Internalization and Interiorization

I am still dwelling on Vygotsky’s notions of internalization and interiorization.  These are two terms that appear abundantly in mathematics education research taken from a cognitive perspective (usually from the perspective of Piaget and von Glasersfeld).

Please allow me to type a few quotes to being organizing my thoughts.

From a more Piagetian perspective, taken mostly from Dr. Battista’s class notes.

A re-presentation is a playback or recreation of experience (von Glasersfeld, 1991). When a process has been sufficiently abstracted so that it can be re-presented (visualized) in the absence of perceptual input, we say that it has been internalized.

When a process has been disembedded from its original perceptual context so that it can be operated on, decomposed, analyzed, and utilized in novel situations, we say it has been interiorized. According to Steffe, Cobb, and von Glasersfeld (1988): [interiorization] leads to the isolation of structure (form), pattern (coordination), and operations (actions) from experiential things and activities; an interiorized entity is purged of its sensory-motor material.

Quotes from Vygotsky and Luria (Tool and Symbol in Child Development):

“…development, as often happens, proceeds here not in a circle, but in a spiral, passing through one and the same point at each new revolution at a higher level” (p. 153).

“We call this withdrawal of the operation within, this reconstruction of the higher psychological functions related to new structural changes, the process of interiorization, meaning, mainly, the following: the fact that at their first stages, the higher psychological functions are built as outer forms of behavior and find support in the outer sign is by no means accidental; on the contrary, it is determined by the very psychological nature of the higher function which, as we have mentioned above, does not appear as a direct continuation of elementary processes but is a social method of behavior applied by itself to itself.” (p. 153)

“We are present at what is actually a process of the greatest psychological importance: what was an outward sign operation, i.e. a certain cultural method of self-control from without, is now transformed into a new intra-psychological layer and gives birth to a new psychological system, incomparably superior in content, and cultural-psychological in genesis.

The process of ‘interiorization’ of cultural forms of behavior, which we have just touched upon, is related to radical changes in the activity of the most important psychological functions, to the reconstruction of psychological activity on the basis of sign operations.”

“During the process of ‘interiorization’, i.e., the inward transfer of functions, there occurs a complex reconstruction of their entire structure.” (p. 156)

My quotes at the top are all from mathematics education researcher which Vygotsky of course was not. However, I find it important to compare the uses and meanings of the terms. It seems that for all who use the term interiorization, there is a fundamental cognitive reorganization. From my understanding, it seems that von Glasersfeld’s notion of internalization (“When a process has been sufficiently abstracted so that it can be re-presented (visualized) in the absence of perceptual input…”) is closer in meaning to Vygotsky’s interiorization (“…what was an outward sign operation, i.e. a certain cultural method of self-control from without, is now transformed into a new intra-psychological layer…”) and yet also has some elements of von Glasersfeld’s interiorization (“The process of ‘interiorization’… is related to radical changes in the activity of the most important psychological functions, to the reconstruction of psychological activity on the basis of sign operations.”). However, for me at least, it is difficult to compare, as Vygotsky tends to speak about cultural signs whereas mathematics education researchers tend to speak about processes.