The topic of the essay is “Psychological processes.”
Psychological processes are inherent in every person. Mental processes: perception, attention, imagination, memory, thinking and speech. They are the most important components of human activity.
Psychological processes are not just involved in activity, but they develop in it. All mental processes are interconnected and represent a single whole. In the absence of any of the mental processes (speech, thinking, etc.), a person becomes inferior. Activity shapes mental processes. Any activity is a combination of internal and external behavioral actions and operations. We will consider each type of mental activity separately.
Traditionally, in Russian psychology it is customary to distinguish two groups of psychological processes.
1. Specific, or actually cognitive, processes, which are sensation, perception and thinking. The result of these processes is the subject’s knowledge about the world and about himself, obtained either through the senses or rationally:
· sensation is the identification of the properties of an object, sensory, sensuality;
· perception is the perception of an object as a whole, as well as perception is the perception of images and objects;
· thinking is a reflection of the relationships between objects, their properties essential for cognition.
2. Nonspecific, i.e. universal, mental processes - memory, attention and imagination. These processes are also called end-to-end, in the sense that they pass through any activity and ensure its implementation. Universal mental processes are necessary conditions knowledge, but are not reduced to it. Thanks to universal mental processes, a cognitive, developing subject has the opportunity to maintain the unity of “his Self” over time:
memory allows a person to retain past experiences;
· attention helps to extract actual (real) experience;
· Imagination predicts future experiences.
So, the process of cognition is the acquisition, retention and preservation of knowledge about the world. Sensations are one of the components of the cognitive process.
Sensations are defined as the process of reflecting individual properties of objects and phenomena of the objective world during their direct impact on receptors. Physiological basis sensation is a nervous process that occurs when a stimulus acts on an analyzer adequate to it. To this, perhaps, we can only add that sensations also reflect the state of the subject’s body with the help of receptors located in his body. Sensations are the original source of knowledge, an important condition formation of the psyche and its normal functioning.
The need for constant sensation is clearly demonstrated when external stimuli absent (with sensory isolation). As experiments have shown, in this case the psyche ceases to function normally: hallucinations occur, thinking is impaired, a pathology of perception of one’s body is noted, etc. Specific problems of a psychological nature arise with sensory deprivation, i.e., when the influx of external influences is limited, which is well known using the example of the development of the psyche of people who are blind or deaf, as well as those who have difficulty seeing and hearing.
Human sensations are extremely diverse, although since the time of Aristotle, for a very long time they talked about only five senses - vision, hearing, touch, smell and taste. In the 19th century knowledge about the composition of sensations has expanded dramatically as a result of the description and study of their new types, such as vestibular, vibration, “muscular-articular” or kinesthetic, etc.
Properties of sensations
Whatever the sensation, it can be described using several characteristics, properties inherent in it.
1. Modality is a qualitative characteristic in which the specificity of sensation as a simple mental signal is manifested in comparison with a nervous signal. First of all, such types of sensations as visual, auditory, olfactory, etc. are distinguished. However, each type of sensation has its own modal characteristics. For visual sensations, these may be color tone, lightness, saturation; for auditory - pitch, timbre, volume; for tactile - hardness, roughness, etc.
2. Localization - spatial characteristics of sensations, i.e. information about the localization of the stimulus in space.
Sometimes (as, for example, in the case of pain and interoceptive, “internal” sensations) localization is difficult and uncertain. The “probe problem” is interesting in this regard: when we write or cut something, the sensations are localized at the tip of the pen or knife, that is, not at all where the probe contacts the skin and acts on it.
3. Intensity is classic quantitative characteristic. The problem of measuring the intensity of sensation is one of the main ones in psychophysics.
The basic psychophysical law reflects the relationship between the magnitude of the sensation and the magnitude of the acting stimulus. Psychophysics explains the variety of observed forms of behavior and mental states primarily by differences in the physical situations that cause them. The task is to establish a connection between body and soul, an object and the feeling associated with it. The area of irritation causes sensation. Each sense organ has its own boundaries - which means there is a region of sensation. Such variants of the basic psychophysical law are known as the logarithmic law of G. Fechner, the power law of S. Stevens, as well as the generalized psychophysical law proposed by Yu. M. Zabrodin.
4. Duration is a temporary characteristic of sensation. It is determined by the functional state of the sensory organ, but mainly by the time of action of the stimulus and its intensity. The sensation occurs later than the stimulus begins to act, and does not disappear immediately with its cessation. The period from the onset of the stimulus to the onset of sensation is called the latent (hidden) period of sensation. It is not the same for different types sensations (for tactile - 130 ms, for pain - 370 ms, for taste - 50 ms) and can change dramatically with diseases nervous system.
After the cessation of the stimulus, its trace remains for some time in the form of a consistent image, which can be either positive (corresponding to the characteristics of the stimulus) or negative (having opposite characteristics, for example, colored in an additional color). We usually do not notice positive consistent images because of their short duration. The appearance of sequential images can be explained by the phenomenon of retinal fatigue.
Auditory sensations, similar to visual ones, can also be accompanied by sequential images. The most comparable phenomenon in this case is “ringing in the ears”, i.e. unpleasant feeling, which is often accompanied by exposure to deafening sounds.
Mental processes- dynamic reflection of reality in various forms mental phenomena. A mental process is the course of a mental phenomenon that has a beginning, development and end, manifested in the form of a reaction. It must be borne in mind that the end of a mental process is closely related to the beginning of a new process. Hence the continuity of mental activity in a person’s waking state.
Mental processes are caused both by external influences and by stimulation of the nervous system coming from the internal environment of the body. Mental processes ensure the formation of knowledge and the primary regulation of human behavior and activity.
All mental processes can be conditionally divided into three main groups, although they are all inextricably linked and represent different aspects of a single mental activity of a person: 1) intellectual processes that determine human cognitive activity; 2) emotional processes through which a person’s attitude towards others is manifested its phenomena; 3) volitional processes that determine human activity.
Attention- This special property human psyche. It does not exist independently - outside of thinking, perception, memory, movement. You cannot just be attentive - you can only be attentive while doing some kind of work. Therefore, attention is the selective focus of consciousness on performing a specific job. The forms of attention are varied. It can be aimed at the work of the senses (visual, auditory, etc. attention), at the processes of memorization, thinking, and motor activity.
Feeling- this is not only a sensory image or, more precisely, a component of it, but also an activity or a component of it. Being first a component of a sensorimotor reaction, sensation then becomes the content of a conscious cognitive activity, aimed at the corresponding quality of an object or phenomenon. Sensation is always a unity of sensory content and activity, process.
One of the most amazing properties human mind - memory . This unique ability is associated with thinking, consciousness, and perception of the surrounding world. Memory is the process of imprinting, storing and reproducing traces of past experiences. It makes it possible to maintain constant tendencies towards appropriate behavior over long periods of time and, to some extent, predict behavior for the future.
Imagination plays a huge role in human life. Almost all human material and spiritual culture is a product of people's imagination and creativity.
Perception - a mental process leading to the generation of a sensory image, structured according to certain principles and containing the observer himself as one of the studied elements.
Thinking- this is a socially conditioned, inextricably linked with speech, mental process of searching and discovering something essentially new, a process of mediated and generalized reflection of reality in the course of its analysis and synthesis. Thinking arises on the basis of practical activity from sensory knowledge and goes far beyond its limits.
In the process of thinking, using the data of sensations, perceptions and ideas, a person at the same time goes beyond the limits of sensory knowledge, i.e. begins to cognize such phenomena of this world, their properties and relationships, which are not directly given in perceptions and therefore are not directly observable at all.
Self-concept
Self-concept- a developing system of a person’s ideas about himself, including: a) awareness of his physical, intellectual, characterological, social, etc. properties; b) self-esteem, c) subjective perception of those influencing one’s own personality external factors. The concept of I-k. was born in the 1950s in line with phenomenological, humanistic psychology, whose representatives were A. Maslow and K. Rogers.
I-k. - a holistic education, all components of which, although they have a relatively independent logic of development, are closely interconnected. It has conscious and unconscious aspects and is described from the point of view. the content of ideas about oneself, the complexity and differentiation of these ideas, their subjective significance for the individual, as well as internal integrity and consistency, coherence, continuity and stability over time.
The concept of mental processes. Mental processes are elementary units that we can distinguish in mental activity, its “atoms”. Processes are primary - everything is built on their basis. complex system functioning of the psyche. Processes are dynamic - they have their own course and development. Let us describe the main processes.
Sensation and perception. Sensations are elementary mental processes, which are a subjective reflection by a living being of simple properties of the surrounding world in the form of mental phenomena, elements, components of perception, from which images are composed. The following types of sensations are distinguished: skin (touch or pressure, there are temperature and pain), proprioceptive (body positions in space, relative positions of body parts), organic (coming from nerve cells internal organs), gustatory and olfactory, visual and auditory. Sensations are possible due to the presence of receptors - special nerve cells that perceive this effect, pathways (nerves) and cells of the central nervous system that are capable of receiving and processing a particular signal. The collections of these nervous formations are called sensory systems. Phylogenetically, the most ancient, i.e., the earliest that arose in evolution, are sensations directly related to the state of the body - pain, temperature, younger ones - taste and olfactory. Then in the history of species there arose visual sensory systems, and the youngest are auditory.
Each sensation has absolute and relative thresholds. The absolute threshold is the minimum amount of stimulus that can cause a sensation. For example, for the sense of smell it can be several hundred molecules of a substance. The absolute threshold, however, is individual for each person. Relative, or differential, threshold is the magnitude of a stimulus that can produce a sensation that is different from that caused by a stimulus of a different magnitude. Thus, a person can hear a sound with a frequency of 16 Hz, but is able to distinguish one sound from another only starting from a height of 40 Hz. There is also an upper threshold of sensation, which, as a rule, borders on painful sensations, for example, sounds above 14,000 Hz cause pain.
Auditory sensations allow us to describe sound in terms of volume, pitch, timbre. Loudness corresponds to the strength of sound, measured in decibels. A person perceives sound from 3 to 130–140 dB, the last number corresponds to upper limit audibility, pain threshold. The pitch of the perceived sound, or tonality, is related to the frequency of the sound, measured in hertz. The lower threshold of audibility is 16 Hz, the upper one is about 20,000 Hz (for comparison: in a dog it is 38,000 Hz). Our usual range lies in the area from 1000 to 3000 Hz, the pain threshold is at the level of 14,000-16,000 Hz. Timbre is a complex characteristic of sound that does not have a direct physical analogue; as timbre, we distinguish a complex pattern of sound tones - a combination of sounds of a certain loudness and height.
Visual sensations are formed by determining color tone, brightness and saturation. The shape of an object is conveyed by the reflection of light spots on the retina different colors and tone, and movement is due to the movement of these spots.
A person perceives light waves with a length from 390 to 780 nanometers, i.e. the lower limit is at the level infrared radiation, top – ultraviolet. Human eye capable of perceiving a light pulse of 8-47 quanta (this is the lower threshold of perception) and a 1–1.5% change in surface illumination (this is the differential threshold of visual perception). The upper threshold of visual perception is the most relative - the state of blindness depends on the eye's adaptation to illumination - and can even be caused by normal daylight if the eye is accustomed to a lack of light.
In humans, visual perception is the leading one - according to experts, 90% of all information comes through this channel. Hearing, smell, touch and other channels of perception are much less important.
The process of perception is built on the basis of sensations.
Perception is the process of a person receiving and processing various information, culminating in the formation of an image. Perception is not just the result of the integration of data entering the brain through various senses; information stored in memory, thinking and other mental processes are connected to the formation of a holistic image. Distinctive feature perception is integrity. Let us explain: when describing an object only with the words “cold”, “big”, “white”, we are still at the level of sensations, but as soon as we correlate these data and receive a holistic image of the object (be it a refrigerator or the mythical Gorgon Medusa), we can talk about perception. An integral feature of perception is also meaningfulness: we can always think about the formed image and describe it in words.
The image contains not only information received from the senses - other cognitive processes are also involved in the process of its formation, and the process of completing the image is underway. In this case, normal errors often occur. So, if you present subjects with a white cylinder with a red end, most people are inclined to assume that the second end, which is not visible, that is, is beyond the limits of perception, is also red. On the one hand, the process of completing the image is necessary in everyday life– from fragmentary elements of an image, we can most often guess the entire object; on the other hand, this effect still sometimes leads to errors of perception.
An illusion is an image that is a product of real sensations, but incorrectly reflects reality. This is a perception error that arises due to interference in the process of perception of memory, desire, fantasy, any attitude or other mental phenomenon. For example, a person may assume hanging from a chair in dark room a jacket for a seated person or an atypically shaped cloud for a flying saucer. The occurrence of illusions is considered a normal mental phenomenon. They should be distinguished from hallucinations - completely constructed images that are subjectively perceived as real objects. Thus, a person can claim that he sees objects or hears sounds that do not exist in objective reality. Hallucinosis is considered a pathological process.
We live in a four-dimensional world: we know three spatial dimensions and one time dimension. The perception of space is not innate and develops during the learning process. A person determines the size of objects by comparing them with other objects and relying on his previous experience. However, if the subject is presented with an isolated object, for example a cube on a white background, which is shown through a special hole in the screen so that the distance to it cannot be determined, then the person will not be able to determine its size. The perception of space arises due to the relationship between the distance to an object and its size. Binocular vision matters in the perception of space, but life experience is decisive - we learn to determine distance and size and can perceive space using only one eye.
Very rarely pay attention to another dimension accessible to human perception - the perception of time. Time is perceived as irreversible uniform motion from past to future. We have learned to express time in units of duration: seconds, hours, days, years. The subjective perception of time is different from the objective one: it can flow unevenly - stretch or contract. In the experiment, one group of subjects was offered interesting games, and the other was placed in separate empty rooms and asked to wait. People who were having fun perceived the 10-minute period of time as very short - 2-3 minutes, and those waiting designated the same time period as 15 minutes. Thus, it became known that subjective time flows unevenly - it can “slow down” and “speed up” depending on the circumstances.
Knowledge about sensations and perceptions is important when obtaining testimony, deciding whether to recognize a person as sane, and identifying special mental states that are important when considering criminal and civil cases.
Attention and memory. Attention is a state of mental concentration, concentration on some object. Attention is not an independent process, it is a process of regulation of other cognitive processes, a characteristic of mental activity, the state of our perception, consciousness, thinking, memory. Attention always has an object to which it is directed, be it an object in the surrounding world, a memory or a fantasy. The roots of attention can be traced to a state of alertness, vigilance, and the orienting reflex. Attention is a mental process designed to quickly restructure the psyche in response to changing environmental conditions and maintain a special mode of functioning of the psyche for the required time.
They distinguish between involuntary and voluntary attention. Involuntary attention is primary, a person is born with it, and it persists throughout life. Involuntary attention is established and maintained regardless of conscious desire and will. Voluntary attention is the ability to consciously direct attention to an object; its formation is associated with the development of will. It is believed that voluntary attention is normally formed by the age of 4-6 years. Voluntary and involuntary attention is performed by several various functions: involuntary attention is passive, uncontrollable, but it plays the role of a “watchman”, directing cognitive processes to the most important, strong external stimuli, including those that are rejected by consciousness; voluntary attention is active, it is subordinate to the will and makes it possible to arbitrarily adjust mental processes, ignoring information rejected by consciousness.
This division of attention into two types is to a certain extent ideal, which is why some authors also call voluntary-involuntary attention - mixed type: attention that does not require willpower, but is under the control of consciousness. This is a situation when we monitor some phenomenon “out of the corner of our eye.”
Attention can be described in terms of its concentration, volume, stability and switchability. Concentration of attention, or concentration, expresses the intensity of the connection between an object and consciousness. Attention span is measured by the number of objects that are perceived simultaneously. Stability is the duration during which a given concentration of attention is maintained. Switchability is the ability to reorient cognitive processes from one subject to another. These characteristics of attention are functionally interrelated: a change in one entails a change in the others. Thus, high concentration leads to decreased switching ability or reduces attention span.
It is noted that in a 2-4 year old child, switchability is two to three times higher than in a 4-6 year old child. These data indirectly indicate the process of formation of voluntary attention (indirectly, since concentration of attention does not mean voluntariness). Voluntariness is the ability to consciously change the nature of attention.
Psychological examination of attention is important when obtaining testimony, assessing the maturity of a person, identifying special mental states that are important when considering criminal and civil cases.
Memory is the process of remembering, storing and subsequently reproducing information. Memory is a reflection and reproduction of past events, one of the basic mental processes. The basis of memorization is imprinting - an almost exact copy of the picture of reality. Initially, in a newborn, memory exists only in the form of involuntary imprinting, and only later, with the development of thinking, will, consciousness, and voluntary attention, the second type of memory is formed - voluntary memory. Thus, we distinguish two types of memory - involuntary and voluntary. Voluntary, or conscious, memory differs from imprinting and involuntary memory by selectivity; it is mediated by the processes of voluntary attention and thinking and is always purposeful. Memorization is not a passive process and therefore not photographic: already at the stage of storing information, its primary processing occurs - generalization, systematization, highlighting essential features and eliminating all that is unnecessary.
Voluntary memorization that occurs over more late stages development and seemingly more progressive, nevertheless inferior to the involuntary. In one of the experiments, subjects in the first case were shown pictures and given instructions to remember as much as possible, and in the second case they were given an abstract goal not related to memorization. It turned out that a greater amount of information was retained in the case when the task was not to remember the pictures. Thus, it was concluded that we acquire most of the information thanks to involuntary memory.
There are short-term and long-term memory. Short-term memory retains information for a period of time ranging from a few seconds to two minutes, although this duration is arbitrary. Long-term memory is capable of retaining information for several minutes, hours, days, years. Short-term memory, as a rule, stores information for as long as the object is in the sphere of our attention, and as soon as we are distracted, its contents are erased. Long-term memory stores information in an inactive state, but under certain conditions it can be activated.
Short-term memory is often compared to computer RAM, and long-term memory is compared to permanent memory. But unlike a computer, the human brain eventually erases most of the unclaimed information or that which it does not use for a long time. This is another mental mechanism that provides a flexible response to changing conditions - the unnecessary is erased, making room for more useful information. This process is described by the “forgetting curve” - the first hour about 59.2% of information is stored in memory, after 9 hours 35.8% remains, after a day - 27.3%, after two days - 25.4%, and then forgetting becomes insignificant. Note that forgetting occurs rapidly during the first 9 hours, then less rapidly within two days, and the remaining amount of information is stored by long-term memory in an almost unchanged volume. Given the law of the “forgetting curve,” we can assume that the further away an event is in time, the less we can remember about it. However, there is an amendment to this rule. Reminiscence is a phenomenon when subsequent reproduction of information is richer than the previous one; it is gradual recall. Reminiscence is possible due to the fact that, focusing on the need to remember, we raise ever deeper layers of memory, “unwind” the memory, and receive hints from the outside.
In memorizing information, its meaningfulness, the emotional richness of the experience, the relevance of the information, i.e., its significance for the rememberer, play a role. Meaningful, logically linked information is remembered much better than unstructured information: a person is able to remember on average 7-10 words and only 4-7 meaningless combinations of sounds from the first reading. In situations of emotional stress, memorization improves. We better assimilate information that is meaningful to us, and forget what does not cause an emotional or mental response.
Memory is not only the assimilation and storage of information, but also the ability to subsequently reproduce it, i.e., remember. The first step to remembering is recognition - this is the stage when we cannot yet consciously recall an image from memory, but are able to distinguish information that has already been perceived once from new information. A typical example is a situation where a person cannot describe the face of another person, but is able to identify him upon meeting. True memorization is characterized by the ability to consciously reproduce an image stored in memory. Reproduction is not a mechanical reproduction of an image, it is a reconstruction, during which the image is built anew. In the experiment, subjects were shown a geometric composition resembling a house, but with one unfinished wall. When, after some time, they were asked to reproduce the image, most of the subjects built this figure, completing the construction of a face that did not exist in the original. Thus, it was shown that memorization is not photographic; the integrity of perception and logic “prompted” another line to the subjects. These are normal memory errors, but there are also pathological forms described below. Pathological disorders memory is most often a consequence mental illness or traumatic brain injury.
Amnesia is loss of memory, temporary or permanent. Temporary memory loss - loss of memory of events that occurred over a period of time from several minutes to several days - can be the result of a traumatic brain injury or an emotional disorder (affect or severe stress). Retrograde amnesia - forgetting events of the past - can occur in two forms: from the present to the past and from the past to the present. In the first case, a person may not remember what he did during the day, whether he had lunch, or watched a television program, but with sufficient accuracy he recalls events relating to his youth and youth. In the second case, he remembers the events of the last days, but cannot indicate where he was born, studied, lived and worked. Paramnesia, or false memory, can manifest itself in the form of pseudo-reminiscences - the replacement of events with memories from other moments in life, the replacement of real events with heard or read facts, confabulations - the replacement of real events of the past with fantastic, fictitious pictures. In all cases of paramnesia, the person himself sincerely believes that his memories are real.
Let's return to the norm: depending on the leading channel of perception, memory can be visual, auditory (auditory), kinesthetic (motor), depending on the leading type of thinking - visual-figurative or verbal-logical. Memorization and reproduction occur more easily if a person uses the type of memory that is more developed.
Memory can be characterized in terms of “accuracy”, “capacity”, “longevity”. Accuracy is a quantity that expresses the ratio of correctly reproduced units of information to incorrect ones. Volume expresses total quantity correctly reproduced units of information. Long-term is the duration of retention in memory of a constant volume of correctly reproduced units of information.
Psychological examination of memory helps to clarify complex issues regarding the testimony of victims, witnesses and suspects, including the results of identification, identification of special mental states important for conviction court decision.
Thinking and intelligence. Thinking is a mental process of a generalized and indirect reflection of reality; in essence, it is a process of information processing. Thinking operates with signs and symbols in which the facts of objective reality are encoded. Thinking is a mental process that reveals the relationships between objects and phenomena, thanks to it we compare, compare, distinguish, and reveal the relationships between data obtained through the perception system. Thinking reveals the properties of things and phenomena and reveals new, abstract properties that are inaccessible directly to the senses. We do not need to directly observe a phenomenon in order to analyze it and draw a conclusion - we can logically process information about it. This feature of thinking is possible thanks to speech - a system for transmitting signs and symbols.
Thinking and speech are closely interconnected; they cannot develop and exist without each other. Through speech and communication, concepts are conveyed to the child - symbols, behind which a set of integral features of the object being described is hidden, and basic techniques for processing information - logic of thinking - are instilled.
The thought process consists of the operations of analysis, classification and synthesis, or integration, of information. Analysis makes it possible to separate essential and inessential properties of an object or phenomenon, random and necessary connections, that is, to separate simple coincidences and real patterns. The task of thinking is to identify the essential, significant signs and connections, after which the next stage is possible – classification. The basis of the classification is the identification of concepts - indirect and generalized knowledge about a subject, based on the disclosure of its more or less significant objective connections and relationships. The process of information integration allows us to move from isolated cases to patterns and forecasting: thinking in a generalized form reveals the principle of solving a problem and anticipates the solution of similar problems that may arise in the future.
Thinking disorders are a consequence of a violation of any of the operations that make up it. A violation of the analysis operation consists in the inability to separate essential, significant features from secondary ones; as a result, a person cannot responsibly move to the stage of classification and then to generalization. In cases of impaired thinking, a person either “splits” reality too much, that is, he sees only differences in objects, but does not find common features, for example, he cannot classify a cat and a dog into the same class - animals, or falls into overly broad generalizations, relying on weak signs and connections between objects, for example, he finds a similarity between a flower and an airplane in that they are both “drawn in blue.” Underdevelopment of thinking is characterized by the inability to escape from specific concepts and reach a higher, abstract level. Thinking disorder is a pathological process.
Normally, every thought process is an action aimed at solving a specific problem. This task includes the goal of the individual’s mental activity, correlated with the conditions by which it is given. The goal always arises in connection with the existence of certain motives or the need to satisfy a certain need. The motive creates a problematic situation, which is the starting point of the thought process. The problem situation determines the involvement of the individual in the thinking process.
There are several types of thinking: visual-effective, visual-figurative and abstract, or theoretical. Visual and effective thinking arises in ontogenesis, i.e., the development of the individual, most early. It is based on the empirical experience of a person, the concrete experience of his communication with surrounding objects. A simple example visual-figurative thinking is the conclusion that if the taps do not open to the left, they open to the right. Visual-figurative thinking is a higher level of thinking development. Here a person does not need to empirically find out the facts of reality, but it is enough to scroll through the possible options in his mind. Thus, we can imagine possible options for connecting the kite slats without having real experience carpentry work, but having general ideas about options for connecting rigid parts. Abstract thinking – highest level development of thinking, when a person, in the process of solving a problem, turns to concepts and logical schemes, performs actions in the mind, without resorting to practical experience. It is thanks to abstract thinking that we are subject to problems of the type: A is equal to B, B is not equal to C, therefore, A is not equal to C (with the help of this scheme a very wide range of problems can be solved). The result of abstract thinking is always a judgment - a conclusion about the inherent properties of objects or phenomena and significant connections between them.
Based on what type of information a person is dealing with, mathematical, verbal, artistic, and spatial thinking are distinguished. Thanks to the leading method of information processing, logical and associative thinking can be noted. Logical thinking relies on given sequences, and the associative acts by bringing analogies.
In connection with issues of thinking, another important concept should be mentioned - intelligence.
Intelligence is a relatively stable structure of an individual’s mental abilities, a certain level of development of a person’s mental activity, which provides the opportunity to acquire new knowledge and use it in the course of life. Intelligence is essentially a set of skills for solving problem situations and strategies for finding solutions. Psychologists have developed criteria for assessing the degree of development of mental functions - IQ.
Psychological examination of thinking may be important for identifying a person’s maturity, sanity, ability to understand the nature of the actions being performed, and restoring the process of planning a crime.
Speech is a system of signs and symbols used by humans to represent, process, store and transmit information. In evolution, speech arose together with thinking in the process of social and labor activity and took shape in the process of socio-historical development of mankind in unity with thinking. Thanks to speech, the individual consciousness of each person, not limited to personal experience, by its own observations, through language it is nourished and enriched by the results of social experience, and the observations and knowledge of all people become or can become the property of everyone.
Speech activity performs two main functions - communicative and significative. The significative role of language is associated with its sign-semantic side. With the help of words in which concepts and meanings are encoded, we can exchange information about the world around us, transmit information and receive it without having a direct connection with the object in question. The communicative side of communication is associated with the transmission of emotions and feelings of communicating people.
In accordance with these components, verbal and nonverbal components of communication are distinguished. The verbal component includes all factual information transmitted to the interlocutor. To make it easier to understand the differences between verbal and nonverbal, we point out that we can convey all verbal information using written speech. The nonverbal component, which carries an emotional component, is contained in the speaker’s facial expressions, posture, gestures, intonation, speed of speech, and gaze. Based on the characteristics of the nonverbal component of the speaker’s speech, one can determine his emotional state, which helps to clarify a person’s attitude to events, the characteristics of his personal attitudes and identify lies.
Speech disorders can take two main forms: the inability to speak, i.e. the inability to translate a concept into verbal form, and misunderstanding of speech - the inability to extract meaning from a word-symbol. Such deviations are most often the result of gross disturbances in brain activity and traumatic brain injuries.
In legal practice, the psychology of speech, the main function of which is the ability to be a means of communication, has general meaning, but can also be useful in diagnosing special mental conditions that are important for the consideration of criminal and civil cases, as well as for identifying false testimony.
Imagination, will and emotions. Imagination is the ability to imagine an absent or non-existent object, hold it in consciousness and manipulate it. It is believed that imagination is the ability of only the human psyche; it is the basis of visual and figurative thinking, foreseeing the future, planning and implementing behavioral programs. Thanks to imagination, fantasies are possible as complex, detailed pictures of a non-existent reality or an imagined future. It provides a creative transformation of reality due to its innovative potential.
The imagination, however, is not free from objective reality - the new images created by it are a combination of what was previously seen and objectively exists. This is the process of compilation (regrouping and combination) of already known images and facts. This kind of creative transformation serves as the basis for intellectually innovative activity, which essentially ensures the thinking process. Thanks to imagination, the goals set are provided with a program of action and ultimately are realized in action. In other words, activity planning initially occurs in fantasies.
The tendency towards increased fantasy is the tendency of an individual to create pictures of reality that are not of direct importance to him. life path, while fantasies are experienced very vividly and often replace reality. Getting used to a fictional reality can be so strong that an individual begins to sincerely believe in the events he himself created. Being quite normal for children and early adolescence, a tendency to increased fantasy in adulthood indicates deviations in personality development.
Analysis of the nature of the imagination process and its content is important when considering the individual psychological qualities of a person that are important for making a judicial decision and restoring the process of planning a crime.
Will is a process of mental regulation designed to create and direct effort and maintain tension as necessary. Thanks to the will, a person can, on his own initiative, based on a perceived need, perform actions in accordance with a given plan. The will ensures self-determination and self-regulation of activity and the course of various mental processes.
Will is closely related to consciousness and attention. The volitional process is always conscious: it can be monitored, analyzed, caused arbitrarily, it is a means of control, but it is also controlled by consciousness. Attention is necessary for the implementation of volitional effort: only what is in the sphere of a person’s attention can be subject to the influence of volitional effort.
The will is formed and developed under the influence of control over human behavior by society and only then is interiorized, that is, it becomes a purely internal mental process - self-control of the individual. The formation of will is associated with the transition from external methods of action to internal ones.
Volitional action is always purposeful; through this action, a person strives to achieve the goal set before him according to a given plan, subordinating his impulses to conscious control and changing the surrounding reality in accordance with his plan. The actor, directing effort to achieve a goal, can evaluate the result of the action, comparing it with the goal to which it was directed. The effectiveness of volitional effort is assessed by a person through the successful or unsuccessful achievement of a set goal.
For the emergence of volitional effort, certain conditions are necessary - the presence of obstacles and obstacles. Will manifests itself when difficulties appear on the way to the goal. Situations requiring volitional regulation are diverse: overcoming obstacles, focusing action on the future, conflict of motives, conflict between the requirements of social norms and existing desires.
The main functions of the will are: the choice of motives and goals, the regulation of the impulse to action in the event of insufficient or excessive motivation, the organization of mental processes into a system adequate to the activity performed by a person, the mobilization of physical and mental capabilities when overcoming obstacles in achieving set goals. Will can be described in terms of strength and weakness.
Psychological analysis of the volitional process is important when deciding the issue of sanity and legal capacity, in qualifying special conditions that are important for the consideration of criminal and civil cases, including the state of physiological affect, identifying a person’s ability to resist psychological coercion when involved in illegal activities, the ability of a crime victim resist.
Emotional processes are mental reactions to internal or external influence, expressed in a restructuring of the rhythm of activity of both the psyche itself and the entire organism. Emotions contain an assessment of a phenomenon, and its particular features are not highlighted; an emotional response arises to the event as a whole. Emotions perform a regulatory function - they rearrange the activities of the psyche and body to quickly respond to changing conditions. Activation of the nervous system and, above all, its autonomic department leads to numerous changes in the condition of internal organs and the body as a whole. The nature of these changes shows that emotional states cause either mobilization of the organs of action, energy resources and protective processes of the body, or (in favorable situations) relaxation. So, in case of danger, a person has a feeling of fear, the hormone adrenaline enters the blood, while the blood vessels of the brain narrow and the blood vessels of the body dilate, providing the muscles with a large amount of oxygen and nutrients. A state of fear prepares the body for decisive action in extreme conditions.
Along with general training the body to action, individual emotional states are accompanied by specific changes in the plasticity of movements, facial expressions, and sound reactions. In evolution, they also developed and consolidated as a means of signaling about the emotional state of an individual in intraspecific and interspecific communication. With the increasing role of communication in higher animals, expressive movements become a finely differentiated language with the help of which individuals exchange information both about their state and about what is happening in the environment. In humans, emotions retain their sign function - the warning function. It is thanks to emotions and the changes in external appearance and behavior they cause that we can judge the internal, psychological state individual.
Emotions are always associated with the satisfaction or dissatisfaction of some important needs for a person. Positive or negative sign emotions communicate the possibility of satisfying a need. Positive emotions- joy, pleasure, triumph - report the right way to achieve a goal, negative - pain, anger, fear, disappointment - cause a desire to minimize the influence of objective conditions and are aimed at changing the program of action. Thus, emotions perform a regulatory function, communicating the correctness or incorrectness of the path to achieving goals.
Emotions perform a motivating function - emotional stress pushes to action. In attempts to resolve a tense situation, a person shows activity, charged with the potential of the emotional state.
When considering the interaction between emotions and personality development, two factors need to be taken into account. The first of them is the influence of heredity on the emotional makeup of the individual. Heredity plays an important role in the formation of emotionality, establishing the thresholds for experiencing a particular emotion. The second factor of interaction is individual experience and skills of self-control of the emotional sphere.
Emotional processes vary in their modality, or quality. Emotions of fear, anger, sadness, despair, joy, pleasure and others can form complex experiences, for example, the emotions of anger, disgust and contempt form a kind of emotional complex of hostility, which can develop into a feeling of hostility that underlies aggressive illegal behavior. Emotions can also develop into contradictory, ambivalent states - pain-pleasure, sympathy-disgust, fear-admiration.
Emotions have a certain power, which depends both on the objective circumstances that caused them, and on the individual characteristics of a person, his emotionality. Reaching a certain threshold level, they can go beyond the control of consciousness, having a strong impact on a person’s behavior, his mood, his thinking, often interfering with the performance of professional activities. An extreme form of loss of control over feelings is the development of affective states.
Emotion is a form of mental reflection of the surrounding world in the form of short-term human experiences, but, being extended in time, they turn into a new type of mental phenomena - emotional states. Emotional states are holistic, dynamic, relatively stable personal formations that largely determine the uniqueness of a person’s mental life at a certain stage of his life path. Some feelings and emotional states become leading and dominant in the personality structure and, because of this, can seriously influence the formation of character. The basic experiences of a person, the most frequently experienced emotions, can be fixed in character.
The pathological manifestation of emotions can take the form of emotional callousness, when emotions are experienced shallowly, superficially, or excessive emotiveness, i.e. immersion in emotion and the inability to control it. There are also disorders in which one gets stuck in a certain emotional state - these are so-called mania and depression.
Mastery of the language of emotions and feelings is a professionally important skill for a lawyer. On the one hand, it is expressed in the ability to recognize emotional manifestations, the experiences of other persons, to identify the simulated nature of the feelings and emotions they demonstrate, on the other hand, this skill is manifested in the correct choice of the most expressive forms of response, in the lawyer’s demonstration of his emotional state, adequate to a particular communicative situation.
A psychological assessment of the characteristics of the course of an individual’s emotional processes in legal practice is important for assessing a person’s ability to understand the nature of his actions and manage them, for assessing the psychological harm caused to the victim of illegal actions.
Modern psychology believes that mental processes are closely related to each other and represent a single complex called the “psyche”. For example, memorization is impossible without perception, and without thinking. Let's take a closer look at the features of mental processes.
Mental cognitive processesDeviation from the norm is expressed in the form of a violation of any of the mental processes. Very often, a violation of one function entails changes in others. The cause of the pathology can be caused by any disease. Quite often, disruption of basic mental processes occurs in diseases such as:
The doctor makes up clinical picture, on the basis of which treatment is prescribed. Psychiatrists and neurologists do this.
Scientists believe that the psyche is closely related to the processes of the macrocosm, so it can be influenced various factors: weather conditions, solar system flares, etc. Remember that, if desired, a person has the right and ability to control his mental processes.
Throughout life, a person solves certain problems, stores certain memories, creates a new unit of society and constantly develops. Each personality is individual in its own way, but what does this individuality consist of? The answer to this question can not only satisfy our curiosity, but also really make our lives easier.
We are able to regulate any mental process, for example, train attention or imagination. However, such activities cannot be done without effort. That is why it is much easier to arrange your existence based on an understanding of the structure of your own mental processes.
Mental processes include:
The study of these phenomena leads to the acquisition of new skills and abilities. Basic mental processes are interconnected, so one knowledge hides another.
The creation of certain groups is conditional, because there is no practical evidence for this. Scientists are studying this issue, but so far the results have not been made public.
First of all, dependence on each other lies in the inability to exist separately. For example, speech is impossible without memory, etc.
Cognitive mental processes are sometimes called intellectual, which sometimes misleads some people. In fact, these concepts are closely interrelated. As for the content of this phenomenon, it is quite extensive.
1. Feeling. This is a mental reflection of certain features and conditions of the surrounding world that affect our senses. They are considered something subtle and primary, because initially they do not lend themselves to analysis of thinking.
Feelings indicate various features specific things, which helps to see the big picture. Sensations include impressions of color, smell, understanding weather conditions, picking up vibrations from some objects, etc.
2. Perception. This is the mental process of forming ideas about objects and events in the surrounding world. Unlike sensations, it is indivisible and concrete. Perception is considered not only the process itself, but also its final result.
It is worth noting that the characteristics of mental processes are individual. For example, you and your interlocutor may have completely different perceptions, which can lead to conflict. Differences may arise due to personality type or the knowledge a person has about a particular subject or situation.
What is interesting is that thinking is not considered something special and unique, because even insects have it. In addition, processing information can lead to both interesting thoughts and complete nonsense.
4. Consciousness. This is the ability to understand, think, think and form a certain attitude towards specific things. That is, some feelings and sensations determine the subsequent reaction to something. Basic mental processes can be called part of consciousness.
Conscious actions and decisions cannot be accidental, because they are the result of deliberation. The only thing that should be emphasized: and will are by no means synonyms, as many believe, and they should not be confused.
5. Speech. This is the ability to communicate with others through words and sounds. It can have a completely different character. Sometimes the speech calms, sometimes it angers, and sometimes it pleases and inspires.
6. Attention. This process is the concentration of vision or brain on a specific event or object. Attention helps us filter out unnecessary information or knowledge, leaving the most important thing.
By the way, this process can be voluntary or involuntary. The second option refers to everything that is distracting but uninteresting. That is, the human brain reacts to this, but not on purpose, because sometimes just the emotionally spoken words of a stranger attract us, even if only for one moment.
2. Feelings. Sometimes feelings are unconscious mental processes that are a sincere experience of a situation. They are difficult to fake, because they are considered part of the soul.
2. Decision making. This process is about establishing some certainty. Moreover, sometimes the choice can be elementary (eat a cutlet or pilaf, wear a yellow or green T-shirt), and sometimes it can be very difficult. Although even in simple situations we often use willpower.
Making quick and informed decisions is a habit successful people. IN in this case Not only reason, logic and meaning may be needed, but often the same emotions and feelings.
3. Goal setting. This is a clear awareness and determination by the individual of specific desires, the fulfillment of which he wants to achieve. This approach significantly advances the individual towards the realization of a dream, because setting a goal is a serious step.
For most people, this process generates a certain motivation, which is very important for achieving any goals. In addition, such decision-making involves a conscious choice, which has a strong impact on the psyche.
The development of mental processes occurs from birth, and what it will be like depends largely on the parents. Scientists suggest that these processes are also interconnected with the macrocosm, so the influence of weather conditions or changes on other planets also leaves its mark.
However, sometimes mental processes have deviations that interfere with the entire group of phenomena. Most often this occurs due to diseases such as stroke, schizophrenia, Alzheimer's disease, etc.
In this case, of course, only the advice of doctors and special medications can help. It is only worth noting that you should never give up, because there are known cases of unexpected recoveries even after the most severe illnesses. Author: Lena Melissa
