Fenomenologiczne wątki w psychologii poznania. Badania Danuty Gierulanki nad przyswajaniem pojęć i rozumieniem tekstu
Fenomenological motives in the psychology of cognition Studies by D. Gierulanka on concepts acquiring and text understanding

Author(s): Maria Zając
Subject(s): Social Sciences, Psychology
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego
Keywords: psychology; Gierulanka
Summary/Abstract: Danuta Gierulanka (1909—1995), a mathematician, psychologist (W. Heinrich’s Phdcandidate), and a philosopher (a co-worker of R. Ingarden, and E. Husserls’ translator)by education, was the first to introduce the qualitative methods into the tradition of psychologicalstudies as early as in the mid 20th century, and used them within the scopeof research conducted by cognitive science formed later on. The promising results sheobtained when it comes to acquiring geometric cocepts [PG — Eng. GC] — a canonicexample of classic concepts, and studies on text understanding, are, thus fully comparableto theories formed in later decades within cognitive psychology and text linguistics.The basis of the qualitative research process used by D. Gierulanka constituted:1. In vivo experiment (a non-laboratory experiment in studies on GC — a methodof a private tutoring the so called chain studies and reading “through an eryehole” inthe case of the studies on text) and a processual approach to studies connected to it.2. Theoretical assumptions concerning a typological diversification used in the experimentof the material (six qualitatively separate groups of GC and three classes oftext varieties).3. Samples of notions and texts derived from natural materials to be found in thecultural circulation, not artificially designed for the purposes of temporary experimentaims.4. Protocols of individual studies registering various forms of behavior of the respondentand researcher (a dialogue nature and interactivity of the study), taking intoaccount experiential information skipped by later cognitivists.5. The analysis of protocols conducted in relation to typologically homogeneousgroups of the experimental material concerning a description of conscious states ofknowledge in respondents.In the scope of research on concepts, D. Gierulanka pointed to internally diversifiedgeometric concepts, and a pluralist nature of their natural concepts systems. Shedescribed four stages of the course of their acquiring (an attention-experiential study,a vague description of the subject of a given notion, a key study, a summit study), witha possibility of achieving a concrete, stable and flexible GC in the last stage. She involvedimportant regularities, including the conditions of the course of the process ofconcepts acquiring and its results. They depend on the following factors: 1) a way ofgetting to know the copies of a given concept; 2) various forms of mind activity of a respondentconducted in cooperation with an researcher (actions facilitating and supportingthe process of concepts acquisition, and actions preventing and correcting mistakesmade by him/her, 3) affective processes (direct experiential data); 4) specific features ofa mathematic discourse; 5) the structure of geometric concepts in particular groupsconnected with a different nature of the subject of their reference.Against the opinions on the nature of classic notions that dominated later literature,she showed that geometric concepts “do not constitute a bundle of features”, but constitutea complex and heterogeneous structure. Using later terminology of the cognitivepsychology, one can recognize the elements of the knowledge referred to as: 1) declarative,2) implicit knowledge non-declarative and 3) meta-cognitive in the structure of theGC examined by her.In studies on text understanding, she formulated a triadic text conception (material,structural and compositional text qualities) for the purposes of the research conducted.Paying attention to a typological diversification of texts used in experiments, shedivided them into three classes, i.e. “A” type texts (informative), “B1” mathematical texts,and “B2” literary texts. The studies on the course of understanding texts of the types underdiscussion allowed for working out her notion system in which she precisely differentiatedbetween understanding as a process, act and state, and additionally introduced thenotion of “reunderstanding the sense of the text”. She gave several definitions of understandingas a mental process and revealed its heterogeneous nature. The very issues mentioned,as well as other important phenomena she dealt with allow for recognizing the genuinelygeneral-theoretical outlines from the conception of understanding derived fromD. Gierulanka’s studies, which makes it a different theory in comparison to other theoriescreated in later research trends.On the basis of the research conducted, she claimed the lack of homogeneity ofcomprehension processes. They exist as three types of understanding: 1) understandingof the sense or intention, or the meaning of what is given; 2) understanding of thestructure of a given whole built by constituting moments in a given starting situation; 3)understanding of the role (nature) the given plays in a broader whole, in the context orcon-situation.An important notion of the text conception is “a cognitive grasping” (cf. the notionof meta-discursive meanings used in communicative pragmatics).The studies on the course of the processes of the understanding of “A” type (informative)texts show that the texts can be subject to a certain objectivized perspective (“thetext has its own sense”). It is possible thanks to the two understanding processes workingactively: 1) breaking the text isolation via making references to the whole subjectarea from which they were isolated; 2) taking a secondary sense isolation back (controlprocesses).Revealing a substantial complexity of the course of the understanding processes(a list of about fifty different forms of mental activity engaged in the process of enhancingunderstanding) with the use of “A” and “B2” (literary) types is connected with researcher’sseveral important achievements and statements:1. Fenomenological data coming from the list prepared by her concerning differentforms of mental activity of the respondents in question is to be used in order to specifysome conceptions of cognitive psychology.2. A special role in text understanding is ascribed to compositional qualities (revealingmaterial features of the text, and activating reader’s diversified emotional-intellectualreactions to the style and atmosphere of the text).3. The phenomenon of reaching higher levels of understanding (an overlap of understandingprocesses and their multiplication) is a common phenomenon.4. “B1” (mathematical) text types are characterised by a genre specificity (peculiarity),and are mainly connected with a understanding variety referred to as structureunderstanding.D. Gierulanka’s research approach possesses features of a fenomenological (descriptive)approach. The very conclusion, however, needs further studies and ingraining inthe latest literature. Further studies are also required in the case of epistemology which,entangled in the studies on concepts and text, reveals its new perspectives and givesimpulses for its restoration in terms of fundamental and controversial issues of cognitivepsychology (intentionality of cognitive processes: cognitive constructivism, relation:cognition-emotion, direct and indirect cognition, and others). A key problem inD. Gierulanka’s studies, i.e. the issue of the specificity of the mathematical cognition,opens a new research perspective of the phenomenon of the so called paradigmaticmode of thinking that is less popular in cognitive psychology.

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