title: Phylogeny and cultural history in ontogeny.
abstract: This purpose of this paper is to defend the contention that human culture is constitutive of human psychological processes. Several kinds of evidence are presented in support of this proposition: phenomena associated with the stabilization of images on the retina and their selective disappearance and reappearance when varying degrees of destabilization are introduced; the non-linearity of cultural/cognitive time which acts as a transformative mechanism uniting the material and ideal aspects of culture; data on the operation of culture as a non-linear source of structuration in human ontogeny, and finally, data on the ways in which cultural practices influence the functioning of the brain.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093-0092, United States. mcole@ucsd.edu
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Cole
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001921:Brain / Q000196:embryology / Q000254:growth & development / Q000502:physiology; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D003469:Culture; D006803:Human Development; D006801:Humans; D008960:Models, Psychological; D010802:Phylogeny