Ways of Development of the Russian Methodology: Answers and Questions of the Psychology of Thinking

The article refers the formation and development of the Russian methodology in the frame of which the theory of thinking has been built. The exposition of the theory developed in the Twenties-Nineties of the 20th century becomes topical because of two factors. The first factor of the demand from the intensively developing neuroscience. Various directions in this field aiming to studying thinking disorders, particularly in schizophrenia, are lacking theoretical concordance. That is why the specialists come to the conclusion on necessity of a common scientifically justified platform: the development of the theory of thinking. We would like to mention that the attention for an impaired function is typical for a physician, whereas for a psychologist the problem of revealing unusual strength of thinking is schizophrenia is significant. Solving this problem is important for the theory of thinking itself. The second factor of the demand for designing the theory of thinking is the change of paradigm in the science and education during the Nineties of the 20th century, which has stimulated the variety of theoretically unjustified approaches to interpretation of nature of thinking. That is why when reviewing the theory of thinking we consider the significant events which defined the vector of its development beginning with Rubinstein’s article of 1922 “The Principle of Creative Self-Activity (To the Philosophical Foundations of Modern Pedagogy),” where methodological justification of the conception of subject is given. In 1930 he formulates the principle of thinking as the “unity of consciousness and activity.” At the same period Luria explains the positions which are in tune with the future cultural-historical methodology of Vygotsky. The research of thinking as a process is given in the Soviet psychology by the school of Rubinstein in the Fifties-Sixties and after his death in 1969. The works with description of meaning, sense and nature of the word became Luria’s contribution in the analysis of the structure of thinking process when solving problems. We consider the common idea of solving problematic situations as the result of creative thinking to be its lowest stage, immature form, as in the frame of solving the given tasks, i.e. stimulus-projective model in which the whole psyche had been studied, it is impossible to come to analysis of the phenomenon of creativity. That succeeds only in designing a new method. In the course of the experiment, the Creative Field method allows revealing the ability of a person to develop the accepted ability by his initiative. The levels of cognition to be reached by the testee are described. They correspond to the level of displays of creativity or to its absence. This approach finds its theoretical basis in the cultural-historical psychology (Vygotsky). We have revealed the highest mature form of creativity as development of the activity by one’s initiative which is the unit of analysis where, according to Vygotsky, “the meeting of affect and intellect occurs” (Vygotsky, 2016, p. 8). The examples of children who have shown the highest level of creativity are described. Among them there is a nine-year boy with the diagnosis of schizophrenia, who spontaneously formulated very precise and capacious definition of creativity.

Educational Environment and Indicators of Child Development

The article presents the author's approach to the interpretation of the concept of the educational environment of the school, based on the activity theory of A. N. Leontyev and on learning activity theory of D. B. Elkonin – V. V. Davydov. Significant features of two types of educational environments – the developing educational environment and the environment based on traditional educational content – are highlighted. A broad diagnostic research into the indicators of cognitive, social and personal development of students of these two types of educational environments was carried out. The study involved 2,304 students in the 5th and 9th grades from 24 schools. To assess cognitive development, data from two tests is used: CFT2 and the “Transposition” method (author A. Z. Zak). An original diagnostic procedure has been developed to distinguish the role of factors of biological maturation and the educational environment of a particular school in the process of cognitive development of students. Several sources were used to diagnose the social aspects of student development. This is a sociometric test, analysis of interactions in the system “students-teacher,” recorded in the course of observation at the lesson (based on the author's “scheme of lesson analysis” – authors I. M. Ulanovskaya, N. I. Polivanova, E. V. Vysotskaya) and content analysis of children's essays on the topic “My school.” Indicators of personal development of students were determined by the scale “self-assessment and level of aspiration” test and the test of school anxiety (A. Prihodjan). All data was subjected to statistical and qualitative analysis. The results obtained showed a high efficiency of the developing educational environment in the cognitive development of students. This is an expected result, since the programs used in developing educational environment are aimed at developing theoretical thinking based on the development of special educational content and appropriate forms of organization of the learning process. Our results showed that educational environment developing qualitatively changes the sociometric structure of the class, making it more psychologically comfortable for students, increases cognitive motivation and reduces educational anxiety, makes self-assessment and level of aspiration more differentiated.

Luria in Kisegach. Part 2

This is the second part of the article on the work and life of A. R. Luria in Kisegach, which presents the unique document The Work Diary. This notebook was used by him for daily records of patient studies. It is kept in the family archive of Luria. Comments on the Diary are written on the basis of his autobiographical book (Luria A. R., 1982; Cole, Levitin, & Luria, 2006); the memoirs of his daughter, Elena Luria, in her book about her father (Luria E. A., 1994); as well as the memoirs of his colleagues. This part of the article publishes entries in the Diary from March 15 to November 13, 1942. The introduction to the records tells about the scientist's colleagues who worked with him in the hospital. These are such well-known psychologists as B. V. Zeigarnik, A. V. Zaporozhets, S. Ya. Rubinstein, E. S. Bein, O. P. Kaufman. The article explains the reason for the myth that during the war A. V. Zaporozhets worked only in the hospital in Kaurovka under the supervision of A. N. Leontiev. In this regard, we are talking about the Kharkov School of Psychology, the areas of work of L. S. Vygotsky, A. R. Luria and A. N. Leontiev in the years 1932-1934. In general, the article shows the intensive practical and theoretical work of the scientists in Kisegach hospital.

Space in Luria Neuropsychology: Ideas, Clinical Phenomenology, Research Methods

The article discusses various aspects of research on spatial functions in Russian neuropsychology. According to the author, spatial functions are those mental processes whose main purpose is to obtain information about the spatial properties of objects and perform spatial actions and operations. The author analyzes some aspects of the neuropsychological approach to the perception and understanding of violations of the mental reflection of space. The article discusses some cultural and historical prerequisites for the emergence of a neuropsychological approach to the study of spatial functions. There are also data on references to spatial disorders in the works of the founders of clinical psychology in Russia – S. S. Korsakov and V. M. Bekhterev. The author writes that A. R. Luria's interest in space arose even before the emergence of neuropsychology as an independent science. In the research on the mental development of children, conducted by him in the second half of the 20s of the last century together with L. S. Vygotsky, the attentive reader will find data on the development of various spatial representations. Long-term study of violations of spatial functions in local brain lesions allowed A. R. Luria, his colleagues and students not only to describe various symptoms of disturbances of spatial components of perception, memory, thinking, and voluntary movements, but also to significantly clarify the idea of the complex brain organization of the so-called spatial factor. In addition, Luria neuropsychology was able to develop an original integrative model of the spatial organization of the human brain, in which various cerebral zones and structures work in concert to ensure the fulfillment of various mental and behavioral tasks. Analyzing the work of A. R. Luria, the author, along with undoubted achievements, notes some discrepancies and gaps in the study of spatial disorders. It is shown that in the fundamental monographs of A. R. Luria, violations of the spatial aspects of tactile and auditory perception and spatial memory were discussed very concisely. Ideas about the “vertical organization” of spatial functions, i.e. the contribution of not only cortical areas of the brain, but also subcortical structures to their implementation, also developed gradually. This statement is also true when it comes to a comparative analysis of violations of spatial functions in local lesions of the right and left hemispheres of the brain. A significant contribution to the development of the problem of functional asymmetry of the brain hemispheres in the processes of spatial analysis and synthesis was made not only by Moscow neuropsychologists, but also by their Leningrad colleagues – L. Ya. Balonov, V. L. Deglin, E. P. Kok, Ya. A. Meerson and others. After the death of A. R. Luria his followers (N. K. Korsakova, Yu. V. Mikadze, E. G. Simernitskaya) began to develop new areas of neuropsychological science – the neuropsychology of childhood and aging. The article discusses in detail the history of creation and current state of the complex of empirical methods used for neuropsychological diagnostics of spatial functions. Special attention is paid to the possibility of using the chronotope category in neuropsychological research.

Promoting Neurocognitive Development in Childhood

The main psychological aspects in promoting holistic health are related to attention, care and love within the relations. It all starts in early childhood when important bonds are built between parents and child. This bond will constitute this baby as a human being who will internalize the world as it is presented to him transforming objectivity into subjectivity. This work is based on the Social Historical theory founded by Luria, Vygotsky and Leontiev, who established that psychology would provide means to acknowledge how a natural process connected to a cultural process can produce the superior mental functions. It uses didactically the principles of mediation and zone of proximal development. Considering that relations are the key for this development of superior mental functions it is important to orientate parents, teachers and community itself so that conditions are provided, with knowledge and conscience, for this development to occur. When you are present in a relation nervous connections are promoted. Results are observed qualitatively focusing that each person is an individual self and that relationships are essential to produce development. Interactions between the brain and the formation of mental functions require the maturity of the nervous system as well as an active process which emphasizes relations of two or more human beings. Therefore, the most important is not what to do but how to do. The brain grows better within a stable environment of support and low levels of stress. Affirms that safe relations are the key to healthy growth of the brain as well as emotional regulation that stimulates learning and adaptation to reality.

Relationship between Intelligence and Executive Functions in Preschoolers

The paper raises the problem of the relationship between executive functions and intelligence in preschool period of the development. Based on the discussion about the components of executive functions proposed by different authors, two components (inhibitory control and working memory) were selected for analysis. Raven Coloured Progressive Matrices were chosen for the assessment of the intelligence. We chose this method due to the fact that there are a lot of preschoolers who have speech problems that prevent an adequate assessment of verbal intelligence. The go/go and go/no-go paradigms to evaluate inhibitory control (Vergunov & Nikolaeva, 2009) and a test aimed at evaluating working memory (Razumnikova & Savinykh, 2016) were used. The specificity of the test aimed at the level of inhibitory control assessment was a fractal structure of the sensory flow. Both go/go and go/no-go series included two identical parts, but children did not know about this. Some children, however, showed better results in the second part of the series rather than the first one. This could indicate that children intuitively discovered the structure of the sensory flow and learned to respond more effectively. In go/go series, children were asked to respond to each presented stimulus (circles of different colours). In the go/no-go series, they were forbidden to respond to a target stimulus (red circles). Calculating the mistakes (reactions to the red circles), we could assess the inhibitory control level. To assess a working memory, the subjects were offered three series including the same set of visual stimuli, and the order of the stimuli was changed in each series. The number of recalling stimuli in each series and interference inhibition resulting from the presentation of the same set of stimuli were calculated. The study involved 90 preschoolers (average age 6.5±0.4 years) of normative development, parents of all children signed informed consents, and all children were told about the goals of the study. It was shown that nonverbal intelligence has no correlation with any parameters of the inhibitory control or parameters of working memory in preschool age. Immaturity of the prefrontal cortex at this age was suggested to be the main reason for the lack of such a link. The low levels of both inhibitory control and interference inhibition could not provide a high level of correlation with intelligence. It was proved that nonverbal intelligence is associated with greater performance in the second part of the go/go series. This suggests that the higher the child's intelligence is, the better they are able to navigate the sensory flow.

Cognitive Neuroscience: Challenge of the Time

Ural Federal University named after the first President of Russia B. N. Yeltsin in Yekaterinburg welcomed participants of the II International Forum “Cognitive Neuroscience — 2019” in November 2019. More than 300 Russian and foreign scientists took part in the Forum. A total 85 reports were presented.This article is the final report about the Forum. The article presents relevant research directions that have become the subject of discussion by the Forum participants, a scope of Forum research areas and prospects for the development of cognitive neuroscience in general.

Neuropsychology in the Past, Now and in the Future

The actual intensive and extensive growth of international neuropsychology (both theoretical and applied) testified in the paper, is due to the abilities of contemporary professional neuropsychologists to meet different purposes beyond understanding of brain-behavior relationships. It makes contemporary neuropsychology an important part of the psychology of health, instead to be an aspect of the biology of health. The value and the history of Lurian syndrome analysis are presented. The Lurian syndrome analysis (a qualitative (structural) analysis of the symptom under study), not only permits an understanding of why the subject was poor at or unable to perform a given task. Such an approach also allows us to see what other tasks, with similar cognitive demands (structure), could present difficulties for this individual (child or adult) as well as to predict the types of tasks accessible for the patient and the types of cueing efficient for him/her. The last is possible in conditions of dialogue interaction with the patient in the process of neuropsychological assessment. Lurian approach is oriented on the process of test fulfilment (the means by which the performer achieves or better the result as well as the level of necessary help or stimulation), more than on the test result — the level of performance on a task (accuracy, time, number of mistakes and so on) with reference to some expected (normative) level of performance. The evolution of neuropsychology coincides with the universal tendency to replace a static neuropsychology, relating the individual’s behavior to fixed cerebral lesions, by a dynamic neuropsychology, which analyzes the dynamics of brain-behavior interaction in different social conditions and at different steps of ontogenic evolution. The author gives own model of neuropsychology evolution, including three overlapping and coexisting phases different in the main emphasis for neuropsychologists. In the first phase, the accent was on the brain and its relationship to different behaviors. In the second phase of neuropsychology evolution the structure of mental activity and neuropsychological interpretation of human cognition have been the focus of attention and afterwards their localization in the brain. The third and actually dominant phase of evolution in neuropsychology focuses on the interrelationship between a patient and his or her environment and integrates neuropsychological and real life data. This phase gave birth to social — historical or cultural — historical neuropsychology. One of the important consequences of cultural — historical approach in neuropsychology was the introduction of cultural adjustments in neuropsychological diagnostic tests, both verbal and nonverbal. Qualitative and quantitative integration of Lurian procedures are discussed. Underlined are differences in concepts neuropsychology and neurosciences, as well as the role of cultural-historical approach in contemporary neuropsychological assessment, rehabilitation and remediation. Three main trends can be seen in the evolution of neuropsychology after Luria: 1. Extensive further expansion of research and practice, that is, embracing numerous new domains and nosological patient groups; 2. Combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches; 3. Social and personality-based orientation. Luria’s creative and comprehensive approach stimulates the further evolution of neuropsychology in Russia and throughout the world.