Articles

This article shows that the peculiarities of divergent and convergent thinking in young males and females of various creativity levels are stipulated by a definite EEG frequency-and-spatial arrangement. Young males and females of mixed and left lateral arrangement profiles demonstrate an expressed activity of occipital, central, and temporal areas of both cerebral hemispheres. In young males and females of right LAP (lateral arrangement profile), connections are clearly localized in case of solution of both convergent and divergent tasks. Solution of divergent and convergent tasks may condition certain frequency-and-spatial arrangement of EEG in young males and females with different levels of academic progress and a different lateral arrangement profile (LAP).

Contemporary psychology and cognitive neuroscience create many opportunities for studying the brain functions, but also generate numerous challenges. To date, scientists face common conceptual problems which are relevant to almost every research study/ case such as: classification of functions, unified methodological approaches, explanation of the psychological phenomenon etc. The Sino-German Workshop which took place in Hamburg in 2013 aimed to address unasked questions and unused answers, attracting scientists from different countries and different fields of psychology, neuroscience, medicine, history, and philosophy. The present discussion on the 9 unasked questions was initiated by Professor Ernst Poeppel and was held on by Russian participants from various academic institutions.

Special section of the third issue of the 6th volume Psychology in Russia: State of the Art presents the papers of the workshop and faculty meeting of the Parmenides Foundation — international scientific community for multi-disciplinary cognitive research building bridges between natural, computer sciences and humanities. The 10th Sino-German Workshop in the Neurosciences and Psychology with 80 participants from 15 countries, held in Hamburg, Germany (1–4 September 2013), was dedicated to the general topic of neglected questions in the field.

Janna Glozman’s book provides a comprehensive information on both Russian and Western developmental neuropsychology. The reader, especially form the West, may find fist hand information on Vygotsky and Luria’s collaboration with emphasis put on social aspects of child development. At the same time the reader can learn about principles of Luria’s syndromological (qualitative) approach and Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development. Two important notions that had a great impact both on the neuropsychological and developmental studies...

First, a disclaimer: the book I am about to review is written by my mentor. Call me biased. I was fortunate enough to attend the lectures presented in this book. It was 35 years ago. I vividly remember how sought after was a good set of lecture notes from these lectures. Now this call has been answered by the author himself. It’s been a long wait, and the new generations of Russian-speaking psychology students — and instructors alike — are so much better off for it...

The article has discussed the Leningrad Siege (1941-1944), focusing on the individual and collective memories of survivors who had lived through that trauma during their childhood. Thus far there has been no psychological investigation of the feelings of extreme deprivation caused by that Siege, despite the reams of material published on Leningrad under siege. To deal with this shortfall, the critique has considered the effect of that experience on the future lives of the people concerned. The basic methodology, the paper maintains, combined quantitative and qualitative approaches and involved a comparison of two equal-sized groups: the experimental group, comprising 60 war survivors who lived through the Siege; and the control group, comprising 60 war survivors who were evacuated from Leningrad during the Siege and consequently did not experience the trauma. The review related that the groups were matched by age and by gender distribution. Data for the Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis-based qualitative analysis (QA) were collected according to psychometric measures (containing scales for depression, general satisfaction with life, and stress) applied in semi-structured interviews. The QA, for its part, used methods such as correlation, factor- and cluster-analysis to measure data segments. The nature of the suffering and the persistence of the human threat (past and present) were reconstructed within the framework of the psychological experiences (under extreme conditions) faced by the experimental group. The report, in conclusion, has stated that these experiences were evaluated via psychoanalytic tools dealing with child development, mourning and symbolization of traumatic events. These enabled it to identify psychological phenomena such as child grief and the impact of trauma on the adult life of the former Siege victims.

The article aims to demonstrate a high efficiency of the methodological means suggested by psychological syndrome analysis approach (Vygotsky-Luria school) for solving theoretical and applied issues in contemporary person-centered medicine. 

This is achieved through an example of empirical study meant to construct a psychosomatic syndrome for 290 patients with mitral valve prolapse (MVP). Analysis of all collected data was based on psychological syndrome analysis concept (Vygotsky–Luria school) and A.R. Luria’s principles for psychological factors (causes) selection, which determine the logic and structure of a neuropsychological syndrome. It demonstrated the association between characteristics of emotional experiences and clinical symptoms manifested in MVP patients. This correlation was statistically verified. The results proved that the most important syndrome-establishment factor (radical) is a specific emotionality and dysfunction of emotion regulation and emotional control in MVP patients (excessive emotional repression with insufficient reflection of emotional experiences). Features of the motivation sphere of MVP patients appear as a second psychological syndrome-establishment factor: these are domination of the motive of failure avoidance and unsatisfied self-approval need. 

We argue that psychological syndrome analysis can be used as a means to approach not only diagnostic but also prognostic tasks both in clinical psychology and medicine, as well as for the development and implementation of the person-centered integrative diagnosis model. 

We maintained that this approach, applied in theoretical and practical fields of clinical psychology and mental health care is highly efficient at the current stage of the science evolution due to prospects revealed by s new methodological context of postnonclassical model of rationality and a comprehensive character of the cultural-historical concept regarding an individual and his mind as a self-developing open systems.

The article analyzes certain socio-cultural and personal predispositions, which determine the modern diversity of subjective uncertainty and ambiguity manifestations. It stresses that for the creation of ‘realistic’ clinical psychology (in terms of A.R. Luria) one needs to retrace the relations between the resourceful and the psychopathological aspects of the ambiguity phenomenon and the cultural environment with its destructive ideals and mythologems, manipulative media-technologies and all-pervading idea of ‘deconstruction’. Methods for modeling the experiences of ambiguity in experimental settings, in pathopsychological examination and in projective psychological diagnostics are put in comparison. The arguments are adduced for the interpretation of deficient manifestations of subjective uncertainty as a criterion for diagnostics of the severity of personality disorder.

In this article dialectical thinking is regarded as one of the central cognitive processes. Because of this cognitive function we can analyze the development of processes and objects. It also determines the possibilities for the creative transformation of some content and for solving problems.

The article presents a description and the results of experimental studies. This evidence proves that dialectical thinking is a specific line of cognitive development in children and adults. This line can degrade during school time if the educational program follows formal logical principles, or it can become significantly stronger if the pedagogy is based on dialectical methodology.

This article analyzes different approaches to defining reflection and reflexivity. The mastery of intellectual operations reveals the role of reflexivity in the development of abilities. The operational aspect of reflection is emphasized in the article. The study is premised on the expectation that the effective realization of intellectual activities and the development of abilities determined by these activities are conditioned by adequate reflection on conscious acts directed toward the performance of educational-cognitive tasks. The data from the experiment show that reflexivity as a personality trait is highly developed in students with high indexes of general intellectual operations. The research findings indicate the role of reflexive mechanisms in students’ acquisition of intellectual abilities. The implications of these findings are discussed.

There are considerable differences among the value hierarchies revealed by different methods of measurement. The quantitative measure of such a difference can be referred as the Congruence-Discrepancy Index (CODI). The more congruent the results of different methods are, the higher the CODI is. In the present study I compared value hierarchies obtained by the Schwartz Value Survey and an original instrument based on the constant-sum scale in two samples of adolescents (those in special schools for at-risk adolescents and those in ordinary secondary schools). The results show that the CODI for ordinary school students is significantly higher than that for adolescents recruited from special schools. A significant correlation between the CODI and school engagement was revealed for the ordinary school sample. The possibilities of using the CODI in value research are discussed.

Vygotsky’s name has never been so evoked as it is at the present time, yet the educational scientific community faces an awkward situation. On the one hand, his works have been used as the basis for certain socioconstructivist school reforms that he would surely have completely disapproved of (Vygotsky, 1934/1987, p. 211). On the other hand, the recent collection of his writings (Yvon & Zinchenko, 2012) and other works (Brossard, 1999, 2004; Schneuwly, 2008b) lead us to another interpretation, in which the internal evolution of didactic content is at the forefront of Vygotsky’s precepts. Therefore, although it is unpleasant, we are confronted by different points of view on Vygotsky’s work that need to be investigated and exposed. This article sets out to achieve that objective.

Present reality gives rise to contradictory trends: the combination of new threats, tense situations, and destructive tendencies shapes awareness of the importance of identifying, assessing, and managing emerging situations and of developing new scientific paradigms. The polyfunctional interpretation of psychological security correlates with the perception of stability as a specific arrangement of interactional processes and the relatedness of stereotypes, standards, sociocultural attitudes, and social perceptions. A tense situation clearly indicates the separation of the potential of the person and the group from the notion of subject-action in security promotion and maintenance. The depersonification of social institutions is accompanied by each person’s growing attention to himself/herself and the increasing significance of this kind of attention in overcoming uncertainty and tension.

The process of making decisions in a tense situation often includes the phenomenon of the illusion of control over the situation, which can pose a threat to psychological security. The social significance of the promotion of psychological security calls for consolidation of efforts aimed at the stability of the society and the prevention of stress-producing situations.

This article describes psychological challenges that executive leaders of companies face nowadays. The study of the social context is based on changes that took place with the development of information technologies. The analysis touches upon such phenomena as virtualization, involvement in the external sociocommunicative environment, and the emergence of multiple identity. It is suggested that in order to adapt to changing conditions one should follow the path of self-development—in particular, to develop attention, imagination, and willpower. In connection with the traits generally attributed to executive leaders, the article emphasizes self-adjustment; common sense as an integral part of intuition, emotions, and imagination; and the readiness to make choices in fifty-fifty situations.

The educational reform is Russia is in full swing, so the section of Psychology of education and learning is the most widely presented in the current issue. The international collective of authors Frédéric Yvon, Ludmila A. Chaiguerova and Denise Shelley Newnham considers different interpretations of the works of Lev Vygotsky — famous psychologist and methodologist. The authors suggest original ways of incorporating Vygotsky’s ideas into the modern educational system. Dmitry A. Podolskiy presents his study of value hierarchy among students and adolescence in the article “Multimethod approach to measuring values in a school context: exploring the association between Congruence — Discrepancy Index (CODI) and task commitment”. In the article “The role of reflection and reflexivity in the development of student’s abilities” Vladimir D. Shadrikov explores the role of reflection in the educational process. The group of authors headed by Nikolay E. Veraksa state that dialectical thinking is a specific line of cognitive development in children and adults and proves this statement by the empirical data (“The structural dialectical approach in psychology problematic and research results”).

This article looks at the content strategies of the Russian media and discusses whether they conform to humanitarian values. The content strategies that prevailed in different eras and the social and psychological effects that they engendered are compared. Special attention is paid to conflicts of values and other negative consequences of the communicative incompetence of the media in Russia; this lack of competence poses a threat to the information security of society.

This article considers the potential for applying contemporary philosophical theories (which distinguish classical, nonclassical, and postnonclassical types of scientific rationality) to the specification of theoretical methodological principles in the study of clinical psychology. We prove that psychological syndrome analysis (developed by the Vygotsky–Luria–Zeigarnik school), taken as a system of principles for organizing research as well as for interpreting its results, conforms to the epistemological complexity of the object of study in clinical psychology, which is understood in the postnonclassical scientific view as a self-developing system. We present an example of the formation of a psychosomatic syndrome in 290 patients with mitral-valve prolapse, applying methods of qualitative and statistical data analysis in a longitudinal clinical-psychological study. We prove that the syndrome is system-defined and has a multilevel character, and that its structure is determined by several factors: the motivational factor (with the domination of the failure-avoidance motive and the unsatisfied self-approval need); the factor of the emotional-regulation disorders, represented by both excessive emotional repression and lack of emotional control; and a psychophysiological factor. We argue that a psychosomatic syndrome can be used as a means for approaching not only diagnostic but also prognostic tasks both in clinical psychology and in medicine. We conclude that the results of our empirical study, conducted within the framework of postnonclassical philosophy and using the methods of psychological syndrome analysis, not only expand the scientific background on the nature of a particular disease (mitral-valve prolapse) but also pose further questions whose investigation will broaden our view of the psychological mechanisms of psychosomatic- syndrome genesis.

Background. The structure of consciousness has long been a cornerstone problem in the cognitive sciences. Recently it took on applied significance in the design of computer agents and mobile robots. This problem can thus be examined from perspectives of phi­losophy, neuropsychology, and computer modeling.

Objective. In the present paper, we address the problem of the computational model of consciousness by designing computer agents aimed at simulating “speech understand­ing” and irony. Further, we look for a “minimal architecture” that is able to mimic the effects of consciousness in computing systems.

Method. For the base architecture, we used a software agent, which was programmed to operate with scripts (productions or inferences), to process incoming texts (or events) by extracting their semantic representations, and to select relevant reactions.

Results. It is shown that the agent can simulate speech irony by replacing a direct aggressive behavior with a positive sarcastic utterance. This is achieved by balancing be­tween several scripts available to the agent. We suggest that the extension of this scheme may serve as a minimal architecture of consciousness, wherein the agent distinguishes own representations and potential cognitive representations of other agents. Within this architecture, there are two stages of processing. First, the agent activates several scripts by placing their if-statements or actions (inferences) within a processing scope. Second, the agent differentiates the scripts depending on their activation by another script. This multilevel scheme allows the agent to simulate imaginary situations, one’s own imagi­nary actions, and imaginary actions of other agents, i.e. the agent demonstrates features considered essential for conscious agents in the philosophy of mind and cognitive psy­chology.

Conclusion. Our computer systems for understanding speech and simulation of irony can serve as a basis for further modeling of the effects of consciousness.

Background. The sense of agency (SoA) provides us with the experience of be­ing a physical agent with free will. On a phenomenological basis, SoA can be di­vided into sensory components (feeling of agency, FoA) and more cognitive com­ponents (judgment of agency, JoA). Both these components can be independently measured.

Objective and Method. A new method was developed to test the possibility of preserving SoA and its components in the atypical conditions of passive movements. Parameters of the participant’s movement in response to a visual stimulus (reaction time, speed, and amplitude) were measured and used to control a servo that simu­lated the movement (executed passive movements). The scores on the psychometric scale of the agency and the event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded for variable movement delays relative to the stimulus onset.

Results. It was found that the FoA was not present under passive movement con­ditions. At the same time, participants associated these movements with their own activity (JoA), even when their delay after the stimulus onset was too short to be ac­tively reproduced. The somatosensory ERPs’ amplitude decreased for the expected movements, demonstrating an inverse relationship with the agency scores. The lowest amplitude was observed when movements were actuated by another hand. The results can be explained using a predictive forward model, since the FoA was not observed in the absence of active movements. On the other hand, the ERPs’ data and the presence of JoA with various delays between the stimulus and movement support the postdic­tive model of agency, where the leading role is assigned to prejudice and contextual knowledge related to the action.

Conclusion. It seems that the “context pressure” of the situation, demanding a mandatory response to the stimulus, forms a cognitive prediction of movements without firm sensory representation.