Articles

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

Full list of the articles, published in Moscow University Psychology Bulletin. Series 14.Psychology, 2017

The article analyzes various factors of life satisfaction of people of elderly and senile age. At the theoretical level, the assumption is that the integrating condition of satisfaction with life at this age is the central life idea (purpose, meaning). A generalized model of life satisfaction, based on the coordinates determining the common life idea (altruistic or egoistic) and the position of personality activity (creative or passive) is proposed. In the psychological space formed by these coordinates, one can identify the aspirations of the person himself (his “I want”), his real capabilities (“I can”), as well as expectations on the part of people relevant to him both in relation to “I want” and in relation to “I can”. The model allows reflecting the contradictions between the “I want” and “I can” of this person, as well as the contradictions between his intentions, self-esteem and expectations on the part of people relevant to him. When different elements of satisfaction do not coincide, problems arise and crises in the development of the elderly and old man. More concrete models of self-determination at the considered age in relation to their past, to the real present and prospective future are presented. The models of life satisfaction are proposed for further analysis: a creative model (search for new goals and opportunities for development), a model of “right” life (passive realization of the stereotypes of a pensioner's life), a “paternalistic” model (caring for others), a model of “ignoring” old age, the model of protection of their rights (in the conditions of imperfection of pension systems), the models of struggle for survival (in the conditions of sharp deterioration of health), the model of preparation for death, the model of self-assertion and the model of comprehension of the lived. Promising hypotheses of further research are formulated, reflecting possible options for complementarity and conflict of different models.

Study objectives: to examine the severity of the personal social psychological attitudes of an individual in the need-motivational sphere, the Dark Triad traits, and the components of burnout, as well as the interrelationships between these features among physicians with different lengths of professional experience. 

Participants: 124 people between the ages of 20 and 62; 4 groups of respondents, differing in the length of their professional experience (student, less than 10 years, 11-20 years and over 20 years of work experience).

Materials: O.F. Potemkina’s “Social psychological attitudes in the need-motivational sphere of the person diagnostics test”, “The Dark Triad inventory” adapted by M.S. Egorova and M.A. Sitnikova and the “Maslach Burnout Inventory” adapted by N.E. Vodopyanova. 

Methods of data analysis: Cronbach’s alpha, descriptive statistics, crosstabulation (chi-squared test), one-way analysis of variance (with Tukey post-hoc test), one-sample Student t-test, Spearman’s correlation, comparison of correlations using Fisher’s z-transformation. 

Results: The altruistic attitude of practicing doctors is higher than that of students, but does not depend on the length of experience. A greater intention towards work is observed for participants with the medical work experience over 10 years. There is no established connection between work experience and the intensity of burnout in the respondents. Physicians with the average experience expressed weaker non-clinical narcissism and a psychopathy than students. The structure of the interrelationships between social psychological attitudes, the Dark Triad traits, and the components of burnout has specificity on the samples with various lengths of professional experience. We suggest interpretations for differences found in the severity and patterns of the connections between the indicators; they are summarized in the psychological portrait of a physician with a certain amount of experience.

A multicomponent model of multiculturalism by the Canadian cross-cultural psychologist John W. Berry is one of the most famous approaches designed to ensure the harmonization of intercultural relations in a plural society. Today including in Russia an applicability of this model has been widely investigating. However, in the light of social cognition, the model does not clearly define relations between the multicultural ideology and various principles of intergroup categorization; the existing empirical findings within the framework of the Berry’s model and within social cognition still to some extent consider intergroup relations somewhat isolated from each other. In this present exploratory study was examined the relationships between interethnic categorization (assimilation, colorblind, multicultural, polycultural) and multicultural ideology by Berry. A survey of ethnic Russians from the Central Federal District of Russia was conducted. The results showed that the multicultural ideology was positively associated with the colorblind, multicultural, and polycultural categorization and also negatively with the assimilation one. Although the colorblind categorization that purportedly rejects cultural diversity was positively associated with the multicultural ideology, this relation had small effect size. The findings of the study suggested that an acceptance and endorsement of cultural diversity and egalitarianism in Russia that according to Berry is a content core of the concept multiculturalism can be realized through polycultural, multicultural, and to a lesser extent through colorblind categorization.

Ideas of the school students having experience of participation in the educational project and research activity (PRA) about educational researches and projects are considered that is relevant due to the need of formation, since high school, experts of research type. 

Objective: to reveal the attitude of school students towards various aspects of project and research activity. 

Methods: “Unfinished sentences”; questioning on the questions connected with participation in PRA; nonverbal method “Emoticons”. Sample included 84 school students of the fifth, sixth, eighth and ninth grades. 

Results: The unfinished sentences method identified seven categories of definitions that school students give to educational researches and projects. Questioning has shown that school students prefer voluntary participation in educational project and research activity; concerning preference of educational researches or projects there are differences in verbal and nonverbal answers, however in ninth grade both methods found that students preferred educational researches to projects; the readiness for implementation of educational projects on all studied subjects from a third to a half of school students has been estimated by low points; the desire in future professional activity to carry out projects and researches has been estimated, mainly, by average points. 

Conclusions: The revealed general tendency reflects the positive attitude towards the above-named educational technology; however, there are both significant individual differences, and the differences between grades in ideas of school students of project and research activity and the attitude towards it demanding profound studying for the purpose of further improvement of this educational technology.

In this paper was studied the attention properties of students aged 12—17 who are living in different climatic regions: the city of Surgut in the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous District and in rural areas of the middle Russia (Samara Region). The students of the first group live in the extreme climatic conditions of the North, aggravated by the adverse social and environmental factors of urbanization. The students of the second group live in a climatically and environmentally friendly area, with minimal impact of man-made pollution. The method used to estimate the attention of Bourdon, in the modification proposed by the Soviet psychologist P.A. Rudik. A comparative statistical analysis of the results obtained the attention properties of different groups of students are carried out. The dynamics of changes in the K, E, A indices during the test was estimated, the coefficients for the whole test and for each minute of the experiment were calculated too. Specific features of the development of student’s attention: identified according age, gender differences, differences in the development of indicators of attention of students in two different schools. Significant differences (P<0.001) in the distribution and productivity of attention were revealed, the coefficient of productivity of attention of students in Surgut was 1.15 times lower than that of their peers in the Samara region. According to new theory of chaos-selforganization it was calculated the quasiattractors volume V for three coordinates Zi (coefficient of attention concentration, attention quality, attention production). It was demonstrated the maximum volume V of quasiattractor for 14—15 year old pupils of Surgut. Very small volume V demonstrates pupils of 16—17 year of Samara district. Reducing the size of quasi-tractors demonstrates a decrease in variation range and represents a greater consolidation of the group in terms of studied parameters (large volumes of quasi-tractors in Surgut population can indicate a large variation in parameters of attention and performance).

The text of P.Ya. Galperin at the All-Union Conference on Psychology, held at the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences of the RSFSR in 1953. In this report, for the first time in a holistic form, the foundations of his world-famous method for the systematic, step-by-step formation of mental actions and concepts are presented. The author states that the question of mental actions, i.e. about what our ability to solve “in the mind” different tasks is part of the broader problem of the activity of human consciousness, taken not in philosophical or socio-historical, but in specifically its psychological content. The way of formation of mental actions that make up a significant part of what is taught in school is described as a successive transition from mastering actions with objects through action in terms of audible speech to transferring an action to the mental plane. The stages of this process are singled out: 1) drawing up a preliminary view of the assignment; 2) mastering the action with objects; 3) mastering the action in terms of audible speech; 4) transferring an action to the mental plane; 5) the final formation of mental action. A detailed description of each stage is given. The author emphasizes that the step-by-step formation of mental actions remains the actual content of the learning process of new skills, regardless of the individual or collective nature of instruction, and the scale of the main parameters retains value for evaluating the learned action regardless of the actual content and quality of this training. In conclusion, the author expresses the hope that the knowledge of the process of step-by-step formation of mental actions and their other parameters will serve as a theoretical basis for the management of full-fledged training.

Based on the critical examination of existing models of the psychological analysis of the lesson (PAL), we suggest a model of PAL, developed from the positions of the activity approach (A.N. Leontiev, P.Ya. Galperin, N.F. Talysina, V.V. Davydov, D.B. Elkonin). As the critical review shows, the basic models of the PAL in traditional didactics are related to the evaluation of the degree of implementation in the lesson of conditions for the effective functioning of students' mental processes. This model is based on the idea of a quality lesson as a lesson that maximizes the use of various types of mental processes (processes of thinking, memory, attention, imagination, etc.). From the point of view of the activity approach, psychological analysis should presuppose an assessment of the extent to which the activities that children realize in the lesson are adequate to the goals of the lesson set by the teacher. So a quality lesson is a lesson in which students carry out activities psychologically adequate to the goals set. The article proposes five criteria for the PAL, which correspond to the principles of the activity approach: 1) the specifics of setting the objectives of the lesson, 2) the adequacy of the actions performed by the students, the stated goals; 3) the features of action means, 4) the features of control and feedback and 5) the features of assessing the performance of students' actions. An example of a lesson analysis scheme developed on the basis of the proposed model is given.

The problem of differentiation of personal profiles based on MMPI is traditionally solved either theoretically with help of the 2- or 3-peak coding system, or is empirically based on the results of a cluster analysis of clinical scales. In the first case, the encoding system looks unreasonably complicated. In the second case, the results are vulnerable to criticism, on the one hand, due to interference of the scales themselves, and, on the other hand, due to not taking into account measurement errors and due to restrictions for clusters differentiated. In this paper, we propose an alternative based on the latent profile analysis of restructured clinical scales of MMPI-2. Based on the normative sample of the validation of the Russian-language Minnesota multifactorial personality questionnaire, second version, (MMPI-2, N = 1443), four types of latent profiles were identified: normative one with mean values for most scales and a small peak on the Hypomanic Activation scale, “neurotic” profile with an increase in the “neurotic triad” scales, “psychopathic-like” profile with high scores on all scales and peaks on the scales of schizophrenia, paranoia and psychasthenia, and “defensive / suppressive” profile with extremely low scores on all scales and a small peak on the scale of low level of positive emotions. Profiles’ comparison by the content and supplementary scales of MMPI-2 and "Big Five" traits suggests that in those having the “psychopathic-like” profile, the risk of externalized problems is maximal and the risk of internalized problems is high. Those with the “neurotic” profile have a high risk of internalized problems, while their distinctive trait is the experience of social discomfort. The analysis of “defensive” profile suggests possible difficulties associated with chronic suppression of emotions, in particular, somatization and sudden affect expressions.

The purpose of the review is to explore the transformation of ideas about the relationship of various parameters of self-esteem with subjective well-being, the productivity of educational activity and the success of a professional career. Iinitially, the level of self-esteem (high or low) was considered as the most important parameter. The studies show that people with a high level of self-esteem have more positive self-attitude, their subjective well-being is higher, they are less prone to depression and anxiety disorders, and they show more positive expectations about future achievements and relationships with other people. They are more persistent when meeting failures. On the other hand, the level of self-esteem does affect the productivity neither of the activity nor the quality of the relationship. In addition, high self-esteem is often a heterogeneous category, which includes not only the acceptance of one's ppositive qualities but also narcissistic and defensive components. The contradictory role of self-esteem level has prompted researchers to address other parameters of self-esteem: stability or instability and the contingencies of self-esteem. These parameters are closely related; they affect the subjective well-being and quality of activity and allow shedding lightt on the role of self-esteem in the mental life of a person. The analysis led to the conclusion that the identification and delineation of healthy and neurotic contingencies of self-esteem is a promising area for further research, which can help in the formation of healthy self-esteem in children and adolescents.