Orange Is Not Just a Fruit

[kellogg]

Thanks, J the Belle (Ms. Bak)!

It's always a little difficult to go FIRST. But it's also EASIER.

You see, the longer you wait on the homework, the more you have to READ. Other people are going to be putting things up, and if you really want to get into the conversation (or even if you just want to avoid repeating something someone else already said), you have to listen to what ALL your classmates are saying.

1) Are psychological functions LINKED or are they DISTINCT?

They are both linked and distinct.

Yes, that's EXACTLY right. In fact, it's right in TWO different ways. 

You know that in English we have lots of different verbs. And you know that a lot of our sensory verbs have two forms:

see       look at

hear      listen to

touch    point to

smell     sniff at

taste     nibble at

speak   say to

feel       think of

What is the difference? Why is there a DIRECT object in one case and not the other. Why is there a PREPOSITION in one case, but not the other?

Well, one very important difference is that there is ATTENTION in one case, and not the other.

Let's consider, for a moment, the problem of getting kids to PAY ATTENTION. In very young children, there is no real VOLUNTARY control over attention. The kids simply look at anything that moves, anything big or red or violent or striking in some way.

(A lot of computer games and kid movies--and even adult movies--play on this lower psychological function to try to get the largest possible audience. It has to be said that the result is not particularly good for education, which relies on higher psychological functions.)

But as soon as we LINK the function of involuntary attention ("eidetic attention") to VERBAL thinking, we have something we can call VOLUNTARY attention: the child can CHOOSE among the various big, red, violent and striking stimuli that he or she is going to pay attention to. In fact, the child can even choose NOT to pay attention to any of them and instead to pay attention to something not big, not red, not violent and not particularly striking--even something that is NOT there at all.

So the first way in which the functions are both linked and distinct is that this new psychological function, "paying" attention, or "focusing" attention, is made up of two LINKED functions (perception and selection). And the second way in which the functions are both linked and distinct is that this NEW, combined function is linked to the early involuntary forms of attention. But it's also distinct from them, because it's mediated by VERBAL thinking.

2) How exactly does the “factor” relating thinking and speaking change?

It changed like zig zag pattern that moves from one extreme position (completely linked and not distinct) to the other. (completely distinct and not linked or only linked in externally)

Let's have a look. First of all, here's what our book notes say:

II (J the Belle) The psychological functions have been studied separately because the RELATIONS between functions (like perception, memory, attention, etc.) have been treated as constant, and therefore “factored out” (e.g. 2p + 2m + 2a = 2 (p + m + a). This is especially true of the way that thinking and speaking has been studied; their ever-changing inter-relationship has simply been factored out and disregarded. (1-3)

Notice that here the "factor" is a CONSTANT. That is why it can be taken out. But suppose it is NOT a constant. Suppose it is a VARIABLE. Suppose it changes?

Then we CANNOT factor it out. We HAVE to look at (e.g.) the relationship between perception and attention as it CHANGES.

Imagine two children, 순이 and her older sister 분이 looking at a clock. Little 순이 doesn't know how to tell time yet; she will tell you ANYTHING about the clock except the time ("It's bright! It's shiny! It has two hands", etc.). But if you ask 분이 she will tell you ONLY the time, and she has forgotten everything else. In one case, perception controls attention. But in the other, attention controls perception...and even memory.

III (J the Belle) No matter how their relationships change, any real understanding of the unity of consciousness really depends on keeping the psychological functions that compose it BOTH LINKED AND DISTINCT. If they are not linked up, then there the unity of consciousness cannot be seen. If they are not distinguished, then the way they are related to each other in action, either in parallel or serially, cannot be seen. Above all, if they are not both linked and distinct, then their relationship cannot be seen to develop. (1-4)

Now, let's look a little bit at the two paragraphs (1-3 and 1-4). What Vygotsky says is in black and the comments in blue are me:

(1-3): That consciousness is a unified whole and that the separate functions are connected in unified activity—this thought is nothing new for contemporary psychology. EVERYBODY says that consciousness is ONE, not two. But the unity of consciousness and the connections between the separate functions in psychology has usually been postulated rather than made the object of experiment. NOBODY has done experiments to find out if this is true. Moreover, postulating the functional unity of consciousness, psychology has alongside this indisputable assumption placed at the basis of its studies a tacit but utterly false postulate, implicitly formulated but recognized by all, which consists of acknowledging the invariability and constancy of interfunctional connections in consciousness, and it has been assumed that perception is always and in an identical way connected to attention, memory is always and in an identical way connected to perception, thinking with memory, and so on. Strangely, when we DO experiments, we often treat perception and attention as if they were always connected in the same way: we act as if child attention is the SAME as adult attention, and children just have to try harder to pay attention the way adults do. Based on this, it follows as a matter of course that interfunctional connections are something which can be factored out, as a constant, common factor, and which be left out of the equation in carrying out research operations on the separate and isolated functions which remain within brackets. And if the relationship between, say, perception and attention is the same, we can just ignore it. But suppose it isn't the same? What then? Because of all this the problem of relations remains, as we said, the least developed portion of the entire problematic of contemporary psychology. If it ISN'T the same, then the problem of relating, say, perception and attention, or attention and memory, which is really the HEART of teaching, is almost completely undeveloped in child psychology. We just talk about it as a fact and we don't try to understand how it changes. But in developmental child psychology, if something does not change, then it's really not a fact of development at all! 

(1-4): This could not but have heavy repercussions for the problem of thinking and speech. If we examine the history of the study of this problem, it is possible to be easily convinced that the attention of the researcher has always slipped away from this central point of the relationship of thought and word, and the centre of gravity of the entire problem has always been displaced and shifted to another point, and thrown to another question.

Vygotsky goes ON to discuss how contemporary psychology zig-zags, like a drunken sailor, from one position to another: the behaviorists say that thinking and speaking are the same: thinking is nothing but speaking with the sound turned off. The Freudians say exactly the opposite: that most "thinking" is not thinking at all, but unconscious feeling, and that the unconscious is completely unspeakable. 

But J-the-Belle is really doing SUPERMAN'S (Ms. Oh's) homework here. The zig-zagging, which is the zig-zagging of PSYCHOLOGISTS and not of interfunctional connections is really not Ms. Bak's question. It's the NEXT question.

That's OK, Ms. Bak! I'm sure that Ms. Oh doesn't mind if you help her with her homework. But before we get to Ms. Oh's question, we want to make sure that we've answered Ms. Bak's question correctly.

For example, when a child learns NAMES, is it mostly thinking or mostly speaking?

I think it is thinking, but mostly speaking. Although the children know that the names are tied to the concrete and specific objects(very limited thinking) and use names for communication(speaking), they don't know general meaning of the nouns yet.

Good! I agree COMPLETELY. There is a LITTLE bit of thinking involved, but it's mostly just like grabbing, reaching, holding, pointing.

So--as teachers we are interested in ways of making sure that the THINKING grows. We are NOT very interested in ways of making sure that the grabbing, reaching, holding, and pointing develop.

Last week we looked at some data from a game by Ms. Yi involving animals throwing chairs. We also played a "thinking" game about light beams and mirrors. You can see that the second version involves somewhat more THINKING than the first.

We also saw other examples of this. J-Kitty (Ji-eun) wanted to use PICTURES (that is, the function of perception) to introduce concepts rather than words. She said it was easier, and she was absolutely RIGHT. But it's easier because:

a) perception is a lower, already developed function

b) perception is not a function of verbal thinking

In the same way, when we introduce characters, we can talk about their HAIR or their CLOTHES or their GLASSES. Alternatively, we can use CONCEPTS to sort them.

What about when they learn CONCEPTS?  

I think it is mostly thinking. As the child is growing up, the word meanings are developed as well. When they learn concept they can think about the meaning of words through generalization.

Imagine TWO different games. The goal of each game is to learn the characters names.

GAME ONE:

The first one is the well known "frying pan game":

T: Children? Let's play "Dami, Dami, Dami". First, self-introduction! I am DAMI, you are...(whispers) Jinsu!

S1: I am Jinsu.

T (to S2): You are?

S2: I am Sally; you are...?

S3: Kobi!

T: Kobi TWO!

S3: Kobi, Kobi! Jinsu FOUR!

S1: Jinsu, Jinsu, Jinsu, Jinsu.

And so on, until someone makes a mistake and gets hit in the head with an imaginary frying pan.

GAME TWO:

The second game is the game I offered Koala. It's a little hard to explain, but it goes something like this:

T: Children? Let's play "Are you Dami?". Now, we are HUMANS. Not aliens. So if you say an alien's name, or an animal's name, you lose! And if you REPEAT a name, you lose! Now, I am Dami! Are you Dami?

S1: No, I'm Jinsu. (to S2) Are you Dami?

S2: No, I'm Sally. Are you Dami?

S3: No, I'm Mike. Are you Dami?

S4: No, I'm Kobi!

T: You lose! Kobi's not human. Start again! This time, we are GIRLS, not boys. I am Dami. Are you Dami?

(etc. with concepts such as "Korean", "non-Korean", etc.) 

Now, WHICH game is more thinking? Which game is more speech? Why?

Which game is for THIRD graders? Which is for SIXTH graders? Why?

3) How do you know?

Vygotsky said meaning of words is developing in childhood. As they grow, their schemata are more complicated and the relationship of thinking and word will be more sophisticated as well.

A "schema" or a "schemata" is really a kind of PICTURE, a DIAGRAMME (at least, in its original meaning). It's true, as J-Kitty says, that very young children do think in pictures, in diagrammes, at least about visual objects (I don't think kids have visual schemata for "feeling cold" or "feeling hungry" though).

I think that the associative psychologists (and even Piaget) took this idea of a schematic diagramme and turned it into a concept. According to them, concepts are really just mental habits: they are pictures laid on top of pictures laid on top of pictures.

Each picture, called a memory, is a little bit transparent, so that when you look at the schema, the COMMON features tend to reinforce each other, and the differences tend to fade away. So for example, your schema of a RESTAURANT is a place with tables, and chairs, and a cashier, and food because those are COMMON features. But it's not a place with Mexican food, or Chinese food, or even Korean food, because those are DIFFERENT features.

I think Vygotsky would DISAGREE with this. It doesn't, for example, account for names very well. The whole point about NAMES is that they are different, not that they are the same. 

It also implies that thinking is a kind of mechanical process, something a machine or even a camera could do. I don't think Vygotsky would agree with that. But Piaget might!

 When the child learn names their verbal function is in action that they can communicate with others in their own way(subjective) but as for reflecting, it is hard to say that their mental function is activated in the process.

True IN GENERAL. But what about NICKNAMES? And what about AVATARS? Surely there are SOME names that do involve some thinking.

When they learn concept, their cognition is developed that they are able to see things in objective way and generalize their properties.

Right--or rather, HALF right. I think Vygotsky would say that concept development has TWO roots. One of them is, as you say, GENERALIZATION. We have to GENERALIZE oranges in order to have the concept of an orange (we have to eat big ones and small ones, sour ones and sweet ones, tangerines and mandarins, Hallabong and those horrible American "Sunkist" oranges that have no taste at all).

But generalization is not enough! For the child to understand that "orange" also refers to COLOR, the child has to be able to ABSTRACT and not just GENERALIZE: the child has to take away everything from the orange that makes it an orange, until only some essential COLOR is left.

어린이의 낱말 의미가 발달할수록 생각을 사용하는 능력이 발달하고 인간의식도 발달한다고 생각합니다. 즉 발달의 초기에는 speaking(생각이전의 말)의 측면이 더 강하고  자라면서 내적인 thinking function(지적인말)의 비중이 높아진다고 생각합니다.

Yes! As children develop, the "and" that links thinking and speech develops too. Where the speaking function came FIRST it now comes last. Where the thinking function came LAST it now comes first.

Very young children, when you ask them what a "grandma" is they will simply talk about their grandmothers. Older children will think and select, and if they talk about their own grandmothers at all, it will be in order to exemplify some concept.  Vygotsky says, the young child remembers in order to think, but the older child thinks in order to remember.

Bravo, Ms. Bak--I couldn't have said it so well myself! (For one thing, my Korean's not so good!)

K-Dragon!