Symbol Formation

H. Werner, B. Kaplan

• Publisher: Psychology Press
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781317768791
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

First published in 1984. The authors' basic aim in this volume has been to set forth a certain perspective on psychological phenomena and to show how this perspective enables one to order and integrate data on symbolization and language behavior—data obtained by a variety of methods and garnered from domains that are too often treated in isolation from each other.

part I
Theory

chapter 1
The Organismic-Developmental Framework

The organismic-developmental framework, though a unitary one, consists of the coordination and integration of two distinct orientations: one organismic-holistic; the other, developmental. The general nature of our framework will perhaps be best understood if we treat the organismic-holistic aspect first and then indicate how the developmental orientation intertwines with the organismic one.

The Organismic-Holistic Orientation

Basic to any organismic approach are two closely related general assumptions concerning the nature of behavior. One of these general assumptions is the holistic one, which maintains that any local organ or activity is dependent upon the context, field, or whole of which it is a constitutive part: its properties and functional significance are, in large measure, determined by this larger whole or context. The second general assumption is that of directiveness: it is assumed that the various organs or activities of an organism function in the realization of ends immanent in the activity of the organism as a whole. These two general assumptions may be briefly elaborated.

The Holistic Assumption

The significance of whole or context in determining the properties and values of parts has been maintained by various philosophers, e.g., Whitehead (229), Smuts (232) and theoretical biologists, e.g., Goldstein (82) and von Bertalanffy (16; 17). In psychology, the holistic notion has been most vigorously introduced and advocated by the various schools of Gestalt psychology.¹ The classic paradigm of the role of the whole in the determination of parts is von Ehrenfels’ demonstration of the relation between tones and melodies. As von Ehrenfels showed, individual tones differing in acoustic properties may be functionally identical in melodic units transposed to a higher or lower pitch level (principle of invariance), but tones identical in isolation may be functionally different in markedly distinct melodic wholes (principle of variance). Since the time of von Ehrenfels, numerous studies in quite different domains of psychology have shown the general validity of the holistic thesis.²

In general, the holistic assumption is opposed to any view that would treat an element (for example, a movement, a momentary experience) as if it possessed a fixed structure and meaning, irrespective of the whole or context of which it is a part. It thus makes one doubt the value of relating, solely on the basis of a material similarity, elements torn from quite different functional contexts.³ For example, it leads one to question the justification of relating the vocalization of animals or even of pre-speech infants to the actual speech sounds of a child. Again it leads one to question the value of identifying two bodily movements before having considered the possibility of different functions which these externally (materially) similar movements may subserve. The rejection of analysis in terms of absolute material similarity does not, of course, entail an opposition to analysis per se: the thesis is that analysis should take into consideration the context, especially the functional significance, of an action. In brief, then, in terms of the organismic-holistic assumption, every behavioral act, whether outward bodily movement or internalized cognitive operation, gains its significance and status in terms of its role in the overall functioning of the organism.

With regard to the holistic assumption, one more point should be made explicit; this pertains to the reciprocal relationship between an organism and its environment: we hold with von Uexküll (255; 257) that the analysis of behavior in its fullest scope should not be directed toward an organism in isolation, but an organism embedded in its own vital field or “Umwelt.”

The Umwelt, however, should neither be confused with nor reduced to the physical-geographical environment: the fact that one may describe an organism’s Umwelt in physical-geographic terms makes it no more a mere geographic-physical environment than would a physical description of an organism or a physical analysis of its movement in space render that organism an exclusively physical entity. The nature of an organism’s Umwelt is, of course, dependent on the physical-geographic environment; but it is to a large extent determined by the “ends” of the organism and by its species-specific and individual apparatus for engaging in transactions with its surroundings.

The Directiveness Assumption

There are some indications of a tendency to reintroduce teleogical conceptions in the analysis and description of behavior,⁴ though the majority of American psychologists are not inclined to accept such notions.⁵ It is our view that, like organismic theory of biology, organismic theory of psychology requires teleological concepts: organismic activity, whether biological or psychological, is by its very nature directed activity. There is, on one hand, the tendency of organisms to conserve their integrity, whether biological or psychological: in the face of variable, and often adverse, external or internal conditions, the organism tends to maintain its existence as an integrated entity. There is, on the other hand, the tendency of organisms to develop towards a relatively mature state: under the widest range of conditions, organisms undergo transformations from the status of relatively little differentiated entities to relatively differentiated and integrated adult forms.

It must be stressed that directiveness should not be understood to imply conscious effort toward an end, so-called “subjective teleology.” Directiveness in the sense of “objective teleology” is an observable characteristic of organismic behavior irrespective of any consciousness of ends on the part of the organism (Hofstadter, 106; 107). Purposive or planning behavior, in particular, should not be confused with directiveness in its generic sense, though it is likely that planning behavior, consciously entertained in human beings, is a specialization of that general directiveness immanent in all organic activity.⁶

In the maintenance and attainment of biological and psychological ends, organisms bring into play built-in and acquired organs and operations. Such apparatus constitutes, collectively, the means by which organisms exploit their milieus in the realization of their ends.

In such realization of ends, organisms may use one rather than another of several available means or may utilize diverse means in a complementary or cooperative way. The use of one rather than another of several potential means may arise either through a free voluntary choice or through conditions wherein the normally preferred means for the attainment of an end is blocked. To illustrate the situation of “free choice,” one may consider a normal adult who in issuing some command, may use speech or gesture. For an example of a situation in which one turns to an alternative means because the normally preferred way is blocked, one may refer to Gelb and Goldstein’s case (74), in which the patient, unable to read written material in a normal manner, utilized tracing movements with his head in order to “read” the material. As an illustration of the complementary use of several means, one may refer to a normal adult’s tendency to combine speech, gesture, facial expression, etc., in order to communicate more effectively.

One must stress the organic relationship between the means and ends of an organism not only by and in itself but also in its relevance for the interaction between the organism and its milieus: on one hand, “means” and “ends” are correlative notions and cannot truly be considered in isolation from each other. On the other hand, an organism “copes” with its milieus by carrying forth its species-specific and individual operations upon that portion of the geographical environment to which its instrumentalities are adequate; it structures the environment into its Umwelt through specific apparatus in the service of its biological and psychological ends. This process of forming one’s Umwelt requires some degree of congruity between means and ends: that is, the ends are formed in relation to the available means and the means undergo formation with respect to the ends to be attained. This interdependence manifests itself with particular clarity in regard to changes in the modes of structuring the environment in the normal course of phylogenesis and human ontogenesis; the reciprocity between mean and ends is also quite clearly observable in the deviant ways of “coming to terms with the environment” (Goldstein) in cases of psychopathology.

Implied in this notion of reciprocity between means and ends is the thesis that changes in means affect the character of the ends, and conversely, changes in ends influence the character of the means. The full importance of this notion, as we shall see, becomes manifest when one examines the developmental changes in means-ends relationships, that is, when one observes the effects that newly emerging goals or ends have on the formation and restructurization of biopsychological equipment and the effects which in turn such newly formed equipment has in the determination of biopsychological ends.⁷

The Developmental Orientation

The organismic-holistic orientation, in our framework, is closely interwoven with a developmental orientation: development is a constitutive moment of organismic functioning. We assume that organisms are naturally directed towards a series of transformations—reflecting a tendency to move from a state of relative globality and undifferentiatedness towards states of increasing differentiation and hierarchic integration. It is this tendency, formulated as “the orthogenetic principle,” which serves for us to characterize development as distinct from other types of change over time.

With regard to these developmental transformations, one of the important issues concerns the much-discussed question whether these changes are continuous or discontinuous. There are some who argue for a pervasive continuity and insist on deriving the new from the old; there are others who believe in a radical discontinuity, in an irreducible emergence of novel means or ends. Our point is that developmental changes necessarily entail both continuity and discontinuity. On the one side, the orthogenetic principle in overall terms, that is, in terms of an increase in differentiation and hierarchic integration, necessarily implies continuity; on the other hand, in terms of the specific, concrete forms and operations, novel functions and structures “emerge,” and in this respect changes are discontinuous. Even in the emergence of novel functions and forms, however, there is, as a rule, an intertwining of continuous and discontinuous changes: though novel features come about by qualitative change, which necessarily implies discontinuity, the manner in which such features emerge may be gradual in various respects, e.g., there may be a gradual increase in the frequency of occurrence of the new over the old, or there may be employment of older forms for new functions before the new functions secure the formation of novel, function-specific means, etc. (Mayr, 162; Werner, 273).

A further issue, of equal importance, concerns the “fate” of the genetically earlier modes of functioning when higher functions and forms have emerged. At least with regard to humans it must be maintained that with the attainment of higher levels, lower levels of functioning are not lost. Under normal circumstances, such lower levels of functioning (both in terms of means and of ends) are subordinated to more advanced levels of functioning; they may come to the fore again under special internal or external conditions, for example, in dream states, in pathological states, under intoxication by certain drugs, or under various experimental conditions. They also, and characteristically, may come to the fore when the organism is confronted with especially difficult and novel tasks: in such cases, one often finds a partial return to more primitive modes of functioning before progressing towards full-fledged higher operations; we may refer to this tendency as a manifestation of the genetic principle of spirality.⁸

The general principle concerning the survival of lower levels of functioning in the course of development has been perhaps no more succinctly expressed than by Hegel in his Lectures on Philosophy of History (99, p. 98): “The life of mind is a totality of levels, which on one hand exist side by side, but which on the other, appear transitorily one after the other. The moments which the mind seems to have left behind actually exist in it at the present time in full depth.”

Let us now turn to a brief examination of the ways in which the developmental principles intertwine with the organismic principles of behavior discussed in the previous section.

Taking first the holistic assumption, that is, the principle pertaining to the determination of local, part processes by larger contexts or wholes, one finds that with development—both in phylogenesis and in human ontogenesis—local activities become more and more interrelated and integrated, that is, come more and more under the control of and the determination by the focal, goal-directed activities of the organism. Concurrently, the nature of the organism-environment transactions undergoes marked changes.

At phylogenetically earlier levels, the milieu impinges upon the organism and to a great extent affects its behavior in the form of physicochemical stimuli—as energies which evoke direct and relatively stereotyped reactions from the organs or parts affected. At higher levels, the environment defined earlier by physicochemical stimulation and reactivity is converted through both species-specific instrumentalities and individually learned patterns of response into a field or fields of stimulus-signs or signals, instigating and guiding sensory-motor, goal-directed actions upon things—actions serving predominantly biological ends of maintaining the existence of individual, group, and species. Finally—and most characteristically and elaborately at the human level—the environment is not only reacted to and acted upon but is cognized, or “known,” in the form of perceptualized and conceptualized objects. Implied in this development, there is an increasing diversification of the milieus or Umwelten in which an organism lives—with the low...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Contents
• Part I Theory
• Part II Ontogenesis
• Section I Precursors and Early Stages of Reference and Depiction
• Section II Development towards an Autonomous Linguistic Medium for Representation of States of Affairs
• Part III The Primordial Handling of the Linguistic Medium in Special States
• Chapter 14 The Physiognomic Apprehension of Language Forms
• Chapter 15 Handling of Linguistic Forms in Dreams
• Chapter 16 Primitivized Handling of the Linguistic Medium in Pathological (Schizophrenic) States1
• Part IV Linguistic Characterization of Objects in External versus Inner Speech
• Chapter 17 Inner versus External Speech in Normal Adults
• Chapter 18 Inner and External Speech in Schizophrenics as Compared with Normals
• Chapter 19 On the Ontogenesis of Symbolic Representation under Different Conditions of Communication: The Differentiation of External and Inner Speech
• Part V Experimental Studies on Symbolization in Nonphonic Media
• Chapter 20 Nonverbal (Linear) Naming in Normal Adults
• Chapter 21 Nonverbal (Linear) Naming in Schizophrenia
• Chapter 22 The Representation of Simple Statements in a Nonverbal Medium
• Chapter 23 The Expression of Time in Nonverbal Media of Representation
• Chapter 24 The Representation of Relations between Thoughts in Nonverbal Media
• Chapter 25 On Linguistic Parallels to Nonverbal (Linear) Representation
• References
• Index