Based on the premises established by the Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky concerning cognitive development, we discuss two facts generally indicated by educational research which focus on the forms of conceptual organization by students: the articulation of concepts and their detachment from immediate reality, in order to define their status as epiphenomena related to the acquisition of new concepts, since both cognitive operations focus on the organization of concepts which result from the process of learning, and not on what really happens in the students' minds at the moment they learn. We propose to take the assumptions of contemporary Cognitive Psychology that allow us to recognize the moment of learning as a process of mixing or conceptual integration or, more specifically, double-scope blending, describing its particular characteristics in relation to handling concepts in the classroom as well as to the participants of the learning process in school.
cognitive psychology; conceptual integration; Lev Vygotsky; cognitive development; schooling; learning
