Articles

This article considers different aspects of the new neuropsychological theory of the social brain and its relationship to Luria’s and Vygotsky’s understanding of a human as a social and biological unity. The main functions of social cognition are described. Five aspects of these functions and five groups of evidence are analyzed: the negative consequences of brain damage on social behavior and social cognition; the social features of early-childhood development; the double interaction between brain maturation and the formation of mental functions; the negative consequences of social neglect on brain development; and the social and cultural specificity of neuropsychological assessment methods. The proposed new understanding of the social brain is as the social and cultural regulator of brain functioning.

In this paper the authors put polysemy research into the broader context of research into the mental lexicon, cognitive context conceptual priming, and probabilistic conceptual modelling. The article adopts a novel approach to the resolution of polysemy and puts it to an empirical test. The authors argue that priming plays a key role in the activation of an adequate meaning of a polysemous word. Mental structures, represented by a prime lexical unit, contain relevant conceptual information on the target word meaning. The prime triggers a cognitive context that influences the selection process of the target word sense.

This article investigates the problem of lightness perception. To clarify the role of depth in lightness perception two current models—the albedo hypothesis and the coplanar-ratio hypothesis—are discussed. To compare them the strength of the simultaneous-lightnesscontrast (SLC) illusion was investigated as a function of three-dimensional (3D) configurations of the test and background squares. In accordance with both hypotheses the changes in the depth arrangements of the test and background squares should result in changes in the illusory effect. However, the reasons for and the directions of these changes should be different. Five different types of 3D configurations were created in which the test squares were tilted at different angles to the background squares. A virtual-reality technique was used to present stereo pairs of different 3D configurations. Thirty-seven observers took part in the experiment. The method of constant stimuli was used to obtain psychometric functions. The displacements of these functions for 3D configurations in comparison with the 2D configuration allowed the estimation of illusion strength. The analysis of individual values of illusion strength revealed two groups of subjects. For the first group (38% of all participants) the strength changed insignificantly depending on the 3D configurations. For the second group (62% of all participants) significant differences were obtained for those configurations in which the test and background squares were perceived as differently illuminated. The changes in the SLC illusion strength for the second group were consistent with predictions made by the albedo hypothesis. Thus, it seems that the perceived illumination of a surface should be considered the main parameter for lightness estimations in 3D scenes.

Automated classification of a human functional state is an important problem, with applications including stress resistance evaluation, supervision over operators of critical infrastructure, teaching and phobia therapy. Such classification is particularly efficient in systems for teaching and phobia therapy that include a virtual reality module, and provide the capability for dynamic adjustment of task complexity.

In this paper, a method for automated real-time binary classification of human functional states (calm wakefulness vs. stress) based on discrete wavelet transform of EEG data is considered. It is shown that an individual tuning stage of the classification algorithm — a stage that allows the involvement of certain information on individual peculiarities in the classification, using very short individual learning samples, significantly increases classification reliability. The experimental study that proved this assertion was based on a specialized scenario in which individuals solved the task of detecting objects with given properties in a dynamic set of flying objects.

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.