B2 L4 - Vygotsky's sociocultural approach

Wertsch’s 3 themes

reliance on genetic method, semiotic mediation, social origin of the higher mental functions as revealed in the general genetic law of cultural development

reliance on genetic method

higher mental functions (HMFs) vs elementary mental functions (EMFs)

elementary mental functions (EMFs)

develop along natural (or biological) line, not specific to humans, inaccessible to consciousness, non-mediated (Eg natural memory, non-voluntary attention)

higher mental functions (HMFs)

develop along cultural line via social interaction, specific to humans, accessible to consciousness, mediated by sign systems (Eg language), mediated memory and problem solving

semiotic mediation

HMF mediated by culturally-driven sign systems (primarily words), mediation of thought processes by words or other culturally-derived signs to create the HMFs, interaction with others enables us to acq knowledge of language or other sign systems

forbidden colors task

children asked questions including some about color, 2 colors become ‘forbidden’; 5-6 yo couldn’t remember forbidden words and cards were no help, 8-13 yo had improvements with cards and adults had few errors with no help from cards

social origin of the HMFs, as revealed in the general genetic law of cultural development

one implication of social origin themes is that the unit of analysis for psychological investigation should be the dyad (between child and another person), rather than the individual

general genetic law of cultural development

thinking is something you do in collaboration with another person

zone of proximal development (ZPD)

distance between actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving, and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or with peers (want a task to not be too easy or too difficult for most effective learning)

Vygotsky’s claim about ZPD

focus on potential developmental level, ZPD enables characterization of prospective development

main implication of ZPD for tutoring

instruction only good when proceeds ahead of development, awaken functions in stage of maturing (egalitarian and idealistic), true for children of all developmental levels, including those who are developmentally delayed

predictions of ZPD

tutors need to be able to identify ZPD in order to pitch interventions accordingly, we should see evidence for a shift from other-directed to self regulation in children’s task performance

Wertsch et al, expect children to become more effective at self-regulating and problem solving as they get older

showed an inc in self-regulation with age, older children’s gazes more effective, showed transfer from other to self-regulation could occur within a very short period of time

notion of scaffolding

adjustments made to task in order to bring it within a child’s ZPD or ‘region of sensitivity to instruction'

Meins, Vygotsky’s theory assumes majority of interactions proceed in optimal ZPD fashion

investigated whether the security of the attachment relationship related to mothers’ tutoring strategies, secure group mothers pitched intervention using ZPD using feedback from child to alter level of specificity of instructions,

Wood et al, researcher taught child how to complete a complex pyramid-construction task

children who had experienced ZPD-targeted tutoring performed better in post-test condition

Piaget’s identification of private speech

identified almost half of the utterances of two 6 yo boys had no apparent communicative function, believed this speech was further evidence of egocentricity, incidence of private speech drops off at concrete operational stage

Vygotsky’s view on private speech

maintained that all functions develop from the first days of life including language, development of thought and language are separate and parallel systems for first two years of life, at age 2 systems being to inter-penetrate one another and from then on speech mediates our thoughts

speech begins as a social activity and is later internalized to create the individual intellect

PS is an essential mid-point stage in this internalization, indicating the use of words to control behavior

Piaget’s justification of PS

egocentrism (private speech) → socialized intellect (social speech)

Vygotsky’s justification of PS

social interaction (social speech) — (PS) → individual intellect (inner speech)

predictions for private speech

will be used to regulate one’s behavior because it is the verbal manifestation of thought, there should be evidence of it ‘going underground’ and being internalized to form inner speech, it will be parasocial because it is derived from social speech and should be seen universally

evidence for self-regulation in private speech

deliberate introduction of obstacles to child’s activity → coefficient of PS almost doubled, internalization, parasocial nature, largely supportive of Vygotsky’s view

internalization of PS

should see qualitative similarities between PS and inner speech as children get older, inner speech more abbreviated (PS becomes less and less intelligible with age, doesn’t just cease)

parasocial nature of PS

removing impression of audience should reduce incidence of PS, PS pos correlated wiht social speech, dialogic in nature thus mimicking conversations in social speech

self-regulatory function of PS

PS expressions of frustration may be assoc with failure, PS may be unnecessary for completion of easy tasks; need to distinguish between task-relevant utterances, utterances involved in emotional expression, to pitch task difficulty accurately

Frenyhough and Fradley, assessed children’s PS during Tower of London (executive planning task)

self-regulatory PS most common on puzzles of moderate difficulty, levels of self-regulatory PS were pos assoc with concurrent task success

Al-Namlah and Meins, what happens to task success if one tries to prevent children from using PS?

task becomes much more difficult

PS functions other than self-regulation

egocentric communication, fantasy, addresses to nonhumans, self-guidance, self-answered questions, reading aloud, inaudible muttering

language isn’t just helpful for verbal tasks

used to help remember info (WM)

Blue-walled room expts

test of spatial memory, navigating rectangular room difficult after disorientation for adults, so does having one wall painted blue help navigation? → human adults use blue wall to aid accurate search but children up to age 4 are at chance (like rats)

Hermer-Vazquez et al, blue walled room in regular test conditions, re-test while having to shadow speech during hiding phase

in shadowing condition, students behave just like adult rats; shadowing a rhythm (clapping hands) had no impact on students’ search accuracy (can still talk to yourself while clapping)