Consciousness as a subject of psychology. Phenomena and properties of consciousness from the point of view of various psychological schools

18.09.2021

Pervushina O. N.

General psychology.

Subject and methods of psychology. 3

The need to discuss the subject of psychology. 3

Traditional ideas about the subject of psychology. 4

Soul as a subject of study. 4

Phenomena of consciousness as a subject of psychology. 4

Direct experience as a subject of psychology. 5

Intentional acts of consciousness as a subject of psychology. 5

The origin of mental activities as a subject of psychology. 5

Behavior as a subject of psychology. 5

The unconscious as a subject of psychology. 5

The processes of information processing and the results of these processes as a subject of psychology. 6

Personal experience of a person as a subject of psychology. 6

Development of views on the subject of psychology of domestic authors. 6

Literature. 7

Structure and functions of the psyche. 7

Literature. 9

Methods of psychology. 10

Cognitive processes, their place and role in the human psyche. eleven

Feeling as the initial stage of knowledge. eleven

General properties of analyzers. 12

Perception. thirteen

Perception of space. thirteen

Perception of movement. 14

Perception of time. 14

Illusions of perception. 14

The development of perception. 14

The main approaches to the analysis of perception: 14

Representation. 15

Characteristics of representations. 15

Literature. sixteen

Imagination. sixteen

Types of imagination. sixteen

Imagination functions: 16

Ways to create images of the imagination. 17

Literature. 17

Thinking. 17

Thinking as a process. 17

Literature. eighteen

mental operations. eighteen

Formation of mental actions. eighteen

Characteristics of thought as a result of the thought process. eighteen

Stages of development of thinking. nineteen

For more on types of thinking, see: 19

Creative thinking. nineteen

Obstacles to creative thinking. twenty

Literature. twenty

Memory. twenty

memory processes. 21

For memory processes, see: 22

For types of memory, see: 22

Attention. 22

types of attention. 22

characteristics of attention. 23

Literature. 23

Intelligence. 23

Literature. 24

Speech and language. 24

Origin and development of the word. 25

Semantic structure and function of the word. 25

The formation and development of the child's speech. 25

Some theories of speech development. 25

Literature. 26

Processes of mental regulation. 26

Emotions. 26

Literature. 27

emotional phenomena. 27

Emotions and cognition. 27

Emotion factors. 28

For information theory of emotions, see: 28

Functions of emotions. 28

For more on emotion functions, see: 28

Theories of emotions. 28

The specifics of volitional regulation. 29

Literature. thirty

Consciousness. thirty

Definition of consciousness. thirty

Basic approaches to the problem. thirty

Literature. 31

properties of consciousness. 32

Properties of consciousness as a functional organ: 32

Functions of consciousness. 32

Literature. 32

The principle of unity of consciousness and activity. 32

On the spontaneity of consciousness, see: 33

The structure of consciousness. 33

Literature. 34

Consciousness and self-awareness. 34

Literature. 34

Consciousness and the unconscious. 34

Literature. 35

Installation problem. 35

Behavior and activity. 36

Literature. 36

Fundamentals of the theory of activity. 36

Literature. 38

needs and motives. 38

Definition of needs. 38

To the question of the origin of needs. 39

Literature. 39

Definition of motive. 39

Hierarchy of fundamental needs (according to A. Maslow). 40

Concepts of motivation. 41

Literature. 41

Personality. 41

The concept of personality. 41

To the question of the structure of personality. 41

On attempts to classify personality, identify personality types, see: 42

Neurotypical (neurodynamic) properties of a person. 42

Levels of consideration of neurodynamic properties. 43

General and partial (private) properties of the nervous system. 43

Temperament. 43

Capabilities. 43

General and special abilities. 44

Literature. 44

Character. 44

Character structure. 45

Literature. 45

Literature on the course. 45

Abstract topics. 46

Bibliographic index. 46

Novosibirsk State University

Scientific and educational center of psychology

Managing editor: P. E. Ryzhenkov

Pervushina O. N. General psychology: Methodical instructions. - Novosibirsk: Scientific and educational center of psychology of NSU, 1996.

Subject and methods of psychology.

The need to discuss the subject of psychology.

Ideas about the subject of psychology are very vague. Often, psychologists simply point to mental processes (thinking, memory, feelings, etc.) as the subject of their study. In other cases, it is said about a person, about personality as a subject of psychology. But both the first and second approaches to the subject of psychology are clearly unsatisfactory, since all of the above is studied not only by psychology, but also by many other sciences. A clear criterion is needed in order to clearly distinguish what is subject to psychology and what lies outside its sphere. This will allow you to better understand the tasks that a psychologist can and should solve.

Without a clear understanding of the subject, experimental research becomes difficult. For the successful practical work of psychologists, an understanding of the subject of psychology is also necessary. Otherwise, it is impossible to understand that psychologists do something essentially different compared to other specialists: doctors, teachers, and so on.

The question of the subject matter is also important for studying the mechanisms of mental phenomena. Some researchers are looking for these mechanisms in the physiology of the brain. Others study the laws that govern the relationships between objects.

If we admit the correctness of this orientation of psychological research, then this will mean that mental phenomena do not have proper psychological mechanisms and that psychology is limited to "phenomena" alone. But then the subject matter of psychology and its claims to an independent sphere of human knowledge disappear.

In view of the foregoing, it seems extremely important to define the subject of psychology itself.

Traditional ideas about the subject of psychology.

The first theories put forward to explain people's behavior involved factors external to the person (for example, the "shadow" that lives in the body and leaves it after death, or the gods). Greek philosophers, especially Aristotle, put forward the idea of the existence of the soul, which is in unity with the body and controls thoughts and feelings, which are based on the experience accumulated during life.

In the history of psychology, there have been various ideas about its subject.

Soul as a subject of study.

The soul as a subject of psychology was recognized by all researchers until the beginning of the 18th century, before the main ideas were formed, and then the first system of psychology of the modern type. The soul was considered the cause of all processes in the body, including the actual "spiritual movements." Ideas about the soul were both idealistic and materialistic. The most interesting work in this direction is the treatise by R. Descartes "The Passions of the Soul".

Phenomena of consciousness as a subject of psychology.

In the 18th century, the place of the soul was taken by the phenomena of consciousness, that is, the phenomena that a person actually observes, finds in "himself", turning to his "inner mental activity." These are thoughts, desires, feelings, memories known to everyone from personal experience. The founder of such an understanding can be considered John Locke, who believed that, unlike the soul, the phenomena of consciousness are not something supposed, but actually given, and in this sense, the same indisputable facts of internal experience, which are the facts of external experience studied by other sciences.

At the beginning of the 18th century, all mental life, first in the cognitive sphere, and then in the spheres of feelings and will, was presented as a process of formation and change (according to the laws of associations) of increasingly complex images and their combinations with actions.

In the middle of the 18th century, the first scientific form of psychology emerged - English empirical associationist psychology (D. Hartley).

Associative psychology reached its peak in the middle of the 19th century. By this time, the work of J. St. Mill, A. Bain, G. Spencer.

J.St.Mill considers consciousness through the prism of an associationist scheme, but points to its dependence in concrete psychological functioning on logic. According to J. St. Mill, there are laws of the mind, different from the laws of matter, but similar to them in terms of uniformity, repetition, the need to follow one phenomenon after another. These phenomena can be discovered with the help of experimental methods - observation and experiment. In this way, "psychic sequence"(phenomena of consciousness) must be studied by itself. The main method is introspection.

Alexander Ben shifts focus from internal states of consciousness on the motor, objectively observed activity of the organism. The principle of selecting motor responses that are adequate to external conditions becomes in Ben the general explanatory principle of all mental phenomena. The construction of adequate responses is carried out using the mechanism of "constructive association" based on trial and error. Thus, the probabilistic principle of "trial and error", approved in biology, is used, and thus the activity of consciousness approaches the activity of the organism.

For G. Spencer the subject of psychology is interaction of the body with the environment. But at the same time, objective psychology must borrow its data from subjective psychology, the tool of which is "the consciousness that looks inside itself." Introspection remains the priority research method.

The core of the associationist concept was law of frequency, who said that the strengthening of the connection is a function of its repetition. This largely determined the views of I. P. Pavlov, I. M. Sechenov, E. Thorndike, W. James.

In the XVIII century. the place of the soul was taken by the phenomena of consciousness, that is, phenomena that a person actually observes, finds in himself, turning to his “inner mental activity”. These are thoughts, desires, feelings, memories known to everyone from personal experience. The basis of this understanding can be considered John Locke who believed that, unlike the soul, the phenomena of consciousness are not something supposed, but actually given.

At the beginning of the XVIII century. all mental life, first in the cognitive sphere, and then in the spheres of feelings and will, was presented as a process of formation and change (according to the laws of associations) of increasingly complex images and their combinations with actions.

In the middle of the XVIII v. developed the first scientific form of psychology English empirical associationist psychology (D. Hartley). Associative psychology reached its peak in the middle of the 19th century. By this time, the work of J. St. Mill, A. Bain, G. Spencer.

J. St. Mill considers consciousness through the prism of an associationist scheme, but points to its dependence in concrete psychological functioning on logic. According to J. St. Mill, there are laws of the mind, different from the laws of matter, but similar to them in terms of uniformity, repetition, the need to follow one phenomenon after another. These phenomena can be discovered with the help of experimental methods - observation and experiment. The main method is introspection.

Alexander Ben shifts the emphasis from the internal states of consciousness to the motor, objectively observed activity of the organism. The principle of selecting motor responses that are adequate to external conditions becomes in A. Bain the general explanatory principle of all mental phenomena. The construction of adequate responses is carried out using the mechanism of “constructive association” based on trial and error.

For G. Spencer, the subject of psychology is the interaction of the organism with the environment. Introspection remains the priority research method.

The core of the associationist concept waslaw of frequency , who said that the strengthening of the connection is a function of its repetition. This largely determined the views of I. P. Pavlov, I. M. Sechenov, E. Thorndike, W. James.

Direct experience as a subject of psychology

The greatest success in building psychology as an independent experimental science was program developed by W. Wundt. The unique subject of psychology, according to Wundt, is the direct experience of the subject, comprehended through self-observation, introspection. Wundt sought to streamline the process of introspection. He believed that physiological experience, that is, objective experience, makes it possible to dismember direct experience, that is, subjective, and thereby reconstruct the architectonics of the individual's consciousness in scientific terms. This idea underlay his plan to create an experimental (physiological) psychology. Wundt's ideas laid the foundation for the structural school in psychology.

Intentional acts of consciousness as a subject of psychology

F. Brentano bases his teaching on such qualities of consciousness as activity and objectivity. Psychology should study not sensations and representations per se, but those acts (“actions”) that the subject performs (acts of representation, judgment and emotional evaluation) when he turns nothing into an object of awareness. Outside the act, the object does not exist. The act, in turn, necessarily presupposes a “direction to” intention. Brentano stood at the origins of the direction later called functionalism.

A) Structural psychology of consciousness. Psychology is the science of direct experience. 1879 - opening of an experimental psychological laboratory (Germany, Leipzig) W. Wundt. He studied consciousness with a manometer (how many individual impressions a manometer can hold). There is a single experience, but we can study it in different ways. Every experience is divided into two factors: the content given to us and our perception of this content. The first of these factors is the object of cognition, the second is the cognizing subject. The objects of knowledge are studied by natural science, while psychology studies all the contents of our experience in its relation to the subject and in the properties directly introduced into this experience by the latter. Method - experiment + introspection. But not the whole psyche lends itself to experimental research (only the simplest mental processes - sensations, ideas, reaction time, the simplest associations and feelings). The study of HMF and mental development requires other methods. The subject of psychology is direct experience. The object is consciousness.

Reasons:

The consciousness directly reflects the causal relationship of mental phenomena (he raised his hand - the reason: he decided to raise his hand). Those. the cause is given directly (originally).

Introspection delivers psychological facts in their pure form, without distortion.

The three goals of the Wundt program are:

Objective (coming from outside, from the object) - simple impressions, sensations and ideas. They have properties: quality, intensity, (Titchener also added extension in time, extension in space).

Subjective (associated with the subject, his inner experiences) - feelings, emotions. 3 parameters: pleasure-displeasure; arousal-sedation; voltage-discharge. These elements make up more complex feelings. Feelings provide a link between the elements, a synthesis of the elements of consciousness.

Representations (traces of sensations).

Find out how these elements are related. The laws of connection of elements:

1) The principle of gradation of elements (simple feelings in more complex formations) - a whole feeling, partial, simple.

2) The principle of integrity (a whole feeling is perceived as a single whole, indecomposable into parts, not a sum).

3. On this basis, formulate the general laws of mental life:

The law of mental relations - all elements of consciousness are connected with each other and depend on each other.

The law of contrast - if these relations are relations of contrast, then they are perceived clearly.

The law of creative synthesis - complex mental formations are irreducible to their parts.

Heterogony (heterogeneity) of goals - an intermediate goal can acquire the status of a main one

Properties of consciousness:

1) Limited (it accommodates a limited number of simple impressions). Measurement of the volume of consciousness - the volume of attention -7 + -2 elements, the volume of consciousness - 16-40 elements.

2) Heterogeneity: two areas: the area of vague consciousness and clear consciousness and the point of fixation, which is located in the center of the area of clear consciousness (this is the area of the brightest consciousness).

3) Rhythm. Separate elements of consciousness tend to form groups of elements interconnected. This may be involuntary or controlled by attention. Due to the grouping, the volume of attention and consciousness can increase.

The phenomena of attention and the phenomena of consciousness as a whole seemed to W. Wundt to be homogeneous. To distinguish, he used the metaphor of the visual field: the most clearly perceived content in the visual field lies in its fixation point, the less distinct content is distributed in the usual field of vision.

Basic processes of consciousness:

Perception is the process of entering some content into the field of consciousness (perception in a larger volume of consciousness).

Apperception (perception falling into the fixation point of attention) is the concentration of consciousness (attention) on some content, i.e. content falls into the realm of clear consciousness. The organization of a unit of a higher order is an act of apperception (letters - into words, words - into phrases, etc., i.e., the unification of small units of consciousness into large ones).

B) Dynamic psychology of consciousness. W. James: it is necessary to study not the sensations, but the act of this sensation, not the visual image, the act of sight – funutsionalism. Consciousness is not a structure, but a process. The stream of consciousness is a continuously changing process. The fact of inner experience is that some conscious processes take place, the states of consciousness are replaced in it one by another.

Stream of consciousness properties:

Every state of consciousness tends to be part of a personal consciousness (every thought is connected to all thoughts, consciousness belongs to someone).

Within the boundaries of personal consciousness, its states are changeable (not once a past state of consciousness can arise again and literally repeat itself; the object perceived by us is identical, and not our sensations).

Every personal consciousness represents a continuous sequence of sensations - a stream.

Example: The awareness of thunder merges with the awareness of the previous silence, which continues: we hear not just a rumble, but a rumble that suddenly breaks the silence and contrasts with it. Our sensation of a rumble under such conditions is quite different from the impression produced by the same rumble in a continuous series of other similar noises.

Selectivity or directionality of the flow. It perceives some objects willingly, rejects others, makes a choice between them - this is the process of attention. In the stream of consciousness, impressions are not equal in importance. The contents of consciousness are associated with interests, hobbies, habits and intentions. And those that are more significant direct the flow as a whole.

C) E. Titchener (USA, student of Wundt). An attempt to combine the theories of Wundt and James. Soul - a set of mental processes experienced by a person throughout his life. Consciousness is a set of mental processes occurring in the soul at a given moment in time.

D) Z. Freud: consciousness is a small part of the mind, it includes what we are aware of every moment.

E) The human psyche presupposes the coexistence of different levels of mental reflection, the highest is the level of consciousness. A.N. Leontiev: consciousness does not arise at once, but is formed gradually as social relations become more complex. Consciousness is a reflection of reality, its objective properties independent of the subjective state. A stable picture of the world is being formed. Impartiality of consciousness is a reflection of the world "in itself", regardless of the need state of the subject.

A prerequisite for the formation of consciousness are:

Labor activity - in it, attention is directed to meeting social needs, i.e. activity of the whole society. Man's activity becomes his conscious activity.

Language is the true bearer of consciousness. The term consciousness itself includes two components: consciousness - knowledge, i.e. joint, public, universal knowledge for all. The word of the language carries a generalized objective meaning. (When pronouncing a word, people must be sure that they mean the same thing and understand each other).

Three-aspect structure of consciousness: sensory fabric, meaning, personal meaning

Sensual fabric of consciousness

Sensual impressions, sensual images.

The main function of the sensory fabric of consciousness is to create a "sense of reality" of the external world. Thanks to it, the world appears to the subject as existing outside of consciousness. Example: A.N. Leontiev, while working in a hospital during the Great Patriotic War with wounded miners who lost their hands and eyesight, noticed that they, having lost the visual and tactile imagery of the outside world, experienced a strange state - “loss of connection with reality”.

Sensual tissue is a necessary but secondary constituent of consciousness. Example: blind people (there is no visual component of the sensual fabric of consciousness), as well as sighted people, have consciousness.

Meaning

Not only the meanings of the words of the language, but also the meanings of events, states, etc.

In universal meanings, in a collapsed form, the entire experience of culture is presented, the (“public”) properties of objects that are important for all people.

When cultural experiences do not match, there may be different meanings for different people.

Meanings do not exist in isolation, but are combined into complex systems. Due to the position in the system of individual meanings, words acquire connotations (additional meanings) that are not recorded in dictionaries. Example: the word "German" for the inhabitants of the USSR was closely associated with the concepts of "enemy" long after the end of World War II.

personal meaning

Fixing what this or that event means for a person personally, as it relates to his system of motives. Example: to talk about the growth of crime and agree that it is necessary to take measures to eradicate it, and become a victim of a street robbery - a different personal meaning immediately acquires.

Gives partiality to consciousness and makes it "mine", because. personal meanings reflect the experience of individual activity.

Thus, “consciousness appears before us as a movement that connects the most difficult moments: the reality of the world, represented in the sensual fabric, the experience of mankind, reflected in the meaning, and the partiality of the existence of each of us, which consists in gaining personal meaning - meaning for individual life.”

S.L. Rubinstein identifies the following properties of consciousness:

Relationship building;

Cognition;

Experience.

Properties of consciousness as a functional organ:

Reactivity;

Sensitivity;

Dialogism;

polyphony;

Spontaneous development;

Reflexivity.

The main functions of consciousness include the following:

reflective;

Generating (creative, or creative);

Regulatory and evaluation;

reflective;

It was within the framework of the introspective direction that two programs that became the most famous for building psychology as an independent science were proposed. These programs were put forward almost simultaneously in Germany by W. Wundt and in Austria by F. Brentano.

The separation of psychology from philosophy and other sciences was prepared by the development of empirical and experimental studies of the physiology of the nervous system and sensory organs, attempts to measure (even indirectly, as was the case with G. T. Fechner) some parameters of mental processes, etc. Of course, this separation was not a one-time event, but there is a conditional date for the birth of psychology as an independent science. This is 1879 - the year of the appearance at the University of Leipzig of the world's first laboratory of experimental psychology. This laboratory was opened by a German physiologist, philosopher and psychologist Wilhelm Wundt, who organized its work on the basis of the program he proposed for building psychology as an independent science (published in 1873-1874) and created a large psychological school in which future psychologists from around the world were trained and educated (E. Titchener, S. Hall, O .Kulpe, F. Kruger, E. Meiman, G. Münsterberg, N.N. Lange and others). The famous Soviet physiologist, psychiatrist, neurologist and psychologist V. M. Bekhterev also studied at one time with W. Wundt.

This program was based on the most common in introspective psychology point of view on consciousness as “the totality of states we are aware of” (i.e., the understanding of consciousness as a “picture of the world”, as an “image” came to the fore). This is exactly how (as a set of conscious states) Wundt defined consciousness in one of his works. He believed that psychology as a science of consciousness should solve the following problems:

1) description of the properties of consciousness,

2) highlighting the structural components of consciousness (elements of consciousness),

3) establishing links between elements,

4) finding the laws of mental life.

To solve these problems, he used the experiment, but the introduction of the experiment not only did not exclude introspection, but, on the contrary, assumed its strictly controlled application.

To illustrate, we present several experiments by W. Wundt. As an experimental instrument, he used the metronome, well known to musicians. W. Wundt established a number of properties of consciousness, using self-observation of the subject, who had to describe the subjective experiences that arise when he listens to the sounds of a metronome. First, he drew attention to the fact that it is difficult to hear the beats of the metronome's pendulum with the same strength (although objectively they are exactly the same), which can be conditionally conveyed by the words “tick-tock” or “tick-tick”. As a result of this experiment, W. Wundt concluded that consciousness rhythmically by it's nature.

In another experiment, he determined the so-called scope of consciousness. The subject was presented with a series of metronome beats following each other with an interval of 1-1.5 s, and a very short time after it, a new series of beats. The subject had to tell by direct impression (not counting the number of strokes) whether the given rows were the same or whether one of them was longer. As a rule, if the number of beats in each of the rows does not exceed sixteen (perceived under normal conditions as eight pairs) sounds (“tic-tac” or “tac-tick”), the identity or difference in length of the rows is noticed by the subject. With a larger row size, the subject finds it difficult to determine the equality or inequality of the rows in length. So, W. Wundt stated, we measured the volume of consciousness equal to the number of elements that the subject can be aware of as a single whole in one act of perception (ie perception). In the experiments mentioned by W. Wundt, this volume was equal to eight pairs of sounds. If the units of consciousness are “enlarged” with some effort on the part of the subject (not a pair of sounds, but eight can act as a unit of consciousness), then the total number of sounds, perceived as a single whole, increases to 40.

W. Wundt established that the elements contained in consciousness are not perceived in the same way: some of them are perceived more clearly and distinctly than others. Clarity of an impression means its "subjective" power, distinctness means its difference from others. If you listen to the beats of the metronome in a row, you will notice that the just sounded beat is perceived most clearly, the previous beats are less clear and distinct, and some of them sounded so long ago that the impression of them has already disappeared from the subject's consciousness. Using the terms of other researchers (in particular, G.T. Fechner), W. Wundt said that this impression "sank under the threshold of consciousness." What is the distinctness of the impression - this example is difficult to demonstrate, since the sounds of a metronome objectively do not differ from each other. But if we take such objective stimuli that have differences, then we can try to study how the subjective impressions corresponding to them can differ from each other in terms of their degree of distinctness.

For research, W. Wundt used a device called a tachistoscope (from the Greek. tachiste- as soon as possible and scopeo- look), with the help of which the subject was presented with a tablet of letters for a very short time. First, the subject looked at a white screen, in the middle of which there was a point - the subject had to focus his attention on it. Then, for a very short time, the screen moved. The subject's attention was directed to a plate of letters, and then the screen again covered this plate. How many letters can the subject distinguish during one act of apperception (the act of focusing attention on an object)? It turned out that the number of letters that the subject can perceive in such a way that each of them is clearly and distinctly recognized (i.e., recognized by the subject, and not just seen) is rather small - this number did not rise above six.

With the help of this procedure, W. Wundt determined attention span, which is much smaller than the volume of consciousness. Analyzing further attention, he stated that fixation point of attention(i.e. the point of maximum concentration of attention) does not coincide with the fixation point of the gaze (i.e. a person can look at one point or letter, and pay attention to another).

All these points are reflected in the proposed by W. Wundt models of consciousness(Fig. 4). Consciousness can be represented as two concentric circles with a point in the middle (the center of the circles). This center is the fixation point of attention. A smaller concentric circle is the field of attention, delimited from a wider field - the field of consciousness - by the threshold of attention. The great circle is the field of consciousness, limited by the threshold of consciousness. Those contents that do not "fit" into consciousness go beyond its threshold and cease to exist not only as conscious, but also as mental phenomena. Thus, W. Wundt shared the general position of introspective psychology that there are no mental phenomena that would not be realized. In such a model, consciousness appears as a scene that has a circular shape and is generally illuminated (in the center to a greater extent than along its edges). Various contents of consciousness rise and fall on this stage - elements of consciousness and more complex formations made up of elements. Getting into a more illuminated field, the contents of consciousness fall into the field of attention, i.e. become perceived by the subject more clearly and distinctly than other contents of consciousness. W. Wundt considered the elements of consciousness Feel and the simplest feelings so he called elementary emotional phenomena (pleasure - displeasure, tension - discharge, excitement - calm). Each element has two properties: quality and intensity.

Model of consciousness according to W. Wundt

Student of W. Wundt Edward Bradford Titchener(Titcheneg, 1867-1927), in addition to sensations" and feelings, he considered the elements of consciousness also representation(“traces of past sensations”). He proposed a more rigorous method of introspective analysis - the method of analytical introspection. With this type of introspection, the subject had to learn to isolate the sensory mosaic of consciousness without making the “stimulus error”, which is very characteristic of “naive subjects” and should not appear in real professional psychologists who study consciousness as the sum of states we are aware of.

According to E. Titchener, the stimulus error means that the observer, instead of describing the states of his own consciousness, begins, as a rule, to describe the external object (stimulus) as such: “We are so used to living in the world of objects, we are so used to clothe thought in popular expressions that we it is difficult to assimilate a purely psychological point of view on the intensity of sensation and to consider consciousness as it is, regardless of its relation to the objective world. .

“A purely psychological point of view” means, according to E. Titchener, that the subject should not say “I see a book or a lamp”, he should only describe the sensations that arise in the mind when perceiving an external object - a book or a lamp (light, dark, etc.). .P.). Therefore, the subject - if he wants to engage in scientific research of consciousness - must be trained to highlight the sensory mosaic of the image (E. Titchener suggested that in this way it is possible to achieve greater objectivity in scientific research of the subjective world). Feelings, like building blocks, form the entire content of our mental life, including more complex mental formations. He called his variant of introspective psychology structuralism (meaning by structure, in fact, the sum of subjective elements in consciousness).

E. Titchener, in principle, agreed with W. Wundt's "concentric model", however, from his point of view, it did not take into account possible changes in the states of consciousness over time. Therefore, he represented consciousness as a "two-level" stream (Fig. 5), the upper "level" of which includes clear contents of consciousness, the lower one - vague. E. Titchener assumed that in this stream there is a constant process of transition of some states of consciousness from the upper to the lower level and vice versa. As properties of sensations, E. Titchener singled out quality, intensity, distinctness and duration.

Before us is one of the models of consciousness proposed in the framework of introspective psychology. This direction was based on the Descarto-Lockean concept of consciousness, in which consciousness was considered a world of subjective phenomena closed in itself. So understood consciousness was the subject of research for W. Wundt and E. Titchener. It was studied by the method of a special, sophisticated introspection, dividing consciousness into elements. At the same time, the conscious was identified with the mental (the existence of unconscious mental processes was denied). In addition, structuralism (as well as the concept of W. Wundt) is characterized by distinct elementalism - the desire to divide consciousness into elements, then indivisible "atoms" of consciousness, and then collect more complex contents from them. At the same time, since these elements were of a sensory (sensual) nature, this direction of introspective psychology was characterized by a distinctly pronounced sensationalism (there are no conscious processes that cannot be derived from sensations and ultimately cannot be reduced to them). The presence in the consciousness of other - non-sensory - contents was not allowed. The sensations themselves arise without any activity on the part of the subject - as soon as the object appears before the eyes (this position can be designated as mechanism). Mechanism is also felt in the explanation of complex phenomena of consciousness arising from simple ones by establishing associative links between them. However, in the concept of W. Wundt, in addition to associative connections, apperceptive connections are also presented, however, in order to understand the essence of these connections, it is necessary to turn to the history of the emergence of these concepts in psychology.

Growth of psychological science. Criteria for their selection.

The main branches of psychology

Branches of psychology can be distinguished according to several criteria:

1) by areas of activity, the needs of which are served, i.e. by what a person does (labor psychology, pedagogical psychology);

2) according to who exactly performs this activity, i.e. is its subject and at the same time the object of psychological analysis (subject: a person of a certain age - developmental psychology);

3) on specific scientific problems, for example, communication problems, mental disorders with brain damage (neuropsychology).

Methods of psychological research.

a) non-experimental psychological methods- Observation

b) diagnostic methods - Test (ability test, perception test)

c) experimental methods - Natural(school), Simulation experiment,Laboratory experiment.

d) forming methods - The main and main feature of all these methods is, according to the definition of Vasily Vasilyevich Davydov (1930), "... not a simple statement of the features of certain empirical forms of the psyche, but their active modeling, reproduction in special conditions, which allows reveal their essence.

Scientific and everyday psychology. Their relationship.

The difference between everyday psychology and scientific.

1) Life.psych.is confined to specific people, tasks, situations, and scientific.psych.uses scientific concepts are clearly defined, correlated with each other, and bound into laws.

2) Living psychic knowledge is situational, scientific psychic knowledge is rational and conscious.

3) In lives. psycho. knowledge is passed from mouth to mouth, etc., and in the scientific psycho. in scientific works, monographs, articles.

4) In life. psycho. methods of obtaining, and in scientific. psycho. observation, reflection.

5) Scientific psycho. has a unique fact. material inaccessible in its entirety to any visitor lives. psychology.

Soul as a subject of psychology.

General idea of the psyche and consciousness

Psyche- the function of the brain, which consists in reflecting objective reality in ideal images, on the basis of which the vital activity of the organism is regulated.

psyche- this is a subjective reflection of objective reality in ideal images, on the basis of which the interaction of a person with the external environment is regulated.
The content of the psyche includes not only mental images, but also extra-figurative components - the general value orientations of the individual, the meanings and meanings of phenomena, mental action.
The psyche is inherent in man and animals. However, the human psyche, as the highest form of the psyche, is also denoted by the concept of "consciousness". But the concept of the psyche is wider than the concept of consciousness, since the psyche includes the sphere of the subconscious and the superconscious

The main sign of the psyche man is that in addition to hereditary and personally acquired forms of behavior, a person owns a fundamentally new, most important means of orientation in the surrounding reality - knowledge, which is a concentrated experience of mankind, transmitted through speech.
"Consciousness literally means "a body of knowledge".

Consciousness is the highest form of the psyche necessary for organizing the social and individual life of people, for their joint labor activity. Here, psychology manifests itself as a set of typical for a person or a group of people, ways of behavior, communication, knowledge of the world around, persuasion and preference for character traits. For example, student psychology, female psychology.

Public consciousness includes science, morality and law, ideology, art, religion. Changes in production, in social relations, reflected in the minds of people, lead to changes in the content of social consciousness.
So, the human psyche, his consciousness is a system of his mental self-regulation based on socially formed categories and value orientations.
Human consciousness as the highest form of development of the psyche has the following essential

Consciousness as a subject of psychology

In the 18th century, the place of the soul was taken by the phenomena of consciousness, that is, the phenomena that a person actually observes, finds in “himself”, turning to his “inner mental activity”. These are thoughts, desires, feelings, memories known to everyone from personal experience. The founder of such an understanding can be considered John Locke, who believed that, unlike the soul, the phenomena of consciousness are not something supposed, but actually given, and in this sense, the same indisputable facts of internal experience, which are the facts of external experience studied by other sciences.

Consciousness- this is one of the forms in which objective reality is reflected in the human psyche. According to the cultural-historical approach, a characteristic feature of consciousness is that the elements of socio-historical practice are an intermediate link between objective reality and consciousness, allowing to build objective (generally accepted) pictures of the world.