Homo cogitans in the Information Age: Study of Cognitive Processes

Gene-environment correlations have been studied in behavior genetics since the beginning of the 1980s, including genetic effect on the perceived family environment; however, the majority of studies have been based on retrospective self-reports. The current study is meant to analyze the sources of variance (complementary genetic factors, shared and non-shared environmental variance) in perceived family environment with Russian adolescent twins. Perception of family environment was measured with the Russian version of Family Environment Scale (Moos & Moos, 1981). The structural equation model in "Mx"(Neale, Boker, Xie, & Maes, 2004) was employed to estimate the influence of genetic and environmental factors on adolescents' self-reports. The environmental variance components are prevalent for most FES scales (6 of 10). The shared environment was significant for 3 primary grades and the Organization factor, the complementary genetic variance was revealed for 2 primary grades and the Expressiveness-Control super-order factor. These results are generally consistent with previously reported moderate heritability of FES scales, although the heritabilities for the Conflict scale and the Structure super-order factor appear to be relatively high. The gene-environment correlation might be a possible explanation for these findings.

This article concerns studies devoted to the analysis of stereotypes of women's behavior using a method of plural identification. This method has developed within the general psychosemantic approach and allows to study not only well realized social and mental representations, but those deep and implicit, too. The article describes three experiments. All of them are cross-cultural. In the first and the second experiments attitudes of Russian and Azerbaijan respondents were compared. The third experiment is focused on comparing the feedback received from Russian and US samples. It has been shown that cultural influence is more important than gender influence when we deal with attitudes towards female behavior and life scenarios. That means that positions of men and women of the same culture have more in common than responses pf women or men from different cultures. The method permits to conduct cross-cultural researches into different (subcultures both in one country or in different countries.

This research is devoted to the investigation of the role of conscious self-regulation in human development and activity. The concept of conscious self-regulation of a subject's voluntary activity and the history of its research conducted in Psychological Institute RAE are discussed. The results of the research dedicated to the typology of individual styles of self-regulation and their relationship with educational and professional activity effectiveness are presented. Personal dispositions have specific influence on the individual peculiarities of regulatory profile. It is concluded that the integrated system of individual self-regulation includes dynamic and content aspects of a personality, its conscious and subconscious structures for development and achievement of goals

In the paper an attempt is made to justify the importance of geometrical language (especially metric space models) for the description of visual perception processing. The tradition to use geometry for the description of psychophysiological processes goes back to a Newtonian color circle. At present there are many examples of such models, as well as of examples from other areas of mathematics. However, we want to justify a position, that geometrical language is not simply one of formal languages used for the description of visual perception phenomena. We'll try to represent it as the approach, which includes both the formal description of psychological phenomena and neurophysiological mechanisms, as well as experimental techniques of research into these phenomena and mechanisms.

The new method of microstructure analysis of oscillatory brain activity was pro­posed for studying the structure and dynamics of working memory. Mapping local network activity according to dipole localization of frequency-selective gamma and beta generators supports the leading role of frontal areas in processes of working memory. The retention of information during the delay interval is presented by joint activity of frequency-selective gamma and beta generators which provide the integration of frontal areas, associative, visual cortex and cerebellum. The joint activity of the gamma- and beta-generators has a wave-like character and is modulated by low-frequency wave activity.

The aim of this study was to investigate holistic / feature processing for encod­ing face expressions employing the chimeric face technique. In the course of our experiment we tested the recognition accuracy of universal and "chimeric" countenance. As the study has revealed there was a considerable difference between distributions of subject responses depending on the localization of expression features (top/ bottom parts of the face). For chimeric face identification accuracy substantially decreased, there were considerable variations in the naming of face expression and the names assigned were hardly dictated by distinguishing features. The changes in recognition of facial expressions may be accounted for by disarrangement in holistic processing of expression encoding.

In the present paper we suggest that people experience history from four perspectives: Participant, Witness, Contemporary and Successor. These perspectives differ in the proportion of experience, knowledge and personal meaning that is available. We empirically demonstrated greater malleability of memories about terrorist attacks that were experienced as a Witness than as a Contemporary. We also review research on the extent to which people spontaneously use historical events as a reference for dating personal memories. In our Moscow sample (N = 476), historical references were present in 5% of people. We found that 17% of participants listed historical memories in their life stories, as indicated by where they placed events along a Life Line. There was a tendency to balance negative historical experience with positive events from the Contemporary perspective (Gagarin'61, Olympic Games'80). Older participants included historical memories in their Life Lines more often than younger participants did, while the majority of historical memories referred to the age before 29. Participants recollected historical memories only from periods in their past that fell within what is called the "reminiscence bump" - a lifetime period that covers the age interval between 18-28 years. The proportion of historical content in individual autobiographical memory is deter­mined by: 1) objective history; 2) experiencing historically transitional events in youth; 3) being older than the "reminiscence bump" period and 4) having at least a decade time distance toward historical event

The present paper describes two studies that investigated incremental predictive value of tolerance and intolerance for uncertainty in predicting creativity. The first study shows significant positive incremental predictive power of tolerance for uncertainty over general intelligence in predicting creativity. The second study reveals a negative relationship between intolerance for uncertainty and creativity with fluid intelligence scores being already accounted for. Overall, tolerance for uncertainty promotes creativity, whereas intolerance for uncertainty impedes it, demonstrating that creativity draws on both intellectual potential and processes of uncertainty acceptance.

The author views dialectic cognition as an integral and unique process, which is based on dialectical logic - the logic of operating opposites. The development of this logic takes place during the preschool years through transformation of contradictory situations. The transformation process is carried out by dialectical cognitive actions.

This article reports on the results of development of human mental abilities measurement method based on the stated theoretical positions. Such positions are represented by the following: the thesis formulated by M.I. Sechenov that a thought is generated in the process of establishing a connection between the object and its properties; the definition of thin king given by S.L.Rubinstein who wrote that in the process of solving a problem the object manifests its new properties and qualities, it shows a new side, a new content is "bailed out" of it, as well as the thesis about mental development of abilities formulated by V.D. Shadrikov (2007).

This article stresses the social importance of the problem of giftedness and in this connection the necessity to clarify this concept scientifically. The history of this problem reveals the origins of reduction of the concept and the wide-spread notion of giftedness as "intelligence level above average. "There are two reasons of it: 1) Galton's components of giftedness were put into a complex; 2) there were no measuring techniques of this complex. The unit of the analysis of giftedness was formed after Galton's notion of giftedness as comprised of components was supplemented with the method of measurement -"systematic observation"- and understood as an ability to generate activity at one's own initiative. Then it became possible to realize Galton's concept of giftedness as a manifestation of mind and character.