Re: [xmca] MARKED activity within a Dynamic Systems Developmental Model

[Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu>]

Jay,

On the one hand, the "scaffolding" concept is an interesting one to me, because its value seems to stem entirely from its metaphorical character. When Wood, Bruner & Ross coined the term in 1976, in their paper on tutoring, they provided no definition. They introduced the term in the following way:

"More often than not, it [tutoring] involves a kind of 'scaffolding' process that enables a child or novice to solve a
problem, carry out a task or achieve a goal which would be beyond his unassisted efforts. This scaffolding consists essentially of the adult 'controlling' those elements of the task that are initially beyond the learner's capacity, thus permitting him to concentrate upon and complete only those elements that are within his range of competence" (p. 90). This is one of several metaphors in the paper - they write also that "The tutorial function... withers away" (96), and at times they mix their metaphors, as when they write that "scaffolding begins by luring the child into actions that produce recognizable-for-him solutions" (96)., or when they analyze the "functions" of scaffolding in terms of the sequence: "recruitment," "reduction in degrees of freedom," "direction maintenance," "marking critical features," "frustration control," and "demonstration," few of which are things that any of us would imagine that scaffolding -- in the dictionary sense of a temporary platform from which to erect or repair a building -- can actually do. The conclusion of their paper includes the statement that they have been describing "an interactive system of exchange" (99), and makes no mention at all of scaffolding.  

In short, scaffolding functions in their paper solely as an everyday concept, not as a scientific concept. Yet it has evidently stuck in the memory of readers of the article (though why it gets attributed to Vygotsky, who was not even cited in this paper, is another question), presumably because of the graphic image it supplies - even though the image actually runs counter to any proposal that tutoring is "an active system of exchange." 

This is a good example, then, of a concept that is memorable (though perhaps it doesn't explain very much) because of its 'inner image,' its 'sense.' The importance of sense is something Vygotsky returns to repeatedly in T&S, and the persistence of scaffolding could be taken to illustrate his point. 

On the other hand, scaffolding strikes me as completely inadequate as a concept, even as an everyday concept, for the function it is supposed to perform. I completely agree with you that we are trying to understand fluid, dynamic systems. Scaffolding is a static, rigid concept. Scaffolding isn't even a mechanical system, it is merely a mechanical structure. Mechanical systems move through defined states. But they don't do what organic systems do, which is evolve, and grow. What do psychological systems do? They develop, and they are tutored, of course, and we need to find concepts that are adequate to grasp and articulate these processes. 'Tutoring' is itself a psychological-system concept (Bruner was after all an Oxford don at the time) that might be defined in such a way as to have explanatory value. But to try to explain tutoring in terms of scaffolding is to reduce the psychological to the mechanical.

As for eliminating the concept of 'concept,' as you pointed out, concepts are interrelated in complicated ways, and our concept of 'concept' is related to our concept of mind, of thinking, of intelligence, and so on. There is certainly to much 'Cartesian' theorizing, but I don't see that removing one of these concepts is going to make any difference. Certainly not if the plan is to replace it with "thematic node"! We need to work to change the whole structure of generalization, and Vygotsky's approach of, as David K puts it, hollowing other people's concepts out and putting new content in seems to me a far more workable approach. 

Martin

On Apr 10, 2011, at 9:07 PM, Jay Lemke wrote:

> 
> I certainly did not mean "autonomy" to apply to an individual -- not the unit of analysis I was arguing for in any case. I meant it to apply to a practice, a competence, a way of doing something. Something you needed help to do, but which you can now do without that particular sort of help. To do it now you will have substituted some other sort of help, some mediation, that may be externally visible or not. Some little loop in your nervous system, strengthened when you were helped to stand upright by a person, may have been slightly shifted so it operates when you hold on to a chair, or when you feel a certain pushback from the floor beneath your feet, and/or when some other neural loop is activated by imagining the process of getting to your feet, based partly in the neural activations and traces from prior "scaffolded" experiences of doing so. Sometimes I can walk without visible external assistance, other than from the floor! The assisting mediations have been transformed from one sort to another ... and they will likely be transformed yet again when I need a cane or walker, or someone once again to lean on.
> 
> Of course we all grow progressively more interdependent in more complex ways and individual autonomy is an impossibility; we only exist by transacting with our environments. I know what you mean about simplifications of LSV in some American, especially educationist, traditions, but those too have sometimes served some good purpose, for a time being. What's more relevant, the similarities or the differences between "scaffolding" in motor development and supportive dialogue in intellectual development? It depends. Likewise between the relative autonomization or re-mediation of motor skills and the development of "internal" mediations to support higher mental functions? it takes a lot more understanding of intellectual development to support it more effectively than normal social interaction would anyway ... and not much more in the case of normal motor development. So people who push the analogies too far, or make internalization via scaffolding seem too simple, do a disservice to teachers. But the scaffolding language can also, sometimes, be a way-station toward more complex understandings of these processes.
> 
> JAY.
> 
> 
> Jay Lemke
> Senior Research Scientist
> Laboratory for Comparative Human Cognition
> University of California - San Diego
> 9500 Gilman Drive
> La Jolla, California 92093-0506
> 
> Professor (Adjunct status 2009-11)
> School of Education
> University of Michigan
> Ann Arbor, MI 48109
> www.umich.edu/~jaylemke 
> 
> Professor Emeritus
> City University of New York
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Apr 10, 2011, at 6:44 PM, Martin Packer wrote:
> 
>> Jay,
>> 
>> I recently reviewed yet another textbook in which the concept of "scaffolding" was attributed to Vygotksy, and his general genetic law of cultural development explained in term of this - I suppose one must say - concept and the related notion  of internalization. I am a bit surprised to see these notions appearing again here.
>> 
>> As an infant my needs were simple, and I was dependent on one or two people. As an adult, far from it being the case that this dependence has been replaced by autonomy, my dependence is in fact far greater. As a professor my work depends on the administration of a university and the good work of colleagues and support staff, not to mention the willing participation of my students. My ability to eat depends on the labors of those who grow, transport, and market the food, and sometimes on those who cook it. It also depends on the money I earn, which I keep in a bank where it is sustained and either gains or more frequently loses value at the hands of numerous others, whose task it is to guard it, tend it, spend it, invest it, report on it, and return what's left to me. My ability to communicate in this way with the recipients of this message depends on the technical innovations of numerous teams of people, combined with the labors of those who constructed, maintain, repair and improve the communication network. Am I more capable than I was as an infant? Hopefully. Am I more autonomous, less dependent on collaboration with others? Certainly not. I am tied up in an intimate and far-extended network, a system whose smooth functioning renders it transparent and invisible, but that is absolutely essential for my continued identity and existence. My 'individual' capacities remain dependent on this system. Drop me into a place where I don't speak the language and have not practiced the customs, and I am as an infant again, if not worse.
>> 
>> Martin
>> 
>> On Apr 10, 2011, at 7:54 PM, Jay Lemke wrote:
>> 
>>> Larry and all,
>>> 
>>> Interesting issues around dynamical models of development.
>>> 
>>> I have not carefully read this article of 2003, but it develops a theoretical perspective from their 2 volume book(s) of 1993, 1994, which I reviewed:
>>> 
>>> "Self-Organization and Psychological Theory." Review of L.B. Smith & E. Thelen, Eds., A Dynamic Systems Approach to Development. Theory & Psychology, 6(2): 352-356, 1996.
>>> 
>>> I will attach a copy if I can find it, for anyone interested.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> In general I am sympathetic to their project, and at least in the earlier conceptual work, their unit of analysis was NOT the individual, but the individual-in-environment, so that, say, learning to walk was not about an organism developing its inherent capacities, but about say child-and-sand or child-and-pavement or child-and-flooring doing so as a single dynamical system, and doing so differently in each case. Try walking on a waterbed sometime, and you'll see there is a whole new learning that happens, new muscular coordinations, etc. and new ways of selectively perceiving (attuning to?) cues from the push-back of the surface onto the learning-to-walk body. You and the waterbed form a single dynamical system, and your "development" occurs within that system and as a part of its "development".
>>> 
>>> I would have expected that insight to carry over to interdependence on caregivers, so that one had a sort of 2-stage model: a dynamical system of child-plus-caregiver "learning" some behavior or disposition or flexible movement repertoire as a dyad-in-environment (in dynamical theory terms, a new attractor of the joint dynamics is emergent), and then a second stage in which the "scaffolding" by the caregiver "fades" (i.e. is withdrawn, altering the dynamical system, and probably with some residue of caregiver-dependence being shifted onto autonomous mediations, e.g. imaging, remembering how, imagining how it feels to, etc.) and producing a sort of "internalization". The question is WHAT is internalized, or in-corporated? I think we get very different answers to that in different models, depending on how we see what the unit of analysis is, and how it changes. (In a purely physical-mathematical model, the dyad might always be the unit, but it is parametrized to permit more active interdependence or degrees of weaker coupling, and past some threshold, of functional quasi-autonomy.) Individual capacities are produced out of dyadic capacities.
>>> 
>>> As to nesting time, what one really needs to "nest" are processes, each with some characteristic timescale, or range of timescales, or pattern of cross-timescale coordinations. Only in the simplest cases do we get shorter-term processes entirely within longer-term ones. In more complex and typical cases, say for human development, we get patterns of cross-timescale inter-process coordination. But with that proviso, I think nesting timescales/processes is a good first step in many analyses.
>>> 
>>> JAY.
>>> 
>>> PS> For some strange reason the only copy of my review I seem to have is an html version. But here it is, FYI.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Jay Lemke
>>> Senior Research Scientist
>>> Laboratory for Comparative Human Cognition
>>> University of California - San Diego
>>> 9500 Gilman Drive
>>> La Jolla, California 92093-0506
>>> 
>>> Professor (Adjunct status 2009-11)
>>> School of Education
>>> University of Michigan
>>> Ann Arbor, MI 48109
>>> www.umich.edu/~jaylemke 
>>> 
>>> Professor Emeritus
>>> City University of New York
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Apr 9, 2011, at 9:14 AM, Martin Packer wrote:
>>> 
>>>> Hi Larry,
>>>> 
>>>> I need to read the book, and not just the review, but based only on the later my response continues to be, 'Okay so far.' What I mean by this is that although the dynamic systems approach seems worth exploring, Smith and Thelan seem to view the *individual* as the system. If one is going to adopt a systems approach it makes a lot more sense to me to consider the individual infant as *part* of a system that is social and cultural. (That will surprise noone here, I hope!)
>>>> 
>>>> While the reviewers, Lewkowicz and Lickliter, list the dualisms that Smith and Thelan apparently avoid, it is noteworthy that individual/social is not one of these. They write, tellingly, of the "individual's entire developmental system." There is in fact not a single mention of other people in the entire review. Developing child as Robinson Crusoe!
>>>> 
>>>> Note that if we bring others into the picture, as elements of the system, then the problem of teleology, of figuring out if there is an innate "end-state," and if not then how the direction of development is chosen, dissolves. The infant doesn't have an end state to their development built in, for sure. But the adults who take care of the infant *are* the end state, or one possible end state, and so the system *as a whole* does have a teleology built into it. The adults, for example, speak the language that the infant will come to speak. Is that language innate? Of course not. Does the infant somehow invent its language from nothing? Of course not. Where Smith and Thelan (as the reviewers quote them) argue that developmental accomplishments are "carved out of their individual landscapes, and not prefigured by a synergy known ahead by the brain or the genes," I would say we have to respond that, first, landscapes are not individual but social (as Lewin recognized), and, second, that the synergy is certainly not known ahead by the brain or the individual infant's genes, but it is known ahead of the child by the culture. That's not to suggest that every infant ends up exactly like its parents, of course. There are indeed unique developmental pathways. But each is traced within a cultural landscape, imbued with value and motive. And where, once again, Thelan and Smith seem to treat these as properties of the individual infant, we have known for a long time that optimal stimulation, for example, is established and maintained in dyadic interactions. 
>>>> 
>>>> Martin
>>>> 
>>>> On Apr 8, 2011, at 7:50 PM, Larry Purss wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> Hi Mike
>>>>> I'm attaching a 4 page book review on Thelen & Smith's book.  The last page
>>>>> discusses "quasi-motives" and is pointing in the direction you suggest we
>>>>> reflect on. It also recognizes roots of this theory going back to Kurt
>>>>> Lewin.  The suggestion that "values" be accounted for by factors of
>>>>> "approach/withdrawal" and the effective intensity of stimulation is an
>>>>> interesting hypotheses of a foundational causal mechanism.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Larry
>>>>> 
>>>>> On Fri, Apr 8, 2011 at 9:01 AM, Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>>> Larry,
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> It seems to me that one of the things that makes research on the A-not-B
>>>>>> error difficult to interpret is the way the social aspects of the situation
>>>>>> are backgrounded. If you look at the photos in the article by Smith and
>>>>>> Thelan, it is evident that the infant adopts an upright posture only with
>>>>>> the aid and support of an adult, presumably the mother. And of course the
>>>>>> placement of objects, their hiding, etc., is undertaken by another adult.
>>>>>> The whole experimental situation is thoroughly social - a manifestation of
>>>>>> the 'Great-We' if ever there was one - the stage during which the infant's
>>>>>> contact with objects is almost exclusively accomplished via adults, who
>>>>>> offer some objects, remove others, and so on.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> But all this is backgrounded in the analysis of what occurs. The "field"
>>>>>> that Smith and Thelan describe contains, so far as I can see, no social
>>>>>> dimension. I find their research very interesting, very detailed and
>>>>>> thorough, and their analyses fascinating, but in this respect it seems to me
>>>>>> they miss something important, namely the intersubjective character of what
>>>>>> is going on, as you point out.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Martin
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> p.s. what page is the discussion of the "nesting of time"? I haven't found
>>>>>> that yet.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> On Apr 7, 2011, at 9:13 AM, Larry Purss wrote:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Hi Mike and Martin
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Thanks for responding.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Mike, I will keep the terms "inscribed" and "culturally mediated" in mind
>>>>>>> when reflecting on marked activity.  I'm struggling with how to elaborate
>>>>>> a
>>>>>>> coherent developmental narrative that I am able to use in my
>>>>>> conversations
>>>>>>> with others.  In this sense I am trying to participate in a language
>>>>>> "game"
>>>>>>> or "dance".  I work as a counsellor in elementary school settings and
>>>>>>> attempt to position myself or take a stance as a developmental
>>>>>> story-teller
>>>>>>> in conversation with others who speak from a position of behavioural
>>>>>>> narratives. With Jerome Bruner I believe the developmental narratives we
>>>>>>> engage in have profound implications for our cultural practices of social
>>>>>>> equality (or inequality) and practices of recognizing or negating the
>>>>>>> other.  CO-constructing discursive or narrative "explanations" of why we
>>>>>> act
>>>>>>> the way we do seems to be at the center of my my project to act morally
>>>>>> or
>>>>>>> ethically or with a "conscience" in order to construct possible worlds.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> In my quest to come up with folk psychology explanations or narratives
>>>>>> that
>>>>>>> can be co-constructed and used to transform the practices within public
>>>>>>> school settings [on a moment to moment microgenetic time scale] I am
>>>>>>> searching for developmental models [as narratives] that can create
>>>>>> "possible
>>>>>>> worlds with our actual minds" (Bruner)  Now in order to take this
>>>>>> particular
>>>>>>> developmental stance or position within school structures I need to
>>>>>> become a
>>>>>>> better story-teller as I converse with others in my day to day activity.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Martin, attempting to become a different kind of person and at the same
>>>>>> time
>>>>>>> participate in developing possible worlds I've come to this moment in
>>>>>> time
>>>>>>> when I'm trying to understand marked activity as a particular subset of
>>>>>> the
>>>>>>> multicausal pathways explained in dynamic systems theory [as a narrative
>>>>>> ].
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Martin you asked if I can say more about why I consider posture to be
>>>>>>> marked? You mentioned that standing the infant prevents the bodily memory
>>>>>> of
>>>>>>> reaching to A from producing the A-B error.  I understand this changing
>>>>>> the
>>>>>>> infant's posture as a marked activity. The intersubjective changing of
>>>>>> the
>>>>>>> infants posture  is one particular instance of the phenomena I am
>>>>>>> highlighting as reflecting marking activity.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> I picked this example because it highlights "bodily memory" as a
>>>>>> particular
>>>>>>> causal pathway [one among multiple causes] and a precursor to language
>>>>>>> memory.  The intersubjective process of the adult intentionally changing
>>>>>> the
>>>>>>> infants posture is why I considered it as marked activity.
>>>>>> INTERSUBJECTIVITY
>>>>>>> is central to Fonagy's notion of "marked" as a term coined to explain
>>>>>>> intersubjective developmental processes.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> In the article I posted Smith and Thelen draw our attention to multiple
>>>>>>> causes or processes of  development that coordinate organized patterns of
>>>>>>> behavior. When reading about bodily memory I was struck by how their
>>>>>>> explanation parallels how Fonagy uses he term "marked" to explain a
>>>>>>> particular subset of intersubjectively inscribed behaviors that focus on
>>>>>> the
>>>>>>> infants affective attunement [where the parent or caregiver responds in
>>>>>> very
>>>>>>> specific ways to the infants affective actions] Marked responses don't
>>>>>>> MIRROR,  copy, or imitate the infants affective actions.  In fact, Fonagy
>>>>>>> suggests mirroring behavior is actually disruptive to development and
>>>>>> causes
>>>>>>> agitation and alarm in the infant. Marked responses by the parent CONTAIN
>>>>>>> the infants affective experience.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Mike, this process of affective attunement or marking is clearly
>>>>>> culturally
>>>>>>> mediated as what the parent sees [perspective] and therefore marks
>>>>>> depends
>>>>>>> on folk psychology.  If the parent sees the infants affect as an
>>>>>> expression
>>>>>>> of  the soul or spirit or alternatively as expressing innate drives these
>>>>>>> culturally mediated narratives alter the form of marking [as affective
>>>>>>> attunement.]
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Fonagy takes a position that the quality of marked attunement is decisive
>>>>>>> for the forms of "reflective function" that develop in the infant as a
>>>>>>> result of the intersubjective dance between parent and infant.  This is a
>>>>>>> particular naarative of development and is an extension of Bowlby's
>>>>>>> attachment theory. [but rejects Bowlby's notion of attachment as
>>>>>> "templates"
>>>>>>> that DETERMINE the future]
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Developmental systems theory suggests bodily memory [embodied] and
>>>>>> narrative
>>>>>>> memory are CONSTRAINTS on how we anticipate our future moves and are a
>>>>>>> subset of particular causal mechanisms.  Narratives to explain our
>>>>>> affective
>>>>>>> responses develop from MARKED recognition of the affective responses of
>>>>>> the
>>>>>>> infant that are ATTUNED [empathic is a term often used].  IF marked
>>>>>>> attunement is a fundamental process as we develop folk psycholgy
>>>>>>> explanations of affect and its "regulation" or "mastery" as a particular
>>>>>>> intersubjective subset of the multiplicity of causes [tools and signs]
>>>>>> then
>>>>>>> dynamic systems theory may be a promising narrative to articulate to
>>>>>> advance
>>>>>>> our folk psychology notions to explain behavior and alter the kinds of
>>>>>>> worlds and selves WE form.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Final comment on dynamic systems theory.  One fundamental concept of the
>>>>>>> model is  multicausality. Multiple causes organize the field or system.
>>>>>> The
>>>>>>> other fundamental concept of the model is  "time as nested"  After
>>>>>> reading
>>>>>>> Martin's history of Lewin's field theory its left me cautious to use the
>>>>>>> term "nested."  Is seeing "time" as nested qualitatively distinct from
>>>>>>> seeing "spaces or places" as nested?
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Larry
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> On Wed, Apr 6, 2011 at 2:24 PM, Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu> wrote:
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> Larry,
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> Can you say more about why you consider posture to be marked? On a
>>>>>> (very)
>>>>>>>> quick read through the article, the suggesting seems to be that standing
>>>>>> the
>>>>>>>> infant prevents the bodily memory of reaching to A from producing the
>>>>>> A-B
>>>>>>>> error. (A variety of other changes have the same effect.) What makes
>>>>>> this a
>>>>>>>> ZPD, in your reading?
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> As for the nested character of time... I have to read further (and
>>>>>> perhaps
>>>>>>>> in a standing posture). :)
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> Martin
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> On Apr 6, 2011, at 9:58 AM, Larry Purss wrote:
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>> Smith and Thelan's article [attached] highlights some empirical
>>>>>> evidence
>>>>>>>> for
>>>>>>>>> the centrality of MARKED activity for development.  Refer especially to
>>>>>>>> page
>>>>>>>>> 346 where 10 month old infants do the A not B task and the activity
>>>>>> that
>>>>>>>>> becomes MARKED is a shift in posture from a sitting to a standing
>>>>>>>> position.
>>>>>>>>> This marked shift in posture allows the infant to be in a ZPD that
>>>>>> allows
>>>>>>>>> the infant to be successful on a task that is thought of as being a
>>>>>> later
>>>>>>>>> developing capacity.
>>>>>>>> 
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