The Dominant as a Model of Chronogenic Change: The Relevance of A. A. Ukhtomsky’s and L. S. Vygotsky’s Traditions for Systemic Cognitive Studies

Abstract

In the context of contemporary psychology and cognitive studies, historically oriented problems, such as temporal-developmental analyses of psychological processes and their intraindividual variation, have remained unduly neglected until recently. Addressing them seems to require extensive rethinking of existing methodologies both in developmental sciences and psychology, as well as in cognitive sciences at large. In the systemic approach to human psychology and psychophysiology considered in this paper, the above questions are analyzed with respect to the temporal formation of working dominants (dominantogenesis) in human higher cognitive and cortical functions. This approach enables the application of Vygotsky's and A. R. Luria's principle of chronogenic localization of psychological processes on the behavioral timescale and its further integration with A. N. Leontiev's approach to the macro- and micro-structure of activity. On this basis, a systemic framework for the study of human cognition can be founded which addresses key questions of current research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved)