UCL Discovery
UCL home » Library Services » Electronic resources » UCL Discovery

The early theoretical development of Alexander Romanovich Luria: An exploration of his work 1921-1936

Hames, Michael Paul George; (2002) The early theoretical development of Alexander Romanovich Luria: An exploration of his work 1921-1936. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London). Green open access

[thumbnail of Hames_10076468_thesis.pdf] Text
Hames_10076468_thesis.pdf

Download (10MB)

Abstract

Alexander Luria (1902-1977) is famous as a founder of neuropsychology, but his early theoretical development has never been seriously investigated at any length. Part I, The Early Years, deals chronologically with Luria's development from 1921-6. It looks at his intellectual background, his early experiments using his combined verbal and motor response method of investigating the structural dynamics of stress. It examines his use of objective approaches to reflexes in Pavlov, and his attempt to combine it with Freud's psychodynamic approach. Luria's early collaboration with Lev Vygotsky is explored, together with their joint and individual attempts to resolve the apparent methodological impasse this combination presented to explaining the nature of higher psychological processes. Part II, The Nature of Human Conflicts, looks at the liberating effects of Gestalt theory on their thinking, together with their criticisms of it. It concentrates on Luria's series of experiments up to 1930, and how his development of the 'functional systems' approach resolved many of the problems. Luria thereby provided the neuropsychological basis for much of Vygotsky's approach. Part III, Cultural-Historical Theory, is short. It looks at some of the origins of the theory and the attacks on it, together with some of the reasoning behind Luria's expeditions to Central Asia to compare modes of perception and thinking in different forms of society. The overall theme of this thesis is how Luria and Vygotsky struggled to explain the developing role of higher psychological functions on an objective experimental basis, and how in the course of ontogenetic development the neuropsychological organization of cognitive functions and human behaviour is dialectically transformed. This process explained how phylogenetic, ontogenetic, social and historical factors were integrated in the course of development. It therefore also potentially allowed for the methodological integration of psychology into a unified science.

Type: Thesis (Doctoral)
Qualification: Ph.D
Title: The early theoretical development of Alexander Romanovich Luria: An exploration of his work 1921-1936
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
Language: English
Additional information: This thesis has been digitised by ProQuest.
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10076468
Downloads since deposit
114Downloads
Download activity - last month
Download activity - last 12 months
Downloads by country - last 12 months

Archive Staff Only

View Item View Item