Psychophysiology and cognitive psychology

This article sets forth the problem of studying social creativity from the psychophysiological perspective. Presented here are the first experimental records of studying the cognitive component of social activity. This article describes the peculiar hemispheric activity during the resolution of interpersonal problems by students of different individual peculiarities and professional achievement levels. The author shows that when the solution to a verbal divergent task by young males and females of high creativity and professional achievement is reached, the frequency-spatial EEG indexes are higher in the parietal and frontal brain regions. In the solution of a convergent task, these indexes are higher in the frontal, central and cervical brain zones. In case of young males and females of low creativity and average and low levels of professional achievement, the solution of a convergent task is accompanied by increased EEG power in the central, frontal, parietal zones of both hemispheres.

Thus, the assessment of the psychophysiological mechanisms of the cognitive component in social activity has shown that a definite picture of hemispheric activation stipulates the peculiarities of divergent and convergent thinking in young males and females of various levels of creativity and professional success.

This difference, revealed at the initial stage of investigation, demands a deeper study of the phenomenon of social creativity in the professional training of a personality that is inclusive of this personality’s individual peculiarities.

This article discusses the connection of hemispheric control over audioverbal perception processes and such individual features as “leading hand” (right-handedness and lefthandedness). We present a literature review and description of our research to provide evidence of the complexity and ambiguity of this connection. The method of dichotic listening was used for diagnosing audioverbal perception lateralization. This method allows estimation of the right-ear coefficient (REC), the efficiency coefficient (EC), and the effectiveness ratio (ER) of different aspects of audioverbal perception. Our research involved 47 persons with a leading right hand (mean age, 29.04±9.97 years) and 32 persons with a leading left hand (mean age, 29.41±10.34 years). Different hypotheses about the mechanisms of hemispheric control over audioverbal and motor processes were assessed. The research showed that both the leftand right-handers’ audioverbal perception characteristics depended mainly on right-hemisphere activity. The most dynamic and sensitive index of the functioning of the two hemispheres during dichotic listening was the efficiency coefficient of stimuli reproduction through the left ear (EC of the left ear). It turns out that this index depends on the coincidence/noncoincidence of the leading hemispheres in speech and motor processes. The highest efficiency of audioverbal perception revealed itself in the left-handers with a leading left ear (the hemispheric-control coincidence), and the lowest efficiency was in the left-handers with a leading right ear (the hemispheric-control divergence). The right-handers were characterized by less variation in values, although the influence of the coincidence/noncoincidence of the leading hemispheres in speech and motor processes also revealed itself as a tendency. This consistent pattern points out the necessity for further research on asymmetries of the different modalities that takes into account their probable interaction. The results of our study comport with scientific data showing genotypic left-handers with subzero right-ear coefficient (REC) values to be more efficient than left-handed persons who display high REC values.

This study examines the role of cognitive characteristics in the success in learning Russian, assessed through teachers’ grades and test scores on standardized state exams.

This paper examines the relationship between cognitive characteristics, such as nonverbal intelligence, working memory and speed of information processing, and the results of the Unified State Exam for 11^th grade students, the Basic State Exam for 9^th grade students and the traditional assessment of Russian language learning.

This study involved students in the 9^th and 11^th grades from four educational institutions in the Moscow and St. Petersburg regions; 427 students were studying in the 9th grade (50.3% were boys) and 398 students were studying in the 11^th grade (44.8% were boys).

This study concluded that expert assessment of Russian language learning is more associated with successful test scores on the Unified State Exam (r = 0.71, p < 0.01) than with the results of the Basic State Exam (r = 0.46, р < 0.01).

This study showed that at the lower and upper levels of secondary education, nonverbal intelligence is a significant predictor of success in learning the Russian language according to expert estimates. In addition, we found differences in the relationship between cognitive performance and success in learning the Russian language as assessed by tests. Nonverbal intelligence contributes significantly to individual differences in scores for the Unified State Exam in Russian, while the contribution of cognitive characteristics on the Basic State Exam is not statistically significant.