and unconditioned stimuli . If we c ompare the developme nt of associatio ns in children of thi s group with those of the first group, in which associations were developed to the same acoustic stimuli but without verbal naming ther eof, we find that the use of words significantly facil­ itates formation of associations in children between two and a half and thre e year s of age . In children of the third group (five children aged two year s , five months , to thre e year s , six rµonths) , a defensive c onditioned blinking reflex was first developed in response to an acoustic stimulus : a bell accompanied by the words "It's ringing. " Then, between this stimulus , which already had the character of a signal stimulus , and the other acoustic stimuli (120-beat met­ r onom e , the whistle , and the gurgling) , which were accompanied by the enunciati on of the word denoting them, three associations were developed, one after the other . As may be seen in Table 3 , all three associations were developed rather rapidly (the number s in the table indicate the number of associations e m­ ployed). The maximum number of combinations of acoustic stimuli required to develop associations in children of the third group did not exceed ten. In Misha S . , the formatio� of associations included not only r otation of the head toward the second acous­ tic stimulus but the w ord designating the stimulus , and the child utter ed this word before the second component of the associa­ tion began to ring. During the control experime nt all three as­ sociations were obtained in children of this group , exc ept for V itia v . , who failed to develop the third association. The data pre sented show that in very young children , the develop ment of associations among acousti c stimuli , one a signal stimulus and all the other differ ent stimuli being accompanied by words de­ noting the m , is a simpl e and easy under taking .

� � CXl

Table 3 Development of Associations among Signal and Neutral Stimuli , on the One Hand , and Their Verbal Designations , on the Other Hand , in Children Aged Two Years and Five Months to Three Year s and Six Months

Name

Age

Development of conditioned reflex to bell and word

Association I: As sociation II : Association III: bell and bell and bell and 120beat metrowhistle gur gling (words ) nome (words ) (words )

Control experiment

Liuba L .

2 yr s , 5 mo

14

4

5

10

All

Vitia V .

2 yrs , 8 mo

20

10

7

3

Associations I and II

Valerii K. 2 yrs, 8 mo

15

7

10

4

All

Sasha T .

3 yr s , 3 mo

10

5

4

7

All

Misha S .

3 yrs , 6 mo

12

4 ( talks )

3 ( talks )

1 ( talks )

All

The Development of Associations

229

we compar e the mean data for develop ment of associations among acoustic stimuli in children of all three groups ( Table 4) . it is clear that the for mati on of associations among neutral ac oustic stimuli is greatly facilitated if the stimulus is accom­ panied by the word that denotes it. If

Table 4 Mean Data on Development of Associations in Three Groups of Children .. 1-t ,

Designation of group Development of associations among individual stimuli D evelopm ent of associations between neutral stimuli and their verbal designations Development of associations between signal and neutral stimuli and their verbal desi gnations

Age

I

i::::: 0 0 C\J

Cl>

s

0 i::::: 0

......... .-4 .... .b ca ....... "O Cl> (.) a s 0 - ...... Ul ca Ul


Cl> .0 .0

.. 1-t

Cl>

1-t

� Ul .......

......... .... ca ..... .. (.)

"O

i::::: ..c:: 0

0 Ul Ul


.0

..

1-t 1-t 1-t i::::: 0

. ........ .... ca ....... (.) 0 Ul Ul