Relevance. P300-based brain-computer interface (P300 BCI) enables a user to choose commands by consciously attending to certain visual stimulus. However, P300 BCI-based systems for detection of covert focuses of human interest, including emotional stimuli, can be built and applied in systems for monitoring human’s normal and pathological state.

Objective. The objective was to investigate the properties of perception of stimuli with different subjective emotional significance for the person and to evaluate the possibility of P300 BCI-based detection of covert emotional focuses of attention.

Methods. 14 healthy subjects participated in the EEG-study with consequent presenting of visual stimuli with emotional or neutral human faces photos. In the first block the participants’ task was just to look at the screen with appearing stimuli (passive attention) while one of six stimuli in each trial was emotional. In the other two blocks the task was to silently count the number of the target stimulus presentations among non-target stimuli (active attention) with emotional or neutral target stimulus depending on the block. We analyzed the event-related potentials (ERP) for stimuli of different classes and the classifica-tion accuracy for target (or emotional) stimulus in P300 BCI-similar fashion.

Results. In this study we showed that the accuracy of presented in passive viewing paradigm emotional stimuli recognition exceeded the random level more than twice. Also we found characteristic features of the potentials in response to stimuli with various significance.

Conclusions. The obtained results create opportunities for developing the clinically applicable P300 BCI-based systems for detection of covert attentional focuses.

Relevance. The study of adaptive brain reorganizations during normal human aging is relevant both in the social aspect and in the scientific aspect. It contributes to the development of theoretical ideas about brain providing cognitive processes.

Objective. The aim of the work is to study the mechanisms of changing the volume of visual attention during normal aging using the technology of eye-tracking.

Methods. 30 healthy subjects aged 19-30 years (11 people, younger group) and 50-81 years (19 people, older group) performed an original technique assumed the memorization of triplets of images, their recall and recognition in a series of similar, identical and new images. The memorization was accompanied by the recording of subjects’ eye movements.

Results.In the older group the narrowing of volume of visual attention was obtained. For a 10-second exposure of stimuli in the older group, only the visual information associated with central stimulus was accurately remembered. Results of the older group showed a significant predominance of recall and recognition errors of stimuli over the number of those in the younger group. The differences between the two groups were not found only for the situation of recognition of the central stimulus. In the young group there was a tendency to an asymmetric appearance of errors in relation to the left and the right triplet stimuli. The right stimuli were worse reproduced verbally, and the left ones were less well recognized. In the older group the asymmetry in the recognition and reproduction of stimuli was not detected.

Conclusions. An eye tracking data objectified the distribution of visual attention and allowed to explain the results of the subsequent reproduction and recognition of images.

The content of the paper refers to the field of interdisciplinary scientific research, lying at the intersection of information theory and cognitive psychology.

Relevance. In conditions of rapid development of communication between people through computers, the transfer and adequate reception of the meaning of an information message are of great importance.

Purpose. Theoretical substantiation and development of the probabilistic approach to the evaluation of the meaning of purposeful human activity on the example of a text.

Methods. Theoretical analysis of probabilistic (V. Nalimov) and activity-related (D. Leontiev) approaches to the problem of meaning in psychology; method of calculating the amount of information developed by K. Shannon; author’s technique for assessing the meaning of a text message, based on a comparative analysis of the source text with its probabilistic representation by random permutation of words.

Results.The justification of the probabilistic nature of sense is given; a psychometric criterion is proposed for quantifying the meaning of purposeful conscious human activity in the form of differential entropy of the exponential distribution of the Shannon entropy difference between two adjacent words in the text; a technique for probabilistic evaluation of the meaning of purposeful conscious human activity taking text as an example is proposed.

The analysis of more than 50 texts - information messages from the Internet, differing in the level of meaningfulness and reflecting various emotional experiences of the authors - showed: a) the greatest meaningfulness is in texts written by authors under the influence of strong emotions; b) texts the style of presentation of which is typical for authors in the state of neutral emotions occupy an intermediate position in terms of meaningfulness; c) the least meaning is in texts written by those who experience some disorder of thinking.

Conclusions. The results confirm the main hypothesis of the study that the meaning is encoded in a chain of semantic connections of purposeful conscious human activity and has a probabilistic nature. The materials of the paper can be of practical and theoretical interest for psychologists dealing with issues of meaning, linguists and developers of artificial intelligence.

Relevance. The study is devoted to the problem of family relations in adolescence. This problems seems to become very actual in recent times because of significant changes in family relations concerned with adolescents.

Objective. The hypothesis of different levels of awareness (explicit and implicit) representation of family situation in adolescence in connection with the emotional tone of relationships between family members has been tested in this research. We also propose that this fact s related with the follows parameters: adolescent gender and family unity.

Methods. 45 adolescents (22 girls and 23 boys) age of 13-14 took part in the research: 8 of them are from single-parent families (father missing), 37 – from completed families. The following methods were used: Family image test, Color Test of Relations and the questionnaire of parent’s behavior and attitudes of adolescents by E. Shafer).

Results. Results It was demonstrated that in explicit level adolescents evaluate their family situation more positively than in implicit level. Adolescents of different sex differently evaluate the degree of solidarity and emotional relationships in their families: girls consider their families more joined than boys. Both girls and boys perceive their mother and father more positively in explicit level (questionnaire) than in implicit level. Generally, girls and boys realize the estimations of family situation concerned with cohesion and emotional relationships differently. As a hole adolescents implicitly perceive their mother as more positive and important than the father.

Relevance. The relevance of the work due to the lack of a special method that could to assess the ability of young athletes to represent movements in the Russian psychological tools.

Objective. The aim of the work is to test the method “Movement imagery Questionnaire for Children”, which is developed by Canadian researchers (R. Martini and colleagues), on Russian athletes.

Method. The analysis of studies that demonstrate the importance of using mental images in the training process was described. Empirical study of the mental representation of movements in 112 Russian young athletes from age 7 to 12 years with the help of a pre-adapted technique MIQ-C was conducted.

Results. The main types of mental images that are most often used by young athletes have been revealed: first-person visualization, third-person visualization and visualization of muscle performance. The last one (kinesthetic) is the most difficult for children. The highest rates of use of all three methods were noted in children 9-10 years. In the process of the work it was compared the results obtained for the Russian sample, with the results of Canadian researchers. It was revealed that Russian athletes assess their capabilities for visualization higher than young athletes in Canada.

Conclusions. It is necessary to expand a sample, having picked up athletes of those sports which are not presented at this stage of work, and to carry out check of validity of the Russian version of this method on the expanded sample.

Review of the book S.G. Gellerstein “Methodology of Psychotechnics”

On January 6, 2018 Nina Fyodorovna Talyzina, academician of RAO, Professor of psychology of education and pedagogy Department of psychology of Moscow state University, doctor of psychology, Honored worker of science of the Russian Federation, Honored Professor of Lomonosov Moscow state University, died.

On January 28, 2018 Tatyana Gavrilovna Stefanenko, a sensitive teacher and outstanding researcher, our colleague, friend and mentor, head of the Department of social psychology of the faculty of psychology of Lomonosov Moscow state University (2006-2017), doctor of psychology, Professor, honored Professor of Moscow University (2009), passed away.

18 March 2018. died Yuri M. Zhukov — the doctor of psychological Sciences, Professor of chair of social psychology of faculty of psychology of Moscow state University named after M. V. Lomonosov, honored Professor of Moscow state University, original-minded scientist, a bright and witty lecturer who generously shared their ideas and research Manager, a passionate teacher, creatively experimenting with teaching methods and development of students.