[Xmca-l] Re: Why Computers Make So Little Difference

Thu Mar 12 10:48:29 PDT 2015

Well, I can't say I know as much as Mike thinks I know, but I did write an article on Psych of Art (attached). If anyone's interested, I've got several studies of US high school students interpreting Shakespeare plays (mostly Hamlet, for some reason) via spoken word poetry and art. My website's in transition to a new platform so the listings on my online c.v. I think produce dead links, but meantime I'd be happy to send anyone copies (inquire off-list please). Probably available here too: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Peter_Smagorinsky

-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of mike cole
Sent: Thursday, March 12, 2015 1:09 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Why Computers Make So Little Difference

Great that you dug out that connection, Henry, which I have thought of recently, but not gone back to. The links of LSV to the arts cannot be overestimated, which is why some of us are drawn to the use of the dramatic metaphor as a way of raising the concept of "activity" to a level that goes beyond what David has termed vulgar AT by providing a way to think about the "grammar" of joint mediated activities the affords productive instances of rising to the concrete..... by which I mean that using the metaphor in a manner analogous to the way that Yrjo's triangle is used it provides clear example of theoretically important principles-in-action.

Note that Yrjo has written on this topic in his earlier work, and works of fiction remain important in his thinking, as in his approach to development-as-breaking away."

David, Peter, and others know more about LSV and art than I do, but with respect to that part of LSV's thinking that invokes drama, I have have found connecting his ideas to those of the symbolic interactionists, particularly Kenneth Burke, helpful. Jim Wertsch has also written along these lines.

One nice thing about a Communication Dept that combines social sciences, humanities, and arts, is that performance is recognized, albeit implicitly as an essential aspect of human communication in general, not just when an event is conventionally marked as "a performance." In this sense, a Vygotskian perspective is in line with current research on "enactive perception."

Incidentally, the article that you-all have chosen to discuss is all about performance and literacy. We are working to get it posted.
mike

mike

On Thu, Mar 12, 2015 at 9:48 AM, HENRY SHONERD <hshonerd@gmail.com> wrote:

> Thank you, Mike,
> I looked into Vasiluk and found the following response on XMCA in 
> November
> 2007 to you from Yordanka Valkanova on the meaning of “perezhivanie”:
>
> "An analogous discussion to ours has taken place among the translators 
> of Stanislavsky's works. Stanislavsky considered perezhivanie as a 
> main concept of his system. He used the term in a different sense. He 
> referred to the actor's 'living the role', or experiencing being the 
> other and feeling the emotions of this other as his/her own. Although 
> the meaning of Stanislavsky's perezhivanie is in a way distant from 
> Vygotsky's concept, the discussion around its translation illustrates 
> how difficult it is to express the meaning of this old Slavonic word 
> into English.”
>
> I find all of the connections between Vygotsky and performance to be 
> very interesting. Perizhivanie definitely has the sense of 
> performance. And a unity of an external act and an internal thinking/feeling.
>
> Henry
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Mar 12, 2015, at 10:24 AM, mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu> wrote:
> >
> > Your query, Henry, returns us to the discussion of LSV's article on 
> > the environment from a couple of months ago and the concept of 
> > perezhivanie, the translation of which several experts are certain 
> > they know the proper interpretation. Unfortunately, they are not in 
> > agreement. (This is true
> of
> > both Russian and English-writing scholars within and between 
> > language/culture communities)
> >
> > Vasiliuk's book, "The psychology of experiencing" is floating around 
> > in
> pdf
> > form somewhere. His focus there is on perezhivanie. More recently he 
> > has been focused on this concept with respect to psychotherapy. I 
> > believe
> this
> > work is being translated now, and is about to appear in English, but 
> > am
> not
> > sure.
> >
> > mike
> >
> > On Thu, Mar 12, 2015 at 9:05 AM, HENRY SHONERD <hshonerd@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> >> Hi Too,
> >> Annalisa has spilled some virtual ink pondering affect and feeling. 
> >> I
> have
> >> struggled with the same issue. Andy, through Academia, has just 
> >> made available his article. “The Germ Cell of Vygotsky’s Science”, 
> >> from which the following quote:
> >>
> >> "In each of the areas of psychological research into which Vygotsky
> went,
> >> his aim was to establish a unit of analysis. He was not always
> successful,
> >> and for example, his study of the emotions failed to arrive at a 
> >> unit of analysis before his death in 1934.”
> >>
> >> How and why did Vygotsky fail? This question may be off-thread, or not.
> >>
> >> Henry
> >>
> >> P.S. Annalisa, you use the term “repair”. Could you explain how 
> >> that
> fits
> >> with affect and feeling?
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>> On Mar 11, 2015, at 5:58 PM, Annalisa Aguilar <annalisa@unm.edu>
> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Hi,
> >>>
> >>> These examples of tape recorders in language labs verses automated
> >> recordings on buses seem to say a lot about contexts to me. 
> >> Specifically environments (which include subject-objects, 
> >> object-subjects, subjects,
> and
> >> objects).
> >>>
> >>> But ALSO not just environments and others: Affects and feelings 
> >>> and
> >> motivations, *too*.
> >>>
> >>> That all of these are exceptionally important to take into
> consideration
> >> when reading, listening, judging, and comparing, and then writing.
> >> Sometimes we skip steps, not intentionally, but also, not all the time.
> >>>
> >>> (I am learning about affects lately, thanks to a book Paul Mocombe
> >> recommended, BTW)
> >>>
> >>> Apparently an affect is like a wordless feeling; Something coming 
> >>> from
> >> the environment (which can be from another person or people, though 
> >> I wonder if it's possible just from the environment without people, 
> >> as
> well).
> >> Affect seems to be something unconscious. Feeling, however is more 
> >> concrete, and therefore more conscious, and thus seated within our
> embodied
> >> experience in a different way than affect is embodied, whereby for 
> >> a feeling, the affect has been transformed into a thought, but not 
> >> a
> thought
> >> in the sense of a cerebral-thought, but a feeling-thought.
> Unfortunately my
> >> vocabulary fails me here.
> >>>
> >>> Hence: Affect + Transformation into thought = Feeling
> >>>
> >>> Trouble arises when affect isn't transformed. Perhaps tool use 
> >>> (such as
> >> when speaking or writing or reading, or baking lasagna, running, 
> >> raking leaves, playing the saxophone) assists in this transformation.
> >>>
> >>> I can't help but include in this concept in this thread about the
> impact
> >> of computers. That much of the profile of computer usage, just like
> other
> >> tools, is how they transmit emotion to us, and how do we know (with
> >> certainty) what is authentic emotion in something like an email or 
> >> a
> list
> >> serve post?
> >>>
> >>> Posts on listservs are not just words.
> >>>
> >>> Something does convey even if the sense is a shattered or muffled
> sense.
> >> What is lacking in the profile of this tool called a computer, is 
> >> the
> means
> >> of repair that is usually done in the world without computers in 
> >> the middle. Likely because there is not a stable context or 
> >> environment in which to do that. Particularly where people are in different timezones.
> >>>
> >>> This feature is absent from the printing press and distribution of
> >> books, because the feedback loop was entirely different with many 
> >> gatekeepers. Computers attached to a network has little friction
> (compared
> >> to 1400 transmissions of words in books).
> >>>
> >>> Even we see something similar in the cameras as apparatus 
> >>> (apparati?) A
> >> large format camera takes an entirely different photograph from a 
> >> 35mm camera from a 2-¼ format camera. This has to do with lenses, 
> >> f-stops,
> film
> >> speed, whether a tripod is required or not. One really understands 
> >> this concept after using different cameras. The comparison can be 
> >> made for
> those
> >> of us who used Instamatics and now use an iPhone to take pictures, 
> >> so I don't mean to privilege this to only committed photogs.
> >>>
> >>> Since computers and the manner that they transmit affect and 
> >>> feeling
> can
> >> have such an impact on so many people, I'm not sure how that 
> >> doesn't
> make a
> >> difference.
> >>>
> >>> Certainly, television has made a difference to us. It fired all 
> >>> the
> >> babysitters for example. Now the televisions are being fired in 
> >> favor of video games, youTube, and other various preoccupations on 
> >> the digital
> wave.
> >>>
> >>> Some researchers are saying that kids brains are being rewired 
> >>> from
> this
> >> ubiquitous use of computers. I'm not sure how I feel about that, 
> >> but it does seem that kids take to playing with them in an easier 
> >> fashion than their parents.
> >>>
> >>> I don't think we can therefore isolate words from our experience, 
> >>> but
> as
> >> you point out David, they that must be contextualized in the wider
> world. I
> >> am reading that as what you are saying.
> >>>
> >>> Of course I may have misunderstood your affect, feelings, and
> >> motivations, or you may also misunderstand mine.
> >>>
> >>> And so we cast ourselves into the void and hope for the best, 
> >>> giving
> the
> >> other the benefit of the doubt.
> >>>
> >>> We hope.
> >>>
> >>> Kind regards,
> >>>
> >>> Annalisa
> >>>
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> > --
> > It is the dilemma of psychology to deal as a natural science with an
> object
> > that creates history. Ernst Boesch.
>
>

--
It is the dilemma of psychology to deal as a natural science with an object that creates history. Ernst Boesch.
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