189
SUMMARIES
Developing of psychology in the Byelorussian Soviet
Socialist republic
Benedictov B. A., Kolominsky Y. L.
Psychology
in the BSSR is especially well developing during the last ten years. Studies of
new problems are being undertaken, while traditional lines of research are
becoming more closely integrated into the Soviet and world psychology, on the
one hand, and into the practical life of the society, on the other. Geography
of psychological research in the Republic and work of particular researchers
are described in some detail with particular accent on applied aspects.
Psychology in the
A brief
historical sketch of developments in psychology in XIX century and pre-Soviet
Developmental psychology in the
Liimets H. I.
History and
present-day state of the developmental psychology in
Practical and academic psychology: Divergence of
cognitive structures within professional consciousness
Etkind A. M.
Differences
between cognitive structures used in academic (research-oriented) and practical
(consultive) psychology are reported. Analysis of
corresponding categories reveals divergence in the use and interpretation of
basic notions such as space, time, causality, and probability, as well as in
accepted forms of generalization, description, in norms of discourse, and in
the general concept of man. Necessity of a dialogue between "the two
psychologies", is argued; difficulties in the way
of implementation of this recommendation are discussed.
Changes in the cognitive representation of objects in
the process of mental development
Chuprikova N. I.
Present-day
psychological and psychophysiological data concerning
transition with age from integral perception of multi-dimensional objects to
discrete representation of their particular features
are systematically reviewed. It is argued that the most fundamental mental
process in the senior pre-school and in the junior school age is the process of
cognitive differentiation which is manifested in a number of peculiarities of
attention, perception and thinking, and which results in ever better voluntary
control over cognitive functions.
The problem of emotional control over the
learning-cognitive activity
Chebykin A. Ya.
Studies of
the relation between emotions and cognition are analyzed, as well as studies attempting
to describe corresponding functions and aspects of emotions and the way they
are related to different structural elements of activity (motives and goals).
Mechanisms of emotional control over particular stages of the
learning-cognitive activity are considered. Some recommendations as to how to
increase this regulatory function of emotions are given.
Emotional regulation in teaching
Milrud R. P.
Teacher's
personality has been taken as a starting point in the study of the regulatory
function of emotions in teaching. It has been experimentally proved that the
ability for emotional control is formed in the process of acquiring the
repertory of emotional responses on the basis of learned perceptions of oneself
and of partners in different kinds of activities. A method of psychological
correction of the emotional control in the behavior of teachers is suggested
which is based on a classification of teachers' psychological-semiotic
reactions and on a normative profile of emotional behavior obtained on a
representative group of teachers.
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Development of the pedagogical tact through the media
of art and literature
Borisova A. A.
A general
characteristic of the notion under study is provided, as well as a basic
approach to development of tact in teachers - through development of meaningful
attitudes. Some recommendations are given concerning proper selection of
applicants to pedagogical high schools. An accent is made on understanding the
social situation of their psychological development in childhood and
adolescence. Influence of such factors as parents' interests, enthusiasm for
literature and arts is discussed.
On the problem of development of musical creativity in
a child
Vishnyakova N. F.
Indirect
ways to promote musical creativity in children and a corresponding procedure
are suggested. Efficiency of the procedure depends on the ability on the part
of a teacher to provide corresponding microclimate for the children and to
offer them proper problemic situations. The procedure
consists of three consecutive stages; their goals and operational contents are
presented.
Psychological conditions required for organization of
contacts between children in the Infants' house
Tsaregorodtseva L. M.
The article
is adressed to practical workers of Infants' houses
who are badly in need of psychological data concerning the regularities of
interaction in a group of junior children. Specificity, psychological meaning,
and stages of appearance of both communicative and non-communicative behavior
are presented. Particular attention is given to the role of contacts in
psychological development of the inmates of Infants' houses. Some practical and
methodological recommendations are given as to how an adult can organize such
contacts between children, especially in their first year of life.
Cross-cultural perspectives in development of the
social-psychological knowledge
Ageyev V. S.
Role and
meaning of cross-cultural studies for further development of social psychology
and other branches of psychology are considered. Cross-cultural studies of the
inter-group interaction and of the conformist behavior performed abroad are
analyzed. Results of two cross-cultural studies of the non-verbal communication
and social perception performed under the author's guidance are presented.
Necessity to intensify cross-cultural studies in order to achieve progress in a
number of major theoretical issues in psychology is argued. Some constructional
ways of dealing with them through the media of social-psychological analysis
are outlined.
Speech behavior as the overcoming of conflict
situations
Rozov A. I.
Man's
linguistic reality is built on the basis of his speech experience and is a sum
of verbal precedents arranged both in a spontaneous (according to a categorical
system) and in a purposive way (through education). A distinctive feature of
this linguistic reality is its great stability owing to which, on the one hand,
mutual communication is possible, while, on the other hand, ready-made verbal
forms impose themselves upon principally new, non-linguistic contexts. The
discrepancy between actual requirements of a non-linguistic reality and the
obsessive old forms of expression may create conflict situations. In order to
overcome them the subject has to appropriately direct the intrinsic flows of
his productive mental work.
Peculiarities of reproduction of verbal material under
conditions of mediated communication
Bolshunov Y. V., Soloviev V. M., Oparina
N. S.
The study is
aimed at understanding how verbal material is reconstructed after it has been
passed through a chain of imformers. Experiments have
been performed on 7-, 8-, and 9-th graders, and on students of a pedagogical
high school. It is shown that under the conditions tested the original text
loses its volume, and its meaning may get distorted, however its basic plot
retains. Different types of reconstruction of the text are described as
function of subjects' thinking and of their general mental activity.
Students' achievements as a function of peculiarities
of their character and of the state of their attention
Rabinovich P. D., Nuzhdina M. P.
Some psychophysiological characteristics,
and peculiarities of attention have been assessed in two groups of students and
further correlated with their academic achievements. It is shown that the
"good" and "excellent" correlate with higher aspiration
level, leadership style, and egocentricity. Ability to concentrate attention
was 2.7 times higher in this group as compared with the
"satisfactory" group. Weak motivation, low level of demands upon
themselves result, it appears, in lack of self-confidence and, consequently, in
low level of achievements.
191
Content of thinking operations in the structiure of spatial thinking
Psychological
content of thinking operations regarded as complicated psychological formations
has been studied in the context of spatial thinking. It has been experimentally
proved that in every thinking operation one may single out topological,
metrical, algebraic, and ordinal elements of corresponding substructures of the
spatial thinking. Age dynamics of the structure of thinking operations is
described.
A procedure to assess the state of speech in children
Pavlova A. A., Shustova L.
A.
A possible
approach to assessment of speech in pre-school and junior schoolchildren is
considered. It is based on a multidimensional analysis of the process of
perception and of the subsequent retelling of instructional tests. Parameters
possessing most important prognostic value are discussed in some detail.
Study of volitional qualities of schoolchildren with
the help of the "unsolvable problem" procedure
Aleksandrova N. I., Shulga T. I.
The authors
describe at length how the procedure they suggest can be used for the study of
volitional qualities as they are manifested in learning activity. The procedure
is particularly good for the study of will as a function of emotionality; it
enables the teacher to predict the behavior of particular pupils when they meet
with a difficulty in the process of learning. The procedure is rather simple to
use, and provides for an easy procession of raw data.
Intellectual psychodiagnostics system
Kulmagombetov A. R., Epstein V. L., Yampolsky L. T.
An expert
system to be used in automatized psychodiagnostic
studies is described. From similar computerized systems this one differs in two
respects: (I) It has two subsystems - instrumental and testing ones; the former
is to be used in design of testing subsystems, while the latter is a means of automatization of the psychological experimentation. (2)
Automatic processing of raw data and consequent interpretation of results of
psychological study are based on use of the professional knowledge.
Development in children of the object permanence
concept
Subbotsky E. V.
Foreign
studies concerning development in infancy of the object permanence concept
(OPC) are reviewed. Seve al lines in the study of
this problem (first outlined by J. Piaget) can be established: (I) testing the
reliability and validity of the OPC study methods suggested by Piaget; (2)
looking for the "minimal age" when it is possible to reveal the OPC
in a child, and establishing those features of an object which make it seem
permanent; (3) study of children's behavior when an object suddenly disappears
from the visual field and is substituted by another one; (4) study of the
psychological mechanism of the so-called "localization error"; (5)
establishing general dynamics of the OPC in children from birth to the age of
two years; (6) elaboration of computerized models of the OPC development. The
review is concluded with a brief summary of the researches and an outline of
the present-day state of the problem.