MCA ABSTRACTS 11(4)
Is Memory in the Brain? Remembering as Social Behavior
David Manier
Lehman College—City University of New York
As many experimental psychologists and neuroscientists conceive of it, memory
can be thought of as having a “home, even if still a hidden one, in the
brain” (Tulving, 2002, p. 20). Such a way of conceiving of memory has
led to valuable research (see Gazzaniga, 1995), but also to the neglect of
important aspects of remembering as it takes place in sociocultural contexts.
This article reviews historical and contemporary accounts that look at memory
as a faculty located in the brain. It then sets forth the argument that communicative
acts (such as those that take place in the writing of narratives and in conversations
between family members) must be studied, if the scientific account of memory
is to be comprehensive (see Manier, 1997; Manier, Pinner, & Hirst, 1996;
Middleton & Edwards, 1990).
Imagination as Joint Activity: The Case of Architectural Interaction1
Keith M. Murphy
University of California, Los Angeles
This paper draws from the insights offered by discourse analysis and the
study of gesture to examine imagination as a product of, and resource for,
social action. Using data collected during ethnographic fieldwork at an architecture
firm, the paper explores how imagining can emerge from a group of interactants
who use many semiotic media, including talk, gestures, and drawings, to imagine
something together. Following the groundwork laid by Benedict Spinoza, this
perspective moves the “object” of imagination out of the brain,
away from mental imagery and into the space in which shared activities take
place. Such a move has implications for rethinking imagination in terms of
communicative interaction and social activity.
Generalizing in Interaction: Middle School Mathematics Students Making Mathematical
Generalizations in a Population-Modeling Project
A. Susan Jurow
University of Colorado, Boulder
Generalizing or making claims that extend beyond particular situations is
a central mathematical practice and a focus of classroom mathematics instruction.
This study examines how aspects of generality are produced through the situated
activities of a group of middle school mathematics students working on an
8-week population-modeling project. The project involved creating and analyzing
mathematical models of population growth. Two classroom episodes are presented
that focus on students’ activities across curricular tasks in which they
discuss the category of sensible models of population growth and describe
a pattern of guppy population growth in a natural environment. Participation
frameworks introduced in the context of the episodes describe how students
compare situations to determine if they belong to the same general category
and predict and justify the behavior of modeled phenomena. The analysis suggests
that mathematical generalizing is the outcome of processes distributed across
students, tasks, embodied activity, and modeling tools.