Veraksa, N.E.

Background. The cultural-historical theory of the development of higher mental functions by L.S. Vygotsky remains relevant and continues to be discussed by specialists from various countries. Its usefulness is largely due to its employment of the dialectical method, the analysis of which is the focus of this article.

Objectives. The aim is to reveal the essence of the dialectical method which allowed L.S. Vygotsky to analyse mental development processes. The first task was to define units of analysis as well as to describe their role when applied to a method. The second task was to show two types of analysis: substantive and structural.

Methods. The dialectical method of analysis was applied in the process of solving theoretical problems. The current article systematically raises questions about the characteristics of the method, the requirements for units of analysis and their properties. Several difficulties with analysing units were summarized.

Results. Dialectical analysis as a method of cognition, as applied by L.S. Vygotsky, was based on an invariant structural representation of the processes of mental development. At the same time, the task of meaningful interpretation of the development of the child’s psyche remained. The solution to this problem was based on the search for units of content analysis that simultaneously had two possibilities: to be invariant to any content and to be included into any content. An analysis of the works of L.S. Vygotsky showed that he considered the relations of opposition as such units.

Conclusions. The use of dialectical analysis by L.S. Vygotsky was associated with the consideration of the studied material on two levels: structural and substantive, as well as in transitions from one level to another. To make such transitions, L.S. Vygotsky identified opposites in the content that interested him. Opposites had both substantive properties and represented formal invariant units independent of specific content, which made it possible to carry out transformations at the invariant (structural) level before returning to the substantive level. As soon as the content of the problem under study was transmitted into a structural plan, it was subjected to dialectical transformations, through the sequential implementation of various operations using opposites. These operations corresponded to the elementary dialectical structures, characteristic of both mental transformations and the processes of various entities in development. Content analysis, which included operating with opposites, allowed L.S. Vygotsky to describe the processes of development of complex structural systems of human consciousness.

Background. This article presents data from a longitudinal study of understanding mixed emotion in preschool and primary school-age children, as well as the relationship of emotion understanding to the development of thinking. Understanding mixed emotions is viewed as children's ability to recognize and interpret emotions consisting of two simultaneous emotions of different valences. In contrast to the majority of other works following Piaget's theory, our work, follows the structural-dialectical approach and examines how the understanding of mixed emotions is connected not only to formal operations, but also to dialectical actions which allow us to look into the way a child forms the unity of two opposite emotions.

Objective of the study was to analyze how understanding mixed emotions develops in children aged 5-6 and 7-8 and to assess the nature of changes in the relationship between understanding mixed emotions and indicators of cognitive development in these two age groups.

Sample. Data were obtained by diagnosing 80 children, including 42 boys (52.5%) between 2019 and 2022.

Methods. Preschoolers’ understanding of mixed emotions was assessed using a set of tasks consisting of three stories whose characters experienced atypical emotional experiences (Veraksa et al., 2022a). To diagnose the formal-logical thinking, the Probability, Scale and Cylinder methods (Piaget, Inhelder, 1951; Piaget et al., 1948), which were part of the classic Piaget tests, were applied. The development of dialectical thinking was assessed with the techniques “Drawing an Unusual Tree”, “What can be at the same time?”, and “Cycles” (Veraksa et al., 2022b).

Results. Analysis revealed that children in the first grade were more successful in completing mixed emotion tasks than children in the older preschool group. It was found that the success in comprehension tasks for mixed emotions among older preschoolers and first graders was related to the development of multiplication operations (formal-logical operations) and operations of mediation, serialization, and reference (dialectical operations).

Conclusion. The peculiarities of the connection between the understanding of mixed emotions and the development of formal and dialectical thinking in children aged 5-6 and 7-8 were revealed.

Problem of the research. The review is devoted to the relationship between executive functions and metacognition in the context of a cultural-historical perspective. On the basis of the research carried out over the past 15 years, the commonality and differences of these constructs are shown. Special attention is paid to the development of executive functions and metacognition, their connection with the academic success of children, the role of the social aspect in their formation. The importance of an adult in the directed formation of metacognition and self-regulation is shown, which confirms the provisions of the cultural-historical theory. Within the framework of the cultural-historical paradigm, several mechanisms for the development of executive functions are considered: imitation based on understanding; sign mediation; as well as communication in a social developmental situation. L.S. Vygotsky noted that higher mental functions arise on the basis of real interactions of people, are interiorized, turning into psychological functions.

Main results and conclusions. The review showed that one of the most common models of the structure of executive functions is a model that includes such components as “working memory”, “inhibitory control” and “cognitive flexibility”.

Based on the analysis, it is possible to assert the influence of J. Piaget's concept on the development of executive functions. A certain difficulty is caused by the explanation of emotional regulation in the context of metacognitive problems. At the same time, L.S. Vygotsky spoke about the unity of affect and intellect, which suggests the existence behavioral control and, in particular, of emotional processes at the level of metacognitive processes.