Anton Sidorov-Dorso
Moscow State Pedagogical University
Research supervisor: Prof. Popova L.V.
My application to participate in and contribute to the ISCAR Summer University is prompted by at least three reasons. First, the powerful methodology of the social-cultural-historical paradigm and its potential multidisciplinary applications for the scientific domain that I work in. I have been proposing and augmenting an anthropological framework in worldwide synaesthesia research for several years contrasting its cases cross-culturally, insisting that development and exposure can hold the key to understanding synaesthesia. The Vygotsky-Luria qualitative analysis of contingent interactions between environment and phenomenology enabled me to expose the patterns of influence (developmental niche) that mediate synaesthetic endowments and its source-potential that can be traced as profoundly as to identify its earliest culture-dependent sensory modulation in synaesthesia and general human cognition not just its “intellectual crux.”
Second, I am guided by my desire to re-introduce the object of my research – developmental synaesthesia – into Russian psychology. Admittedly, the focus of my research seems to remain always on the fringes of scientific endeavor. I can prove otherwise. Consciousness and its dynamics as the major issue in psychology when analysed against the backdrop of synaesthetic experience can reveal its implicit aspects. So, it came as an encouraging surprise when I read in his published notebook that Vygotsky followed the same line of thinking. Initially, a synaesthetic individual, Shereshevsky was his subject of intended research on consciousness before becoming Luria’s. I see this line of exploration drastically wanting and feel that more scientists should follow suit. Third, my aspiration to cross-fertilize fleeting but valuable ideas that can germinate only in think tanks such as the ISCAR SU. Breakthroughs can be single-handed but science is teamwork. Therefore, by applying to partake in the upcoming 2013 ISCAR SU, I fervently expect to meet seasoned educationalists and developmental psychologists on whose research I can model mine as well as ambitious and purpose-driven soul-mates with who I could share my vision and enthusiasm.
Presentation “Methodological Application of the Cultural- Historical Theory for Developmental Synaesthesia”
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