Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition (LCHC)

Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition (LCHC) is a social science laboratory located at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) since 1978. Scholars at LCHC pursue research focused on understanding the complex relationship between cognition and culture in individual and social development. Such research requires collaboration among scholars from a variety of research disciplines, including cognitive science, education, linguistics, psychology, anthropology, and sociology. LCHC also functions as a research and training institution, arranging for pre-doctoral, doctoral, and post-doctoral training, as well as research exchanges with scholars throughout the world. In addition, LCHC sponsors a journal, Mind, Culture and Activity: An International Journal (MCA), and an open internet discussion group, XMCA.

The LCHC is rooted in several research traditions and interests, beginning with cross-cultural research in Africa and Mexico on the developmental impact of indigenous practices, literacy, and schooling. The methodological approach of this research was a blend of experimental psychology and cognitive ethnography that highlighted the roles of cultural contexts and the need to carefully study local practices and local people’s interpretations of those practices. As this research developed, it drew inspiration from Soviet psychology,cultural psychology, Black psychology, cultural anthropology, distributed cognition, actor-network theory, and American pragmatism. LCHC has also been strongly influenced by ideas from developmental psychology and takes a strong multidisciplinary, “theory and practice” approach to the social sciences and humanities.

Of the influences mentioned above, Soviet psychology, cultural anthropology, and American pragmatism have been particularly important to the intellectual formation of members of the LCHC. From Soviet psychology—specifically the work of cultural-historical psychologist Lev Vygotsky (1896–1934) and Vygotsky-inspired cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT), LCHC researchers inherited an interest in cultural mediation—the idea that humans use cultural artifacts to control both their environments and their own actions. This interest in mediation was coupled with a concern for the activities that cultural artifacts mediate. From this combined approach, LCHC researchers seek to make visible for analysis those processes "that realize a person’s actual life in the objective world by which he is surrounded, his social being in all the richness and variety of its forms" (A.N. Leont’ev, 1977). From cultural anthropology (e.g., Gregory Bateson, Roy D'Andrade, Clifford Geertz) and American pragmatism (e.g., John Dewey, George Mead, Charles Peirce) LCHC adopted both methods for the analysis of behavior in situ (ethnography, the comparative method, modes of discourse analysis) and theoretical guidance for thinking about the co-constitution of persons and their environments, and the histories of the cultural practices through which they lead their lives.

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