Introduction

This special issue of “Psychology in Russia: State of the Art” — “Contemporary childhood research” — is devoted to the VI International Conference “Early Child- hood Care and Education” (ECCE 2017) that was held on May, 10–13 2017, in Moscow, Russia. It includes conference participants’ articles as well as regular sub- missions.

I was given the honor of making a tribute to Bronfenbrenner during the VI Inter- national Conference “Early Childhood Care and Education” (ECCE 2017) held on May 10-13th, 2017, in Moscow, Russia. I opened countless les on my computer, started texts, and wrote a paragraph or two, but no more. It was a very challenging invitation for many reasons. Bronfenbrenner was a pioneer of translational and positive Psychology and inspired many environmental intervention programs around the world related to family support services, home visits, and education for parent- hood, especially for low-income families and communities.

This issue of "Psychology in Russia: State of the Art", focused on sexual orientation and gender identity, is a step toward meeting that obligation of contributing to the welfare of a stigmatized population, through highlighting current research and theory related to LGBT concerns.

This issue of “Psychology in Russia: State of the Art” is focused on the topic of psychology and education. It also introduces a new section on psychology and bioethics, and we hope to start a meaningful discussion in this proliferating field of research.

This special issue of “Psychology in Russia: State of the Art” is dedicated to the 120^th anniversary of Lev Vygotsky, an outstanding Russian (Soviet) psychologist whose cultural-historical approach has given rise to numerous theoretical advances, empirical research and applied methods in psychology and education worldwide.

The current issue of “Psychology in Russia: State of the Art” provides the special section Mathematical learning: New perspectives and challenges, edited by Marina Vasilyeva, associate professor at Lynch School of Education, Boston College (USA).

The current issue of “Psychology in Russia: State of the Art” provides papers on medical, social and personality psychology, as well as various works on speech, communication and semantic.

The special issue of “Psychology in Russia: State of the Art” — “Multiculturalism and intercultural relations: Comparative analysis” — deals with urgent social issues facing contemporary society.

The current issue of “Psychology in Russia: State of the Art” provides diverse papers on theory and methodology, social psychology and such multidisciplinary topics as cognitive psychology, psychophysiology and clinical psychology.

The current issue of “Psychology in Russia: State of the Art” provides diverse papers on theory and methodology, social and educational psychology and neuropsychology.

The current issue of Psychology in Russia: State of the Art opens with reports from the 4th Annual international research-to-practice conference “Early Childhood Care and Education” held on April 23rd - 25th 2015 at the Lomonosov Moscow State University (Moscow, Russia).

The current issue of Psychology in Russia: State of the Art presents topical articles in clinical, cognitive, social, and developmental psychology.

The present issue of Psychology in Russia: State of the Art addresses a wide range of problems that prompt current research efforts of Russian psychologists. It opens with an impressive psychophysiological study in human visual cognition that provides insights from an extensive analysis of imagination performed by Vitaly M. Verkhlyutov, Vadim L. Ushakov, Pavel A. Sokolov and Boris M. Velichkovsky B.M.

This special issue is dedicated to the 3rd Estoril Vigotsky Conference — the biannual international scientific event held in Estoril, Portugal on 16-18 June 2014. The organizing committee honored the wide impact of Lev Vygotsky’s works on contemporary psychology and included Vigotskyan League of Portuguese Language and the Institute Quintino Aires, in collaboration with the Lomonosov Moscow State University, the Russian University of Humanities (Russia, Moscow), IPAF — Instituto Vigotsky (São Paulo, Brazil) and Andricard (Luanda, Angola). The editorial board of our journal is very grateful to Professor Quintino-Aires for organization of this outstanding conference and to Professor Margarida César for contribution to this special issue.

The first issue of 2014 opens with the special section “The Second Russian-Japanese Forum of Social Sciences and Humanities”. This forum was welcomed by Lomonosov Moscow State University in Ooctober 2013 and included a seminar on psychology. A team of researchers from the Graduate School of Arts and Letters of Tohoku University led by Dr. Tsuneyuki Abe, the head of Psychology Chair, and the Lomonosov Moscow State University Faculty of Psychology professors discussed current advances in psychological science in Russia and Japan with an emphasis on psychophysiology and social psychology. The corresponding section of the journal presents articles based on the seminar papers.

Tsuneyuki Abe, Juthatip Wiwattanapantuwong and Akio Honda explore the experience of a survivor in a great natural disaster. In the article “Dark, cold, and hungry, but full of mutual trust: Manners among the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake victims” they deconstruct simplified “urban legends” about extremely high levels of helpfulness among Japanese earthquake victims, and present valuable insights into actual resources promoting solidarity and support.

The first issue of 2014 opens with the special section “The Second Russian-Japanese Forum of Social Sciences and Humanities”. This forum was welcomed by Lomonosov Moscow State University in Ooctober 2013 and included a seminar on psychology. A team of researchers from the Graduate School of Arts and Letters of Tohoku University led by Dr. Tsuneyuki Abe, the head of Psychology Chair, and the Lomonosov Moscow State University Faculty of Psychology professors discussed current advances in psychological science in Russia and Japan with an emphasis on psychophysiology and social psychology. The corresponding section of the journal presents articles based on the seminar papers.

Tsuneyuki Abe, Juthatip Wiwattanapantuwong and Akio Honda explore the experience of a survivor in a great natural disaster. In the article “Dark, cold, and hungry, but full of mutual trust: Manners among the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake victims” they deconstruct simplified “urban legends” about extremely high levels of helpfulness among Japanese earthquake victims, and present valuable insights into actual resources promoting solidarity and support.

This issue is dedicated to the 80th anniversary of O.K. Tikhomirov’s birth (1933 —2001). O.K. Tikhomirov was a professor of psychology at Lomonosov Moscow State University. He is widely known for the development of the Personal Meanings Theory of thinking that creatively extended and synthesized leading conceptions of Russian national psychology: cultural-historical and activity-based methodological approaches. At the same time, O.K.Tikhomirov was an expert in diverse Western psychological theories, and the person who brought Russian psychological traditions to America and Europe.

The extensive special section presents papers written by foreign and Russia colleagues of O.K. Tikhomirov as well as researchers who continue their working the frames of his scientific school. It opens with the review article “Contribution of Oleg K. Tikhomirov to the methodology, theory and experimental practice of psychology” by Julia D. Babaeva and colleagues. A very personal report by Yulia Solovieva and Luis Quintanar, illustrated with unique photos, tell us about O.K. Tikhomirov’s academic and educational work at Autonomous University of Puebla (UAP) in Mexico.

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.

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”).

The present volume collects some examples of scientific work done by contemporary Russian psychologists, both empirical and theoretical, in different directions of research. Russian psychology in its development has undergone various times, some of them could be characterized as significant intensity of research, some could be described as essential decrease in volume of the leaded development. Those changes were mostly determined by the external reasons: political revolutions of the beginning and the end of the twentieth century, two World wars, which have influenced all areas of Russian life, economic and political shocks of the first half and the end of the same century, ideological restrictions (during the Soviet period) that were imposed on studied problems and treatment of the results of those studies, and also in the form of significant reduction of communication between the Russian and world psychology, etc.