Lomonosov Psychology Journal, 2023, 2, 218.

Background. The paper is associated with the 120th anniversary of the birth of Alexey Nikolaevich Leontiev, acknowledged classic of the world psychology. This anniversary of the founder of a scientific school in psychology and of the department of psychology at Moscow State University has given rise to reflections on the “task for meaning” of Leontiev’s personality, his theory and its modern implementation.
Objective. The study is a professional reflection on the importance of A.N. Leontiev’s personality and his activity theory approach for the psychological science of these days as well as the explication of meanings implied in the special thematic issue of this journal.
Results. “The field of meanings” associated with A.N.Leontiev is being revealed through the analysis of cultural-historical, life and scientific contexts. The intertwined lines of A.N.Leontiev’s life activity are singled out: the scientific one (a fundamental theory, suggesting a holistic concept of human being), the social one (restoring intellectual environment), and the closely connected to the latter, emotional one (creating a specific “field of tension” which attracted colleagues toward this intellectual environment and generated a specific university atmosphere of freedom and diverse new ideas at the department of psychology at MSU. Dialogues and interactions of the activity theory approach with some theoretical approaches of our days are explicated.
Conclusion. Having much in common with more recent approaches, A.N. Leontiev’s approach is a polisemantic one. This fact may serve as an explanation to the plurality of its interpretations in the present-day contexts within psychological science. The approach remains a significant resource of answers to the questions posed in psychology today, many decades after its creator passed.

Background. The article presents the most important events in the scientific biography of A.N. Leontiev (1903–1979). Some aspects of his psychological theory
of activity are being analyzed. The relevance of addressing the heritage of A.N. Leontiev and his scientific school is determined by the implemented methodology
of psychological research, which is an alternative to the approaches to the study
of consciousness that dominate in modern world science.
Objectives of the paper were to highlight those aspects of psychological theory of
activity that were successfully implemented in “highly organized practice” as well
as to discuss some controversial issues of cultural-activity psychology.
Method. Well-known works of Leontiev, his colleagues, and opponents served
as sources for the study, historical and psychological in genre and methodology.
Some archive materials, including those that have not been previously introduced
to scientific comunity were used as well.
Results. A new solution to the problem of the relation between Word and Deed,
which was debated by L.S. Vygotsky and A.N.Leontiev and is still being debated in the modern literature, is proposed. It is stated that Leontiev’s doctrine on the forms
of connection between meanings and senses in the structure of consciousness was
included in the methodological foundations of “pedagogy of freedom”, seeking to
develop a culture of thinking and personal growth in students. The examples of
the realization of this pedagogy in teaching students at the Faculty of Psychology
of Moscow State University are presented. Studying personal letters from the
family archives provided some new details about Leontiev’s administrative and
organizational activities during the Great Patriotic War.
Conclusion. The immediate tasks of the historical and psychological study of
Leontiev’s contribution are to: 1) analyze the empirical research of his school in
the 1940s and the following years; 2) study systematically the contribution of this
school to practical psychology; 3) create a complete and detailed chronology of
A.N. Leontiev’s life and work; 4) develop teaching aids for psychology students
with the explanation of the complex issues and contradictions in A.N. Leontiev’s
activity theory as well as with scientific comments on his works, within the sociocultural context of their creation.

Background. The study of the contribution of Alexei Nikolaevich Leontiev to the development of Russian psychological science makes it possible to evaluate his outstanding personal qualities, organizational skills, and the talent of a scientist and researcher.
Objective. The study is aimed to analyze the role of A.N. Leontiev in the development of Russian psychology as a field of independent scientific knowledge.
Methods. The material was obtained in the study of memories on the life and work of A.N. Leontiev. The analysis of theoretical and methodological research on the problems of psychological science was also conducted.
Results. The analysis showed that A.N. Leontiev is one of the few psychologists who took responsibility for the development of psychological science in the USSR. This was reflected in the systematic and fundamental organizational activity, in the creation of psychological faculties, scientific journals, training of personnel for psychological institutions. A.N. Leontiev played a significant role in the rapprochement of Soviet and foreign psychology, acquaintance of Soviet psychologists with the research of psychologists abroad. At the same time, A.N. Leontiev managed to make a significant contribution to the solution of theoretical and methodological issues of world psychology. It is asserted that the achievements of A.N. Leontiev in the areas of organizational, scientific, research activities are explained by a combination of personal qualities of a scientist associated with the ability to think strategically, see a systematic solution to problems, and take responsibility.
Conclusion. The most significant achievements of A.N. Leontiev are associated with institutionalizing psychology, training psychological personnel, solving fundamental theoretical and methodological problems of Soviet psychology. Despite the vast research on the personality and activity of A.N. Leontiev within Russian psychological science, the task of archival work with sources and materials remains of great importance. There is an urge for broad generalization of the results in the life and creative paths of the scientist, for the spread of materials about A.N. Leontiev among modern young psychologists.

Background. In the year of Leontiev’s 120th anniversary it is important to look again at his scientific heritage.
Objective. The article aims to define the place of psychological theory of activity in the Soviet and Russian psychology and philosophy of the second half of the 20th century.
Results. It is shown that Leontiev’s theory predetermined a number of ideas of the intellectual movement 4E Cognition popular now in cognitive science. However, some important ideas of Leontiev are not yet utilized in modern cognitive research. The psychological theory of activity is compared with the concept of social constructionism in psychology, and in this respect the advantages of Leontiev’s theory are revealed. Possible areas for further development of the psychological theory of activity are outlined.
Conclusion. Leontiev’s theory of activity thoroughly comprehends the problematics of activity, action, construction, and cultural-historical mediation of activity. This theory essentially defines the present of psychological science and makes it possible to outline a strategy for its future development.

Relevance. The article is written in honor of the anniversary of the outstanding scientist. It examines the paradoxical nature of Leontiev’s creative path. He keenly felt the scale of unsolved problems facing psychology. A talented experimentalist, fascinated by concrete empirical phenomena, not only did he try it himself but urged his students to develop psychology “not into a forest but into a tree” as well. However, he framed his creative ideas with philosophical constructions somewhat superfluously.

Objective. Leontiev’s concepts are not discussed in the current article, but all their merits are presented. Despite the efforts of their creator, these concepts cannot be directly deduced from philosophical constructions and cannot be substantiated by them. Leontiev was aware of the tragic incompleteness of his own views. Since he had to adapt to the official government ideology, he had to use Aesopian language to deliver his concepts.

Results. Leontiev’s problem was his excessive and sincere fascination with the Marxist philosophy. However, it turned out to be a blessing for Soviet psychology since it allowed him to defend the young science in a country where Marxism was recognized as the only true doctrine and all other views were ostracized.

Conclusions. Leontiev’s talent for organization and passion for science contributed to the emergence of a powerful research school, famous for its brilliant students and followers. The fact that A.N. Leontiev’s school not only endures, in whatever directions it takes off, but also continues to have great influence on psychology is an indicator of the true greatness of its founder.

Background and objective. The authors present the results of their theoretical and experimental research in the field of subject-oriented psychophysics, carried out in different years in line with the subject-oriented activity and the system-oriented activity approaches.
The results obtained substantiate the productivity and prospects of the A.N. Leontiev’s psych ological theory of object activity ideas as one of the important theoretical and methodological foundations of domestic psychophysical research. The principal role of the concept of a sensory task as a cognitive task of a special kind is emphasized. Such tasks of detection, discrimination, and identification of sensory signals by a person are characterized by goals accepted as these tasks’ components and by a high level of uncertainty. Therefore, these tasks require researchers to meaningfully analyze the psychological structure of the corresponding sensory process in the context of the requirements of the task being solved and in an inextricable relationship with various manifestations and internal content of human activity. The significance of the task as the goal and conditions of the subject’s activity, has appeared not only in empirical research results, but in the mathematical model of decision making and confidence in threshold-like tasks, as well.
Conclusions. The results obtained convincingly prove the role of the sensory task characteristics related with individual psychological peculiarities of a subject of sensory measurements, his (her) functional states and reflective experiences as important factors determining a choice of sensory performance tools, and its effectiveness.

Background. The study of history and development of the theory has an independent value, especially when it comes to analyzing the development of the author’s viewpoint.
Objective. The work analyses provisions on the origin of consciousness in the early works of A.N. Leontiev.
Results. It is shown that A.N. Leontiev was to turn to the concept of activity in solving the problem of psyche development in phylo- and ontogenesis. He accepts the idea of L.S. Vygotsky, postulating that it is possible to find the key to consciousness in the way of life of a person as a social being. He, therefore, proposes to introduce the concept of activity as of a special way of life, a unit of life for living beings, realizing their active behaviour in adapting to the changing objective conditions of the surrounding space of activity. Thus, A.N. Leontiev associates the criterion of psyche not with the subjective experiences, but with irritability to abiotic signals as landmarks, i.e. with the influences that are not included directly into metabolism. It is demonstrated that in the early works of A.N. Leontiev the movement of his reflections on the problem of the origin and development of psyche, including consciousness, as its specific form is presented. Analyzing the process of generation of consciousness, A.N. Leontiev turns first of all to Marxist philosophical foundations as prerequisites for a psychological theory of consciousness. The main factor that requires a change in the natural psyche of a person is work activity, which requires a person to have new mental capabilities and sets tasks for awareness.
Conclusion. The main A.N. Leontiev’s ideas on consciousness and activity were formulated by the author in the 1930s. The position that it is activity that is the factor transferring requirements of life to the psyche of living beings, including humans, was the main achievement.

Background. Any method of research or influence has limits of applicability. Determining the limits of applicability of the cultural-historical approach will reveal new phenomena in the study of living subjectivity that cannot be investigated within the framework of the cultural-historical approach to the psyche.
Objective of the study was to determine the limits of applicability of the cultural-historical method and to describe new mental phenomena, the study of which requires fundamentally different methodological approaches.
Methods. The material is the author’s and his colleagues’ long-term research in the field of functioning and development of consciousness. The method involved logical analysis when comparing the cultural-historical approach to psyche and the approach based on intuitive-reflective self-observation of living subjectivity.
Results. The analysis showed that cultural-historical method and socio-cultural method derived from it, aim at managing subjectivity with the help of objectified structures of the psyche — sign-symbolic formations such as speech, logical thinking, scientific concepts, social norms or culturally developed perceptual patterns. At the same time, the “fossils of living subjectivity” — symbols and signs, scientific concepts, schemes, algorithms, norms, theories, and others — are “psychological tools” that mediate the operation of living subjectivity. All directions in Russian psychology within this approach originated from this approach — the assertion of the leading role of speech in the development of the higher mental functions (HMF) by L.S. Vygotsky, the concept of the orienting basis of action (IBA) by P.Ya. Galperin, school programs for teaching concepts by D.B. Elkonin and V.V. Davydov, neuropsychological methods by A.R. Luria, studies of the development of voluntary movements by A.V. Zaporozhets and others. All these approaches worked; however, the living subjectivity remained a mystery. On the contrary, the method applicable to the study of living subjectivity can be called the method of “releasing impact” — an experiment based on self-observation and self-report in conditions where the subject can freely structure reality.
Conclusion. The cultural-historical method is effective in teaching ready-made knowledge at school, in developing skills, restoring lost cognitive functions in patients, or shaping cognitive and socio-moral forms of behavior based on external control. However, this method is not applicable to living subjectivity — experiences, the motivational-semantic sphere based on the magical laws of participation, emotional sphere and creative thinking, since this method considers a person as an object. The principles of studying living subjectivity are proposed, practical approaches to influence living subjectivity, as well as the contradictions and dangers associated with them are analyzed.

Background. Activity psychology as a metatheory competes with cognitive psychology in the explorative and predictive power. Phenotypical similarity of the results obtained by these two approaches in the research on involuntary memory requires a special analysis, which can be carried out by testing the applicability of the conceptual apparatus of both theories (with the highest relevance of the level of processing framework) in multifactorial studies.
Objective. The study was aimed at a direct experimental examination of the severity of involuntary memorization as an outcome of performing tasks with different requirements to the level of processing: perceptual, semantic, and self-referential.
Sample. Eight hundred twenty-five volunteer students participated in the study, 598 females (72.5%) and 227 males (27.5%).
Methods. A set of 15 visually overlapping dyads “picture-numeral” was presented. Each participant was randomly assigned to perform one of six tasks either focusing on pictures or numerals, and requiring either perceptual, semantic, or self-referential processing of targets. At test, the participants attempted to recall all the presented stimuli.
Results. P.I. Zinchenko’s thesis that activity determines involuntary encoding in the way that target stimuli are remembered much better than material perceived as a peripheral context was empirically replicated. The study revealed the inversion of typical LOP effect for the target material consisting in the decrease of subsequent recall in condition of deeper processing. However, there was a standard LOP effect for background pictorial material in numeral-targeted tasks. To examine the tendency to conjunct overlapping pictures and numerals into entire objects during task performance, we inspected the pairing of background and target stimuli at recall. The background pairing index predicted recall of target stimuli, increasing the percentage of explained dispersion from shadow to deep processing. In case of control for this index, the sum remembering of pictures and numerals returned back to the standard LOP-effect.
Conclusion. The major contribution of activity to involuntary memorization was statistically confirmed. We explained the observed inversion of the standard LOP-effect for targeted numerical stimuli in terms of A.N. Leontiev’s thesis on the fundamental functional mobility of structural units of activity. We examined a tendency to actively combine target and background stimuli into integral operational units, making the initially background material relevant to the goal of action. Statistical control of this tendency reversed the inversion of the LOP-effect so that the sum recalls gradually increased as processing deepened. Thus, we got arguments in favor of the greater explanatory power of the activity approach compared to the standard cognitive approach. The potential of A.N. Leontiev’s theory was employed for the productive assimilation of particular conceptual schemes developed by cognitive psychology and clarifying their place in the multilevel determination of involuntary mnemonic effects generated by activity.

Background. The study of the mechanisms of sensation, primarily visual, emergence under the influence of a light stimulus on a person is a classic task for psychological science. At the same time, little attention has been paid to the sensations arising from light exposure of the skin surface, despite the surprising results obtained in a well-known series of experiments by Russian psychologist A.N. Leontiev. The task of studying skin-optical sensitivity with the modern element base of experimental equipment is relevant from the point of view of the development of the general psychological theory of activity and understanding sensory-perceptual processes of sensation formation due to light exposure.
Objective of the study was to investigate the ability of subjects to recognize the effect of light on their skin surface. Methods. A specially designed experimental setup was used for the purpose of the study, which included a LED light source and a control programme. The experimental procedure involved the psychophysical method of two-alternative forced choice. The main experiment consisted of three series of cycles for each participant: first, 10 cycles were presented to fix the initial state; 100 cycles followed to train the subject; then, 10 cycles were used to fix the final state.
Sample. 12 participants took part in the experiment.
Results. showed that the number of correct answers when determining the cycle phase corresponding to the LED switching on, is significantly more than 50% (t = 10,992, df = 1414, p < 0.001).
Conclusion. The conclusions of A.N. Leontiev and N.B. Poznanskaya about the possibility of skin sensitivity to light exposure were confirmed. A biophysical hypothesis is proposed to explain the result.

Introduction
The text published below is handwritten notes on three standard sheets of paper made after one of the author’s numerous conversations with writer Vladimit Tendryakov, his younger friend and neighbor by the country residence (Writers’ settlement, Krasnaya Pakhra, Moscow region). These conversations have been described in Tendryakov’s recollections of A.N.Leontiev (Tendryakov, V.F. (1983). Proselochnye besedy (Country road talks). In: A.V. Zaporozhets et al. (eds.) A.N. Leontiev i sovremennaya psikhologiya (A.N. Leontiev and contemporary psychology). (pp. 266–274). Moscow: Moscow University Press. These notes are being published for the first and not for the first time. This text, prepared for publication by Alexander Asmolov, was included into the first posthumous edition of A.N. Leontiev’s works – “Selected psychological writings” in 2 volumes, ed. by V.V. Davydov et al., Moscow: Pedagogika, 1983 – and is rather often referred to. The title “from the journal notes” was given by the editors of the 1983 book. However, in course of that publication this text, like other works included into the book, underwent substantial editing which was not marked in the book; about 15% of the text has been cut. Hence we decided to restore and publish for the first time the initial author’s text in line with the manuscript. 
One editorial correction should be mentioned specially. 1983 publication says: “Personality (…), its Copernican understanding: I find/have my “self” not in myself (others see it in me) but rather in that exists outside me” (p. 241). In the original manuscript it was articulated differently: В оригинальной рукописи написано иначе: Personality (I=I), its Ptolemean understanding: I find/have my “self ” not in myself (others see it in me) but rather in others, in the other that exists outside me”. Copernican heliocentric understanding is the opposite of the Ptolemean one, which puts the Earth to the center of the Universe. The substitution of the word for the one with the opposite meaning is probably due to wrong reading of the whole sentence. Most likely, the words “Ptolemean understanding” on the manuscript refer to the traditional, common ideas of personality (“I=I”), to which A.N.Leontiev contrasted another one, articulated after the colon (“I find/have my “self ” not in myself ”…), and which would be correct to call a Copernican one. “The bishop phenomenon”, mentioned in the last sentence, refers to a historical anecdote, which A.N.Leontiev used to recollect. A respected elderly bishop, as he was getting older, started to worry whether his mind was as clear as before, and asked his servant to tell him if he start saying something inappropriate. This happened during one of the sermons, and the servant said it to the bishop. The bishop got angry, said that it was one of his best sermons ever, and fired the servant. The manuscript was prepared for publication by D. Leontiev. His are also the additions in angle brackets. Numbered footnotes belong to the author.

Introductory notes.
These notes on the margins of Ph.D. Thesis which are being published here, and the supervisor’s review of the Thesis clearly explicate both A.N. Leontiev’s unique intellectual style of work with his disciples and his active involvement into the generation of key hypotheses of the study. It is remarkable that from the beginning A.N. Leontiev’s central intention was making sense of multifaceted phenomena of set as inertia instances ensuring the stability of the dynamics of activity. It is the unique function of ensuring the stability of the direction of activity reveals the role of the effects of set in psychology. Discussions on the nature of set and the relationships between set and activity with the representatives of the scientific school of Dmitry Uznadze, classic of Soviet psychology, are still going. 
It is worth noting, that in his notes of 1976 A.N. Leontiev sketched the perspectives of investigating personality as a system of meaning-related formations. Such an investigation cannot be reduced to laboratory experiments, in principle. It would make little sense if I, A.N. Leontiev’s disciple, would “comment on my teacher’s comments” in 47 years. Love to my teacher illuminates everything I did, do, and hopefully, will be doing some more time. In the day of defense of this dissertation brilliant Georgian psychologist Shota Aleksandrovich Nadirashvili noted that love is a set. I should confess that the set of love to Alexey Nikolaevich Leontiev provided the stability of all my professional and private life.