Phylogeny and cultural history in ontogeny

This purpose of this paper is to defend the contention that human culture is constitutive of human psychological processes. Several kinds of evidence are presented in support of this proposition: phenomena associated with the stabilization of images on the retina and their selective disappearance and reappearance when varying degrees of destabilization are introduced; the non-linearity of cultural/cognitive time which acts as a transformative mechanism uniting the material and ideal aspects of culture; data on the operation of culture as a non-linear source of structuration in human ontogeny, and finally, data on the ways in which cultural practices influence the functioning of the brain. (C) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.