SUBBOTSKY, E. Vygotsky's distinction between lower and higher mental functions and recent studies on infant cognitive development

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Vygotsky's Distinction Between Lower and Higher Mental Functions and Recent 
Studies on Infant Cognitive Development 
EUGENE SUBBOTSKY 
Psychology Department, University of Lancaster, 
Lancaster LA1 4YF, UK 
One of the major theoretical advances of Vygotsky's approach to cognitive development 
was his thesis that human mental functions were social in origins. In making this claim, 
Vygotsky was confronted with the difficulty to reconciliate it with the existing fact that 
newborn infants already possess certain mental functions. Vygotsky's answer to the 
problem was the introduction of an important distinction between lower mental functions 
(LMF's) and higher mental functions (HMF's) (Vygotsky, 1983). 
The relationships between the two in Vygotsky's theory was not strictly determined. In 
some cases LMF can be a prerequisite for the development of an appropriate HMF (i.e., 
unmediated memory can be developed in mediated and voluntarily controlled memory), 
in other cases HMF's exist in the intersubjective form and are merely learned by the child 
in the process of education and shared activities (i.e., writing or reading skills). In both 
cases Vygotsky applied Hegelian developmental scheme to the development of cognitive 
skills, according to which any cognitive function goes through three major stages, in 
which it exists at first 'in itself', then 'for others' and finally 'for itself.' 
For example, Vygotsky portrayed the development of an indicatory gesture in infancy as 
a series of stages (Vygotsky, 1983, pp.143-144). In the beginning it is just an unsuccessful 
grasping movement directed towards a desired object. As such this is not yet an 
indication, but it can acquire the meaning if interpreted appropriately by the child's 
caregivers. At this stage the grasping movement becomes mediated by the social 
environment and acquires a social meaning 'help me to get this' which is quickly absorbed 
by the child who begins to use it both for the purpose of communication with the 
caregivers and for achieving his or her practical goals. While doing this, the child can still 
be unaware of the fact that he or she is exploiting the gesture as a social signal. Still later 
(my interpretation of Vygotsky's text) this 'gesture-forothers' can become a kind of a 'tool' 
by which the child would exercise control over his or her own actions and behaviour, for 
instance, in order to pinpoint a certain fragment of a picture and concentrate his or her 
attention on it. This time the child is fully aware that what he or she is doing with his or 
her forefinger (or whatever may substitute for it) is a special act designed not to let his or 
her attention to wander around the picture but to stick to a certain elected point. This is 
the stage when the indicatory gesture exists 'for itself' or, strictly speaking, for the child 
who utilises it being at the same time fully aware of that. 
On a more broad scale, the development of human mental functions is viewed by 
Vygotsky as their transition from their original lower mental functions form into higher 
mental functions form, with differences between the two being drawn along four major 
criteria: origins, structure, the way of functioning and the relation to other mental 
functions. By origins, most lower mental functions are genetically inherited, by structure 
they are unmediated, by functioning they are involuntary, and with regard to their relation 
to other mental functions they are isolated individual mental units. In contrast, a higher 
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mental function is socially acquired, mediated by social meanings, voluntarily controlled 
and exists as a link in a broad system of functions rather than as an individual unit. 
However, even in Vygotsky's time there existed some experimental data that posed 
difficulties for this kind of developmental approach. One of the most extraordinary claims 
was made by Gestalt-psychologists; according to this claim, some universal structural 
laws are innate for human perception. These laws (like the 'law of common fate') are not 
acquired through learning; rather, they are present in the infant from birth and do not 
change with age. In particular, Folkelt suggested that infant's perception from birth had 
structural and 'orthoscopic' character (the implication of this claim was, for instance, that 
infants' possess the inherent capacity to the constancy of perception). 
No wonder that Vygotsky (1982) was strongly opposed to this view. His major objection 
was theoretically, rather then empirically, based: if infants have an inherent capacity to 
the constancy of perception, then where are we to find the development? In other words, 
if the final stage of perceptual development is present from the outset, the concept of 
development becomes superfluous. Searching for evidence to back his claim Vygotsky 
addressed Helmgoltz's early memories from his childhood in which he suggested that 
orthoscopic perception was not inborn but had to develop through experience. Although 
Vygotsky himself qualified the Helmgoltz's report as a shaky evidence he, nevertheless, 
accepted it as one of the proofs in favour of the assumption of the acquired nature of 
orthoscopic perception. 
Yet recent developments in infancy studies have demonstrated the striking perfection of 
infant's perception. Let us mention but a few of them: Bower (1979) reported the data 
suggesting that 3-week-old infants reveal certain 'understanding' of the 'law of common 
fate'; Slater, Morrison & Rose (1982) found newborns to be able to distinguish between 
main archetypical figures (like a cross and a circle); Gibson & Walker (1984) 
demonstrated that 1-month-old infants were able to perceive consistence (rigid vs. elastic) 
and to transfer the information of object consistence from tactile into visual modality; 
again, Bower (1979) and later Slater & Morrison (1985) found that 8- weeks-old and 
newborn infants could perceive objects as constant in shape; Baillargeon (1987) 
established that 3 1/2 - and 4 1/2-month- old could 'understand' some physical properties 
of a solid body such as its impermeability for another solid body. Conclusion that follows 
from this is rather obvious: infants and even neonates do possess understanding of object 
constancy and other qualities comparable in complexity with higher mental functions. 
So, was Vygotsky wrong in his denial that young infants could possibly possess such 
complex psychological abilities as, for instance, the capacity to perceive an object as 
constant in shape or size? The affirmative answer, which seems inevitable, can not, 
however, be given but with serious reservations. 
Firstly, the way the infants' early capacities are presented and discussed by many authors 
provokes questions. A characteristic feature of most of recent accounts on the problem is 
that the infants' early cognitive skills are portrayed in exactly the same terms as are similar 
capacities in adults: for instance, the infants are supposed to be able to 'infer' that a 
physical object without a support would fall down rather than hang in the air, they can 
'understand' that a solid object can not go through another solid object, they are able to 
'appreciate' object permanence or object constancy, and so on. It is not that the qualitative 
difference between psychological functions of infants and those of adults is openly 
denied; rather, it is taken for granted that either these differences do not extend to cover 
the capacities in question or they are not really important. In a result, the question about 
what exactly distinguishes, for instance, the 5-months-old infant's behaviour testifying 
that the infant can understand object permanence froma similar behaviour of an adult 
person is very rarely asked, and when it is asked the usual answer is that the difference is 
nothing but a scope of applicability of the cognitive skill: if an infant can apply the 
permanence rule to a limited number of cases, an adult person is able to generalize the 
rule to a much larger number of observable physical events. In other words, a careful 
reading discovers that the development of cognitive skills is indeed interpreted by many 
as a quantitative perfection of the early acquired (or genetically transmitted) capacity 
rather than a series of qualitative changes that the capacity has to go through in order to 
reach its higher stage. Therefore, despite the fact that the Vygotsky's answer may have 
been wrong, his question was correct: indeed, where is (and what is) cognitive 
development if major psychological capacities in their almost completed form are here in 
the first few months of life? 
Secondly, if we look at the potential content of the Vygotsky's answer, rather then at it's 
literally meaning, we can see that it was rather contradictive. On the one hand, Vygotsky 
denied the inherent character of the constancy of size on the ground that it was an 
internally complex psychological quality and hence it must be a socially formed quality. 
On the other hand, if we look at the criteria that distinguish LMF's from HMF's, we won't 
find the internal complexity among them. Indeed, as it was already noted, in contrast to 
LMF's which are inherent, involuntary, unmediated and isolated one from another, HMF's 
are socially created, voluntarily controlled, semiotically mediated and united in systems 
with other functions. Clearly, there is no claim here from which it would follow that LMF 
has to lack the internal complexity and perfection which is normally attributed to adults, 
but not to newborns and young infants. 
Taking this into consideration and ignoring Vygotsky's misleading, although sincere, 
disbelief in the possibility of inherent and genetically transmitted complex mental 
function, we can assume that Vygotsky's distinction between LMF's and HMF's still has 
something to offer to the recent findings in infancy studies. Clearly, the extraordinary 
capacities of infants that are now being displayed in a growing number of studies, 
although complex, are still LMF's and have to go through the route of development 
(becoming semiotically mediated, voluntarily controlled, and united in systems with other 
mental functions) that so ingeniously was outlined by Vygotsky. 
References. 
Baillargeon, R. (1987). Object permanence in 3 1/2- and 4 1/2-month-old infants. 
Developmental Psychology, 23, 655-64 
Bower, T.G.R. (1974). Development in infancy. San Francisco: Freeman. 
Gibson, E.J and Walker, A.S. (1984). Development of knowledge of visual-tactual 
affordances of substance. Child Development, 55, 453-60 
Slater, A. M. and Morison, V. (1985). Shape constancy and slant perception at birth. 
Perception, 14, 337- 44. 
Slater, A., Morison, V. and Rose, D. (1982). Visual memory at birth. British Journal of 
Psychology, 73, 519- 25 
Vygotsky, L.S. (1982). Vosprijatie i ego razvitije v detskom vozraste. In Vygotsky, L.S. 
Collected works. In 6 volumes. Vol.2, pp.363-81. Moscow: Pedagogica. 
Vygotsky, L.S. (1983). Istorija razvitija vystchych psykhicheskych functsyj. In Vygotsky, 
L.S. Collected works. In 6 volumes. Vol.3. Moscow: Pedagogica. 
It has to be noted here that psychological capacities like 'constancy of perception' can 
only be viewed as internally complex within the traditional empiricist approach to the 
understanding of the development of mind which mostly has been shared by Vygotsky. 
The claim about the internal complexity can be dropped out within the nativist (or within 
the more recent Gibsonian) view on mental development. 
 
	Vygotsky's Distinction Between Lower and Higher Mental Functions and Recent Studies on Infant Cognitive Development
	EUGENE SUBBOTSKY
	References.