Instrumento de evaluación

No discipline has a longer and more contentious history than studies of the human mind. Beginning perhaps with Plato’sMeno, two millennia of schol- arly attention have focused on the mind’s structure, development, and nur- turance. For most of this history, the workings of the mind have been viewed as issues of interest largely in the discipline of philosophy. But the industrial revolution brought forth a great flurry of activity in the sciences, and schol- ars interested in the mind sought “scientific” methods for studying their quarry. Psychology diverged from philosophy in the late 19th century, armed with newly crafted research methods modeled on the hard sciences. The new science of the mind put forward three theoretical models of human abilities. First, the new focus on instrumentation and research methods led to a particular theoretical/methodological perspective of the mind, one that fo-

A COMPARATIVE REVIEW OF HUMAN ABILITY THEORY 167 cused exclusively on observable behavior. This perspective is known vari- ously as behaviorism and learning theory (e.g., Skinner, 1954; Thorndike, 1932; Watson, 1924). Eschewing constructs that can only be inferred to exist and cannot be observed directly (e.g., cognitive structure, knowledge), be- haviorists explain human behavior in terms of the rewards and punishments associated with it. As such, behavior is under the control of externally im- posed contingencies of reinforcement, and studying how these contingencies affect behavior is the goal of psychology. From the behaviorist perspective, abilities are patterns in behavior forged by a reinforcement history.

A second theory of human intellect became prominent in the 20th cen- tury—the “genetic epistemology” of Piaget, Inhelder, and associates (Piaget, 1983; see Gruber & Voneche, 1977). What is commonly known asPiagetian theory posits the mind as a general computational device that develops in predictable stages of development given the right kind of environmental in- teraction. Terms such as equillibration, assimilation, and accommodation were coined to describe the psychological processes involved in interaction and stage change. According to Piaget, abilities are outward manifestations of underlying cognitive structures that are innately specified but triggered through action on the environment.

The third theory of the psychology of human abilities is the notion of general intelligence (e.g., Eysenck, 1986; Thurstone, 1938). From this view- point, the human mind is structured with a single overarching cognitive ability called general intelligence, or g. The theory of general intelligence aims to predict individual differences in performance on intelligence tests and tests of other abilities. The high correlations among these various tests, the argument goes, support the claim that a general processing capacity constrains all intelligent action.

For decades, proponents of behaviorism, Piagetian theory, and general intelligence showed little regard for one another’s perspective, underscoring the preparadigmatic character of psychological research. No widely accepted paradigm organizes modern psychology, as in physics, for example.

But disparate as these historically important models may be, they have in common a set of three related assumptions about human abilities. First, the three theories focus on the action of individual people. Each assumes that environmental elements such as language and culture have little impact on underlying cognitive structures and processes. Since abilities are viewed as fundamentally context-independent, it follows that the individual mind is the unproblematic unit of analysis for psychological research. Second, the three theories focus on domain-general universals of human development— structures and processes that are common to all individuals and that function similarly in different domains and disciplines. The three theories seek the basic laws of psychology, akin to the basic laws of physics. Third, the three theories assume that cognitive growth and learning occur along a smooth and unimpeded developmental path, given the right care and experiences. This trio of assumptions has done much to frame the debate about the

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structure and development of human abilities, outline the methods by which abilities have been studied, and establish the pedagogies by which abilities have been nurtured at home and in school.

These assumptions have come under fire in the decades since the cognitive revolution, as the traditional models have waned in influence. In what fol- lows I examine each assumption in turn in light of recent theory and research in human abilities.

Contexualization of Psychological Theory and Research

Surrounding the individual learner is an environment filled with social, phys- ical, and symbolic elements (e.g., languages, tools, notations). These envi- ronmental elements form thecontext in which abilities are developed and used. At issue in this section is the role of contextual factors in the structure and development of abilities—and the related methodological point that concerns the appropriate unit of analysis in psychological research.

Behaviorists, Piagetians, andg researchers have in common the pursuit of universals of learning and development that operate in all unimpaired individuals in a similar manner across domains and disciplines. Environ- mental elements are thought to provide the content used by human abilities but not to influence underlying patterns of thought, which are presumed to stem from domain-general structures or processes. It follows from this view that the individual person is the appropriate unit of analysis in psychological research.

Role of Context and Culture in Cognition. Recent theory and research do not dispute the biological basis of abilities but make a persuasive case for sociocultural factors. There is now a substantial literature that demonstrates striking cultural differences in patterns of thought (see Bakhtin, 1981; Cole, 1996; Hutchins, 1990; Kaiping & Nisbett, 1999; Rogoff, 1990; Torff, 1999a). For example, Asians and Westerners give consistently dissimilar in- terpretations of a visual display, interpreting the figure-ground relationship in fundamentally different ways (Kaiping & Nisbett, 1999).

A host of similar findings have yielded the broad consensus that abilities are far more context-dependent than previously thought. Environmental el- ements such as languages and notations influence underlying patterns of thought. Thus the range of factors relevant to studies of human abilities must be expanded to include contextual ones, and the pursuit of universals ought to be viewed in new and less expansive light. After a century of largely ignored calls for a “second psychology” based on culture and context (Ca- han & White, 1992), a new view emerged: In the course of development in a culture, the individual is exposed to (and becomes dependent upon) a variety of contextual elements that guide the way the individual mind de- velops. These contextual elements are products of culture. For a com- prehensive understanding of abilities to be crafted, theory and research

A COMPARATIVE REVIEW OF HUMAN ABILITY THEORY 169 must take into account the culture in which abilities are created and given meaning.

The emergence of contextualism has coincided with a surge of interest in a sociocultural theory of cognitive development put forth by Vygotsky and independently by Mead in the 1930s (Mead, 1934/1956; Vygotsky, 1978; see also Cole, 1996; Wertsch, 1985). The essence of sociocultural theory is the claim that the mind is socially formed—that is, the structure and function of cognitive abilities are constituted by culture as the individual interacts with the sociocultural environment. The individual’s performance is sup- ported by a variety of culturally createdmediators, which include physical tools, social conventions, and symbolic media. Learning (internalization) oc- curs as individuals construct mental representations and habituate actions as guided by mediational elements. According to sociocultural theory, cul- tural concepts form the foundation of the way individuals make sense of the world, and the individual’s thought processes are thus imprinted through interaction with the cultural environment. In recent decades, four new lines of sociocultural theory and research have appeared, under the headings “Everyday Cognition,” “Socially Shared Cognition,” “Distributed Cogni- tion,” and “Situated Cognition.”

Everyday cognition: With the rise of sociocultural theory came a spate of studies of thinking and learning in nonacademic contexts, much of it under the banner ofeveryday cognition (Lave, 1988; Lave & Wenger, 1993; Rogoff & Lave, 1984). Researchers who looked outside the classroom at instances of everyday activity—on the job and at home—found examples of ingenious strategies that people devised to exploit environmental affordances and over- come situational constraints. For example, truck drivers were found to stack milk crates through use of a context-embedded method of counting that is remarkably effective, if remote from the school-oriented approach of making a formal count (Scribner, 1984). Studies of everyday cognition reveal how seldom the strategies people use in life and on the job resemble the formal knowledge taught in schools. Sociocultural theory points up the learning inherent in everyday settings—visiting a restaurant, completing a tax form, programming a VCR. Focusing on the ubiquity of mediators in the world around us, sociocultural theory underscores that learning occurs everywhere, all the time—even when there is no intent to teach or learn. From this per- spective, the terms education, socialization, and enculturation are closely related notions, if not outright synonyms.

Socially shared cognition: Sociocultural theory pays particular attention to one form of cultural mediation—the efforts made and encouragement given by other people. The growing interest in socially shared cognition refers to the study of how people come to engage in shared belief (Resnick, Levine, & Teasley, 1991). Apart from knowledge people hold through direct observation, all knowledge is the result of entering into a shared belief with a group of like-minded others called acommunity of practice. According to researchers focused on socially shared cognition, learning occurs when the learner comes to agreement with other people with whom the learner inter-

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acts in a community of practice. People in the United States share the belief that John Wilkes Booth assassinated Lincoln because we participate in a community of practice—the one that concerns the historical beliefs of Amer- ican culture as taught in secondary schools. Of course, such beliefs may later be rethought and changed; as with any other cultural product, beliefs about history are dynamic and evolve as the culture does.

Bruner (1990, 1996) uses the termintersubjectivity to describe interac- tional processes through which individuals come to share beliefs with others. Through intersubjective exchange, Bruner suggests, people fail to arrive at the exact same construal of events but come to enough of a shared under- standing to make sense of what’s going on and continue the interaction. Intersubjectivity is at the heart of sociocultural theory, because it is shared belief in communities of practice that orients the individual and gives the world meaning.

Distributed cognition: If cognitive activities are shared between person and context, it follows that part of the resources (the “intelligence”) required to get something done is handled by the environment, like a sort of pros- thetic (Perkins, 1995). In communities of practice, people are assisted by the intelligences of the cultural environment—the physical, social, and symbolic elements that do part of the job. Abilities are thus said to bedistributed— spread between person and environmental elements. For example, lawyers have at their disposal thick books that detail laws and precedents; we expect a lawyer not to memorize everything but to also know how to look things up. From the perspective of distributed-cognition researchers, the abilities needed in law are in part in the practitioners’ heads but in part distributed among the various intelligences of the cultural environment.

Situated cognition: A strong form of sociocultural theory has come for- ward under the headings “situated” and “situative” cognition (Greeno, 1998; Lave & Wenger, 1993; Seely Brown, Collins, & Duguid, 1989). From this perspective, individuals and situations cocreate activity and thus cannot be studied separately. Abilities are seen as outgrowths of particular situa- tional affordances and constraints, and only in context do they make sense. People develop strategies for doing things that depend on a certain context, and only in this context are they able to work without difficulty.

Dependence on situational affordances and constraints means that it is very difficult for individuals to transfer knowledge across contexts, even isomorphic ones. (Every teacher has had the experience of teaching some- thing only to find that the lesson did not transfer as needed to a nearby context.) According to situated-cognition researchers, transfer occurs through generalization of knowledge, but this process can be fraught with difficulty. As a result, people often find it hard to work unless the environ- mental support is just right. Consider, for example, that there are places to which you are able to drive but to which you are unable to give another person adequate directions. You know the route, but only well enough to get yourself there, as if by “feel.” Embedded in the environment are memory cues—environmental objects that, when presented to your senses and inter-

A COMPARATIVE REVIEW OF HUMAN ABILITY THEORY 171 mingled with your memories of the terrain, help you to make all the nec- essary turns. Memory and learning, it turns out, are not simply mental achievements—they are collaborations between the individual and a particular set of environmental circumstances.

The situative perspective underscores that all learning is a product not only of the person’s intellectual efforts but also of whatever situational ele- ments are present when the learning occurs. All learning is thus linked to its situation of origin, and it is of utmost importance for educators and re- searchers to explore how situational affordances and constraints influence learning.

Abilities as Situated Knowledge and Skill. Abilities, according to sociocul- tural theory, are culturally established but individually internalized patterns of knowledge and skill crafted to fit situational affordances and constraints. Some of these constraints and affordances cohere into specific disciplines, (e.g., bowling, psychology), while others are everyday shared ways of doing things (e.g., restaurant scripts). From this perspective, abilities are patterns in socially shared and physically distributed knowledge in a community of practice. As a result, to see all the elements of the working psychological system that supports complex performances, one must look at the larger system, the person and cultural context.

Methodological Implications. Sociocultural theory also raises new issues, ones that challenge key methodological assumptions in psychology. Years ago it was observed that animals in zoos behave differently from their coun- terparts in the wild; it follows that human behavior might well be as artificial in typical laboratory experiments in psychology. A concern for “ecological validity” prompts sociocultural psychologists to question the extent to which the bulk of laboratory work in psychology provides an accurate indication of the way people act in the real world (Cole, 1971, 1996). The experimental laboratory is by no means a context-neutral environment; rather, it has a set of procedures, expectations, and scripts all its own. From this perspective, a truer measure of human behavior comes from studies in real-world set- tings, despite the methodological difficulties involved.

Hence, the unit of analysis in research changes from individual person to person-in-cultural context. As a result, many research initiatives have shifted from laboratory settings, where variables can be controlled, to the larger world, where the full range of factors can be addressed. Sociocultural theory has as its burden the need to study processes that are supremely difficult (and often impossible) to operationalize and control. As difficult as it is to do good psychology and sociocultural theory at the same time, this has the benefit of reflecting the full range of influences on human cognition and learning (Olson & Bruner, 1996).

Taking Stock: Contexualization of Theory and Research. Sociocultural theory yields some novel views of how cognition is structured, how it develops,

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what learning is, and how psychological research ought to proceed. This work rebuts the assumption that abilities are context-independent “talents” undergirded by mental structures that can be teased out for isolated analysis. Sociocultural theory emphasizes that abilities are stitched together by situ- ational elements—products of culture. The view of abilities as situated ac- tions calls into question the assertion that psychological work ought to focus on the functioning of the individual person. Analysis of the person–in–social context is a significant methodological complication but one that promises to provide psychological studies that seem more meaningful to practitioners interested in the abilities used in complex performances.

Human Abilities: Multiple and Interconnected

The second set of recently questioned assumptions about human abilities concerns the range of cognitive processes involved in abilities. The three traditional theories have in common a pursuit of overarching domain- general processes, structures, or principles that apply to all areas of human cognition (e.g., spatial cognition, language). Behaviorists posit a single law of learning in which abilities are shaped by contingencies of reinforcement. Piaget’s theory views abilities as evidence of domain-general thought pro- cesses linked to predictable stagelike developmental changes in underlying cognitive structure. Finally, general-intelligence theorists posit a general cog- nitive capacity (g) that underlies all abilities. The question is, in a nutshell: To what extent are abilities domain-general or domain-specific?

In contrast to the traditional theories, recent theories offer a profusion of “pluralistic” (domain-specific) views. As the following review indicates, this literature is remarkably diverse but with a common thread. Widespread is the view that abilities are supported by a range of cognitive skills, some typically hidden, and these multiple abilities include ones that are particular to a domain (e.g., pitch and rhythm are essential elements of music) as well as cross-domain capacities (e.g., language figures in countless domains). In what follows I describe four bodies of such work: evolutionary psychology, cognitive-developmental psychology, pluralistic models of intelligence, and expertise.

Evolutionary Psychology. Applying Darwin’s work to the evolution of the human mind, evolutionary psychologists examine the adaptive pressures that have caused the mind to develop the way it has over time (see Barkow, Cosmides, & Tooby, 1992). This line of theory and research has included an explicit claim that the human mind is configured with a variety ofmod- ules—separate, task-specific cognitive abilities that evolved in response to the environmental challenges faced by the human species (Cosmides & Tooby, 1987; Tooby & Cosmides, 1990). Here the mind is considered to be something like a Swiss Army knife, designed with mechanisms specialized to meet the challenges that have arisen in particular environments. Accord-

A COMPARATIVE REVIEW OF HUMAN ABILITY THEORY 173 ing to evolutionary psychologists, these modules are numerous and include innately specified capacities for facial recognition, spatial relations, rigid ob- jects mechanics, tool use, social exchange, motion perception, and a great many others. These modules are thought to be content-rich; that is, modules provide not only sets of procedures for solving problems but also much of the information needed to do so.

According to evolutionary psychologists, culture is involved in phyloge- netic change but not ontogenetic change (as posited in sociocultural theory). Modules are seen as forms of innate hardwiring that are largely unaffected by environmental influences such as social norms or educational practices and thus are not thought to undergo significant developmental changes as the individual ages. As a result of this adevelopmental view, cultural contexts are not thought to initiate change of any kind in the cognitive activities of individuals.

It is through culture, however, that people have responded to most, if not