As he continued to compare Kohlers work on the ape to childrens development, he began to look at perception and attention in child development. Kohler believed that apes bound by their receptive field have a greater extent than adult humans. Vygotsky believed that a childs perception, because it is human, does not develop as a direct continuation and further perfection of the forms of animal perception. Vygotsky and his colleagues conducted different experiments, which led them to discover that labeling is the primary function of Speech used by young children. Labeling enables the child to choose a specific object to single it out from the entire situation he is perceiving. The child begins to see the world, his eyes, and his Speech. Speech becomes an essential part of a childs cognitive development.
From their knowledge of Speech and perception, Vygotsky began the study of human memory. This study revealed that all the other functions built around memory in early childhood are one of the c
entral psychological functions. His analysis suggested that memory, in many respects, determines thinking in a very young child. For the very young child to think is to remember. He felt that the essential characteristic of human behavior, in general, is that humans personally influence their relations with the environment. He also believes that internal reconstruction happens when a childs development proceeds in a spiral passing through the same point of each new revolution while advancing to a higher level. In the initial phase, the reliance on external signs is crucial to a childs effort. Take memorization, the late stages of a childs behavior appear to be the same as the early stages of memorizing, which were characterized by a direct process. The very young child does not rely on external means. Instead, he uses a natural approach. On the other hand, the older child has begun to memorize more and better. The older student has somehow perfected and developed old methods of memorization.