A.R. Luria’s cultural neuropsychology in the 21st century

The influence of cultural factors in the development of human cognition

The roots of Luria's interest in the cultural background of human cognition can be found in the materials of his two expeditions to Uzbekistan during 1931 and 1932, which were planned and analyzed in cooperation with Lev Vygotsky. These expeditions were largely replications of previous research which drew the attention of Vygotsky and Luria. The lasting importance of the Uzbek expeditions is its emphasis on culture, especially schooling as a determinant of cognitive processes. Undoubtedly, this idea remains valid to this very day. Both the methodology and the results of these expeditions have been the subject of much discussion (Yasnitsky, 2018). Interestingly, Gilbert (1986) partially replicated Luria's field studies in South Africa with near-identical results. Later on, Tulviste (1991) also found similar results. Following this line of cultural-historic approach, Scribner and Cole researched the cognitive consequences of literacy and schooling among the Vai, a tribal group in Liberia. Subjects had to judge the grammatical correctness of several sentences spoken in Vai. They concluded that the consequences of literacy are cultural-function and context-specific, i.e. the closer the contents of the test tasks were to their culture and life the less was effect of formal schooling (Scribner & Cole, 1978). That culture can influence the brain organization of cognition may look trivial today, but not in the first half of the XX century and certainly ideas of Vygotsky and Luria were catalyzing development of research in this direction.

This line of thought later led to the introduction of cultural adjustments in neuropsychological diagnostic tests (Nell, 1999, 2000; Nielsen et al., 2018), although interest in cultural test variation came much earlier. However, it has to be emphasized that the awareness of the need for culture-sensitive tests is much more extended and can be found in many authors (e.g., Ardila, 2005; Cohen, 1969; Helms, 1992; Irvine, 1981; Sternberg, 2004).

If we believe that culture significantly affects human cognition, it is imperative to we have a clear definition of culture. According to Jahoda (2012) the term “culture” has been polysemous; consequently, each author should explain the specific manner in which she/he employs the term “culture” in a particular context. In anthropology, it is frequently considered that culture refers to the set of learned traditions and living styles, shared by the members of a society. It includes the ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving (Harris, 1983). Berry, Poortinga, Segall, and Dasen (2002) present a minimal definition of culture: Culture is the shared way of life of a group of people. This definition is virtually identical to the definition proposed by Ardila (2013a): Culture is the specific way of living of a human group. A comprehensive definition is presented by Packer (2016) in his analyses of the cultural perspective of child development: "Culture” is not simply context, any more than the body is mere context for the development of the brain. Culture weaves together the people, who have created it, and a culture is inextricably interconnected with the psychology of its people. Culture does not simply “influence” development, or “impact” development. “Certainly culture does not ‘cause’ development, either alone or with the help of biology” (p. 5). Furthermore, culture plays a constitutive role in a child's development. Culture (along with biology, of course) is what makes possible the complexity and sophistication of human psychological functioning. It should be emphasized that culture in Vygotsky’s theory and Luria’s interpretation is unambiguously related to semiotic mediation (Toomela, 1996, 2016).

Language mediation is central in the Lurian approach and he related to differences in languages with regard to brain organization of various languages in bilinguals. He described the case of a French journalist who suffered from alexia in all languages at his command (French, Russian, German and Polish), yet, agraphia was most severe in French and least in Russian. Luria’s interpretation of this differential agraphia, in different languages of a polyglot patient, was based on the cross-linguistic analysis of the sound-symbol correspondence, which in Russian is much closer than in French, where many symbols can combine to make one sound or are simply not pronounced. In addition, the Cyrillic alphabet the patient used only in Russian, while all three other languages use the Latin script (Luria, 1956/1960). The idea of differential brain representation of different writing systems influenced later approaches to dyslexia in bilinguals (Weekes, Su, To, & Ulicheva, 2013). Paulesu and his colleagues presented behavioral and anatomical evidence for a multi-component reading system in which different components are differentially weighted depending on culture-specific demands of orthography. In two positron-emission tomography studies, Italians showed greater activation in left superior temporal regions associated with phoneme processing. In contrast, English readers showed greater activations, particularly for non-words, in left posterior inferior temporal gyrus and anterior inferior frontal gyrus, areas associated with word retrieval during both reading and naming tasks (Paulesu et al., 2000).

In our opinion, the influence of culture starts even before the development of language and all forms of semiosis. Thus, analyzing crying melody contours of healthy newborns born into French and German monolingual families, Mampe, Friederici, Christophe, and Wermke (2009) found that these patterns are consistent with the intonation patterns observed in both of these languages.

Although Luria was always concerned with the interface of brain mechanisms with external world conditions, cultural neuroscience is a relatively new field of research concerned with studying the influences of culture on brain anatomy and function (Chiao & Blizinsky, 2016). Some data are already cumulated, although their interpretations are still tentative. Thus, for example, Alahmadi, Evdokimov, Kropotov, Müller, and Jäncke (2016) investigated EEG resting state features in children from Switzerland and Saudi Arabia and identified many similarities, but also some substantial differences. The results are discussed in the context of different cultural experiences and possible genetic influences that are not clarified sufficiently to yield an unambiguous explanation. Accepting the idea that “Culture transforms mind” (Toomela,1996), we would like to find out how transforming culture changes the brain and if the Systemic-Dynamic Lurian approach is relevant and/or helpful for understanding of the problems. The need for more comprehensive neuropsychological research is evident. We should note that the term “cross-cultural neuropsychology” was introduced relatively recently (Ardila, 1995).

Higher mental functions

Some basic concepts of Lurian neuropsychology are very helpful for interpreting and even predicting results of contemporary research. In this context, it is appropriate to recall some of the basic ideas which are important for today's cultural neuropsychology, in particular, the concept of higher mental functions which was essential for the systemic-dynamic approach to brain organization developed by Luria (1966, 1973). That is a logical extension and development of Vygotsky’s (1930/1968) ideas regarding the interaction of nature and nurture, natural and cultural factors, in the development of the human mind. Higher mental functions include those complex cognitive processes such as reasoning, abstraction, metacognition, problem-solving, and similar abilities. While some researchers see them as roughly corresponding to the contemporary concept of “executive functions” (Diamond, 2013), in a more detailed analysis of the historical roots and Vygotsky's analysis of the concept, Toomela (2016) finds 11 interrelated characteristics of higher psychological functions in different works of Vygotsky.

According to our aim of seeing the influence and importance of Luria's ideas in our modern world of rapid change and development of these external tools, we will follow his definition of higher mental functions. “They were all formed in the course of long historical development, they are social in their origin and complex and hierarchical in their structure, and they are all based on a complex system of methods and means” (Luria, 1973, p. 29–30). The concept of social origin of higher mental functions presupposes that they are developed in the child's activity within a specific cultural-historical environment where other people (parents, teachers, peers) mediate and promote cognitive development. Luria used Vygotsky's “… principle of extracortical organization of complex mental functions … implying … that all types of human conscious activity are always formed with the support of external auxiliary aids” (Luria, 1973, p. 31). This principle was one of the fundamental aids in developing “A fresh look at the basic concepts” (Luria, 1947/1970, p. 26).

An intrinsic factor in systemic organization of higher mental functions is the engagement of external artifacts (objects, symbols, signs), which have an independent history of development within the culture. Thus, according to the concept of “extracortical organization of complex mental functions,” the role of external factors in establishing functional connections between various brain systems is in principle universal. However, different mediators and means, or significantly different details within them (e.g., the direction of writing and the degree of letter-sound correspondence, orientation by maps, digital internet navigator, or by the behavior of sea-birds) may be developed, and in fact are developed in different cultures. Therefore, the analysis of higher mental functions must necessarily take into account these cross-cultural differences. We have previously analyzed the usefulness of this concept in the neurolinguistic analysis of bilingualism and aphasia (Kotik-Friedgut, 2001, 2006; Kotik-Friedgut & Ardila, 2004, 2014). It should be mentioned here that Luria's systemic dynamic approach to bilingual aphasia influenced not only aphasia research but also the modern approaches to second or foreign language learning and teaching (Javier, 2007; Kotik-Friedgut, 2001; Kotik-Friedgut, Schleifer, Golan-Cook, & Goldstein, 2014).

The developing of external tools can be regarded as a continuous process. Today we have new and sophisticated technologies in virtually all the spheres of our culture. These new technologies are rapidly and continuously changing, influencing human everyday behavior.

There is, consequently, an imperative need to understand and to foresee how these technological advances can impact the development of the higher mental functions. There is clearly a need for a new neuropsychology for the 21st century which can incorporate these environmental changes (Ardila, 2013b).

The use of external tools

Some increase of the public interest in the influence of external tools on the perception and behavior of people began after the first televised American presidential debate between John F Kennedy and Richard Nixon in 1960: those who watched the TV debate were more impressed by the advantage of Kennedy's appearance and tended to vote for him, while those who were listening on the radio related mainly to the content of their speeches, voted predominantly for Nixon (Kraus, 1962). At that time television was only developing as a mass medium (McLuhan, 1964). In 1968, McLuhan started conducting an experiment at Fordham University, in which he made students watch the same film on a cinema screen and on a television, and analyzed their different reactions. It was found that those who watched it on a screen reported that the film used more emotional concepts and expressions than those who watched it on a TV. The characteristics of the medium, he suggested, will always influence what parts of the cognitive circuit are employed and to what extent. The characteristics of a medium such as the Internet invite the viewer to move from one stimulus to the next rapidly. The characteristics of a medium such as a book invite the maintaining of a more focused attention.

The line of research continues. Thus Rosenqvist and colleagues investigated the relationship between different media uses by pre-adolescent school-aged children and neurocognition during this period of vigorous change in development. They compared the influence of TV watching, computer use, and reading (with parents) on attention/executive functions, language, memory/learning, social perception, and visuospatial processing. Not surprisingly, one of the parameters—the level of maternal education was a strong predictor of performance on neurocognitive tasks of attention/executive functions, language, memory/learning, social perception, and visuospatial processing in 5–12-year-old children (N = 381). While computer use and reading had significant positive effect, TV watching was negatively related to all assessed neurocognitive domains (Rosenqvist, Lahti-Nuuttila, Holdnack, Kemp, & Laasonen, 2016).

While the use and benefits of new technologies for everyday life are spreading, we still do not know how exactly it will influence the neurocognitive development of our grandchildren, though some results deserve special attention.

New cultural conditions: Contemporary technology

During the past four decades, a large amount of research has focused on the relationship between media use and the cognitive and social development of the child. However, usually studies have differed in methodology and also the factor of time contributed to the contradiction of results because the spread of different media and intensity of their use are steadily increasing.

In 2010, a comprehensive review “Media in the Lives of Youth of 8- to 18-Year-Olds” (which includes a large national sample of more than 2000 young people from across the USA) revealed that over the past five years, there has been a significant increase in media use among young people. Eight- to 18-year-olds spend more time with media than in any other activity besides (maybe) sleeping—an average of more than 7 ½ hours a day, seven days a week (in five years it increased from 6:21 to 8:33 hours each day). The TV shows they watch video games they play, songs they listen to and websites they visit were an enormous part of their lives (Rideout, Foehr, & Roberts, 2010). As we all can see in our environments these conditions are only spreading.

Eshet-Alkalai and Chajut investigated changes over time in some basic digital literacy skills. They tested the same participants in the year 2002 and five years later. To distinguish between the age-related and the experience-related factors, in 2007 they added the results from a control group of similar age and demographic background. Results showed two major patterns of change over time: (1) closing the gap between younger and older participants in tasks that emphasize experience and technical control (photo-visual and branching tasks) i.e., in 2002 younger participants were more efficient in these tasks and in 2007 older adults who used computers more intensively during five years, were more experienced and improved their results. (2) In tasks that emphasize creativity and critical thinking (reproduction and information tasks) they observed a widening of the gap between younger and older participants: younger participants not only did not improve their results in tasks more demanding of higher mental functions, but there was even a trend to decreased efficiency. Results from the control group, suggest that experience with technology, and not age-dependent cognitive development, accounts for the observed life-long changes in digital literacy skills. Results, especially the sharp decrease in information analyzing skills, suggest that the ability to find information or use digital environments (e.g., playing computer games by younger subjects) does not guarantee an educated or effective use of digital environments (Eshet-Alkalai & Chajut, 2010).

These observations are not surprising if taking the concept of “hierarchical structure” of higher mental functions and the idea that this hierarchy changes during ontogenetic development. In the young child, the line of interaction between cortical zones runs “from below upward” (from the maturation of primary zones to the adequate development of secondary–gnostic–cortical zones finally to the tertiary zones for the creation of major cognitive synthesis). Conversely in the adult person with his fully formed higher mental functions, the higher cortical zones have assumed a dominant role. Thus, in the late stage of ontogeny, the main line of interaction of cortical zones runs “from above downward” (Luria, 1973, p. 74–75). Thus, any discussion about learning is plausible only if the factor of age is taken into account: the effect of learning on brain dynamics depends on the level of brain maturity at the time of learning. Today the new generation who grow in the digital world become university students and become a concern to teachers because of “screen addiction” and flightier forms of information processing (Brown, 2016).

Internet as a major cultural tool

Research results have been accumulated suggesting that excessive Internet use can lead to the development of a behavioral addiction which has been considered a serious threat to mental health and linked to a variety of negative psychosocial consequences (Kuss & Griffiths, 2012). A systematic literature search conducted by a group of British researchers identified 18 studies. These studies provide compelling evidence for the similarities between different types of addictions, notably substance-related addictions and Internet and gambling addiction, on a variety of levels. On the molecular level, Internet addiction is characterized by an overall reward deficiency that entails decreased dopaminergic activity. On the level of neural circuitry, Internet and gambling addiction lead to neuroadaptation and structural changes that occur as a consequence of prolonged increased activity in brain areas associated with addiction. At the behavioral level, Internet and gambling addicts appear to be constricted regarding their cognitive functioning in various domains. Understanding the neuronal correlates associated with the development of Internet and gambling addiction is important for future research and practice (Griffiths, Kuss, & Pontes, 2016; Kuss & Griffiths, 2012).

As any addiction, especially if it starts at early ages (as often children spend most of their time on computers) when brain plasticity is still high and the functional hierarchy according to Luria goes “from below upward”, some specific changes in brain functional architecture can be expected. In an illustrative study, brain magnetic resonance images were acquired from 15 male adolescents diagnosed as having Internet addiction and 15 male healthy comparison subjects (Hong et al., 2013). Results confirmed that male adolescents with Internet addiction have significantly decreased cortical thickness in the right lateral orbitofrontal cortex, which has been regarded a neurobiological marker of addiction-related disorders in general.

Currently, online game addiction attracts great attention as a serious public mental health issue. The study of a group of researchers from China, using voxel-based morphometry analysis and tract-based spatial statistics reveals microstructural abnormalities of gray and white matter in a game addicted group of young people. Compared to healthy subjects, game-addicted individuals showed significant gray matter atrophy in the right orbitofrontal cortex, bilateral insula, and right supplementary motor areas (Weng et al., 2013).

At the same time the application of computerized games designed for cognitive training shows that they may be used for maintaining plasticity in aging brains (Toril, Reales, Mayas, & Ballesteros, 2016). These facts confirm that any attempt to interpret specific data about human brain activity has to take into account its specific dynamics, i.e. both the history of development and current activity. So, while children more easily are prone to develop game addiction, aging adults may benefit from similar activities.

Owen et al. (2010) reported the results of a six-week online study in which 11,430 adult participants trained several times each week on cognitive tasks designed to improve reasoning, memory, planning, visuospatial skills, and attention. Although improvements were observed in every one of the cognitive tasks that were trained, no evidence was found for transfer effects to untrained tasks, even when those tasks were cognitively closely related. Other authors conclude that working memory training programs appear to produce short-term, specific training effects that do not generalize to measures of “real-world” cognitive skills (Melby-Lervåg, Redick, & Hulme, 2016). Also, future studies of possible benefits of computerized training would benefit from inclusion of measures to evaluate non-specific factors as covariates. For example, measuring of aspects such as engagement, usability, and satisfaction from the activity were suggested by Motter, Devanand, Doraiswamy, and Sneed (2016).

As we can see a number of main concepts related to Luria's definition of higher mental functions are still relevant and even helpful in the understanding of new realities. Thus, the concepts of extracortical organization and hierarchical organization of higher mental functions with opposite hierarchy in childhood and adults can alert us to results of influence of new technologies in subjects of different ages.