Krotkova, О. А.

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 data is analyzed in the article about structural and neurochemical brain hemispheric asymmetry, which, together with results of neuropsychological investigations, allow considering in a new way the problem of realization of psychic events. Modern investigations of cellar and molecular processes in neural system show, that the endogenous neural activity and the ways of neural self-organization are in many respects defined by the composition of extracellar environment. The complication of brain during phylogenies was accompanied by increasing asymmetry of neural system at the same time the biological prerequisites for differentiation of general “meanings” and one’s personal “sense” of the acquired experience were forming. The asymmetric mediation of psychic events by cellar and neurohumoral components of brain processing provided the opportunity for appearing language and distinct subjective experiences in human.

Background. In recent years, the resting state of the subject in the absence of obvious external sensory stimuli and cognitive tasks has become the subject matter of extensive study. Interest in studying the subjective aspect of calm wakefulness has increased since the emergence of neuroimaging studies indicating the existence of a cerebral network that increases its activity in resting state. There is a variety of methodological approaches to assess the content of the stream of thoughts in calm wakefulness. The issue of elaborating a universal tool to register the subjective aspect of the restful state remains relevant.

Objective. The study aims to analyze the existing methodological approaches to the research of the subjective part of the resting state.

Methods. Review and analysis of existing research into the content of the stream of thoughts in calm wakefulness.

Results. Studies of the free stream of consciousness in a state of calm wakefulness, such as questionnaires, structured interview, reports on the current state at the time of a random signal have been analysed in the current work.

Conclusion. The conducted literature review demonstrated the methodological diversity of assessment approaches to the subjective aspect of the restful state, and also showed the need to take into account various factors affecting the reliability of the results obtained. The necessity of applying additional methods to solve specific research problems as well as the possibility of developing a high-quality universal diagnostic tool to analyze the content of the stream of consciousness in rest are being discussed.