Articles

The aim of the article is to give a brief overview of cognitive studies in computer games psychology. The researches of psychological specifics of computer gamers have become very important recently due to a great popularity of computer games among children, teenagers and adults all over the world. Numerous studies are made that show significant differences between cognitive characteristics of computer gamers and non-gamers. There are possible negative consequences (such as long-term memory decline) as well as positive ones. Computers games are shown to enhance attention, spatial cognition and cognitive control of computer gamers and participants of specially organized computer games sessions. Cognitive function can possibly be trained in computer games. Computer games experience affects processes of thinking, decision making as well as multitasking and task-switching capability. Studies of connection between cognitive styles and computer games are also reviewed.

In this paper authors describe offered course “Basics of communication”: its educational purposes and basic principles are listed, the content of five sections are described, and the forms of control knowledge are indicated. It is analyzed three years’ experience of conducting this discipline at Faculty of Psychology of Tashkent branch of MSU named after M.V. Lomonosov. It is concluded the positive role of the designed course in the professional development of studentspsychologists. It is given a list of promising directions of further improvement course in order to improve its effectiveness in addressing the identified problems of communication and communicative competence at the initial stage of professional socialization of psychologists.

In the article author analyzes the development of psychological culture as an important task of the professionalization of high school psychologists. The following conditions of the psychological culture development are highlighted: professional situations modeling; usage of interactive methods; student-centered approach to learning; organization of environment, which enables communication and collaboration of students, reflection and creativity. The content of the course “Diagnostics of coping with difficult situations” designed by the author is presented. Goals and forms of knowledge control are determined, the content is presented. Practical classes techniques are described in detail: a) methods of interactive work for the assimilation of the theoretical material; b) reacting when there are difficulties in understanding of the educational information; c) the organization of joint activities and communication of students; d) polylogue when analyzing the results used in the workshop techniques; е) ways to increase reflection. The effects of the used methods are discussed. The results of the course based on feedback from students, the dynamics of the perception of a difficult situation are analyzed. The results of the course are related to the criteria of psychological culture

The PC-based Questionary for S. Schwatz Method of Value Preferences was developed. Access to the system is carried out through Internet. The pilot monitoring was conducted using the sample of 711 seniors of the state public schools in Moscow in the age 16-18 years old. The psychometric validity and reliability of the Schwatz Method of the Value Preferences has been proved trustworthy. We have got the set of similarities and differences of the results got on the similar samples comparing our PC-based modification and traditional pencil-paper method. The PC system with distant internet access in its present development can be used for the scientific and applied research as well as for current monitoring of the public educational institutions.

The article presents the results of experimental study that found the effects of attention and working memory on the change blindness phenomenon manifestation. In “flicker” paradigm 93 participants solved the task of change detection in two consistently presenting images. The participants was divided into several groups by the magnitudes of concentration and allocation of attention, estimated using Bourdon’s correction test, as well as on the accuracy and time of identification of the target stimulus in the DMS working memory test. Found a positive influence of the concentration and allocation of attention on the search changes duration. The effects of working memory indexes were different: improving the accuracy of identification of the target stimulus was associated with an increase in the search time but in contrast the speed of identification positive effects on the search changes duration. The results allow to suppose that the specific role of attention and memory resources in the change blindness.

In this paper results of empirical researches (this results were received in experiment and professional supervision “Diagnostics of the altered states of consciousness”) in which analytic introspection was used as method to induce the states of consciousness, transitive to altered are considered. Opportunities of the Leontiev’s theory of the structure of consciousness to explane a phenomenology of the altered states of consciousness are examined. We offer explanations of such phenomena as a loss of tridimentionality and constancy of perception (the sizes, forms, position in space, colors and brightness), mistakes in recognition of objects and its’ properties (in particular, pareydolia), a derealization, a detailed elaboration has been explaned. Results of experiments with analytic introspection allow elaborating of A.N. Leontiev’s ideas about functions of a sensual fabric of an image.

To the 60th anniversary of Nikolay Sergeevich Pryazhnikov.

To the 75th anniversary of Tatiana Vassilievna Gabay

The academic methodological rethinking of the actual educational process at a single higher education institution is considered as an important component of the institution’s inner research and identity. The sociological and, especially, educational psychological research, from author’s perspective, create the necessary informational background for the improvement of the educational process at the each higher education institution, as well as for the promotion of reforms at the level of the education system of the state. A short characteristic of the special branch of the international academic and applied research – an Institutional Research (the within-institutional studies at a university), and of the work at the Center of inner monitoring of the Higher School of Economics — National Research University are presented as an argument. It is concluded that such studies are underestimated in the context of improvement and development of the professional training of students at the department of psychology of the Lomonosov Moscow State University, and that there is a necessity of the creation of such kind of center.

The paper presents test questionnaire, developed by the author based on methodology K. Yang and allows the quantification of the severity of the degree of enthusiasm of younger teenagers playing computer games — CG). The questionnaire contains 22 questions, defining five 5 major scales: emotional attitude to the CG; self-monitoring in clinical trials; goal orientation on the CG; parental relation to the CG; preference for virtual communication real. A study conducted on a sample of 304 students of Nizhny Novgorod aged 11-12 years, showed that the developed test questionnaire allows to quantify the extent of computer abuse younger teenager; allows mathematical treatment; is relatively expeditious means evaluation of a large number of respondents; contributes to the objectivity of assessments that do not depend on the subjective attitudes of the person conducting the study; ensures comparability of the information obtained by different researchers in different subjects.

The aim of the article is to give a brief overview of cognitive studies in computer games psychology. The researches of psychological specifics of computer gamers have become very important recently due to a great popularity of computer games among children, teenagers and adults all over the world. Numerous studies are made that show significant differences between cognitive characteristics of computer gamers and non-gamers. There are possible negative consequences (such as long-term memory decline) as well as positive ones. Computers games are shown to enhance attention, spatial cognition and cognitive control of computer gamers and participants of specially organized computer games sessions. Cognitive function can possibly be trained in computer games.Computer games experience affects processes of thinking, decision making as well as multitasking and task-switching capability. Studies of connection between cognitive styles and computer games are also reviewed.

The paper analyzes opportunities and limitations of stage models in health psychology (trans-theoretical model, precaution adoption process model) comparing to traditional continuum models and actively developing self-regulation models. Theoretical basis for stage models (orientation to practical problems, analysis of behavior dynamics and associated processes, descriptive approach, understanding of the model effectiveness as an accuracy of classification and description of the transitions between stages) and problematic spheres (discrete/continuous process of change, descriptive/explanatory nature of the basic constructs). Heuristic nature of stages models is proved in solving the original problem of behavior description while their vulnerability to criticism is demonstrated because of the implicit transition to the problem of his explanation.

The paper presents an overview of research aimed at understanding of the executive functions in childhood. The article shows that in studies focused on the role of the adult, and in the studies that pay attention to the interaction between peers and the impact of these processes on executive functions, it is clearly shown that executive functions are investigated in the line of the logic of cultural-historical theory (Vygotsky, Luria, Leontiev, Zaporozhets). It is shown that the importance of social interaction postulated by Vygotsky was experimentally justified in modern research. In these studies age dynamics in the formation of executive functions and the specific role of the adult in different stages of development are described. The communicative aspect of the interaction is emphasized, but role of an adult role as a carrier of cultural resources is not considered.

The article suggests a classification of parenting styles found in the families of psychological consultation clients, who have asked for the help in the decision of the parent-child problems. This classification is created as a result of investigation 176 families. Based on interview with clients there were identified and described two main parenting style — overprotection and overexactingness. Their descriptions are given in three dimensions of the relationship of parents with their children’s: cognitive, emotional and behavioral. There were identified and described the various variants of overprotection and overexactingness: local and total, moderate and strong, “hospital”, anxious and loving overprotection; local and total, moderate and strong, soft, hard and cruel overexactingness. Content characteristics of all these variants were also given by separate dimensions of the relationship of parents with their children. This classification, in comparison with the known, gives the opportunity to more clearly define meaningful similarities and differences of different parenting styles on each of the selected dimensions.

Based on the ideas of E.N. Sokolov about the mechanisms of the “vector encoding” information in the brain the spherical connectionist model of visual cognitive action was constructed. This model takes into account and expressed in mathematical form some neurophysiological data on the structure and functioning of the real neural networks of the brain. In this model, using the general principles of “vector coding”, all the main stage cognitive action have been described in a mathematical form, including the step of exposing the object on the retina and the step of evaluating the correctness of the response to a stimulus. Psychophysiological problem has also been considered. The transition of the perceived object from his physiological state F at the output of pre-detectors to unconsciously perceived (psychological) state D at the output of the ensemble detectors and the model awareness of sensations of the object properties has been described. The developed spherical connectionist model of cognitive actions allowed uniting in the activity psychology the ideas of E.N. Sokolov about the “vector coding” of the object properties in the brain and the A.N. Leontiev’s ideas about the mechanisms of “active psychic reflection of the object by the subject”.