Vygotsky vs Reality: Evidence Supporting/Contradicting Claims on Mind

[Pythagorean]

The opposing view: Interesting study, but I'm not sure why they did it on adults. How did they control for learning? They talk about the children, but they haven't actually raised a child on the "Verblog" language then ran the experiment on the adult result. That would have been a more appropriate control.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/05/110513112256.htm

@apeiron:

Is Vygotsky's position no different than the weak version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis?

Are you saying that language is entirely a preadaptation (or equivalently to this conversation, exaptation?)

 

[apeiron]

The opposing view: Interesting study, but I'm not sure why they did it on adults. How did they control for learning? They talk about the children, but they haven't actually raised a child on the "Verblog" language then ran the experiment on the adult result. That would have been a more appropriate control.

Not sure what this opposes. Is it surprising that an irregular grammatical structure with contradictory rules is harder to learn than a regular grammar with a single rule to learn and remember?

Is Vygotsky's position no different than the weak version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis?

Are you saying that language is entirely a preadaptation (or equivalently to this conversation, exaptation?)

Vygotsky goes beyond the simple-minded antimonies of the blank slate and hardwired camps. So I wouldn't call it a weak version of Sapir-Whorf. Just as I wouldn't call it a weak version of Chomskianism.

 

[Pythagorean]

I took the article to be a hard Chomskian view.

 

[apeiron]

I took the article to be a hard Chomskian view.

That's a risk you take citing university publicity departments rather than research papers . They have an interest in making papers seem ground-breaking when they aren't.

 

[apeiron]

Is Vygotsky's position no different than the weak version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis?

I should add that Vygotksy goes beyond because Whorf was not claiming that language and socio-cultural evolution were the basis of higher human mental abilities. He didn't say they led to self-awareness, recollective memory, introspection, voluntary imagery, etc. So Vygotsky's is the broader theory.

 

[fuzzyfelt]

How is Vygotsky broader in this instance? The ideas here seem more narrow.

 

[apeiron]

How is Vygotsky broader in this instance? The ideas here seem more narrow.

Broader in the sense in that he suggests a single (so yes, narrower) mechanism that explains all the higher faculties.