A. R.

Luria
The long road of a Soviet psychologist
The main activity in the scientific life of the present writer is his role in helping
to create a new branch of science—neuropsychology, the analysis of the origins
within the brain of man's mental activity and the application of psychological
methods to the study of the functional organization of the brain. The theoretical
significance of this new branch lies in the fact that it enables a closer analysis to
be made of the nature and internal structure of man's mental processes. Its
practical importance resides in the fact that it provides a scientific basis for the
diagnosis of local lesions of the brain and for the restoration of complex forms
of mental activity disturbed by these lesions. The road leading to the creating of
this new branch was not an easy one; it called for a revision of the basic
approaches to cerebral activity in man and of the fundamental principles of
classical psychology. The eminent Soviet psycho-logist L. S. Vygotskij (1896—
1934) was the first to set out on this road, and I consider my own work to be
merely a further step in the same direction. Science at the end of the nineteenth
century had a deep-rooted naturalistic conception of the brain and its activity that
has persisted until recently. Research scientists considered that the human brain had
certain inherent properties which enabled it to carry out mental processes. Some
authors thought the brain to be a complex assembly of small organs or 'centres',
each with its own strictly defined functions, and they located special 'centres' in
the cerebral cortex governing such functions as speech, writing, reading and
counting; others believed the brain to be a unified mechanism functioning as an
indivisible whole. In spite of the apparent difference between the two groups of
scientists, however, both of them supposed that the various forms of mental
activity are a direct result of brain functions and that mental processes are
generated by separate nerve cells (neurons), and occur as a direct consequence of
those cells' activities. This supposition appeared so obvious that it was even
shared by leading figures in the field of modern physiological theory: C.
Sherrington, E. Adrian, J. Eccles, etc.
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That mental processes are the direct 'properties' of nerve-cell activity and that they can
be approached from the standpoint of naturalistic analysis was by no means self-
evident However, the notion that mental processes are the direct 'properties' or
'manifestations' of nerve-cell activity and that they can be approached from the
standpoint of naturalistic analysis was by no means as self-evident as might have
been supposed at first sight. This approach did not, it is true, come up against any
serious difficulties in the analysis of elementary mental processes. Visual
sensations are clearly the result of processes taking place in the retina of the eye and
the 'visual' brain centres linked to it; indeed nerve cells have recently been found
in the section of the cortex relating to visual sensations (located in the occipital
area) which respond only to light stimuli—and, moreover, only to light stimuli of
a certain type. Again, it is quite evident that auditory sensations are generated when
nerve cells in the mechanism of the inner ear and the associated 'auditory'
neurons in the cerebral cortex are excited, while tactile sensations are the result of
irrita-tion of skin nerve cells whose excitation is transmitted to very specific areas
of the brain. However, can the same principle be applied to the higher forms of
man's conscious activity? Are we to suppose that there are special nerve formations
in the cerebral cortex which give rise to the perception of objects, voluntary
action and conscious experience? It is evident that man lives in a world of objects
which he perceives and that he receives information regarding the experience of
generations of other individuals ; he is capable of forms of conscious, willed activity
which distinguish him from animals. Man sets himself goals, formulates plans and
programmes for his behaviour, regulates his actions, controls them as they
proceed and corrects his mistakes. Is it conceivable that these conscious forms of
mental activity, whose existence is undeniable, are 'generated' by specific brain cells
in the same way as the most simple sensations or elementary movements?
Classical psychology rejected this supposition from the very beginning; it held
that the higher mental functions are intellectual rather than material in origin, that
they are not generated by the brain but merely reveal forms of the intellectual
universe and that they proceed 'in parallel' with the brain or 'inter-act' with it.
However, these notions, which have persisted until very recently, present
insurmountable obstacles from the point of view of scientific positivism and the
study of the brain. Psychologists, recognizing the peculiar nature of the higher
forms of conscious activity but relating this activity to a special intellectual
universe, are compelled to divide psychology into two completely separate sciences:
one to provide an explanation of the elementary mental processes without attempting an
equally scientific approach to the analysis of the higher forms of mental activity,
and the other to provide a description of the higher forms of man's

73
We still know very little about the formation of mental processes in the course of the
historical development of society intellectual life without attempting to give a
scientific explanation of them. At the end of the nineteenth century, these two
branches were termed 'explanatory psychology' (erklärende Psychologie) and
'descriptive psychology' (beschreibende Psychologie) respectively. The consequences
of this hiving-off of the higher or intellectual mental processes are equally
embarrassing for cerebrophysiologists. Being unable to explain the origin of the
higher forms of conscious activity, they either revert to a crudely materialistic
approach that has long been obsolete and attempt to find separate neurons, located
somewhere in the deeper regions of the brain, which 'generate' consciousness, or
they look for the point where 'the mental principle enters the brain', attempting to
discover minute 'detectors' of the intellectual universe in the brain tissue (cf. J.
Eccles, 1966/70). It is essential to resolve this basic contradiction and to find a
principle that will allow equally scientific methods to be adopted for the analysis of
both elementary and higher mental processes and make it possible for contemporary
science to solve the problem of their organization within the brain. The Soviet
psychologist L. S. Vygotskij attempted to deal with this funda-mental problem of
psychology and the solution he offered for a long time determined the development
of scientific psychology; more especially, it was of fundamental importance for the
particular branch of that discipline which I myself have attempted to carry a stage
further. Vygotskij (I first met him in 1923 and continued to work closely with him
until his death) based his approach on a simple but radical principle, that man's
higher mental processes have a social rather than a natural origin and in order to
explain them it is necessary to go beyond the organism and to look for their roots in
relations between individuals and in the historical conditions of a society. We still
know very little about the formation of mental processes in the course of the
historical development of society although much is known about the formation of
higher mental functions—conscious action, voluntary attention and active
perception—in the development of the child. The child grows up in a world of
objects which have been formed as a result of a society's labour; he lives in
unbroken contact with adults. A mother says to a child, 'This is a ball', and points to
it with her finger; the gesture and the word direct the child's glance, distinguish the
object from its surroundings and draw attention to it. The mother says: 'Give me the
ball' and the child performs the necessary action. The contact between the child
and the adult lies at the basis of the complex forms of voluntary action. The
complex mental functions—conscious, voluntary action—is initially divided
between the two individuals; it is initiated by the mother and completed by the
child. The child then learns to speak; he now repeats the mother's verbal instruc-tion
himself. He himself says, 'This is a ball', and in obedience to his own utterance directs
his glance on to the named object and picks it up. A function which was

74
previously divided between two individuals now becomes an internal form of
organization of the child's mental activity. It is in this way that the higher mental
functions come into being: social in origin, mediate (through speech) in structure,
conscious and voluntarily directed as to their method of operation. This theory of
the social origin and complex structure of man's higher mental functions
radically changes our approach to their cerebral organiza-tion. Attempts at narrow
'localization' of the higher mental processes in particular areas of the brain now
appear meaningless. The higher mental functions begin to be seen as highly
complex functional systems which involve a whole set of cerebral mechanisms
and are not 'localized' in separate areas of the cerebral cortex but are found
throughout the cortex, and depend on the extremely complex interaction of the various
cortical zones, each of which plays a particular role in this 'functional system'.
The 'functional system' concept has nothing new or unexpected about it. It was
introduced in psychology by L. S. Vygotskij and in physiology by the eminent
Soviet scientist P. K. Anohin. It is based on the supposition that any complex
activity—even if it is physiological in nature, such as breathing—fulfils a particular
function (e.g. the transmission of air to the alveoli of the lungs), but employs a
variety of different means in order to do so (innervation of the diaphragm,
expansion of the thorax by the intercostal muscles, swallowing of air, etc.) : if the
constant (invariant) function is fulfilled, the activity ceases ; if it is not fulfilled,
signals on the discrepancy ('non-co-ordination') between the result of the activity and
the initial task are transmitted to the brain and the search continues for the
means necessary to fulfil the function. If such comparatively simple 'functions' as
breathing are essentially very complex 'functional systems', this is even truer in the
case of 'higher psychological functions'. As has already been said, they come into
operation through a process of complex reaction to reality and contact with
surrounding individuals; they include not only active, practical 'doing' but also
speech, which is initially a means of communication and is subsequently applied to
the internal organization of man's mental processes. It is natural, therefore, that
the cerebral basis of these higher forms of man's mental activity should take the
form of extremely complex functional systems of simultaneously activated
cerebral zones, and that the location of these functional systems should constitute
the fundamental problem of neuro-psychology. We have stated the fundamental
problem of neuropsychology. In order to move nearer towards its solution, however,
it was necessary to determine the structure of the higher mental processes
themselves; only then would it be possible to look for the cerebral bases of their
organization.
75
I stressed the need for a detailed study of the process by which the higher forms of
mental activity develop in the course of a child's contact with adults This problem was
formulated by Vygotskij, and research on it was continued by his colleagues and
students (A. N. Leont'ev, A. V. Zaporozvec, D. B. El'konin and the present
writer). Already in its early work this group, which exercised a considerable influence
on the development of Soviet psychology, was able to demonstrate the extremely
complex structure of such human processes as perception and attention, memory and
thought, movement and action. Its central postulate, to which reference has
already been made, was the role of speech—initially external, subsequently
internal—in the formation of all these processes. Vygotskij showed that the
meanings which words acquire in the course of a child's activity develop, and that
this process plays a decisive role in the development of cognition, thought and
consciousness in man. I myself set out to study another function of speech,
namely, its role in the organization, regulation and control of man's voluntary
movements and affective experiences. This was the subject of my first full-scale
work, The Nature of Human Conflicts (1932), which summed up the results of my
earlier researches on affective reactions, showed the conditions in which they
occur, raised and analysed the role of speech in overcoming them and in the
organization of voluntary movements. This work marked the beginning of a
whole lengthy series of research projects which I began in the 1930s and which
were only completed twenty-five years later, at the end of the 1950s and
beginning of the 1960s. Already in my first publication, written jointly with L. S.
Vygotskij, Studies on the History of Behaviour (Etjudy po Istorii Povedenija)
(1930), I had stressed the need for a detailed study of the process by which the
higher forms of mental activity develop in the course of a child's contact with
adults, and of the vital role played by speech in this process. It was not, however,
until 1935/36 that I was able to undertake a special analysis of the role of speech
in the formation of the higher mental processes. I had the opportunity of making a
thorough study of the mental development of monozygotic twins and together with
a colleague I published a special book entitled Speech and the Development of
Mental Processes (Rec"" i Razvitie Psihiceskih Processov), in which I showed the
decisive influence of the development of speech activity on that of complex forms of
perception and memory, thought and action. In a practically unique experiment on
monozygotic twins whose speech development was extremely retarded, it was
shown that separating the twins and introducing them into two different groups
created a new stimulus for speech communication and led not only to rapid
speech development but also to a reorganization of the higher forms of mental
activity. It was possible to show at the same time that the special speech training
received by one of the twins gave rise to forms of conscious activity which did not
develop spontaneously in the other twin who did not undergo the special training.
The results of this experiment were so conclusive that the book Speech and the
Development of Mental Processes was reprinted in 1959 and 1971 in a number of
languages and has received a wide response. A second research project on
monozygotic twins, which unfortunately was only published in Russian (1948),
involved an experiment in which a group of monozygotic twins was split up and their
constructive activity was subjected to two separate forms of training; one of them
was limited to visual activity while in the other included conscious analysis based on
speech processes. This experiment showed how profoundly the processes of visual
perceptive activity are transformed under the influence of the analysing and regulatory
function of speech. The main results of this series of investigations were summed up in a
very brief article entitled 'The Development of Mental Functions in Twins' which I
published in its original form in the review Character and Personality in 1938 and
which was republished in a revised and enlarged form in 1962 in the journal Voprosy
Psihologii (Problems of Psychology). This article, based on the results of a
comparative study of changes in a number of morphological factors and psychological
processes—memory in particular—in monozygotic and dizygotic twins, showed that
while the influence of the genotype on certain morphological factors remains unaltered
throughout ontogenetic development, this is not the case in regard to psychological
processes. During ontogenetic development, processes such as memory change not
only in regard to their psychological structure (change from direct memory to
complex memory, with speech as an intermediary) but also in their relation to the
genotype ; in other words, changes in these processes depend less and less on
hereditary factors and increasingly on the influence of the external (social)
environment. Unfortunately, this article attracted hardly any attention, although I am
convinced that the propositions it contains could open up new and important lines of
research on the respective roles of genotypical and paratypical factors in the
development of our mental processes as we grow up. In subsequent years, my
colleagues and I continued to study the role of speech in the formation of mental
activity, research being divided into two complementary areas. On the one hand, a
whole series of special studies was undertaken on the genesis and formation of the
regulatory function of speech, which has been totally ignored by linguists who have
been concerned with the phonetic, lexical, sematic and grammatical aspect of language
but have not even attempted to study the pragmatic function of speech, i.e. to
analyse the role of speech in the cognition of programmes of behaviour, in maintaining
the tone of and controlling behaviour. On the other hand, an analysis was made of how
the regulatory function of speech changes in conditions of abnormal development.
The first project involved young children (of H-2 to 3i—4 years of age) and attempted
to determine precisely how the child begins to obey an adult's ver-
The long road of a Soviet psychologist 77 Abnormal development too, could be described
by indicators showing the interrelation of the neurodynamic features of general
nervous and vocal forms of activity bal instructions and how the regulatory role of his
own speech constantly develops. This research, published in a series of special papers
from 1958 to 1961, showed that in the child aged li—2 years the regulatory
function of adult speech has a very limited effect on his behaviour and although it
may easily provoke the desired reaction (drawing attention, performance of a
required action), it cannot yet retard or inhibit a provoked reaction with any success
and its effect is very easily curtailed by the action of indirect stimuli. It is only in
the 3—3i-year age group that verbal instruction by the adult becomes so definite
and persistent that it can give rise to fairly complex programmes of action and
override extra-neous influences. During this period the regulatory function of the
child's own speech begins to develop, initially influencing his own external
speech and subsequently being internalized and regulating his internal speech and the
patterns of behaviour created on the basis of that speech. My colleagues and I
also studied the formation of the regulatory function of speech in older children,
and the disturbance of this regulatory function of speech in regard to complex
forms of behaviour was found to be one the funda-mental signs of certain types of
abnormal development. These data were included in a two-volume work which we
published under the title of Problemy Vyssej Nervnoj DejateVnosti NormaVnogo
i AnomaVnogo Rebënka (Problems of Higher Nervous Activity in the Normal
and Abnormal Child) (Vol. I, 1956; Vol. II, 1958) and were later discussed in a
special book entitled The Role of Speech in the Regulation of Normal and
Abnormal Behaviour (Oxford, Pergamon Press, 1959). These publications
showed that an objective indication of normal or abnormal development in the
child is provided not only by general indications of change in nerve processes (their
force, equilibrium, mobility), as the I. P. Pavlov school often considered to be the
case, but also by special indications of neural changes in direct (non-speech) and
speech systems; and that as soon as neural changes in speech processes begin to
overtake neural changes in non-speech processes speech can assume a regulatory
role in regard to the child's behaviour as a whole. Our researches also revealed
that abnormal development too, could be described not so much in terms of general
changes in nerve processes but rather by indicators showing the interrelation of the
neurodynamic features of general nervous and vocal forms of activity; and that
while in the case of mentally retarded oligophrenic children the neurodynamic
indicators relating to equilibrium and particularly mobility of the nerve processes
underlying speech activity lag behind the indicators for non-speech behaviour,
very much the opposite may be true in the case of children suffering from other
forms of development disorder, especially asthenia. These important results, which
were mainly established by my colleagues, E. D. Homskaja, A. I. Mescerjakov,
V. I. Lubovskij and others, shed new light on the problem of compensation for
neurodynamic defects and suggested certain
78
A 'higher mental function' represents a complex functional system which is social
in origin and mediate in structure new approaches to the theoretical problems of
the psychophysiology of child development. These data were presented in their
most general form in one of my most recent publications, a lecture entitled 'The
Origin and Cerebral Organization of Conscious Processes' which I delivered in 1969
to the nineteenth International Congress of Psychology in London. The series of
investigations just described, which began in the 1930s and continued over three
decades, showed the social origins and complex structure of higher mental
processes, where speech plays a very important role. At the same time, these
studies laid the foundation for my main activity, an analysis of the cerebral
organization of complex mental processes, and for neuropsychology, a branch of
science whose development would have been impossible without this research. As
early as the middle of the 1920s, I became interested with L. S. Vygotskij in the
question of how man's mental processes change when the brain suffers lesions
accompanied by the impairment of speech. The relevance of this question, which
called for a careful study of aphasia, was obvious and although the first experiments
designed to analyse the intel-lectual behaviour of aphasiacs were extremely crude,
the drawing of attention to this problem marks the beginning of a series of
studies which were to lead to the creation of neuropsychology. In those days the
problem of the localization of mental functions, including speech, was formulated in
a very simplified manner. As has been pointed out, certain authors (e.g. K. Kleist)
considered that speech could be 'localized' in the same way as all mental
processes in particular areas of the brain ('narrow localization'), while others such
as C. von Monakow and K. Goldstein believed that the brain always works as a
unified whole and paid little attention to analysing the precise contribution of each
cortical zone to the formation of this whole ('anti-localization'). I was unable to
subscribe to either of these views as both appeared to me to be equally
erroneous. If a 'higher mental function' (speech or any other) represents a complex
functional system which is social in origin and mediate in structure, it seemed
reasonable to present the problem in a different way and not to attempt to
answer the question of where a particular 'function' was 'localized', but rather to
analyse the 'distribution' of a particular functional system in the cerebral cortex
and to determine the precise contribution of particular zones to the formation of
this functional system. Local lesions of the human brain (tumours, traumata,
haemorrhages) were particularly useful in helping to solve this question. It was
already fairly apparent at this time that the human cerebral cortex has a complex
hierarchical structure and that while the simplest, primary areas
The long road of a Soviet psychologist
79
are associated with very specific functions (occipital with visual, upper-temporal
with auditory analysis of signals received), the secondary zones located above
them have a more complex function, namely, to synthesize and organize these
impulses and to transform these particular modal and specific processes into a
complex functional organization; even more complex—tertiary—areas carry out a
still more complex synthesis, combining various specific (visual, auditory,
tactile) systems at higher supermodal levels of organization. It was therefore a
logical step to consider the problem of the precise role of these cortical zones in the
formation of 'higher mental functions' and the exact nature of the impairment of
these complex functional systems when the brain suffers local lesions. Attempts
to answer these questions were made throughout the 1930s and the 1940s and
met with some success. They were based, in particular, on the study of a large
number of cranial and cerebral wounds received during the Second World War.
A detailed psychological analysis of patients suffering from such wounds showed
that every local lesion of the brain leads initially to the primary disturbance of one
particular factor of a given mental activity, and that it is only as a secondary
consequence that it impairs the whole complex functional system. A lesion of the
upper areas of the left temporal zone thus gives rise to an impairment of phonemic
perception (a complex functional process which develops as language is acquired); a
lesion of the secondary and tertiary parts of the lower sincipital and sincipital-occipital
area brings about an impairment of simultaneous spatial synthesis; a lesion of the pre-
motor zone leads to a degeneration of succes-sive motor synthesis, and so forth. It
was clear that each of these primary disturbances brought about the disintegration
of the functional systems which included a particular 'factor' and did not affect
systems from which this 'factor' was absent. As analysis showed, the nature of these
'system disturbances' changed in accordance with the location of the affected organ
and while any given local lesion of the brain led to the disintegration of a whole
range of psychological processes, the nature of the impairment was the same in all
cases. Thus, lesion of the left temporal zone, impairing phonemic differentiation
(the evaluation of those sounds in a language which enable the sense of words to
be distinguished), inevitably led to a patient's failure to understand speech addressed
to him, particular difficulty in finding words to describe objects and an impairment
of the ability to write (due to difficulties in analysing the phonetic composition of
words) but did not affect space orientation, counting and other forms of activity
which did not involve the 'primary' factor referred to. On the other hand, lesions
of the lower sincipital or sincipital-occipital zones had the direct effect of
impairing spatial synthesis and, as far as the over-all system was concerned, made
geometrical orientation impossible and led to difficulties in
80
counting and failure to understand certain logical and grammatical constructions
involving quasi-spatial relations, but could leave such processes as understanding the
immediate sense of words, writing, etc., unimpaired. The discovering of these
phenomena, which G. L. Täuber later called the 'double dissociation principle',
provided research scientists with new opportunities of analysing the internal structure
of the higher mental functions and enabled a direct study to be made of their
cerebral organization. The first step was to analyse the structure of speech processes
and carry out a scientific investigation of the various types of speech impairment or aphasia.
This led to a fundamental revision of the traditional clinical view of aphasia and the
replacement of the description of speech disturbances in terms of external signs ('sensory',
'motor', 'amnesic' aphasia) by a more profound analysis of aphasia in accordance with
its internal physiological mechanisms and the 'factors' on which they are based. The
results of this research were described in a work of mine entitled Travmaticeskaja
Afazija (Traumatic Aphasia) which was published in Russian in 1947 and in a completely
revised English version in 1970. I have also discussed this question in a number of
other publications (1959, 1964, 1967, 1968, 1970, etc.), thereby contributing to the
development of a new branch of science, neurolinguistics, a short account of which I
have given in my most recently published works (1972). Neuropsychological
research on the impairment of speech processes owing to local lesions of the brain has
achieved considerable practical results. It has not only enabled a much more accurate
diagnosis of the location of a brain lesion to be made on the basis of a study of
the particular features of speech disturbances, but has also provided a scientific basis
for the no less important practical question of how to restore speech impaired as a result
of local lesions of the brain. I published the results of this aspect of my research in a book
entitled Vosstanovlenie Funkcij Mozga Posle Voennoj Travmy (The Restoration of
Brain Functions after War Wounds) (Moscow, 1948, English edition 1963) and they
provided a theoretical basis for the considerable amount of work which I and my
colleagues (L. S. Cvetkov et al.) have recently been undertaking in this field.
Neuropsychological research on speech is, however, only one aspect of the work in
which my colleagues and I have been involved. The second aspect of this work was
a neuropsychological analysis of the structure of conscious, voluntary activity and was
linked with the research which has been continuing for many years on the role of the
frontal lobes of the brain in the organization of man's active behaviour. We have
already referred to the vital importance in philosophy and psycho-logy of the question of
the mechanisms underlying active, voluntary human activity, and to the fact that
Soviet psychology has attempted to solve this question by tracing the process of
formation of the regulatory function of speech
81
The frontal lobes are an essential mechanism which ensures that the general active
state of the brain brought about by a spoken instruction may be altered in the child.
All this research has led us to study the role played by the frontal lobes of the
human brain in this process. Clinical observations have for a long time shown that
the frontal lobes, which are the youngest section of the brain and in human
beings account for almost one-third of the cerebral hemispheres, are closely
linked with the orga-nization of men's voluntary, programmed activity, this activity
being determined by complex, conscious motives. Although major lesions of the
frontal lobes do not impair sensitivity and movement, and have no effect on the
phonetic and grammatical aspects of speech, they do disturb the regulatory
function of speech which, as we have seen, becomes apparent in the child at the
age of 3—3i years. This fact was taken as the basis for a series of observations and
experiments which occupied an entire research team, under the guidance of myself
and my colleague E. D. Homskaja, for more than twenty years; the results are
embodied in a number of publications, including two of my own works—Vyssie
Korkovye Funkcii Celoveka (Higher Cortical Functions in Man) (Russian edition
1962 and 1969, published in English in 1966, German in 1970, French in
1972); Mozg Celoveka i Psihiceskie Processy CThe Human Brain and Mental
Processes) (Vol. I, 1963, English edition 1966; Vol. H, 1970)—and a large work
published jointly with E. D. Homskaja, Lobnye Doli i Reguljacija Psihiceskih
Processov (The Frontal Lobes and Regulation of Mental Processes) (1966). I also
gave a brief account of them in my lecture to the nineteenth International Congress
of Psychology (London) on 'The Origin and Cerebral Organization of Conscious
Processes', which has already been mentioned. The main feature of this research
was the discovery that the frontal lobes are an essential mechanism which
ensures that the general active state of the brain brought about by a spoken
instruction may be altered, and that when the frontal lobes suffer lesions, mental
activity cannot be activated in this way by means of speech, see Mozg i
Aktivacija (The Brain and Activation) by E. D. Homskaja, Moscow, 1972. The
second conclusion to be drawn from this research is that major lesions of the
brain's frontal lobes considerably reduce the level of organization of purposeful
activity and render it impossible for the behaviour of the individual concerned to
be made to comply with programmes formulated by means of speech. The
determination of the role of the frontal lobes as a cerebral mechanism responsible for
the socially conditioned organization of man's purposeful and active behaviour is
one of the important discoveries preparing the way for the solution of one of the
major problems of the scientific psychology of human behaviour. The further
analysis of the role of the frontal lobes in complex forms of intellectual
activity, described in a book published jointly by my colleague L. S. Cvetkova
and myself entitled Nejropsihologiceskij Analiz ReSenija Zadac
82
(A Neuropsychological Analysis of Problem-Solving) (Russian edition 1966, French
edition 1967), and more detailed investigation of the role of particular parts of the
frontal lobes in the structure of conscious activity, are problems on which I have
continued to work in recent years. I have devoted many years to research on the
cerebral mechanisms of speech and conscious activity. A considerable problem
persisted, however, which my colleagues and I have investigated only in recent
years: that of analysing the cerebral mechanisms of memory and closely related
conscious processes. The investigation of this problem compelled me to move away
from an analysis of the functions of external (convex) brain areas to the functions of
its internal (medial) areas which are closely associated with the function of the
upper parts of the brain stem (midbrain and its connexions). Observations carried out over
a number of years have shown that lesions of external (convex) brain areas may lead to
the impairment of particular cognitive forms of activity, speech and the structure of
human activities, but never give rise to disturbances of over-all memory, space
orientation and consciousness. However, such distur-bances may easily result from
lesions of the internal (medial) areas of the brain or the limbic area and their connexions
with the upper parts of the brain stem. These facts are understandable in the light of
recent research on the precise morphology of the brain which has shown the specific
role of the neurons of the hippocampus and the caudate nucleus in distinguishing
particular signals from the traces of previous stimuli, and in view of physiological
research on the role of the reticular formation, and they induced my colleagues and
myself to begin a new series of investigations which are summarized in my most
recent books : Rasstrojstva Pamjati v Klinike Anevrizma Perednej SoediniteVnoj Arterii
(Disturbances of the Memory in the Clinical Treatment of Aneurism of the Front
Connective Artery) (1970), written jointly with A. N. Konovalov and A. Ja.
Podgornaja, and Nejropsihologija Pamjati (Neuropsychology of Memory) (1973). The
results of this research have shown that man's mnesic activity (memory) is intimately
linked with the areas of the brain just referred to and that a lesion in these areas brings
about a general memory impairment, rather than partial impairment of any one mnesic
faculty (auditory, visual, motor) ; they also show that the main physiological
mechanism of such lesions is increased inhibition of impulses by extraneous
(interference) stimuli. This experimental research conducted by myself and fellow
scientists (N. K. Kijascenko et al.) has provided new methods for analysing the
structure of the memory disturbance associated with pathological brain conditions and
distinguishing the various ways in which the retention and recollection of infor-mation
are impeded in cases where an active recollection of the past is seriously impaired and
when various physiological mechanisms play a part in this impair-
The long road of a Soviet psychologist
83
ment: increased inhibition of impulses by interference stimuli, pathological inertia of
impulses once they have occured with the result that they inhibit the activation of
previous impulses, and so forth. My colleagues and I are continuing this research
which, it is hoped, will open up new prospects in the study of the psychological
structure of the cerebral mechanisms of consciousness and in the development of
a new branch of science —'neurolinguistics'—to which I have already referred and an
extremely important aspect of which is the analysis of the various types of
disturbances that impair the retention of particular elements of spoken information.
The latter problem is the subject of my book Osnovnye Problemy Nejroling-vistiki
(Fundamental Problems of Neurolinguistics) now being prepared for publication,
and of current research to which I do not yet think it advisable to refer in
detail. The problems referred to mark the end of the series of projects representing
my contribution to the development of neuropsychology. The major publications
summarizing my results in this field have already been mentioned and are Higher
Cortical Functions in Man and Osnovj Nejropsi-hologii (English edition entitled The
Working Brain) which has just been published. These works are among those which
have firmly established neuropsychology in the theory and practice of contemporary
teaching on human brain functions and they represent an attempt to bring together
the social and natural sciences and to show the social nature of brain functions in
man, which I consider to be one of the most important aspects of this branch of
science. This account of my scientific progress here would be incomplete if I
failed to refer, at least very briefly, to the most recent aspect of my work, which
is totally unrelated to neuropsychology but which may develop into an extremely
impor-tant project falling wholly within the province of the social sciences. Even
before the death of L. S. Vygotskij, scientific psychology faced a problem, the
vital importance of which could scarcely be exaggerated. It was necess-ary to make a
fundamental reappraisal of the main tenets of psychology and to show that its basic
concepts are not immutable features of the natural or intellectual universe but
change as society develops and are socio-historical in character. This problem,
which had already been raised by L. S. Vygotskij, merits special attention. For
centuries it was tacitly accepted that the main psychological pro-cesses—
perception and memory, association and ratiocination—were universal categories,
inherent in either the spiritual or the natural order, but in any event independent of
social history. Is this correct? Are not the fundamental mental categories that have
evol-ved historically processes in the same way as all the other processes of
social history? Should we not suppose, in accordance with the postulate of
Marx,
84
Real logical categories depend on the specific forms of man's social activity and the
basic patterns of human thought alter in accordance with changes in the basic forms
of this activity that 'there is only one science, the science of history', that in the
successive stages of a society's development, not only the content but also the
form of cognitive processes changes and that the very logic of human thought is
the product of social and historical development? At the beginning of the 1930s,
when these questions were first raised in Soviet psychology, science had witnessed
only one attempt to cast doubt on the universal nature of logical categories and this
had been made by the French sociologist Lévy-Bruhl who tended to think that
thought develops not from specific experience (in particular, experience of
creative work) but from the magical (mystical) relation of man to reality. This
attempt was naturally considered by Soviet psychologists at that time to be as
unconvincing as the belief in the universality and immutability of all mental
categories. Accordingly, L. S. Vygotskij and I decided as early as the very beginning
of the 1930s that we would attempt to demonstrate by scientific observation that
both concepts were erroneous and to substantiate the view that real logical categories
depend on the specific forms of man's social activity and that the basic patterns
of human thought alter in accordance with changes in the basic forms of this
activity. The period during which our psychological observations were made was
ideally suited to this problem. A radical reorganization of the fundamental
economic structures of the outlying areas of the Soviet Union was taking place,
involving the transition from a system of subsistence farming to more complex
economic practices and gradual collectivization. In regard to culture, this period saw
the elimination of illiteracy, which brought about a real cultural revolution. All this
encouraged us to undertake an experiment in social psychology aimed at studying
the changes in fundamental logical operations that were taking place against the
background of these social developments and discovering the relation of the real
forms of human thought to specific historical conditions. Such an attempt was
made by myself and my colleagues in 1930/31—forty years ago—in the course of
a special expedition to the outlying areas of Central Asia; owing to circumstances
outside my control and relating, in particular to my main field of research—
neuropsychology—the results of this research were only drawn up forty years later
and the first data were not published until 1971, in a collection of articles entitled
Istorija i Psihologija (History and Psychology) and in the International Journal of
Psychology; the main book summarizing these data, Ob Istoriceskom
Formirovanii PoznavateVnyh Processov (On the Historical Formation of Cognitive
Processes), is only now being prepared for publication. The work carried out by
myself and a large number of colleagues included more than thirty experimental
research projects and its main aim was to show how fundamental cognitive
operations in fact take place under various historical
85
conditions and at various stages of social and cultural development. It therefore took
the form of a comparative analysis of inhabitants of distant areas leading a
secluded agricultural type of life, individuals who were already engaged in
collective farming and were not totally illiterate, and individuals with a relatively
extensive experience of active community life and a certain amount of education.
They all belonged to the same ethnic group but the level of their community life
and education varied. This research began with an analysis of extremely simple
generalization operations (classification of objects and their inclusion in a single
general category) ; a thorough investigation of logical deduction and reasoning
operations and a study of the structure of perceptive activity and modes of memory
were then carried out and, finally, a study was made of the powers of imagination
and conscious self-analysis. This enabled phenomena to be described which, even in
the light of compa-rative research ('cross-cultural studies') undertaken on a large
scale only much later, are of undoubted value. As we have already pointed out, it
is generally held in psychology that the process of generalization or classification
of objects into simple general categories reflects the universal characteristics of
logical thought and conforms to the same laws in the case of every adult. It
seemed reasonable to suppose that if an adult was asked to single out from four
pictures representing a saw, an axe, a spade and a log, three which belong to a
single category and which can be referred to by a single term, the first three would
be classified as 'tools' and the last, representing a 'material', would be viewed as
the exception. This operation was carried out with ease by those subjects who
were most culturally developed but could not be done by the group of individuals
who lived under the most backward economic conditions and had remained
illiterate. They grouped together 'log, saw and axe' as these were used in the same
practical situation ('a log must be cut with a saw and chopped up with an axe') and
excluded the spade 'the spade is used for a completely different purpose, it is not
required here'. A practical operation—identification with a common action situation—
here replaced the theoretical operation : classification under a general abstract category.
This basic phenomenon had a decisive effect on all the other cognitive operations.
This group of subjects had difficulty in making a logical deduction from a given
premise : if the premise related to their practical experience, the deduction was
made without any difficulty, although more often by reconstruct-ing the visual
situation than by discursive reasoning; if the premise was unrelated to their practical
experience, they refused to make any logical deductions what-soever and said: *I
have never met this, I am not qualified to talk about it, ask people who are
acquainted with it'. More complex discursive operations were tackled in the same
way and this provided a convincing demonstration of the fact that the fundamental
structure of thought in these individuals was
86
The psychological laws governing cognitive processes are not universal and
unchanging; not only the content but also the forms of cognitive activity are the
product of social and historical development determined by laws of specific practical
experience and not by laws governing abstract logical operations. When we turned
to the study of the second group—people from the same background but who had
learned to read, taken six-month short courses and embarked on life in a
collective setting, where each step is planned on the basis of joint discussion—the
picture changed radically and all the operations which had appeared senseless and
therefore beyond the grasp of the individuals in the first group could now be
carried out without any difficulty. Similar results were obtained from our research
on perception and imagination, which at the initial stages related to specific
practical experience and only later moved beyond the limits of that experience,
and from our analysis of the evolution of individual self-awareness, power of
self-criticism and so forth. Although it is difficult to present the results of this
research in a very concise form, it did demonstrate a fundamental point: the
psychological laws governing cognitive processes are not universal and unchanging;
not only the content but also the forms of cognitive activity are the product of social
and historical develop-ment, the whole course of which dictates that at the initial
stages these forms fall within the limits of specific practical experience (and
represent the laws of practical thought) and subsequently move beyond these limits
and gradually develop to form the processes of theoretical thought, which has its
own rules and develops in accordance with its own laws. Even the processes
of self-realization, which for Descartes formed the basis of all mental activity, are in
fact the product of social and historical development and should be regarded not as the
beginning but rather as the end of a complex social and historical process. The
analysis of the historical formation of fundamental psychological categories
appears to us to be one of the basic principles of psychology and it is to be
hoped that a reappraisal of psychology from this standpoint and the
establishment of psychology as an historical science will be one of the main
features of its further development. We have given a brief survey of the long road
that has been covered and experience a feeling that will be readily recognizable to
everyone who tries to look at the past in order to obtain a better understanding
of prospects for the future. Many vital questions have been raised in psychology
over the last fifty years and it has been realized that many of the branches of
psychology call for radical reorganization. But to realize this is merely to understand
how very little has so far been achieved and to comprehend the vastness of the
unknown terri-tory that lies ahead. [Translated from Russian]