Vygotsky's Distinction Between Lower and Higher Mental Functions and Recent Studies on Infant Cognitive Development

Abstract

One of the major theoretical advances of Vygotsky's approach to cognitive development was his thesis that human mental functions were social in origin. In making this claim, Vygotsky was confronted with the difficulty of reconciling it with the fact that newborn infants already possess certain mental functions. Vygotsky's answer to the problem was the introduction of an important distinction between lower mental functions (LMFs) and higher mental functions (HMFs) (Vygotsky, 1983). The relationship between the two types of function in Vygotsky's theory was not strictly determined. In some cases an LMF can be a prerequisite for the development of an appropriate HMF (e.g., unmediated memory can be developed in mediated and voluntarily controlled memory); in other cases, HMFs exist in an inter-subjective form and are merely learned by the child in the process of education and shared activities (e.g., writing or reading skills).