Cognitive Development: Its Cultural and Social Foundations by A. R. Luria, Cognitive Psychology: The Study of Knowing, Learning, and Thinking by Barry F. Anderson (review)

Books 155 Cognitive Development: Its Cultural and Social Foundations. A. R. Luria. Michael Cole, ed. Trans. from Russian by Martin Lopez-Morillas and Lynn Solotaroff. Harvard Univ. Press, Cambridge, Mass., and London, 1976. 175 pp., illus. E9.40. Cogdive Psychology: The Study of Knowing, Learning, and Thinking. Barry F. Anderson. Academic Press, London, 1975. 402 pp.. illus. f5.75. Reviewed by Elliot W. Eisner* The firstbook isby oneof the leading psychologists of the Soviet Union, A. R. Luria. The beginnings of the work reported were unusual. In 1931-32, when the U.S.S.R. was in the processof restructuring its society, Luria set off to a remote part of central Asia to do an observational study of the relationship of culture and cognition. His thesis was and is that the cultural system in which humans live significantly influences perception and cognition. In other words, the forms within which individuals conceptualize, indeed the physiology of the mind itself, are shaped by the culture in which individuals are immersed. Thus, changes in the socioeconomic system are not simply political and economic in character, such changes profoundly influence the character of the human mind and the forms of thinking humans can employ. His report on the research describes a set of clinical procedures for learning how illiterate and semi-literate workers and teachers in a remote part of the Soviet Union perceive, generalize and abstract, deduce and infer, and u s e several other cognitive faculties, such as reasoning and imagination. The book opens with a lucid discussion by the translators of the state of Soviet, American and European psychologyduring thefirsthalf of the 20th century, followedby a general statement of the background and motives for Luria’s research. The six chapters that follow present a brief description of the clinical method Luria used, the findings he secured and the processeshe studied. Finally, a concluding chapter describes the significanceof the results of his work. It isan interesting book to read; the translators did a good job and the theoretical material that Luria advances from time to time is intriguing. There are a couple of serious problems with the work that are worth considering. Luria argues that cultural change alters the basiccognitiveoperations that humans can employ, but because he did not sample subjectsover time it is not possibleto draw the conclusions that he does; namely that illiterate people use more concrete categoriesfor classificationthan do those who are more literate or that the processes of perception differ between such groups because the languages they use to describe their perceptions differ. Such differencescould very well be the result of differences in the preferred mode of response rather than a consequence of the structural processes through which people think. They could also be due to genetic makeup of individual intelligencerather than to cultural factors. Philosophically, I am sympathetic to Luria’sbelief that culture influencesthe character of thought, but I do not believe that he has provided sufficient warrant for his conclusions. A more serious problem is the assumption in his work that propositional language represents the quintessence of intelligence , that with propositional language individuals are able to think rationally. What is neglected entirely in Luria’s work andin the work of most cognitivepsychologistsisthe recognition of the intelligent character of problem solving and reasoning with qualitative materials. Painters, musicians and dancers exemplifyextremelyhigh levelsof intelligencein which reason is employed. Indeed, because language can often be manipulated mechanically,the forms of thought used in the artsarefrequently much more challenging.I seeno good reason for psychologiststo assume that discursive language is the only or ultimate manifestation of man’s rationality. Cognitive Psychology, The Study of Knowing, Learning and Thinking by Barry F. Anderson is an up-to-date, well-written textbook describing processes important for cognition. Although the text becomes technical-perhaps too technical at times for undergraduates-the illustrative material goes a long way to help readers to understand the meaning of the theoretical points Anderson makes; Chapters are presented on Knowing, Learning and Thinking, on Primary and Secondary Perception, on Associative Memory and on the general character of what Anderson calls the Executive System. Other chapters appear on Information Retrieval and on Value and Choice. Because this is a...