The Problem of the "Formative" Elements of Consciousness in the Activity Theory of the Mind

The problem of the structure and psychological mechanisms of consciousness has a rich history, to which M. M. Bakhtin, G. G. Shpet, L. S. Vygotsky, and, later, A. N. Leont'ev and S. L. Rubinshtein all made significant contributions. It is our purpose in the present article to discuss only one aspect of this problem: the structure of individual consciousness. Pursuing the line of research delineated by Vygotsky, Leont'ev (1977) posed some cardinal questions: Of what is consciousness composed? How does it arise? What are its components? He called the latter the "formative elements" of consciousness. According to Leont'ev, there are three such "forming" elements: the sensory fabric of perception (or of an image), meaning, and sense. The inclusion of the sensory fabric in the structure of consciousness along with ostensive meaning and sense was a definite step forward along the path toward the ontologization of conceptions of consciousness.¹ But I think that individual consciousness construed in this way is still insufficiently ontological. Leont'ev's three "formative elements" do not completely account for the connection between consciousness and being (see M. M. Bakhtin, for whom consciousness "participates" in being and is essential for life). One might even reproach Leont'ev for a certain inconsistency: activity, although it is the source of consciousness, is itself not one of its "formative elements." Of course, he could answer this reproach by saying that the "formative elements" are structural elements, constituents, not generative elements. However, it seems to me that the distinction between constitutive and generative is very, very relative in any analysis of living consciousness, which is continually in the process of being constructed.     

The Principle of Creative Self-activity (Philosophical Foundations of Modern Pedagogy)

Note from the editors of Voprosy psikhologii: the Editorial Board thought it would be useful to publish the two articles below, by S. L. Rubinshtein (1889-1960) and A. N. Leont'ev (1903-1979),* which describe the first stages in the development of the problem of activity in Soviet psychology. This subject remains most timely. For proper comprehension and further development of this subject, its roots and its history must be known. Some idea of these may be gleaned from these two publications. Rubinshtein's article, which presents one of the first approaches to the problem of activity in Soviet science, was written by the author in the first period of his creative scientific career. It is short, but complex. To understand it correctly, the reader must be prepared to give it an attentive and critical reading.     

A Study of Human Information Processing in a Choice Situation

Report I. Influence of the Significance of an Individual Signal upon the Relation of Choice Time to the Amount of Information in this Signal. (Submitted by A. N. Leont'ev, Member, RSFSR Academy of Pedagogical Sciences)     

Editor's Note

The articles contained in this issue of Soviet Psychology represent a sample from a new publication, Psychological Studies, which appeared for the first time in 1969. This publication, under the editorial directorship of A. N. Leont'ev, A. R. Luriya, E. N. Sokolov, and E. D. Khomskaya, is intended to reflect the work currently of concern among the psychologists at Moscow University. The work of younger members of the faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates is given special prominence in this first number of the publication.     

The Role of Cooperation in the Development of Intelligence

In the theoretical analysis of the general structure of activity as presented in the fundamental work of L. S. Vygotsky and A. N. Leont'ev, cooperation among the participants in a joint activity is viewed as the source of new mental functions. Under conditions of cooperation, an activity that is initially shared by those participating in it emerges as an original and fundamental foundation for the development of forms of individual activity. Thus, L. S. Vygotsky wrote, "Any function in the cultural development of the child appears twice, on two levels: first as a social function, and then as a psychological function, first as something taking place between people, a category based on relationship between minds, an intermental category; later, this psychological function occurs within the child, as an intramental category" [2. Pp. 197-98].     

The Concept of Dispositional Regulation of Individual Social Behavior

After a period of relative neglect by psychologists of issues of social motivation and goal-directed behavior (in favor of attending to the person as a "cognizer," or reinforcement-shaped "responder"), it is clear that the preoccupations of Miller, Galanter, & Pribram (1960) a quarter-century ago have been taken up with renewed interest. Current investigators are of many different persuasions—e.g., cognitively oriented theorists concerned with "lay epistemology" (Kruglanski & Klar, 1986), "personologists" interested in person-environment interactions (Little, 1983), psychologists attempting to clarify the structure and components of action (e.g., Brenner, 1980), etc. Readers familiar with the work of Leont'ev (1975) and the translations and discussions of related work (Wertsch, 1979) will know that a concern with goal direction has never been absent from psychology in the USSR.     

Significance of Games Involving a Plot and Role-Playing for the Development of Moral Behavior

Games involving a plot and role-playing are the dominant activity of preschool-age children; they "are responsible for fundamental changes in mental processes and in the psychological characteristics of the child's personality" (Leont'ev, 1959. P. 412). As has been demonstrated by L. S. Vygotsky (1966), D. B. El'konin (1978), A. V. Zaporozhets (1965), and others, in play children assimilate information and skills to the extent that social situations and typical relationships are modeled in their play. In the view of these authors, however, the most essential point is that games involving a plot and role-playing have a general developmental effect. In a number of studies by Zaporozhets (1948), Z. M. Istomina (1948), Z. V. Manuilenko (1948), T. V. Endovitskaya (1948), and others, the importance of play for the development of voluntary memory, voluntary maintenance of a pose, sensory processes, etc., has been demonstrated empirically.     

Twice-Born, Once Conceived: Meaning Construction and Cultural Cognition

Cultural cognition is the product of two different sorts of meaning: (a) the (objective) semiotic organization of cultural texts or models, and (b) the (subjective) processes of meaning construction through which cultural symbols become available to consciousness as "experience." This article proposes a way to bridge these two kinds of meaning by considering how cultural knowledge is grounded in sensory experience. Several cognitive processes (schematization, synesthesia, secondary intersubjectivity) are proposed for linking the objectively available schemata found in cultural practices and the processes of meaning construction by which individuals appropriate symbols to consciousness. The nature of the relation between public symbols and individual experience is discussed in relation to a number of current issues in post-structuralist culture theory.     

Reflective-Personal Regulation of Normal and Pathological Goal Formation

Leading Soviet psychologists have repeatedly stressed the importance of study of disorders in mental processes for a general psychological analysis of those processes. One of the theoretical underpinnings of contemporary studies in psychopathology is the postulate that there is a fundamental unity between the mechanisms of activity in a normal state and in a pathological state. This postulate was developed specifically by B. V. Zeigarnik and her followers (Zeigarnik, 1962, 1971). Goal formation is a central aspect of the movement of a subject's activity (Leont'ev, 1975). A study of the mechanisms of goal formation under pathological conditions, when their functioning is disrupted by the influence of the specific conditions of a mental illness, should help us better understand the role of these mechanisms in the activity of a healthy person as well.     

The Specificity Of Processes Of Motivational Conditioning In The Human Mind

The methodological principle of the objectification of needs, which in activity theory explains the ontological development of motivation (Leont'ev, 1975), is in need of concrete psychological development to ascertain what influences and mental processes give rise to such objectification. In terms of biological motivation, this question is made easier by the existence of a detailed system of data, accumulated in conditioning studies, concerning the acquisition of the capacity to activate a person by neutral stimuli. A psychological interpretation of these data purports to explain the fact that the conditioned response phenomenon indicates not only a redirecting of unconditioned responses toward new stimuli but also the genesis, in response to this stimulus, of subjective relations orienting the person toward influences relevant to his needs. Such an interpretation therefore helps to concretize the concept of the objectification of biological needs (Vilyunas, 1986. Pp. 154-74).     

The social construction of unreality: The real American dilemma

Conclusion Before Marx took up the concept of consciousness it was damaged by the submissive theology of Hegel. Marx grounded consciousness in the nuts-and-bolts happenings of everyday life in a repressive society. From the predicament of a dominated mind arises false consciousness, a condition in which subject classes are cognitively incapable of identifying their own interests, historical role, and human potential. Mystification is the construction of a collective unreality in which myth displaces the real antagonisms of social life. Of all the ideologies that contribute to a state of false consciousness, individualism is the most significant in its relation to de-fusing a class struggle; it is the divide and conquer tactic par excellence. Taking a page from Marx, we have presented scenarios from everyday life that perpetuate the individual's image of him or herself as an isolated, privatized element in society. We have also followed Marx in the view, amply supported by the historical evidence, that the dominant class projects the standard cultural norms in capitalist society.Sociologists of a phenomenological persuasion have viewed the social world as a dialectic between mind and concrete environment. Reality as such is the end product of subjective definitions by individuals and groups. We have argued that perceptions of social reality are in large part engineered by a minority whose interest rests in creating images that effectively disguise their control of society's resources. Thus, Americans who have been thoroughly mystified by the ideology of individualism are capable of seeing their own lives as bright with promise, while their nation's fortunes decline. Such mental acrobatics are not explainable in terms of dissonance theory, which gives an ahistorical analysis, or particularization, which reduces false consciousness to the psychological level. False consciousness — whether it be evidenced by individualism, chauvinism, religious fanaticism, aestheticism, or nature worship — does not result from a random ordering of phenomena: It is the reflection of a conscious choice by dominating classes and their agents, i.e., distortion of reality to prevent communal actions threateningH.C. Greisman and Sharon S. Mayes are Assistant Professors in the Department of Sociology at the University of Maryland, College Park.     

Two Approaches to Study of the Perception of Time

From the standpoint of psychology, study of man's perception of the world around him presupposes study of the process and the result of the development of a subjective reflection of the objective world. The objects of perception are the concrete objects in the surrounding world, and empirical investigation is designed to seek and find lawful correspondences between the physical characteristics (properties) of those objects and the psychological characteristics (properties) of the image of that world. In such an approach, the question of the object of perception is the key to resolving the problem of time perception.     

The Psychological Structure of Meaning

1. The meaning of a word may be interpreted in the philosophical-gnoseological framework as the ideal equivalent of signs that have been interchanged in the process of semiosis, as the ideal "social substance" of their type, not appearing immediately in the material form of the signs, but realized only in the mechanism of their interchange. This "social substance" of the signs, which is the basis of their equivalence, cannot be … the external object itself, but rather only its mental reflection" (Problemy myshleniya v sorremennoy nauke. Moscow, 1964, p. 82). In such an approach the "mental reflection," i.e., the psychological equivalent of linguistic meaning, the meaning of a sign as a psychological phenomenon, must be a certain form determined by those potential interchanges of signs that represent its limits. It is evident that this determination should be sought primarily in the psychological structure of meaning, in the system of its "semantic components," which in this sense should at least partially be determined by a system of juxtaposed words in the process of their actual use.     

Problems in the Integrated Study of Individual Differences

The properties of all the stages of evolution of matter, from the chemical to the sociohistorical, are part of man as well. In each of these properties, in addition to what is common and typical for groups of people, there is something that is unique to the individual and irreproducible. One characteristic noted in theoretical conceptions of individual differences is that they tend to study properties relating to different stages in the development of matter in isolation from one another. In most studies of differential psychophysiology, the biochemical and endocrine properties of the organism and the bioelectric properties of the nervous system are examined as if they had nothing to do with individual characteristics in the formation of classical Pavlovian conditioned reflexes. The psychological properties of the personality are examined in the Vygotsky and Leont'ev school independently of their relationship to somatic, neurophysiological, and psychodynamic properties (the properties of temperament).     

In Honor of the President of the Congress: A. N. Leont'Yev-Lenin Prize Laureate

The editorial staff of the journal Voprosy psikhologii and the Soviet psychological community heartily congratulate Aleksey Nikolayevich Leont'yev on receiving the highest scientific award — the Lenin Prize — for his book Problemy razvitiya psikhiki [Problems of mental development].     

"The Key to Human Psychology"

This article investigates the notebook kept by Lev Vygotsky during the first half of 1926. In addition to discussing the notebook's structure, content, and time frame, the article analyzes its significance within the context of the development of Vygotsky's ideas. Among the notebook's content discussed here are: supplementary material to The Psychology of Art; a preliminary outline for "The Historical Meaning of the Crisis in Psychology"; the first propositions of cultural-historical theory associated with the idea of sign mediation; an outline for the unwritten monograph "Zoon politikon"; as well as thoughts on a general psychological theory of consciousness that assigns a key role to speech and communication in the genesis of consciousness. Particular attention is paid to Vygotsky's remarks on the ontological status of mental reality and the problem of the psychophysical.     

Physician self-awareness: the neglected insight.

Self-awareness is vital to a physician''s development. Understanding the impact of our internal subjective world on our attitudes and values and on the fantasies we have of reality is important to us as doctors. Some of the means of acquiring this self-knowledge include accurately perceiving the reflection of one''s self in patients, understanding one''s learning style, studying and enjoying the humanities, expressing one''s self creatively, maintaining a sense of humour and examining one''s reaction to experiences. When confronted by a person who is ill the physician must take action that is constructive and affirmative and not compromised by behaviour that originates in unexamined personal issues.     

Mirror agnosia.

Normal people rarely confuse the mirror image of an object with a real object so long as they realize they are looking into a mirror. We report a new neurological sign, ''mirror agnosia'', following right parietal lesions in which this ability is severely compromised. We studied four right hemisphere stroke patients who had left visual field ''neglect''. i.e. they were indifferent to objects in their left visual field even though they were not blind. We then placed a vertical parasagittal mirror on each patients'' right so that they could clearly see the reflection of objects placed in the (neglected) visual field. When shown a candy or pen on their left, the patients kept banging their hand into the mirror or groped behind it attempting to grab the reflection; they did not reach for the real object on the left, even though they were mentally quite lucid and knew they were looking into a mirror. Remarkably, all four patients kept complaining that the object was ''in the mirror'', ''outside my reach'' or ''behind the mirror''. Thus, even the patients'' ability to make simple logical inferences about mirrors has been selectively warped to accommodate the strange new sensory world that they now inhabit. The finding may have implications for understanding how the brain creates representations of mirror reflections.