Cognitive processes, their types. Cognitive processes Cognitive processes in psychology briefly

Human cognitive activity consists of a series of cognitive mental processes: sensation, perception, attention, memory, imagination, thinking and speech.

The concept of the surrounding world is carried out at two levels: sensory cognition, which includes sensations, perceptions, ideas, and logical cognition through concepts, judgments, conclusions.

Feeling

Feeling - it is a reflection of individual properties of objects that directly affect our senses.

The human body receives a variety of information about the state of the external and internal environment in the form of sensations with the help of the senses. Feelings are the source of our knowledge about the world and about ourselves. All living beings with a nervous system have the ability to sense. Conscious sensations exist only in living beings that have a brain and a cerebral cortex.

Objects and phenomena of reality that affect our senses are called stimuli. Feeling occurs as a reaction nervous system to one or another stimulus and, like any mental phenomenon, has a reflex character.

The physiological mechanism of sensation is the activity of special nervous apparatuses called analyzers. Analyzers take the impact of certain stimuli on from the external and internal environment and convert them into sensations. The analyzer consists of three parts:

Receptors, or sensory organs that convert the energies of external influences into nerve signals (each receptor is capable of only a certain type of influence);

The nerve pathways that carry these signals back to the brain and back to the receptors;

Cortical projection zones of the brain.

Feelings can be classified in different ways. According to the leading modality, sensations are distinguished:

Visual sensations are a reflection of colors, both achromatic and chromatic. Visual sensations are caused by exposure to light, i.e. electromagnetic waves emitted by bodies to the visual analyzer.

Auditory sensations are a reflection of sounds of various heights, strengths and qualities. They are caused by exposure sound waves created by vibrations of bodies.

Olfactory sensations - a reflection of odors. Occurs due to penetration of particles odorous substances, propagating in the air, to the upper part of the nasopharynx, where they act on the peripheral endings of the olfactory analyzer.

Taste sensations reflect some Chemical properties flavoring substances dissolved in water or saliva.

Tactile sensations are a reflection of the mechanical properties of objects that are detected when they are touched, rubbed against them, or hit. These sensations also reflect the temperature of environmental objects and external pain effects.

These sensations are called exteroceptive, and in turn are divided into contact and distant.

Another group of sensations are those that reflect the movements and states of the body itself. They are called motor or proprioceptive.

There is also a group of organic sensations - internal (iteroceptive). These sensations reflect the internal state of the body.

Feel properties:

quality - an essential feature of sensations, which makes it possible to distinguish one type of sensation from another, as well as various variations within a species;

intensity - a quantitative characteristic of sensations, which is determined by the strength of the acting stimulus and the functional state of the receptor.

· Duration - the temporal characteristic of sensations.

The main characteristics of the sensitivity of the analyzers:

The lower threshold of sensations is the minimum value of the stimulus that causes a barely noticeable sensation;

upper threshold of sensations - the maximum value of the stimulus that the analyzer is able to adequately perceive;

Sensitivity range - the interval between the upper and lower thresholds;

differential threshold - the smallest detectable value of differences between stimuli;

operational threshold - the value of the difference between the signals, at which the accuracy and speed of the difference reach a maximum;

time threshold - the minimum duration of exposure to the stimulus necessary for the sensation to occur;

The latent period of the reaction is the period of time from the moment the signal is given to the moment the sensation occurs;

· inertia - the time of disappearance of sensations after the end of exposure.

A change in the sensitivity of analyzers under the influence of irritation of other sense organs is called the interaction of sensations, which is observed in the following phenomena:

Sensitization - increased sensitivity nerve centers under the influence of a stimulus.

Synesthesia is the occurrence under the influence of irritation of one analyzer of a sensation characteristic of another analyzer.

Perception

Perception - a holistic reflection of objects and phenomena of the objective world with their direct impact at a given moment on the senses. Together with the processes of sensation, perception provides a direct-sensory orientation in the surrounding world.

Perception is subjective - people perceive the same information in different ways, depending on their interests, abilities, needs. Dependence of perception on past experience, individual features person is called apperception.

Perception properties:

1. Integrity - internal organic relationship in the image. It manifests itself in two aspects: the union of different elements as a whole; the independence of the formed whole from the quality of its constituent elements.

2. Objectivity - the object is perceived by us as a separate physical body isolated in space and time.

3. Generalization - the assignment of each image to a certain class of objects.

4. Constancy - the relative constancy of the perception of the image.

5. Meaningfulness - connection with understanding the essence of objects and phenomena through the process of thinking.

6. Selectivity - the predominant selection of some objects over others in the process of perception.

Types of perception:

Perception of a person by a person;

Perception of time;

Perception of movement;

Perception of space;

Perception of the type of activity.

Perception is externally directed and internally directed.

Perception can be erroneous (illusory). An illusion is a distorted perception of a real-life reality. Illusions are found in the activities of various analyzers. Perception can be not only erroneous, but also ineffective.

Attention

Attention - the orientation and concentration of consciousness on certain objects or certain activities while abstracting from everything else.

Attention is continuously connected with consciousness as a whole. Directivity and selectivity of cognitive processes are connected with attention. Attention is given to:

Perceptual accuracy, which is a kind of amplifier that allows you to distinguish image details;

The strength and selectivity of memory, acting as a factor contributing to the preservation of the necessary information in short-term and short-term memory;

Orientation and productivity of thinking, acting as an obligatory factor in the correct understanding and solution of problems.

Main functions of attention:

selection significant impacts and ignoring others;

preservation in the mind of a certain content of the activity until the moment of its completion;

regulation and control of the course of activities.

Main types of attention:

1. Depending on the volitional efforts of the individual:

· involuntary attention occurs without a person's intention to see or hear something, without a pre-set goal, without an effort of will;

Voluntary attention is an active, purposeful focus of consciousness, the maintenance of the level of which is associated with certain volitional efforts aimed at combating stronger influences;

post-voluntary attention - comes after voluntary, but qualitatively differs from it. When, when solving a problem, the first positive results, interest arises, activity is automated, its implementation no longer requires special volitional efforts and is limited only by fatigue, although the goal of the work is preserved.

2. By the nature of the orientation:

Outwardly directed attention is directed to surrounding objects;

Inner attention - focused on one's own thoughts and experiences.

3. By origin:

natural attention - the innate ability of a person to selectively respond to certain internal or external stimuli that carry elements of informational novelty;

socially conditioned attention develops in the process of life, as a result of training, education, is associated with a selective conscious response to objects, with volitional regulation of behavior;

4. By the mechanism of regulation:

direct attention is not controlled by anything other than the object to which it is directed;

mediated attention is regulated with the help of special means.

5. According to the direction to the object:

sensory;

intellectual.

The main properties of attention:

1. Concentration of attention - keeping attention on one object or one activity while distracting from everything else.

2. Stability of attention - the duration of concentration on an object or phenomenon, is determined by individual physiological characteristics organism, mental state, motivation, external circumstances of the activity.

3. The amount of attention - is determined by the number of objects to which attention can be directed simultaneously in the process of perception.

4. Distribution of attention - the ability of an individual to simultaneously perform two or more types of activities.

The emergence and development of the psyche occurs in its continuous interaction with the physical surrounding world. Development mental cognitive processes occurs in specific conditions of interaction with our planet. Periodic and fairly stable changes in conditions such as gravity, the transition from winter to summer, from day to night, which allow you to cause photochemical reactions and determine a specific reporting point in the available three-dimensional space, and other specific properties of our Earth, put forward certain requirements that must satisfy all living organisms on the planet. human psyche acts as a regulator of the manifestation of the active and behavior of the organism. Mental cognitive processes are processes that stand out in the integral structure of the psyche itself, conditionally dividing it into basic elements.

Mental cognitive processes are divided into several types:

• cognitive - perception, sensation, attention, thinking, imagination, speech and memory;
• emotional - feelings, emotions, stress and affects;
• volitional - decision making, struggle of motives and goal setting.

Basic mental cognitive processes and their concepts.

1. Sensation - a process that allows you to reflect the specific properties of environmental phenomena and objects in it, including internal states human body when exposed to stimuli directly on the corresponding receptors. There are modal (auditory, visual, tactile), distal (hearing, smell, smell), contact (sensitivity, taste), proprioceptive (responding to tension or lengthening) and interoceptive (allowing you to regulate the processes of homeostasis and metabolism) sensations.
2. Perception is a process that reflects in the human mind the qualities of objects and phenomena occurring in environment, in the aggregate, and acting on the senses. The main properties of perception are: objectivity, structure, controllability, mobility, integrity, correctness, constancy and selectivity.
3. Representation is a mental process that reflects phenomena or objects, recreating them from previous experience, but not perceiving them in real time. There are visual, auditory (musical, speech, timbre-intonation and phonetic) representations.
4. Imagination is a process during which the surrounding reality is reflected by creating new images of their representation and perception that were obtained in the past.
5. Thinking is a cognitive process that performs the highest function, since it has many interrelated features that characterize the role of speech in human development. The following types of thinking are distinguished: visual-figurative, visual-effective, practical and verbal-logical.
6. Speech is a process of communication carried out with the help of language.
7. Language is a system of certain symbols that are transmitted by specific combinations of sounds that carry a certain meaning and meaning.

Memory as a mental cognitive process.

Memory considers the basic processes of memorization, storage and further reproduction in the future. memory like mental cognitive process represents a system of remembering, reproducing and forgetting the experience gained over a certain amount of time. Its study in our days has acquired particular relevance, since memory performs one of the most important mental functions - this is to ensure the unity and integrity of the individual. The development of mental cognitive processes is simply impossible without memory, since it is an intermediate stage between most cognitive processes.

Recognition of objects, i.e., recognition of previously identified objects located in the center of perception, acts as a simple form of realization of memory. This process is based on a comparison of perceived signs in reality with those that were deposited earlier. A more complex memory structure is subdivided into basic mnemonic processes:

• recognition - recognition of a previously known object located in the center of perception at the present time;
• memorization - a process that holds certain information in memory for further reproduction;
• preservation - a dynamic process based on the organized assimilation of incoming material and its processing;
• reproduction is a mnemonic process during which the already formed content is updated. As a rule, these are feelings, thoughts and movements;
• forgetting is a process based on the reduction of a significant amount of stored information or the loss of clarity, as a result of which the reproduction of information from memory becomes impossible.

Memory as a mental cognitive process is divided into several types.

Cognitive mental processes are the channels of our communication with the world. The incoming information about specific phenomena and objects undergoes changes and turns into an image. All human knowledge about the surrounding world is the result of the integration of individual knowledge obtained with the help of cognitive mental processes. Each of these processes has its own characteristics and its own organization. But at the same time, proceeding simultaneously and harmoniously, these processes imperceptibly for a person interact with each other and as a result create for him a single, integral, continuous picture of the objective world.

1. Feeling- the simplest cognitive mental process, during which there is a reflection of individual properties, qualities, aspects of reality, its objects and phenomena, the connections between them, as well as the internal states of the body that directly affect the human senses. Sensation is the source of our knowledge of the world and ourselves. The ability to sense is present in all living organisms that have a nervous system. Conscious sensations are characteristic only for living beings that have a brain. The main role of sensations is to quickly bring to the central nervous system information about the state of both the external and internal environment of the body. All sensations arise as a result of the action of stimuli-irritants on the corresponding sense organs. In order for a sensation to arise, it is necessary that the stimulus that causes it reach a certain value, called the absolute lower threshold of sensation. Each type of sensation has its own thresholds.

But the sense organs have the ability to adapt to changing conditions, so the thresholds of sensations are not constant and can change when moving from one environment to another. This ability is called sensory adaptation. For example, during the transition from light to dark, the sensitivity of the eye to various stimuli changes tenfold. The speed and completeness of adaptation of various sensory systems is not the same: in tactile sensations, with smell, a high degree of adaptation is noted, and the lowest degree is observed with pain sensations, since pain is a signal of a dangerous disorder in the body, and rapid adaptation pain could threaten him with death.

The English physiologist C. Sherrington proposed his own classification of sensations:

• Exteroceptive sensations are sensations that occur when external stimuli are exposed to human analyzers located on the surface of the body.
• Proprioceptive sensations are sensations that reflect the movement and position of parts of the human body.
• Interoceptive sensations are sensations that reflect the state of the internal environment of the human body.

By the time the sensations occur relevant and irrelevant.

For example, a sour taste in the mouth from a lemon, a feeling of so-called "factual" pain in an amputated limb.

All sensations have the following characteristics:

• quality - an essential feature of sensations, which makes it possible to distinguish one of their types from others (for example, auditory from visual);
• intensity - a quantitative characteristic of sensations, which is determined by the strength of the acting stimulus;
• duration - a temporal characteristic of sensations, determined by the time of exposure to the stimulus.

2. Perception- this is a holistic reflection of objects and phenomena of the objective world with their direct impact at the moment on the senses. The ability to perceive the world in the form of images is only in humans and some of the highest representatives of the animal world. Together with the processes of sensation, perception provides direct orientation in the surrounding world. It presupposes the selection of the main and most significant features from the complex of fixed features with simultaneous abstraction from the non-essential ones. Unlike sensations, which reflect individual qualities of reality, perception creates an integral picture of reality. Perception is always subjective, since people perceive the same information differently depending on their interests, life experience, etc.

Consider perception as an intellectual process of successive, interconnected acts of searching for features necessary and sufficient for the formation of an image:

• the primary selection of a number of features from the entire flow of information and the decision that they belong to one specific object;
• search in memory for a complex of signs close to the sensations;
• assignment of the perceived object to a certain category;
• search for additional signs confirming or refuting the correctness of the decision;
• the final conclusion about which object is perceived.

The main properties of perception are:

• integrity - the internal organic relationship of parts and the whole in the image;
• objectivity - an object is perceived by a person as a separate physical body isolated in space and time;
• generalization - the assignment of each image to a certain class of objects;
• constancy - the relative constancy of the perception of the image, the preservation of the object of its parameters, regardless of the conditions of its perception (distance, lighting, etc.);
• meaningfulness - understanding the essence of the perceived object in the process of perception;
• selectivity - the predominant selection of some objects over others in the process of perception.

Since the representations are based on past perceptual experience, the main classification of representations is based on classifications of species.

Main properties of views:

• fragmentation - in the presented image, any of its features, sides, parts are often absent;
• instability (or inconstancy) - the representation of any image sooner or later disappears from the field of human consciousness;
• variability - when a person is enriched with new experience and knowledge, there is a change in ideas about the objects of the surrounding world.

4. Imagination- This is a cognitive mental process, which consists in the creation of new images by a person based on his ideas. Imagination is closely related to the emotional experiences of a person. Imagination differs from perception in that its images do not always correspond to reality, they may contain, to a greater or lesser extent, elements of fantasy, fiction. Imagination is the basis of visual-figurative thinking, which allows a person to navigate the situation and solve problems without direct practical intervention. It especially helps in those cases when practical actions are either impossible, or difficult, or inexpedient.

Intelligence is the totality of all mental abilities that provide a person with the ability to solve various problems. In 1937, D. Wexler (USA) developed tests for measuring intelligence. According to Wexler, intelligence is the global ability to act intelligently, think rationally, and cope well with life's circumstances.

L. Thurstone in 1938, exploring intelligence, singled out its primary components:

• counting ability - the ability to operate with numbers and perform arithmetic operations;
• verbal (verbal) flexibility - the ability to find the right words to explain something;
• verbal perception - the ability to understand oral and written speech;
• spatial orientation - the ability to imagine various objects in space;
• reasoning ability;
• the speed of perception of similarities and differences between objects.

What determines the development of intelligence? Intelligence is influenced by both hereditary factors and the state of the environment. The development of intelligence is influenced by:

• genetic conditioning - the influence of hereditary information received from parents;
• physical and mental state of the mother during pregnancy;
• chromosomal abnormalities;
• environmental living conditions;
• features of the child's nutrition;
• social status of the family, etc.

Attempts to create a unified system of "measurement" of human intelligence run into many obstacles, since intelligence includes the ability to perform mental operations of completely different quality. The most popular is the so-called intelligence quotient (abbreviated as IQ), which allows you to correlate the level of an individual's intellectual capabilities with the average indicators of his age and professional groups.

There is no consensus among scientists about the possibility of obtaining a real assessment of intelligence using tests, since many of them measure not so much innate intellectual abilities as knowledge, skills and abilities acquired in the learning process.

6. Mnemic processes. At present, there is no unified, complete theory of memory in psychology, and the study of the phenomenon of memory remains one of the central tasks. Mnemic processes, or memory processes, are studied by various sciences that consider the physiological, biochemical and psychological mechanisms of memory processes.

• Involuntary attention is the simplest kind of attention. It is often called passive, or forced, since it arises and is maintained independently of the person's consciousness.
• Arbitrary attention is controlled by a conscious goal, connected with the will of a person. It is also called strong-willed, active or deliberate.
• Post-voluntary attention is also purposeful and initially requires volitional efforts, but then the activity itself becomes so interesting that it practically does not require volitional efforts from a person to maintain attention.

Attention has certain parameters and features, which are largely a characteristic of human abilities and capabilities. The main ones usually include the following:

• concentration is an indicator of the degree of concentration of consciousness on a particular object, the intensity of communication with it; concentration of attention implies the formation of a temporary center (focus) of all psychological activity of a person;
• intensity - characterizes the efficiency of perception, thinking and memory in general;
• resilience - ability long time maintain high levels of concentration and intensity of attention; determined by the type of the nervous system, temperament, motivation (novelty, importance of needs, personal interests), as well as external conditions of human activity;
• volume - a quantitative indicator of objects that are in the focus of attention (for an adult - from 4 to 6, for a child - no more than 1-3); the amount of attention depends not only on genetic factors and on the capabilities of the short-term memory of the individual, the characteristics of the perceived objects and the professional skills of the subject also matter;
• distribution - the ability to focus on several objects at the same time; at the same time, several focuses (centers) of attention are formed, which makes it possible to perform several actions or monitor several processes at the same time without losing any of them from the field of attention;
• switching - the ability to more or less easily and fairly quickly move from one type of activity to another and focus on the latter.

With the help of such cognitive mental processes as: speech, sensation, thinking, memory, attention, a person perceives reality and carries out his life activity.

Features of mental cognitive processes

It is thanks to these processes that the brain responds to influences from the external and internal environment. If it were not for cognitive phenomena, human activity would be in danger. So, without perception, sensations, you would not be able to feel the irritant, which, it is possible, could well pose a threat to your life. Without imagination, the psychic regulators that are in every person would not be able to analyze the threat, to foresee the result of its influence. And without memory, you would not remember your past experience, you would not know what the resulting irritation would lead to.

Types of mental cognitive processes

Consider in detail the above classification of processes:

1. Feel are the simplest among all mental phenomena. They contain all the ideas about annoying factors that you have ever encountered. In this case, the following types of sensations are distinguished:

• from the outside: taste, tactile, auditory, skin, visual, olfactory sensations, through which we learn the world around us;
• internal: nausea, hunger, thirst, etc., arising as a result of signals from the receptors of certain organs;
• motor sensations appear due to a change in the position of your body.

2. Perception reflects not only what you see, what surrounds you, but also complements all this with their properties, affecting the senses.

3. Attention is a concentrated focus of your consciousness on the phenomena or objects of the real world. It is worth noting that it is difficult for each person to simultaneously perceive information from many sources, but you will definitely hear your name, for example, pronounced in the crowd during a stormy party. Scientists explain this by the fact that the main mechanisms of attention are always focused on phrases, words that have a special meaning for a person.

4. Memory reflects everything that was previously perceived by you, committed, experienced. There is a genetic and lifetime:

• hereditary memory includes instincts, all the information that characterizes your physiological structure. It is not particularly affected by the living conditions of a person;
• lifetime stores what has accumulated, starting from the moment you were born. In addition, unlike the previous one, it is dependent on external influences.

5. Thinking also refers to higher mental cognitive processes. It helps to discover new knowledge for a person, promotes creative development, problem solving. It is in the process of the latter that it manifests itself most clearly.

6. Speech combines sound signals, symbols that contribute to the presentation of information, its processing, storage in memory and, in which case, transmission.

Violation of cognitive mental processes

A person may be subject to violations of mental cognitive processes. This is due to various diseases. So, with epilepsy, the amount of memory decreases, problems with thinking appear (it is very difficult for the patient to solve elementary tasks). As a result of craniocerebral injuries, a decrease in mental capacity for work was noticed. If there is an assumption of such a mental disorder, it should be urgently seek the advice of a psychiatrist.

The concept of attention. The mental life of a person flows along a certain channel. This orderliness is achieved due to a special state of the psyche - attention.

Attention– this is a state of focus and concentration of consciousness on some objects with simultaneous distraction from everything else.

Under orientation the selective, selective nature of the course of cognitive activity is understood. Attention can be directed to objects of the surrounding world (externally directed attention) or to one's own thoughts, feelings, experiences (internal or self-directed attention).

Under concentration it means keeping attention on one object, ignoring other objects, more or less deepening into the content of mental activity.

The manifestation of attention is associated with characteristic external manifestations:

There are movements of an adaptive nature - a specific posture of peering, listening, if attention is directed to external objects. If it is directed at one’s own thoughts and feelings, then a person has a so-called “missing look” - the eyes are “set to infinity”, due to which the surrounding objects are perceived unclearly and do not distract attention;

All unnecessary movements are delayed - for intense attention, complete immobility is characteristic;

With intense attention, breathing becomes more shallow and rare; inhalation becomes shorter and exhalation lengthens;

When something surprises a person, this is clearly expressed in the facial expressions of attention: here it is revealed, as Charles Darwin wrote, “... by a slight raising of the eyebrows. When attention passes into a sense of surprise, the raising of the eyebrows becomes more energetic, the eyes and mouth open strongly ... The degree of opening of these two organs corresponds to the intensity of the feeling of surprise ”;

Based on two criteria - the ratio of external (behavioral) and internal pictures of attention - Professor I.V. Strakhov singled out four states of attentiveness: real and apparent attentiveness and inattention. With real attentiveness (inattention), there is a complete coincidence of the external and internal pictures of attention, with seeming - their discrepancy, discrepancy.

Physiological bases of attention. The physiological mechanism of attention is the interaction of nervous processes (excitation and inhibition) occurring in the cerebral cortex on the basis of the law of induction of nervous processes, according to which any excitation focus that occurs in the cerebral cortex causes inhibition of surrounding areas. These foci of excitation can be different in strength and size.

I.P. Pavlov identified in animals unconditioned orienting-exploratory reflex"What?". The biological significance of this reflex lies in the fact that the animal emits a new stimulus in the environment and reacts in accordance with its value. This reflex is also innate in humans; it clearly shows the dependence of attention on external stimuli.

This mechanism cannot explain all the complexity of the voluntary attention of a person, which has developed in the process of labor activity and acquired new conditioned reflex mechanisms.

Studying the physiological activity of the brain, the Russian physiologist A.A. Ukhtomsky (1875-1942) created the doctrine of the dominant. Dominant- this is the dominant focus of excitation, characterized by great strength, constancy, the ability to intensify at the expense of other foci, switching them to itself. The presence of a dominant focus of excitation in the cerebral cortex makes it possible to understand such a degree of a person's concentration on any object or phenomenon, when extraneous stimuli are unable to cause distraction.

Open I.P. also helps to understand the physiological basis of attention. Pavlov's phenomenon the focus of optimal excitation - a center of medium strength, very mobile, most favorable for the formation of new temporary connections, which ensures clear work of thought, arbitrary memorization.

types of attention. It is customary to distinguish the following types of attention: involuntary, voluntary and post-voluntary.

involuntary attention arises without any intention of a person, without a predetermined goal and does not require volitional efforts.

The word "involuntary" in this phrase has several synonyms: unintentional, passive, emotional. All of them help to reveal its features. When they talk about passivity, they mean the dependence of involuntary attention on the object that attracted it, they emphasize the lack of efforts to concentrate on the part of a person. Calling involuntary attention emotional, they emphasize the connection between the object of attention and emotions, interests, and human needs.

There are two groups of causes that cause involuntary attention. AT first group includes features of the stimulus, when the concentration of consciousness on the object occurs due to precisely this circumstance:

The degree of intensity, the strength of the stimulus (loud sound, pungent smell, bright light). In a number of cases, not absolute, but relative intensity is important (correlation in strength with other stimuli acting at the moment);

Contrast between stimuli (large object among small ones);

The novelty of the object is absolute and relative (an unusual combination of familiar stimuli);

Weakening or cessation of the action of the stimulus, periodicity in action (pause in speech, flickering beacon).

The listed features of the stimulus briefly turn it into an object of attention. A longer concentration on an object is associated with the personal characteristics of a person - needs, interests, emotional significance, etc. Therefore, during second group causes of involuntary attention, the correspondence of external stimuli to the needs of the individual is fixed.

Arbitrary Attention is a conscious, regulated focus on an object, attention that arises as a result of a consciously set goal and requires volitional efforts to maintain it.

Arbitrary attention does not depend on the characteristics of the object, but on the goal or task set by the individual. A person focuses not on what is interesting or pleasant for him, but on what he must do. Voluntary attention is a product of social development. The ability to arbitrarily direct and maintain attention has developed in a person in the process of labor, since without this it is impossible to carry out a long and systematic labor activity.

For the emergence and maintenance of voluntary attention, certain conditions must be met:

Awareness of duty and responsibility;

Understanding the specific task of the activity being performed;

Habitual working conditions;

The emergence of indirect interests - not to the process, but to the result of the activity;

Focusing attention on mental activity is facilitated if practical action is included in cognition;

An important condition for maintaining attention is the mental state of a person;

Creation of favorable conditions, exclusion of negatively acting extraneous stimuli. At the same time, it must be remembered that weak side stimuli do not reduce the efficiency of work, but increase it.

Post-voluntary attention is attention arising on the basis of an arbitrary, after it, when volitional efforts are no longer required to maintain it. According to psychological characteristics, post-voluntary attention is close to involuntary: it also arises on the basis of interest in the subject, but the nature of interest in this case is different - it manifests itself in the result of activity. This can be illustrated as follows: at first, the work does not captivate a person, he forces himself to do it, makes serious volitional efforts to maintain concentration, but gradually gets carried away, drawn in - he becomes interested.

In addition, there are also sensory attention associated with the perception of various stimuli (visual and auditory); attention, the object of which is the thoughts and memories of a person; individual and collective attention.

properties of attention. Speaking about the development and education of attention, they mean the improvement of its properties, which can be divided into three groups: properties that characterize the strength, breadth, and dynamic properties of attention.

1. Properties that characterize the strength (intensity) of attention. These include focus and attention span.

Concentration (concentration)- this is the retention of attention on one object or activity, complete absorption in the phenomenon, thoughts. It provides an in-depth study of cognizable objects. An indicator of intensity is "noise immunity", the inability to divert attention from the subject of activity by extraneous stimuli.

Closely related to focus is the property sustainability- the time to maintain concentration, the duration of keeping attention on something, resistance to fatigue and distraction.

The opposite of stability is distractibility the cause of which is often excessive and excessively extensive activity. Interest has a significant influence on the stability of attention. For example, when performing the same type of exercises, the student does the first of them carefully, with concentration, and then, when the material has already been sufficiently mastered, interest is lost, the child works mechanically, attention stability suffers.

2. Properties that characterize the breadth of attention. This is, first of all, the amount of attention, measured by the number of objects that can be simultaneously perceived with a sufficient degree of clarity.

Attention can move very quickly from one object to another, which creates the illusion of a large amount of attention. The attention span of an adult is equal to the "magic Miller number": 7±2. It depends on many circumstances: the degree of familiarity of objects, the relationship between them, their grouping.

The second group includes distribution attention, which is expressed in the ability to keep several objects in the spotlight, simultaneously perform two or more activities. The level of distribution depends on the nature of the combined activities, their complexity and familiarity.

3. Dynamic properties of attention. This is first of all hesitation - involuntary periodic short-term changes in the intensity of attention, and switching - conscious transfer of attention from one object to another, a quick transition from one activity to another. Switching can be deliberate accompanied by the participation of strong-willed efforts (when changing the nature of the activity, setting new tasks), and unintentional flowing easily, without much effort and volitional effort. If attention "slips" from regular activities, this qualifies as abstraction.

One of the most common attention deficits is distraction. This term refers to completely different, in a sense, even opposite states. In particular, this so-called imaginary distraction as a result of excessive concentration, when a person does not notice anything around. It is observed in people who are passionate about work, covered by strong feelings - scientists, creative workers. True absent-mindedness is a frequent involuntary distractibility from the main activity, weakness of voluntary attention, impaired concentration. People of this type have a sliding, fluttering attention. True absent-mindedness can be caused by fatigue, an onset of illness, or it can also arise as a result of poor education, when the child is not accustomed to concentrated work, does not know how to complete the work begun.

The concept of feeling. Objects and phenomena of the external world have many different properties and qualities: color, taste, smell, sound, etc. In order for them to be reflected by a person, they must affect him with any of these properties and qualities. Cognition is carried out primarily by the sense organs - the only channels through which the external world penetrates into the human mind. Images of objects and phenomena of reality that arise in the process of sensory cognition are called sensations.

Feel - this is the simplest mental cognitive process of reflecting the individual properties of objects and phenomena of the surrounding world, as well as the internal states of the body, arising from their direct impact on the senses.

Our consciousness exists only due to the presence of sensations. If a person is deprived of the opportunity to feel and perceive the surrounding reality, he will not be able to navigate the world, he will not be able to do anything. In conditions of "sensory deprivation" (lack of sensations), a person in less than a day has a sharp decrease in attention, a decrease in memory, and serious changes in mental activity occur. No wonder this is one of the most difficult tests for future astronauts, polar explorers, speleologists.

AT ordinary life we are not so much tired of the lack of sensations as their abundance - sensory overload. Therefore, it is so important to observe the elementary rules of mental hygiene.

The physiological basis of sensations is activity analyzer - a special nervous apparatus that performs the function of analysis and synthesis of stimuli emanating from the external and internal environment of the body. Any analyzer consists of three parts.

1. Receptor (peripheral) department- receptor, the main part of any sense organ, specialized for receiving the effects of certain stimuli. Here, the energy of an external stimulus (heat, light, smell, taste, sound) is transformed into physiological energy - a nerve impulse.

2. conductor department- sensory nerves that can be afferent(centripetal), conducting the resulting excitation to the central section of the analyzer, and efferent(centrifugal, through which the nerve impulse enters the working body (effector)).

3. Central department - the cortical section of the analyzer, a specialized section of the cerebral cortex, where the conversion of nervous energy into a mental phenomenon takes place - sensation.

The central part of the analyzer consists of a nucleus and nerve cells scattered throughout the cortex, which are called peripheral elements. The main mass of receptor cells is concentrated in the nucleus, due to which the most subtle analysis and synthesis of stimuli is carried out; at the expense of peripheral elements, a rough analysis is made, for example, light differs from darkness. Scattered elements of the cortical part of the analyzer are involved in establishing communication and interaction between different analyzer systems. Since each analyzer has its own central section, the entire cerebral cortex is a kind of mosaic, an interconnected system of cortical ends of the analyzers. Despite the common structure of all analyzers, the detailed structure of each of them is very specific.

A sensation always arises in consciousness in the form of an image. The energy of an external stimulus turns into a fact of consciousness when a person who has an image of the object that caused the irritation can designate it with a word.

Sensation is always associated with a response like a reflex ring with obligatory feedback. The sense organ is alternately either a receptor or an effector (working organ).

Types and classification of sensations. According to the five sense organs known to the ancient Greeks, the following types of sensations are distinguished: visual, auditory, gustatory, olfactory, tactile (tactile). In addition, there are intermediate sensations between tactile and auditory - vibration. There are also complex sensations, consisting of several independent analytical systems: for example, touch is tactile and muscular-articular sensations; skin sensations include tactile, temperature and pain. There are organic sensations (hunger, thirst, nausea, etc.), static sensations, sensations of balance, reflecting the position of the body in space.

The following criteria for classifying sensations are distinguished.

I.Location of receptors– exteroceptive and interoceptive. Receptors exteroceptive sensations are located on the surface of the body and receive stimuli from the outside world, and receptors interoceptive(organic) sensations are located in the internal organs and signal the functioning of the latter. These sensations form the organic feeling (well-being) of a person.

II.By the presence or absence of direct contact With an irritant causing sensations, exteroceptive sensations are divided into contact and distant. Contact sensations involve direct interaction with the stimulus. These include taste, skin, pain, temperature, etc. distant sensations provide orientation in the nearest environment - these are visual, auditory and olfactory sensations.

A special subclass of interoceptive sensations are sensations proprioceptive, whose receptors are located in ligaments, muscles and tendons and receive irritation from the musculoskeletal system. These sensations also indicate the position of the body in space.

Sensations have a number of characteristics and patterns that are manifested in each type of sensitivity. Three groups of regularities of sensations can be distinguished.

1. Timing ratios between the beginning (end) of the action of the stimulus and the appearance (disappearance) of sensations:

The beginning of the action of the stimulus and the occurrence of sensations do not coincide - the sensation occurs somewhat later than the onset of the action of the stimulus, since the nerve impulse needs some time to deliver information to the cortical section of the analyzer, and after the analysis and synthesis carried out in it, back to the working organ. This is the so-called latent (latent) reaction period;

Sensations do not disappear immediately with the end of the action of the stimulus, which can be illustrated by successive images - positive and negative. The physiological mechanism for the emergence of a sequential image is associated with the phenomena of the aftereffect of the stimulus on the nervous system. Termination of the action of the stimulus does not cause an instant cessation of the process of irritation in the receptor and excitation in the cortical parts of the analyzer.

2. The ratio of sensations and intensity of the stimulus. Not every force of the stimulus is capable of causing a sensation - it occurs when exposed to a stimulus of known intensity. It is customary to distinguish between the threshold of absolute sensitivity and the threshold of sensitivity to discrimination.

The smallest amount of stimulus that produces a barely perceptible sensation is called the lower absolute threshold of sensitivity.

There is an inverse relationship between sensitivity and the strength of the stimulus: the greater the force needed to produce a sensation, the lower the sensitivity. There may be subthreshold stimuli that do not cause sensations, since signals about them are not transmitted to the brain.

The maximum value of the stimulus that the analyzer is able to adequately perceive (in other words, at which the sensation of this type is still preserved) is called the upper absolute threshold of sensitivity.

The interval between the lower and upper thresholds is called sensitivity range. It has been established that the range of color sensitivity is the oscillations of electromagnetic waves with a frequency of 390 (violet) to 780 (red) millimicrons, and sound - the oscillations of sound waves from 20 to 20,000 Hertz. Ultra-high intensity stimuli instead of sensations of a certain type cause pain.

Threshold of sensitivity to discrimination(differential) - this is the minimum difference between two stimuli, which causes a subtle difference in sensations. In other words, this is the smallest amount by which it is necessary to change (increase or decrease) the intensity of the stimulus in order for a change in sensation to occur. German scientists - physiologist E. Weber and physicist G. Fechner - formulated a law that is valid for stimuli of medium strength: the ratio of an additional stimulus to the main one is a constant value. This value for each type of sensation is certain: for visual - 1/1000 , for auditory - 1/10, for tactile - 1/30 of the initial stimulus value.

III.Changing the sensitivity of the analyzer. This change can be illustrated by the patterns of sensations such as adaptation, sensitization, and interaction.

Adaptation(from Latin adaptare - to adapt, adjust, get used to) - this is a change in sensitivity under the influence of a constantly acting stimulus. Adaptation depends on environmental conditions. The general pattern is as follows: when moving from strong to weak stimuli, sensitivity increases, and vice versa, when moving from weak to strong, it decreases. The biological expediency of this mechanism is obvious: when stimuli are strong, subtle sensitivity is not needed, but when they are weak, the ability to catch them is important.

There are two types of adaptation: positive and negative. Positive(positive, dark) adaptation is associated with an increase in sensitivity under the influence of a weak stimulus. Thus, during the transition from light to darkness, the area of ​​the pupil increases by 17 times, there is a transition from cone vision to rod vision, but basically the increase in sensitivity occurs due to the conditioned reflex work of the central mechanisms of the analyzer. Negative(negative, light) adaptation can manifest itself as a decrease in sensitivity under the influence of a strong stimulus and as a complete disappearance of sensations during prolonged action of the stimulus.

Another pattern of sensations is interaction of analyzers, which manifests itself in a change in the sensitivity of one analyzer system under the influence of the activity of another. The general regularity of the interaction of sensations can be expressed in the following formulation: irritations of one analyzer that are weak in intensity increase the sensitivity of the other, and strong irritations decrease it.

Increasing the sensitivity of the analyzer is called sensitization. It can manifest itself in two areas: either as a result of sensory exercises, training, or as a need to compensate for sensory defects. The defect in the work of one analyzer is usually compensated by the increased work and improvement of the other.

A special case of the interaction of sensations is synesthesia, in which the joint work of the senses occurs; in this case, the qualities of sensations of one kind are transferred to another kind of sensations and co-sensations arise. In everyday life, synesthesias are used very often: “velvet voice”, “screaming color”, “sweet sounds”, “cold tone”, “pungent taste”, etc.

The concept of perception. In the process of cognitive activity, a person rarely deals with individual properties of objects and phenomena. Usually, an object appears in a combination of various properties and parts. Color, shape, size, smell, emitted sounds, weight of an object simultaneously evoke various sensations that are closely related to each other. On the basis of the interconnection and interdependence of various sensations, the process of perception takes place. Such forms of reflection as sensations and perception are links in a single process of sensory cognition. But if sensations reflect the individual properties of objects and phenomena of the surrounding reality, then perception gives them a holistic image; in contrast to the complex of sensations, it is objective. Perception presupposes the presence of a variety of sensations, moreover, it is impossible without sensations, but cannot be reduced to their sum, since, in addition to sensations, it includes past human experience in the form of ideas and knowledge.

Perception- this is a holistic reflection of objects and phenomena in the totality of their properties and parts with their direct impact on the senses.

The process of perception proceeds in close connection with other mental processes: thinking (we are aware of what is in front of us), speech (we designate an object with a word), memory, attention, will (we organize the process of perception), is guided by motivation, has an affective-emotional coloring (what We relate in some way to what we perceive).

Perception is a more complex process than sensations. Perception is not a passive copying of an instantaneous impact, but a living, creative process of cognition, a complex activity, an important part of which is movement. If the eye is motionless, it ceases to see the object, to pronounce sounds, tension of the muscles of the larynx is necessary, to know the properties of the object, it must be examined - to connect the movements of the hand. At the same time, four levels of perceptual action are distinguished: 1) detection (is there a stimulus?); 2) distinction (formation of a perceptual image of the standard) - these two actions are perceptual; 3) identification - identification of the perceived object with the image stored in memory; 4) identification - the assignment of an object to a certain class of objects that were perceived earlier; the last two actions are related to identification.

Thus, perception is a system of perceptual actions, the mastery of which requires special training and practice.

In human life, perception is of great importance - it is the basis of orientation in the surrounding world, in society, a necessary component of social relations, the perception of a person by a person.

Physiological basis of perception. There are no special organs of perception; analyzers provide the material for it. In this case, the primary analysis that takes place in the receptors is supplemented by the complex analytic and synthetic activity of the brain ends of the analyzer. Since any object of the external world acts as a complex complex stimulus (for example, a lemon has a size, color, taste, size, temperature, smell, name, etc.), perception is based on complex systems of neural connections between different analyzers. We can say that the physiological basis of perception is the complex activity of analyzers.

properties of perception. In the structure of perception, two substructures are distinguished - properties and types. The properties of perception include selectivity, objectivity, apperception, integrity, structure, constancy, meaningfulness.

The objects and phenomena of the surrounding world act on a person in such a variety that he cannot perceive all of them with a sufficient degree of clarity and react to them simultaneously. Of the huge number of influencing objects, a person perceives only a few with the greatest clarity and awareness.

Predominant selection of some objects in comparison with others characterizes selectivity perception. What is in the center of a person's attention during perception is the subject of perception, everything else, secondary, is the background of perception. They are very dynamic: what was the subject of perception, upon completion of the work, can merge with the background, and vice versa, something from the background can become the subject of perception. This is of great practical importance: when it is necessary to help distinguish an object from the background, they use bright colors (orange vests of railwaymen, orange and blue suits of astronauts), a special font (rules in textbooks), etc. Sometimes, when it is necessary to make it difficult to distinguish an object, dissolve it in the background, use camouflage, camouflage robes, nets with twigs, silver color (airplanes, fuel tanks, etc.).

The selectivity of perception is determined by the needs of the individual, interests, attitudes, personal qualities of a person.

objectivity perception is its relation to the objects of the external world. A person perceives an object not only as a set of features, but also evaluates it as a specific object, not limited to establishing its individual characteristics, but always referring to some category, for example: oval, green, odorous, tasteless, watery - this is a cucumber, a vegetable; round, orange, fragrant, rough, sweet - this is an orange, a fruit.

Sometimes the process of recognition does not occur immediately - a person has to peer, listen, approach the object in order to obtain new information about it. Recognition can be non-specific when a person defines only the type of an object (some kind of car, building, person), or specific (this is my brother's car, this is our history teacher), etc.

Objectivity in a certain way affects a person's behavior: if you show him a brick and a block of dynamite, he will behave differently.

Very important properties of perception associated with objectivity are its integrity and structure. Perception is always there holistic object image. Visual sensations do not provide objective reflection. The retina of the frog's eye ("insect detector") signals several signs of an object, such as movement, the presence of angles. A frog does not have a visual image, therefore, surrounded by motionless flies, it can die of starvation. The ability of holistic visual perception is not innate. In those born blind, who acquired sight in their mature years, perception does not occur immediately, but after a few weeks. This fact once again confirms that perception is formed in the process of practice and is a system of perceptual actions that must be mastered.

Structurality perception lies in the fact that it is not just a sum of sensations, it reflects the relationship of various properties and parts of an object, i.e., their structure. Each part included in the image of perception acquires meaning only when it is correlated with the whole and is determined by it. So, when listening to music, we perceive not individual sounds, but a melody; we recognize this melody when it is performed by an orchestra, or by a single musical instrument, or by a human voice, although the auditory sensations are different.

Since the psyche is a subjective image of the objective world, people perceive the same information in different ways, depending on the characteristics of the perceiving personality - its orientation, views, beliefs, interests, needs, abilities, experienced feelings. Dependence of perception on content mental life person, the characteristics of his personality and past experience is called apperceptions. This is one of the most important properties of perception, since it gives it an active character.

constancy- this is the relative constancy of the perceived size, color and shape of objects with a change in distance, angle, illumination. Its source is the active actions of the system of analyzers that provide the act of perception. The perception of objects under different conditions makes it possible to single out a relatively constant invariant structure of an object. Constancy is not an innate, but an acquired property. In the absence of constancy, orientation is impossible. If perception were not constant, then at every step, turn, movement, we would encounter “new” objects without recognizing them.

The perception of a person is not only a sensual image, but also the awareness of a certain object isolated from the surrounding world. Thanks to the comprehension of the essence and purpose of objects, their purposeful use and practical activities with them become possible. meaningfulness perception is the awareness of the displayed objects, and the reflection of any single case as a special manifestation of the general - generality perception. Meaningfulness and generalization of perception are achieved by understanding the essence of objects in the process of mental activity. Perception proceeds as a dynamic process of searching for an answer to the question: “What is this?” To comprehend, to consciously perceive an object means, first of all, to name it, to generalize it in a word, to attribute it to a certain class. We compare an unfamiliar object with a familiar one, trying to attribute it to a certain category. The Swiss psychiatrist G. Rorschach (1884-1928) showed that even meaningless inkblots normal people are always perceived as something meaningful (butterflies, a dog, clouds, a lake, etc.). Only some mentally ill people tend to perceive random inkblots as such.

Types of perception. Perception differs by type depending on the predominant role of one or another analyzer, since not all analyzers play the same role: usually one of them is the leader.

Depending on the leading analyzer, the following types of perception are distinguished.

1. Simple– visual, auditory, tactile. Each person has all the simple senses, but one of these systems is usually more developed than the others, which corresponds to the three main areas of sensory experience: visual, auditory, and kinesthetic.

visual type. All perceived information is presented to this type of people in the form of vivid pictures, visual images. They often gesticulate, as if drawing images in the air. They are characterized by statements: "I clearly see that ...", "Look here ...", "Let's imagine ...", "The solution is already looming ...".

Auditory type. These people use other words: “It sounds like this ...”, “I resonate with this ...”, “I hear what you are saying ...”, “Listen ...”, etc.

kinesthetic type. People belonging to this type remember movements and sensations well. In conversation, they use kinesthetic words and expressions: “If you take, for example ...”, “I can’t grasp the thought ...”, “Try to feel ...”, “It is very difficult ...”, “I feel that...".

Pronounced representatives of these types have specific features in behavior, body type and movements, in speech, breathing, etc. The leading sensory system affects the compatibility and effectiveness of communication with other people. In life, people often do not understand each other well, in particular, because their leading sensory systems do not match. If you need to establish good contact with a person, then you need to use the same process words as him. If you want to establish a distance, you can intentionally use words from a different representational system than the interlocutor's.

2. Complex types of perception are distinguished if several analyzers are equally intensively mobilized: visual-auditory; visual-auditory-tactile; visual-motor and auditory-motor.

3. Special types of perception are distinguished depending on the perceived object: time, space, movements, relationships, speech, music, person by person, etc.

Depending on the degree of purposefulness of the individual's activity, involuntary and arbitrary perception are distinguished. involuntary perception can be caused both by the features of the surrounding objects, and by the correspondence of these objects to the interests and needs of the individual. Arbitrary perception involves setting a goal, the application of volitional efforts, a deliberate choice of an object of perception. Arbitrary perception turns into observation - a purposeful, systematic perception of an object with a specific, clearly perceived goal. Observation is the most developed form of voluntary perception and is characterized by great activity of the individual.

The most important requirements for the observation process are: setting a goal, regularity, systematic, clarity of the task, its fragmentation, setting private, more specific tasks. Observation must be specially trained. If a person systematically exercises in observation, improves his culture, then he develops such a personality trait as observation - the ability to notice characteristic, but subtle features of objects and phenomena.

Perceptual disturbances. Perception does not always give an absolutely correct idea of ​​the world around us. Sometimes in a state of mental overwork, a person has a reduced susceptibility to external stimuli - hypoesthesia. Everything around becomes dim, fuzzy, faded, shapeless, uninteresting, frozen. With a sharp physical or emotional overwork, there is an increase in susceptibility to completely ordinary stimuli - hypertension. Daylight is suddenly blinding, sounds are deafening, smells are irritating, even the touch of clothes on the body seems rough and unpleasant.

Misperception of real objects is called illusions(from lat. illusio - deceptive). Illusions can be affective, verbal, and transient. affective illusions are caused by a depressed state, bad mood, anxiety, fear - even clothes hanging on a hanger can seem like a robber, a random passerby - a rapist, a murderer. Verbal Illusions lie in a false perception of the content of real conversations of other people. It seems to a person that everyone is condemning him, hinting at some unseemly deeds, mocking him, threatening him. Pereidolic illusions are caused by a decrease in the tone of mental activity, passivity. Ordinary patterns on the wallpaper, cracks on the ceiling, on the floor, various chiaroscuro are perceived as bright pictures, fairy-tale characters, fantastic images, extraordinary panoramas.

Illusions should be distinguished from hallucinations - psychopathological manifestations of perception and memory. Hallucination - it is an image (visual, auditory, olfactory, tactile, gustatory) that arises in the mind regardless of external stimuli and has the meaning of objective reality for a person. Hallucinations are a consequence of the fact that perception is saturated not with external impressions, but with internal images. A person who is in the grip of hallucinations experiences them as truly perceived - he really sees, hears, smells, and does not represent all this. For him, subjective sensory sensations are just as real as those coming from the objective world.

The concept of memory. Everything that a person once perceived does not disappear without a trace - traces of the process of excitation remain in the cerebral cortex of the brain, which create the possibility of re-emergence of excitation in the absence of the stimulus that caused it. Thanks to this, a person can remember and save, and subsequently reproduce the image of a missing object or reproduce previously learned knowledge. Like perception, memory is a process of reflection, but in this case it reflects not only that which acts directly, but also that which took place in the past.

Memory– this is a special form of reflection, one of the main mental processes aimed at fixing mental phenomena in a physiological code, preserving them in this form and reproducing them in the form of subjective representations.

In the cognitive sphere, memory occupies a special place; without it, knowledge of the world around us is impossible. The activity of memory is necessary in solving any cognitive problem, since memory underlies any mental phenomenon and connects a person's past with his present and future. Without the inclusion of memory in the act of cognition, all sensations and perceptions will be perceived as having arisen for the first time and comprehension of the surrounding world will become impossible.

Memory allows a person to be what he is, helps him to act, learn, love - because for this at least you need to recognize the one you love. (It is not for nothing that instead of “falling out of love” they say “forgotten.”) But all successes and failures cannot be attributed to memory alone. Another French thinker of the 17th century. F. La Rochefoucauld remarked: "Everyone complains about his memory, but no one complains about his common sense."

Physiological bases of memory. AT The basis of memory is the property of the nervous tissue to change under the influence of the action of the stimulus, to retain traces of nervous excitation. The strength of the traces depends on which traces took place.

At the first stage, immediately after exposure to the stimulus, short-term electrochemical reactions occur in the brain, causing reversible physiological changes in cells. This stage lasts from a few seconds to several minutes and is the physiological mechanism of short-term memory - there are traces, but they have not yet been consolidated. At the second stage, a biochemical reaction occurs associated with the formation of new protein substances, which leads to irreversible chemical changes in cells. This is the mechanism of long-term memory - the traces have become stronger, they can exist for a long time.

In order for information to be deposited in memory, it takes some time, the so-called consolidation time, strengthening traces. A person experiences this process as an echo of an event that has just happened: for some time he continues to see, hear, feel something that he no longer perceives directly (“it stands before his eyes”, “sounds in his ears”, etc.). Consolidation time - 15 min. A temporary loss of consciousness in people leads to forgetting what happened in the period immediately preceding this event - anterograde amnesia occurs - a temporary inability of the brain to capture traces.

Objects or phenomena connected in reality are connected in the memory of a person. To memorize something means to connect memorization with what is already known, to form association. Consequently, the physiological basis of memory is also the formation and functioning of a temporary neural connection (association) between the individual links of the previously perceived.

There are two types of associations: simple and complex.

To simple three types of associations are classified: 1) by adjacency - two phenomena connected in time or space are combined (Chuk and Gek, Prince and Beggar, alphabet, multiplication table, arrangement of pieces on a chessboard); 2) by similarity - phenomena that have similar features are connected (willow - a woman in grief, "cherry blizzard", poplar fluff - snow; 3) by contrast - two opposite phenomena are connected (winter - summer, black - white, heat - cold, health - illness, sociability - isolation, etc.).

Complex(semantic) associations are the basis of our knowledge, since they connect phenomena that are in fact constantly connected: 1) part - whole (tree - branch, hand - finger); 2) genus - species (animal - mammal - cow); 3) cause - effect (smoking in bed leads to a fire); 4) functional connections (fish - water, bird - sky, air).

For the formation of a temporary connection, a repeated coincidence of two stimuli in time is required, i.e., for the formation of associations, it is required repetition. Another important condition for the formation of associations is business reinforcement, that is, the inclusion of what needs to be remembered in the activity.

memory processes. Memory includes several interrelated processes: memorization, preservation, forgetting and reproduction.

memorization is a process aimed at storing in memory the impressions received by linking them with existing experience. From a physiological point of view, memorization is the formation and fixation in the brain of traces of excitation from the influence of the surrounding world (things, drawings, thoughts, words, etc.). The nature of memorization, its strength, brightness, and clarity depend on the characteristics of the stimulus, the nature of the activity, and the mental state of the person.

The process of memorization can proceed in three forms: imprinting, involuntary and voluntary memorization.

Imprinting (imprinting)- this is a strong and accurate preservation of events as a result of a single presentation of material for several seconds. The state of imprinting - instant imprinting - occurs in a person at the moment of the highest emotional stress (eidetic images).

involuntary memorization occurs in the absence of a conscious attitude to memorization with repeated repetition of the same stimulus, is selective in nature and depends on the actions of a person, that is, it is determined by motives, goals, emotional attitude to activity. Something unusual, interesting, emotionally exciting, unexpected, bright is unintentionally remembered.

Arbitrary memorization in humans is the leading form. It arose in the process of labor activity and is caused by the need to preserve knowledge, skills and abilities, without which work is impossible. This is a higher level of memorization with a pre-set goal and the application of strong-willed efforts.

For greater efficiency of arbitrary memorization, the following conditions must be met:

The presence of a psychological setting for memorization;

Understanding the meaning of acquired knowledge;

Self-control, a combination of memorization with reproduction;

Reliance on rational methods of memorization.

Rational methods of memorization (mnemonic methods) include the selection of strong points, the semantic grouping of material, the allocation of the main, main, drawing up a plan, etc.

A type of voluntary memory is memorization - systematic, systematic, specially organized memorization using mnemonic techniques.

By result memorization can be verbatim, close to the text, semantic, requiring mental processing of the material, according to way - as a whole, in parts, combined. By character connections, memorization is divided into mechanical and logical (semantic), the effectiveness of which is 20 times higher than mechanical. Logical memorization involves a certain organization of the material, understanding the meaning, connections between parts of the material, understanding the meaning of each word and the use of figurative memorization techniques (diagrams, graphs, pictures).

The main conditions for strong memorization are:

Awareness of the goal, task;

The presence of a setting for memorization;

Rational repetition is active and distributed because it is more efficient than passive and continuous.

Preservation is a process of more or less prolonged retention in memory of information obtained in the experiment. From a physiological point of view, preservation is the existence of traces in a latent form. This is not a passive process of retaining information, but a process of active processing, systematization, generalization of the material, mastering it.

Preservation primarily depends on:

From personality settings;

Forces of influence of the memorized material;

Interest in reflected impacts;

The human condition. With fatigue, weakening of the nervous system, serious illness forgetting is very pronounced. So, it is known that Walter Scott wrote "Ivanhoe" during a serious illness. Reading the work after his recovery, he could not remember when and how he wrote it.

The process of preservation has two sides - the actual preservation and forgetting.

Forgetting– this is natural process extinction, elimination, erasure of traces, inhibition of connections. It is selective: what is forgotten is not important for a person, does not meet his needs. Forgetting is an expedient, natural and necessary process that gives the brain the opportunity to get rid of an excess of unnecessary information.

Forgetting can be complete - the material is not only not reproduced, but is not recognized; partial- a person recognizes the material, but cannot reproduce it or reproduces it with errors; temporary - during inhibition of nerve connections, complete- at their extinction.

The process of forgetting proceeds unevenly: at first it is fast, then it slows down. The greatest percentage of forgetting falls on the first 48 hours after memorization, and this continues for another three days. Over the next five days, forgetting is slower. From this follows the conclusion:

It is necessary to repeat the material after a short time after memorization (the first repetition is after 40 minutes), since after an hour only 50% of the mechanically memorized information remains in memory;

It is necessary to distribute repetitions in time - it is better to repeat the material in small portions once every 10 days than three days before the exam;

It is necessary to understand, comprehend information;

To reduce forgetting, it is necessary to include knowledge in activities.

The reasons for forgetting can be both non-repetition of the material (fading of connections), and multiple repetition, in which transcendental inhibition occurs in the cerebral cortex.

Forgetting depends on the nature of the activity preceding memorization and occurring after it. The negative influence of the activity preceding memorization is called proactive inhibition, and the activity following memorization - retroactive inhibition, which occurs in cases when, after memorization, an activity similar to it or requiring significant effort is performed.

The material stored in the memory is qualitatively changed, reconstructed, the traces become paler, bright colors fade, but not always: sometimes later, delayed reproduction turns out to be more complete and accurate than earlier. This improved delayed recall, which occurs predominantly in children, is called reminiscence.

Playback - the most active, creative process, which consists in recreating in activity and communication the material stored in memory. The following forms are distinguished: recognition, involuntary reproduction, arbitrary reproduction, recall and recollection.

Recognition- this is the perception of an object in the conditions of its repeated perception, which occurs due to the presence of a weak trace in the cerebral cortex. It is easier to learn than to reproduce. Out of 50 objects, a person recognizes 35.

involuntary reproduction is a reproduction that is carried out as if "by itself". There are also obsessive forms of reproduction of any representation of memory, movement, speech, which are called perseveration(from Latin I persist). The physiological mechanism of perseveration is the inertia of the process of excitation in the cerebral cortex, the so-called "stagnant focus of excitation".

Perseveration can occur in a completely healthy person, but is more often observed with fatigue, oxygen starvation. Sometimes an obsession, thought (idefix) becomes a symptom of a neuropsychiatric disorder - neurosis.

Arbitrary reproduction is reproduction with a predetermined goal, awareness of the task, application of efforts.

Remembrance- an active form of reproduction associated with tension, requiring willpower and special techniques - association, reliance on recognition. Recall depends on the clarity of the tasks set, the logical ordering of the material.

Remembrance - reproduction of images in the absence of perception of the object, "historical memory of the individual."

Types of memory. There are several types of memory according to various criteria.

1. According to the nature of mental activity that prevails in activity, memory can be figurative, emotional, and verbal-logical.

figurative memory includes visual, auditory, eidetic memory (a rare type of memory that retains a vivid image for a long time with all the details of the perceived, which is a consequence of the inertia of excitation of the cortical end of the visual or auditory analyzers); olfactory, tactile, gustatory and motor, or motor (a special subspecies of figurative memory, which consists in memorizing, preserving and reproducing various movements and their systems). Motor memory is the basis for the formation of practical, labor and sports skills.

Figurative memory is inherent in both animals and people.

emotional memory is a memory for feelings and emotional states, which, being experienced and stored in the mind, act as signals that either encourage activity or deter actions that caused negative experiences in the past. The ability to sympathize, empathize is based on emotional memory, as it regulates human behavior depending on previously experienced feelings. Lack of emotional memory leads to emotional dullness.

In animals, what caused pain, anger, fear, rage is remembered faster and allows them to avoid similar situations in the future.

Verbal-logical (semantic, symbolic) memory is based on the establishment and memorization of semantic concepts, formulations, ideas, sayings. This is a specifically human kind of memory.

2. According to the degree of volitional regulation, the presence or absence of a goal and special mnemonic actions, they distinguish involuntary memory, when information is remembered by itself - without setting a goal, without effort, and arbitrary memory, in which memorization is carried out purposefully with the help of special techniques.

3. According to the duration of the preservation of the material, they are distinguished short-term, long-term and operational memory (for the physiological mechanisms of these types of memory, see p. 102).

long-term memory is the main type of memory that ensures long-term preservation of the imprinted (sometimes for a lifetime). Long-term memory is of two types: open access, when a person can voluntarily extract the necessary information, and closed, access to which is possible only under hypnosis.

At short-term memory material is stored up to 15 min.

Operational memory involves the retention of intermediate materials in memory as long as a person deals with them.

Properties (qualities) of memory. These include:

Memorization speed - the number of repetitions required to retain material in memory;

Forgetting rate - the time during which the material is stored in memory;

The amount of memory for completely new material and material that makes no sense is equal to the "magic Miller number" (7 ± 2), indicating the number of pieces of information held in memory;

Accuracy - the ability to reproduce information without distortion;

Mobilization readiness is the ability to remember the right material at the right time.

Memory develops through exercise and hard work on memorization, long-term preservation, complete and accurate reproduction. The more a person knows, the easier it is for him to remember the new, linking, associating new material with the already known. With a general decrease in memory with age, the level of professional memory does not decrease, and sometimes it can even increase. All this allows us to draw the following conclusion: memory as a mental phenomenon is not only a gift of nature, but also the result of purposeful education.

The concept of thinking. The knowledge of the surrounding world goes "from living contemplation to abstract thinking and from it to practice - such is the dialectical path of knowing the truth, knowing the objective reality" (V.I. Lenin).

Sensations, perception, memory - this is the first stage of cognition inherent in most animals, giving only an external picture of the world, direct, "living contemplation" of reality. But sometimes sensory knowledge is not enough to get a complete picture of a phenomenon or fact. It is here that thinking comes to the rescue, which helps the knowledge of the laws of nature and society. A feature of thinking is the reflection of objects and phenomena of reality in their essential features, regular connections and relationships that exist between parts, sides, features of each object and between different subjects and phenomena of reality.

Thinking is a process by which a person mentally penetrates beyond what is given to him in sensations and perception. In other words, with the help of thinking, one can gain knowledge that is inaccessible to the senses. The stage of abstract thinking (see below) is unique to man.

Thinking is a higher stage of cognition, it is a stage of rational, mediated cognition of reality, a condition for rational practical activity. The truth of such knowledge is tested by practice. Thinking is always a process of solving a problem, finding answers to a question or getting out of a situation.

Not all tasks require thinking. For example, if the method of solving a task set before a person has long been and well learned by him, and the conditions of activity are familiar, then in order to cope with it, memory and perception are quite enough. Thinking is “turned on” when a fundamentally new task is set or, if it is necessary to use previously accumulated knowledge, skills and abilities in new conditions.

Thinking - it is an indirect, generalized reflection of reality in its most essential connections and relations, occurring in unity with speech.

Features of thinking are as follows.

1. Solving problems indirectly, that is, in a way that uses a variety of auxiliary techniques and means designed to obtain the necessary knowledge. A person resorts to the help of thinking when direct knowledge is either impossible (people do not perceive ultrasound, infrared radiation, x-rays, chemical composition stars, the distance from the Earth to other planets, physiological processes in the cerebral cortex, etc.), or in principle it is possible, but not in modern conditions (archaeology, paleontology, geology, etc.), or it is possible, but irrational . Solving a problem indirectly means solving it, including with the help of mental operations. For example, when, waking up in the morning, a person goes to the window and sees that the roofs of the houses are wet, and there are puddles on the ground, he makes a conclusion: it rained at night. Man did not perceive rain directly, but learned about it indirectly, through other facts. Other examples: the doctor learns about the presence of an inflammatory process in the patient's body using additional means - a thermometer, test results, x-rays, etc.; the teacher can assess the degree of diligence of the student by his answer at the blackboard; You can find out what the air temperature is outside in different ways: directly, by sticking your hand out the window, and indirectly, using a thermometer. Indirect knowledge of objects and phenomena is carried out with the help of the perception of other objects or phenomena that are naturally associated with the first. These connections and relationships are usually hidden, they cannot be perceived directly, and mental operations are resorted to to reveal them.

2. Generalized reflection of reality. Only concrete objects can be perceived directly: this tree, this table, this book, this person. You can think about the subject in general (“Love the book - the source of knowledge”; “Man descended from the monkey”). It is thought that allows us to capture the similarity in the different and the different in the similar, to discover regular connections between phenomena and events.

A person can foresee what will happen in a particular case because it reflects the general properties of objects and phenomena. But it is not enough to notice the connection between two facts; it is also necessary to realize that it has a general character and is determined common properties things, i.e., properties related to a whole group of similar objects and phenomena. Such a generalized reflection makes it possible to predict the future, to present it in the form of images that do not really exist.

3. Reflection of the most essential properties and connections of reality. In phenomena or objects, we single out the general, not taking into account the inessential, the non-principal. So, any clock is a mechanism for determining the time, and this is their main feature. Neither the shape, nor the size, nor the color, nor the material from which they are made, do not matter.

The thinking of higher animals is based on the causal reflex (from Latin causa - reason) - a type of brain reflexes, which, according to I.P. Pavlov, is not identical to a conditioned reflex. The causal reflex is the physiological basis for the direct (without the participation of concepts) mental reflection of essential connections between objects and phenomena (in humans, the causal reflex, combined with experience, underlies intuition and thinking).

4. The main feature of human thinking is that it inextricably linked with speech. the word denotes that which objects and phenomena have in common. Language, speech is the material shell of thought. Only in speech form does a person's thought become available to other people. A person has no other means of reflecting the corresponding connections of the external world, except for those speech forms that are entrenched in his native language. Thought can neither arise, nor flow, nor exist outside of language, outside of speech.

Speech is an instrument of thought. Man thinks with the help of words. But it does not follow from this that the process of thinking is reduced to speech, that to think means to speak aloud or to oneself. The difference between the thought itself and its verbal expression is that the same thought can be expressed in different languages or with the help of different words ("The next summer is expected to be hot" - "The coming season between spring and autumn will be sultry"). The same thought has a different speech form, but without any speech form it does not exist.

“I know, but I can’t put it into words” is a state when a person cannot move from expressing thoughts in inner speech to outer speech, finds it difficult to express it in a way understandable to other people.

The result of thinking is thoughts, judgments and concepts expressed in words.

The physiological basis of thinking is the activity of the entire cerebral cortex, and not just one part of it. Temporary nerve connections in the second signal system in interaction with the first, which are formed between the brain ends of the analyzers, act as a specific neurophysiological mechanism of thinking.

mental operations. New thoughts and images arise on the basis of what was already in our minds thanks to mental operations: analysis, synthesis, comparison, generalization, abstraction. Analysis - this is a mental division of the whole into parts, the selection of individual features or sides and the establishment of connections and relationships between them. With the help of analysis, we isolate phenomena from those random, insignificant connections in which they are given to us in perception (analysis of a sentence by members, phonetic analysis of a word, analysis of a task condition into known, unknown and sought-for elements, analysis of educational activities in subjects and student success and etc.). Analysis as a mental operation arose from practical actions (for example, a child takes apart a new toy in order to understand how it works).

Synthesis - a process that is inverse to analysis, which is a mental union of parts, properties of an object into a single whole, into complexes, systems (mosaic; syllables - words - sentences - text).

These mental processes, opposite in content, are inseparably united. In the course of the thought process, analysis and synthesis continuously pass into each other and can alternately come to the fore, which is due to the nature of the material: if the initial problems are not clear, their content is not clear, then at first analysis will prevail; if, on the other hand, all the data are sufficiently distinct, thought will at once go predominantly along the path of synthesis. Ultimately, all processes of imagination and thinking consist in the mental decomposition of phenomena into their constituent parts and the subsequent unification of these parts in new combinations.

Analysis and synthesis as the main mental operations are inherent in any person, but the tendency to crush or combine the phenomena of the surrounding reality can be different for different people: some notice the smallest details, details, particulars, but do not grasp the whole - these are representatives of the analytical type; others immediately go to the main point, but express the essence of events in a too generalized way, which is typical of representatives of the synthetic type. Most people have a mixed, analytical-synthetic type of thinking.

Comparison is a mental operation through which the similarity and difference of individual objects are established. K.D. Ushinsky considered comparison to be the basis of all understanding and all thinking: “We learn everything in the world only through comparison, and if we were presented with some new object that we could not equate to anything and distinguish from anything .. ... then we could not form a single thought about this subject and could not say a single word about it.

One of the most common mistakes that students make when comparing is the juxtaposition of objects (“Onegin is such and such ..., and Pechorin is such and such”), while they are absolutely sure that they give comparative characteristic heroes. Comparison needs to be taught: comparison should be based on one basis (color, shape, purpose). It is also necessary to learn how to draw up a plan for comparing objects (what are the similarities and differences, for example, such objects as a nail and a screw, a cat and a squirrel, a porcini mushroom and a fly agaric, such intellectual qualities as curiosity and inquisitiveness).

Abstraction (distraction) - this is a mental operation that ensures the selection of essential features and distraction from non-essential ones, the selection of the properties of an object and considering them separately: a person, and a landscape, and a dress, and an act can be beautiful, but all of them are carriers of an abstract feature - beauty, prettiness.

Without abstraction, it is impossible to understand the figurative meaning of proverbs (“Don’t get into your sleigh”; “Count chickens in the fall”; “If you like to ride, love to carry sleds”).

Generalization- this is a mental operation that ensures the selection of the general in objects and phenomena and the unification of objects into sets, classes; rejection of single signs while maintaining the common ones with the disclosure of significant links. Generalization is any rule, any law, any concept. It is always some kind of result, a general conclusion made by a person.

It is obvious that all the basic operations of thinking do not act in a "pure form". When solving a task, a person uses one or another “set” of operations, in various combinations: it is different in the thought process of varying complexity and structure.

Forms of thinking. There are three substantive components of thinking - concept, judgment and conclusion.

concept– it is a form of thinking, through which the general and essential features of objects and phenomena are reflected.

Concepts are of a generalized nature, because they are the product of the cognitive activity of not one person, but many people. We recall once again that a representation is an image of a particular object, and a concept is an abstract thought about a class of objects. The word is the bearer of the concept, but, knowing the word (for example, a prestidigitator), one may not own the concept.

There are so-called worldly concepts that are formed without special training and reflect not essential, but secondary features of objects. So, for preschoolers, a rat is a predator, and a cat is a cute pet.

Any concept has content and scope.

By content(a set of features of an object) concepts are concrete and abstract. Specific concepts refer to the objects themselves, define objects or classes as a whole (table, revolution, hurricane, snow, etc.), and abstract reflect properties abstracted from real objects and phenomena (youth, honesty, whiteness, speed, height, strength, etc.).

By volume(set of objects covered by a given concept) concepts can be single and general. Single concepts reflect a single object ( Russian Federation, Volga, Battle of Kulikovo, Pushkin, Mars, space, etc.), and general apply to groups of homogeneous objects (countries, cities, rivers, universities, students, houses, organisms, etc.). In addition, distinguish still generic and specific concepts.

The definition (definition) of concepts is the disclosure of its essential features. For example, a person is a social individual with consciousness, abstract thinking, speech, capable of creative activity, creating tools of labor; personality - a conscious person included in public relations and creative activity.

The process of assimilation of concepts is an active creative mental activity.

Judgment - this is a form of thinking that contains the assertion or denial of any provisions regarding objects, phenomena or their properties, that is, a judgment is a reflection of relations or objective connections between phenomena or objects.

A judgment is always either true or false. In terms of quality, judgments can be affirmative and negative, in terms of volume - general, particular and singular.

General judgments refer to a whole class of objects (all metals conduct electricity; all plants have roots). Private judgments refer to a part of some class of objects (some trees are green in winter; it is not always possible for a hockey player to score a goal). Single refer to one object or phenomenon (Yuri Gagarin - the first cosmonaut).

Judgments always reveal the content of concepts. The work of thought on judgment is called reasoning. It can be inductive and deductive.

inductive reasoning is called inference - this is a form of thinking with the help of which a new judgment (conclusion) is derived from one or several known judgments (premises), which completes the thought process. At the same time, thought moves from the particular to the general. A typical example of inference is the proof of a geometric theorem.

Deductive reasoning is called justification - here the conclusion is obtained, going from a general judgment to a particular one (all planets are spherical. The Earth is a planet, which means it has the shape of a ball).

Types of thinking. AT In his practical activity, a person encounters tasks that are different both in content and in the way they are solved.

depending on the degree of generalization thinking in solving mental problems distinguish between visual and abstract thinking.

visual (specific) such thinking is called, the object of which a person perceives or represents. It is directly based on the images of objects and is divided into visual-effective and visual-figurative.

Visual and effective thinking is genetically the most early view thinking, in which the mental task is solved directly in the process of activity and practical actions with material objects predominate.

At visual-figurative in the form of thinking, the solution of the problem occurs as a result of internal actions with images (representations of memory and imagination). For example, the analysis of a historical event can be done in different ways (scientific description of the blockade of Leningrad, A. Chakovsky's novel "Blockade", Tanya Savicheva's diary, Shostakovich's Seventh Symphony).

Discursive (abstract-conceptual, verbal-logical) thinking is the verbal thinking of a person, mediated by past experience. This type thinking is characterized by the fact that it acts as a process of coherent logical reasoning, in which each subsequent thought is conditioned by the previous one, and that, solving a mental problem in a verbal form, a person operates with abstract concepts, logical constructions. It represents the latest stage in the historical and genetic development of thinking.

Another basis for distinguishing types of thinking is its orientation. According to this criterion, practical and theoretical thinking is distinguished.

Practical (technical, constructive) thinking is a process of thinking that takes place in the course of practical activity and is aimed at creating real objects and phenomena by changing the surrounding reality with the help of tools. It is associated with setting goals, developing plans, projects, often deployed in conditions of time pressure, which sometimes makes it more difficult than theoretical thinking.

The discovery of laws, the properties of objects, the explanation of phenomena is directed theoretical (explanatory) thinking, the main components of which are meaningful abstractions, generalizations, analysis, planning and reflection. In other words, theoretical thinking is in demand where it is necessary to reveal connections and relationships between individual concepts, connect the unknown with the known, and determine the possibility of foresight.

Thinking as a process of solving a new problem can be included in any activity: gaming, sports, labor, artistic, social. But in all these activities, it will play a service role, obeying the main goal of the activity: to build a house, win competitions, etc. It differs from these activities and thinking as a process. thinking activity, in which thinking plays the main role, where the purpose and content of the activity is cognition. Therefore, for example, two students in the same class working on the same assignments can different types activities: mental - one who solves a problem in order to understand its essence and learn something new, practical - one who solves for a mark, for prestige.

Problem situation and mental task. If almost all cognitive mental processes can be both involuntary and arbitrary, then thinking always and necessarily has an arbitrary character: it arises when faced with a problematic situation, when it is necessary to find a way out of the situation.

Problem situation- this is a task that requires an answer to a specific question, a situation that contains something incomprehensible, unknown to the subject along with the known. Thinking serves precisely to, based on the obvious, to find hidden connections, links and patterns (puzzles, chess studies, breakdown of mechanisms, life conflicts, etc.).

Many problem situations do not specifically affect the subject, they “start” thinking only when they become personally significant for him, because an incomprehensible fact (problem situation) and a mental task (a product of processing a problem situation) are far from the same thing.

mental task arises if a person has a desire or awareness of the need to understand the problem situation; in other words, a question arose - thinking began to work.

The stages of solving a mental problem are as follows:

1) awareness of the problem situation, the exact wording of the question;

2) analysis and synthesis of data related to the task;

3) promotion and analysis of hypotheses, search possible ways solutions;

4) verification (mental or practical), comparison of the result with the original data.

Qualities of mind and intellect. In the process of thinking, not only the depth of a person's knowledge of reality is manifested, but also many personality traits clearly appear. Mental abilities are understood as the totality of those qualities that distinguish thinking this person. Qualities of the mind These are the properties of a person's personality that consistently characterize his mental activity. These include: independence, curiosity, speed, breadth, simultaneity, depth, flexibility, mental mobility, logic, criticality, and many others.

Independence - this is the originality of thinking, the ability to find new options for solving problems, to defend the position taken without resorting to the help of other people, not succumbing to inspiring outside influences, the ability to make decisions and act unconventionally.

Curiosity- a property of a person as a need for knowledge of not only certain phenomena, but also their systems.

Rapidity- the ability of a person to quickly understand a new situation, to think over and make the right decision (not to be confused with haste, when a person, without having thought through the issue comprehensively, grabs one side of it, hurries to “give out” a decision, expresses insufficiently thought-out answers and judgments).

Latitude- the ability to use knowledge from another area to solve a problem, the ability to cover the whole issue as a whole, without losing sight of the particulars that are essential for the case (excessive breadth borders on amateurism).

Simultaneity - versatility of approach to problem solving.

Depth - the degree of penetration into the essence of phenomena, the desire to understand the causes of events, to foresee their further development.

Flexibility, mobility- full consideration of the specific conditions for solving this particular problem. A flexible, mobile mind implies freedom of thought from preconceived assumptions, stencils, the ability to find a new solution under changing conditions.

Logic- the ability to establish a consistent and accurate order in solving various issues.

criticality is characterized by the ability not to consider the first thought that came to mind to be true, to correctly assess the objective conditions and one's own activity, carefully weigh all the pros and cons, and subject hypotheses to a comprehensive test. Criticality is based on deep knowledge and experience.

If thinking is the process of solving problems in order to gain new knowledge and create something, then intelligence is a characteristic of the general mental abilities necessary to solve such problems. There are different interpretations of the concept of intelligence.

The structural genetic approach is based on the ideas of the Swiss psychologist J. Piaget (1896–1980), who considered the intellect as the highest universal way of balancing the subject with the environment. From the point of view of the structural approach, intelligence is a combination of certain abilities.

The approach formulated by the French psychologist A. Binet (1857–1911) is also consonant with him: "intelligence as the ability to adapt means to ends."

The American psychologist D. Wexler (1896–1981) believes that intelligence is “the global ability to act reasonably, think rationally and cope well with life circumstances”, i.e., he considers intelligence as a person’s ability to adapt to the environment.

There are various concepts of the structure of intelligence. So, at the beginning of the twentieth century. English psychologist C. Spearman (1863–1945) singled out the general factor of intelligence (factor G) and factor S, which serves as an indicator of specific abilities. From his point of view, each person is characterized by a certain level of general intelligence, which determines how this person adapts to the environment. In addition, all people have varying degrees developed specific abilities, manifested in solving specific problems.

The American psychologist L. Thurstone (1887–1955) used statistical methods to study various aspects of general intelligence, which he called primary mental potencies. He singled out seven such potencies: 1) counting ability, that is, the ability to operate with numbers and perform arithmetic; 2) verbal (verbal) flexibility, i.e. the ease with which a person can explain himself using the most appropriate words; 3) verbal perception, i.e. the ability to understand oral and written speech; 4) spatial orientation, or the ability to imagine various objects and forms in space; 5) memory; b) the ability to reason; 7) the speed of perception of similarities or differences between objects and images.

Later, the American psychologist D. Gilford (1897–1976) singled out 120 intelligence factors based on what mental operations they are needed for, what results these operations lead to and what their content is (the content can be figurative, symbolic, semantic, behavioral).

According to the American psychologist J. Cattell (1860–1944), every person has a potential intellect from birth, which underlies the ability to think, abstract and reason.

Intellectual abilities manifest themselves in different ways: the product of practical thinking is the world of material culture; figurative - works of art, drawings, diagrams, plans, maps; verbal-logical - scientific knowledge.

Around the age of 20–21, verbal-logical intelligence reaches its peak.

The concept of imagination. Human consciousness not only reflects the surrounding world, but also creates it, and creative activity is impossible without imagination. In order to change the existing or create something new that meets the material and spiritual needs, it is first necessary to ideally imagine what will then be embodied in a material form. The ideal transformation of a person's ideas takes place in the imagination.

In the human mind, there are various representations as a form of reflection in the form of images of objects and phenomena that we do not directly perceive at the moment.

Representations that are reproductions of past experiences or perceptions are called memory representations. Representations that arise in a person under the influence of reading books, stories of other people (images of objects that he has never perceived, ideas about what has never been in his experience, or about what will be created in a more or less distant future) are called representations imagination (or fantasies).

Imagination is of four kinds:

1) something that really exists in reality, but which a person did not perceive before (icebreaker, Eiffel Tower);

2) representations of the historical past (Novgorod Veche, boyar, Peter I, Chapaev);

3) representations of what will be in the future (aircraft models, houses, clothes);

4) representations of what has never been in reality (fabulous images, Eugene Onegin).

Such images are built from the material received in past perceptions and stored in memory. The activity of the imagination is always the processing of those data that deliver sensations and perceptions to the brain. Imagination cannot create from “nothing”: a person who is deaf from birth is not able to imagine the trills of a nightingale, just as a person born blind will never recreate a red rose in his imagination.

But the imagination is not limited to the reproduction of memory representations and their mechanical connection. In the process of imagination, representations of memory are recycled in such a way that new representations are created as a result.

Imagination - this is a cognitive mental process, which consists in creating new images by processing the materials of perceptions and ideas obtained in previous experience, a kind of reflection by a person of reality in new, unusual, unexpected combinations and connections.

The physiological basis of imagination should be considered the revival in the human brain of previously formed temporary nerve connections and their transformation into new combinations that can arise for various reasons: sometimes unconsciously, as a result of a spontaneous increase in excitation in certain centers of the cerebral cortex under the influence of random stimuli acting on these centers at the moment of weakening of the regulatory control from the higher parts of the cortex (for example, dreams); more often - as a result of conscious efforts of a person aimed at creating a new image.

Imagination is based not on isolated nerve centers, but on the entire cerebral cortex. The creation of images of the imagination is the result of the joint activity of the first and second signal systems, although any image, any representation should formally be attributed to the primary signal - a sensual reflection of reality. Therefore, the images of the imagination are special form reflection of reality, peculiar only to man.

Imagination performs several important functions in the mental life of a person. First of all, this cognitive function. As a cognitive process, imagination arises in a problem situation in which the degree of uncertainty and lack of information are very significant. At the same time, imagination is the basis of hypotheses that fill the gaps in scientific systems. Imagination is closer to sensory cognition than to thinking, and differs from it in conjecture, inaccuracy, imagery and emotionality.

Since a person cannot satisfy all his needs materially, the second function of the imagination is motivational, i.e. a person can satisfy his needs in an ideal way - in dreams, dreams, myths, fairy tales.

In children, the imagination performs affective-protective function, as it protects the unstable psyche of the child from excessively difficult experiences and mental trauma. The mechanism of this defense is as follows: through imaginary situations, the child discharges the tension that has arisen and the symbolic resolution of the conflict, which can be difficult to remove by practical actions.

The meaning of imagination in human life is very great: it is organically connected with other mental phenomena. The French philosopher D. Diderot succinctly and figuratively assessed the importance of imagination: “Imagination! Without this quality one cannot be either a poet, or a philosopher, or an intelligent person, or a thinking being, or just a person ... Imagination is the ability to evoke images. A person completely devoid of this ability would be stupid ... "

Imagination, like other functions of consciousness, has developed historically, and above all in the labor activity of man. To meet their needs, people had to change and transform the world around them in order to get from nature more than what it can give without human intervention. And in order to transform and create, you need to imagine in advance what you want, the ways and results of such a transformation. A prerequisite for this is the presence of a conscious goal: a person imagines in advance the result of his work, those things and changes in them that he wants to receive. This is the essential difference between humans and animals. The main significance of the imagination is that without it no work would be possible, since one cannot work without imagining the final result.

Without imagination, progress in science, technology, and art would be impossible. Inventors who create new devices, mechanisms and machines rely on observations of wildlife. So, studying the inhabitants of Antarctica - penguins, the designers created a car that can move on loose snow. The car was named “Penguin”. By observing how some types of snails move along the lines of force of the Earth's magnetic field, scientists have created new, more advanced navigation devices. In the beak of the albatross there is a kind of desalination plant that turns sea water into water suitable for drinking. Interested in this, scientists began developing for desalination sea ​​water; observations of the dragonfly led to the creation of a helicopter.

Work in any field is impossible without the participation of the imagination. For a teacher, psychologist, educator, a developed imagination is extremely necessary: ​​when designing a student’s personality, one should clearly imagine what qualities need to be formed or nurtured in a child. One of the common features of outstanding teachers of the past and present is optimistic forecasting - the ability to foresee, anticipate pedagogical reality with faith in the capabilities and abilities of each student.

Types of imagination. Imagination arises in response to needs that stimulate the practical activity of a person, that is, it is characterized by efficiency, activity. According to the degree of activity, there are two types of imagination: passive and active.

passive imagination is subjective, internal factors and is characterized by the creation of images that are not implemented, programs that are not implemented or cannot be implemented at all. In the process of passive imagination, an unreal, imaginary satisfaction of any need or desire is carried out.

Passive imagination can be intentional or unintentional.

unintentional passive imagination is observed when the activity of consciousness is weakened, when it is disturbed, in a semi-drowsy state, in a dream. This is imagination without a predetermined goal, without a special intention, without an effort of will on the part of a person. At the same time, the images are created as if by themselves: looking at a bizarrely shaped cloud, we “see” an elephant, a bear, a person’s face ... Unintentional passive imagination is caused primarily by needs that are not satisfied at the moment - in a waterless desert, a person has images of water sources, wells, oases - mirages (hallucinations - a pathological disorder of perceptual activity - have nothing to do with imagination).

One type of unintentional passive imagination is dreams, which usually occur during "fast" sleep, when inhibition weakens in some parts of the cortex and partial excitation occurs. I.P. Pavlov considered the physiological basis of dreams as nervous traces of “former stimuli” that are connected in the most unexpected way, and I.M. Sechenov considered dreams "an unprecedented combination of already experienced impressions." Dreams have always been associated with many prejudices and superstitions. This is due to their character, which is a strange combination of unprecedented, fantastic pictures and events.

However, it is known that everything in the world is determined, all mental phenomena have a material basis. A number of experiments have shown that dreams are caused by the needs of the body, "fabricated" on the basis of external stimuli that the sleeping person is not aware of. For example, if a bottle of perfume is brought to the face of a sleeping person, he dreams of a fragrant garden, greenhouse, flower bed, paradise; if they ring a bell, then someone dreams that he is racing on a troika with bells, and someone breaks a tray with crystal dishes; if the sleeper's legs open and begin to freeze, he sees in a dream that he is walking barefoot in the snow or gets his foot into an ice hole. With an unsuccessful body position, breathing becomes difficult, and a person has nightmares. With pain in the heart, a person overcomes obstacles in a dream, intensely experiences something.

Of particular note are the so-called prophetic dreams". Often, with a beginning disease of the internal organs, sleepers see recurring, annoying dreams associated with the nature of the development of painful phenomena. Until the pain has made itself felt, weak signals enter the cortex, which are suppressed during the day by stronger signals and are not noticed. At night, the brain perceives these signals with a sufficiently large force, which causes the corresponding dreams. Dreams - these are processes of both unintentional and deliberate passive imagination without a definite direction, proceeding in the form of a random following of one image after another. The course of such representations is not regulated by thinking. In dreams, images that are pleasant to a person necessarily arise. They usually occur in a passive, limp state of a person - as a result of severe fatigue, at the moments of transition from sleep to wakefulness and vice versa, with high temperature, in case of alcohol poisoning, nicotine, drug intoxication.

It is common for all people to dream about something joyful, tempting, pleasant, but if dreams prevail in the processes of imagination, then this indicates certain defects in the development of the personality. If a person is passive, does not fight for a better future, and real life is bleak, then he often creates an illusory, fictional life for himself and lives in it. At the same time, imagination acts as a substitute for activity, its surrogate, with the help of which a person refuses the need to act (“Manilovism”, fruitless daydreaming).

Active imagination manifests itself in cases where new images or ideas arise as a result of a person’s special intention to imagine something specific, concrete. According to the degree of independence and originality of the products of activity, recreative and creative imagination are distinguished.

Recreative (reproductive) imagination is based on the creation of certain images that correspond to the description (according to a map, drawing, diagram, according to materials already drawn up by someone). Each person has his own image of Anna Karenina, Pierre Bezukhov, Woland ...

Reproductive imagination is of great importance in mental development of a person: giving the opportunity to imagine what he has never seen, based on someone else’s story or description, it takes a person beyond the framework of narrow personal experience and makes his consciousness alive and concrete. The activity of the imagination unfolds most vividly when reading fiction: reading historical novels, it is much easier to get vivid images of the past, the atmosphere of the Middle Ages, than studying scientific works.

Creative imagination involves the independent creation of new images realized in original and valuable products of activity, and is an integral part of any creativity (scientific, technical, artistic): discovering new patterns in science, designing new machines and mechanisms, breeding new varieties of plants, animal breeds, creating works of art, literature.

Creative imagination is more difficult than recreating one: for example, creating an image of grandfather Shchukar is more difficult than presenting it from a description, and it is easier to imagine a mechanism from a drawing than to construct it. But the difference between these types of active imagination is relative, there is no clear line between them. The artist and musician create an image in accordance with the role, but they do it creatively, giving other people's works an original interpretation.

The process of imagination is not always immediately realized in practical actions. Often the imagination takes the form of a special internal activity, which consists in creating images of the desired future, that is, in dreaming. Dream although it does not immediately and immediately give an objective product, it is necessary condition transformation of reality, the motivating cause, the motive of the activity, the final completion of which turned out to be delayed (flying carpet).

The value of a dream is determined by how it relates to human activity. An effective, socially directed dream that inspires a person to work, raises him to fight, cannot be confused with empty, fruitless, unfounded daydreaming, which leads a person away from reality, weakens him. Empty dreamers, dreamers are most often people who have poor personal experience, little knowledge, critical thinking is not developed, and a weak will. Their fantasies are not restrained or controlled by consciousness.

There are dreams and a real plan, but associated with an insignificant, everyday goal, when they are limited to the desire to have some material values.

Techniques for creating images of the imagination. All processes of the imagination are of an analytical-synthetic nature, as are perception, memory, and thinking.

Images of creative imagination are created through various techniques. One of these techniques is the combination of elements into a coherent new image. Combination - this is not a simple sum of already known elements, but a creative synthesis, where the elements are transformed, changed, appear in new relationships. So, the image of Natasha Rostova was created by L.N. Tolstoy on the basis of a deep analysis of the characteristics of the characters of two people close to him - his wife Sofya Andreevna and her sister Tatyana. A less complex, but also very productive method of forming a new image is agglutination(from Latin agglluninary - to stick) - a combination of properties, qualities, parts of various objects that are not connected in real life (mermaid, sphinx, centaur, Pegasus, hut on chicken legs). In technology, with the help of this technique, an accordion, a trolley bus, an amphibious tank, a seaplane, etc., were created.

A peculiar way of creating images of the imagination is emphasis- sharpening, emphasizing, exaggerating any signs of the subject. This technique is often used in cartoons, cartoons. One form of emphasis is hyperbolization- the method of reducing (increasing) the object itself (giant, heroes, Thumbelina, gnomes, elves) or changing the quantity and quality of its parts (dragon with seven heads, Kalimata - many-armed Indian goddess).

A common technique for creating creative images is typing- highlighting the essential, repeating in homogeneous phenomena, and embodying it in a specific image. For example, Pechorin is "... a portrait, but not of one person: it is a portrait made up of the vices of our entire generation in their full development." A type is an individual image in which the most characteristics people of a class, nation or group.

The methods of creating new images also include schematization and concretization. Schematization It consists in smoothing out the differences between objects and identifying similarities between them. An example is the creation of an ornament from elements of the plant world. specification abstract concepts can be observed in various allegories, metaphors and other symbolic images (eagle, lion - strength and pride; turtle - slowness; fox - cunning; hare - cowardice). Any artist, poet, composer realizes his thoughts and ideas not in general abstract terms, but in specific images. So, in the fable "Swan, cancer and pike" I.A. Krylov concretizes in a figurative form the idea: "When there is no agreement among the comrades, their business will not go smoothly."

General characteristics of speech. The formation of consciousness in the historical process is inextricably linked with the beginning and development of social and labor activity of people. The need for cooperation gave rise to the need for a verbal way of communicating people with each other. The use of linguistic means of communication is a distinctive feature of human society. Thanks to language, people could not only influence each other, but also pass on the experience accumulated over generations. The purpose of a person's actions was formalized in the word. Denoted by the word, the goal gave them a reasonable directional character. Words fixed those laws, connections and dependencies that people revealed in their practical activities. Thanks to speech, a person cognized himself as a subject of activity and as a subject of communication. Mastering the language has changed all the relationship of a person with the outside world, rebuilt his cognitive and practical activities, communication with other people.

For a deeper understanding of the role of speech in mental development, one should first of all clarify such close, but not identical, concepts as "language", "speech", "second signal system".

Language - a public phenomenon. The language is understood as developed in the course of historical development communication system. Having arisen at that distant time, when primitive people united for joint labor activity felt the need to say something to each other, the language developed along with the development of society. New discoveries in science and technology, new relationships that develop between people, were reflected in the language. It was enriched with new words, each of which denoted some concept. The development of thought was traced in a change in language, in the increasingly complex structure of sentences. Therefore, mastering the language as a means of communication, the child infinitely pushes the narrow limits of personal cognitive activity, joining the level of knowledge achieved by mankind, gets the opportunity to fix in the word and generalize his personal experience.

The study of the process of origin and meaning of words and grammatical forms in the languages ​​of different nations is carried out by representatives of linguistics - linguists, linguists.

Speech– one of the types of communicative activity carried out in the form of linguistic communication. Everyone uses their native language to express their thoughts and understand the thoughts expressed by others. The child not only learns the words and grammatical forms of the language, but also relates them to the content that constitutes the meaning of the word assigned to him in his native language by the entire process of the history of the development of the people. However, at each stage of development, the child understands the content of the word differently. The word, along with its inherent meaning, he masters very early. The concept denoted by this word, being a generalized image of reality, grows, expands and deepens as the child develops.

In this way, speech - it is a language in action, a peculiar form of human cognition of objects and phenomena of reality and a means of communication between people.

Unlike perception - the process of direct reflection of things - speech is a form of mediated cognition of reality, its reflection through the native language. If the language is one for the whole people, then the speech of each person is individual. Therefore, speech, on the one hand, is poorer than language, since a person in the practice of communication usually uses only a small part of the vocabulary and various grammatical structures of his native language. On the other hand, speech is richer than language, since a person, speaking about something, expresses his attitude both to what he is talking about and to whom he is talking to. His speech acquires intonational expressiveness, its rhythm, tempo, and character change. Therefore, a person in communication with other people can say more than the words that he used mean (subtext of speech). But in order for a person to be able to accurately and subtly convey thoughts to another person, and in such a way as to influence him, to be correctly understood, he must be fluent in his native language.

The development of speech is the process of mastering the native language, the ability to use it as a means of knowing the world around us, mastering the experience accumulated by mankind, as a means of knowing oneself and self-regulation, as a means of communication and interaction between people.

Psychology is the study of the development of speech in ontogeny.

The physiological basis of speech is the activity of the second signal system. The doctrine of the second signal system is the doctrine of the word as a signal. Studying the patterns of reflex activity of animals and humans, I.P. Pavlov singled out the word as a special signal. A feature of the word is its generalizing nature, which significantly changes both the action of the stimulus itself and the responses of a person. The study of the meaning of the word in the formation of neural connections is the task of physiologists, who have shown the generalizing role of the word, the speed and strength of the connections formed in response to the stimulus, and the possibility of their wide and easy transfer.

Speech, like any other mental process, is impossible without the active participation of the first signal system. Being, as in thinking, leading and determining, the second signal system works in close interaction with the first. Violation of this interaction leads to the disintegration of both thinking and speech - it turns into a meaningless stream of words.

Functions of speech. In the mental life of a person, speech performs a number of functions. First of all, it is a means of communication. (communicative function), that is, the transfer of information, and acts as an external speech behavior aimed at contacts with other people. In the communicative function of speech, three sides are distinguished: 1) informational, which is manifested in the transfer of social experience and knowledge; 2) expressive, helping to convey the feelings and attitudes of the speaker to the subject of the message; 3) volitional, aimed at subordinating the listener to the speaker's intention. Being a means of communication, speech also serves as a means of influencing some people on others (assignment, order, persuasion).

Speech also functions generalizations and abstractions. This function is due to the fact that the word denotes not only a separate, specific object, but also a whole group of similar objects and is always the bearer of their essential features. Summarizing the perceived phenomenon in a word, we simultaneously abstract from a number of specific features. So, pronouncing the word "dog", we abstract from all the features appearance shepherd dogs, poodles, bulldogs, dobermans and we fix in the word the common thing that is characteristic of them.

Since speech is also a means of designation, it performs significative(sign) function. If the word did not have a denoting function, it could not be understood by other people, that is, speech would lose its communicative function, would cease to be speech. Mutual understanding in the process of communication is based on the unity of the designation of objects and phenomena by the perceiver and the speaker. The significative function distinguishes human speech from animal communication.

All of these functions are closely intertwined in a single stream of speech communication.

Language and speech are specific forms of reflection of reality: reflecting, speech denotes objects and phenomena. What is missing in the experience of people cannot be in their language and speech.

Types of speech. The word as an irritant exists in three forms: audible, visible and spoken. Depending on this, two forms of speech are distinguished - external (loud) and internal (hidden) speech (thinking).

External speech includes several psychologically peculiar types of speech: oral, or colloquial (monologue and dialogic), and written, which a person masters by mastering reading and writing.

The oldest form of speech is oral dialogical speech. Dialogue is a direct communication between two or more people, which takes the form of a conversation or an exchange of remarks about current events. Dialogic speech is the simplest form of speech, firstly, because it is a supported speech: the interlocutor can ask clarifying questions, give remarks, help complete the thought. Secondly, the dialogue is conducted with the emotional and expressive contact of the speakers in the conditions of their mutual perception, when they can also influence each other with gestures, facial expressions, timbre and intonation of the voice.

monologue speech is a long presentation of a system of thoughts, knowledge by one person. This is always a coherent, contextual speech that meets the requirements of consistency, evidence of presentation and grammatically correct construction of sentences. The forms of monologue speech are a report, a lecture, a speech, a story. Monologue speech necessarily involves contact with the audience, therefore, it requires careful preparation.

Written speech is a kind of monologue speech, but it is even more developed than oral monologue speech. This is due to the fact that written speech does not imply feedback from the interlocutor and does not have any additional means of influencing him, except for the words themselves, their order and the punctuation marks that organize the sentence. Mastering written speech develops completely new psychophysiological mechanisms of speech. Written speech is perceived by the eye and produced by the hand, while oral speech functions due to auditory-kinesthetic neural connections. A single style of human speech activity is achieved on the basis of complex systems of interanalyzer connections in the cerebral cortex, coordinated by the activity of the second signaling system.

Written speech opens before a person boundless horizons of familiarization with world culture and is a necessary element of human education.

Internal speech is not a means of communication. This is a special type of speech activity, formed on the basis of external. In inner speech, a thought is formed and exists; it acts as a phase of activity planning.

Inner speech is characterized by some features:

It exists as a kinesthetic, auditory or visual image of a word;

It is characterized by fragmentation, fragmentation, situationality;

Inner speech is curtailed: most of the members of the sentence are omitted in it, only the words that determine the essence of thought remain. Figuratively speaking, she wears "telegraph style";

The structure of the word also changes in it: in the words of the Russian language, vowels drop out as carrying a smaller semantic load;

She is silent.

Preschool children have a peculiar type of speech - egocentric speech. This is the speech of the child, addressed to himself, which is the transition of external colloquial speech into internal. Such a transition occurs in a child in conditions of problematic activity, when there is a need to comprehend the action being performed and direct it towards achieving a practical goal.

A person's speech has many paralinguistic features: intonation, volume, tempo, pause and other characteristics that reflect a person's attitude to what he says, his emotional state at the moment. The paralinguistic components of speech also include bodily movements that accompany a speech statement: gestures, facial expressions, pantomime, as well as features of a person's handwriting.

The speech of people of different cultures differs even among those who speak the same language. After listening to a stranger for a certain time, even without seeing him in person, one can judge what the general level of his intellectual development and his general culture are. Obviously, people belonging to different social groups, speak differently, and therefore speech can also be used to determine the social origin and social belonging of a person.

It is also customary to distinguish between speech passive(understood) - listening and active(colloquial). As a rule, passive speech in both children and adults is much richer than active speech.

The use of speech in psychodiagnostics. Psycholinguistic features of speech open up wide opportunities for its use in determining the level of intellectual (cognitive) and personal development of a person.

In almost all intelligence tests there are special speech tasks, the nature of which is used to judge the level of mental development of a person (tests by D. Veksler, progressive matrices by J. Raven, STUR - a school test of mental development, CAT - a short selection test by V.N. Buzin) .

All personality tests use human speech in one way or another (C. Osgood's semantic differential, G. Kelly's repertoire grid technique).

In tests-questionnaires, the appeal to speech is direct. In them, the personality of the respondent is judged by the content of the answers to the questions posed to him (MMPI - a multi-phase personality questionnaire of the state of Minnesota, PDO - A.E. Lichko's pathocharacterological diagnostic questionnaire).

In projective tests, spontaneous speech statements of a person, caused by specific situations or pictures, are subjected to meaningful analysis, which includes the study of the vocabulary and meaning of the subject's statements (TAT - thematic apperceptive test by H. Morgan and G. Murray, test by G. Rorschach). Projective tests are based on the assumption that the paralinguistic features of a person's spontaneous speech are well manifested in the projection (S. Rosenzweig's test).