The development of the psyche in animals. Stages of development of the psyche and forms of behavior in the animal world. Stage of perceptual psyche

There are several stages in the development of the psyche.

Stage of elementary sensory psyche - simple unconditioned reflexes.

Lower level: Animals are characterized by the appearance of elementary forms of movement, a weak plasticity of behavior, this includes protozoa, many lower multicellular organisms living in an aquatic environment.

Highest level: developed motor activity, the ability to respond differentially to external stimuli, these include higher (annelid) worms, gastropods (snails), and some other invertebrates.

Stage of the perceptual psyche - complex unconditioned reflexes (instincts).

Lower level: animals have a complex nervous system, motor skills are formed, motor abilities become more complicated, defensive behavior becomes more developed, and an object-figurative reflection of reality appears.

At this level, there are fish and other lower vertebrates, as well as (partly) some higher invertebrates (arthropods and cephalopods), insects.

Highest level: there are highly developed instinctive forms of behavior, the ability to learn. At this level, there are higher vertebrates (birds and some mammals).

Instinct- a set of innate components of behavior. Animal instincts are diverse, always associated with biological needs, characterized by stereotypes. Psychology. Directory. SPb. 2006. P.262.

Imprinting - a specific form of learning in higher vertebrates, in which the distinctive features of the objects of some innate behavioral acts of parental individuals as carriers of the characteristics of the species are fixed; deep attachment to the first moving object that was seen by animals after its birth. ibid p.254.

stage of intellect- skills.

At this stage, the ability for intellectual behavior appears when obstacles arise on the way to achieving the goal, but intellectual actions are of a primitive nature and are not the result of knowledge of the objective laws of nature. Animals begin to create and use primitive tools in their activities, while the invented methods of action are not transferred from one animal to another. At this level - monkeys, some other higher vertebrates (dogs, dolphins).

Skill is a complex individual dynamic program of behavior that is formed in the body in the course of its relationship with the outside world. ibid p.418.

Stage of consciousness - the highest stage of development of the psyche.

At this stage, a person develops speech, the ability to arbitrarily regulate mental processes. Knowledge of the general and essential in reality, abstract thinking.

The evolution of the psyche is not straightforward. In the same environment, animals with very different levels of reflection live, and vice versa, in different habitats, you can find different types of animals with similar levels of reflection. The environment is not something permanent. To this evolving environment, the animal species that lives in it adapts. Moreover, a change in the environment can significantly affect the development of mental functions of some animal species and at the same time not have a significant impact on the development of mental functions of other animal species.

Problem mental development has three aspects of study: the emergence and development of the psyche in the animal world; emergence and development of human consciousness; the development of the psyche in human ontogenesis, i.e. from birth to the end of life.

The development of the psyche in the animal world closely associated with the emergence and development of the nervous system, especially the brain. The literature presents various options for resolving the issue of the characteristic features of the mental and the hierarchy of properties, the sequence of occurrence of which reflects the complication of the level of mental organization.

So, from the point of view of K.K. Platonov, the sequence of jumps corresponding to the process of the emergence of psychic reality and its subsequent development is as follows: from the physical to the physiological (irritability); from physiological irritability to experience (subjectivity), i.e. to the mental; from emotions to sensations (from experience to sensitivity); from a complex set of sensations to operating with concepts - the simplest thinking; from thought to will.

Such development sequence repeats itself in ontogeny. Moreover, both in phylogenesis and in ontogenesis, each stage of the development of the psyche has undergone and continues to undergo its own changes, going along two lines. Along one line, each stage, entering into conflict with the environment, ends with a jump that ensures the appearance of the next stage. On another line of development, it differentiates and complicates its own form, which enters into new structural relationships with other forms of mental reflection.

The specificity of a living being (which can naturally be characterized by physical parameters, such as mass, body size, habitat, duration of existence in environments with different physical and chemical properties, etc.) is found primarily in the following features:

• self-reproducibility- the ability to actively extract from the environment substances that make up the body itself, and to reflect substances that impede its vital activity;
• reproducibility - the ability to reproduce, generate new individuals similar to the parent ones;
• homeostasis- the ability to maintain unchanged the parameters of physiological functions in certain ranges of changes in the conditions of existence;
• adaptability - the ability to actively regulate its composition and functions in the direction of adaptation to changing conditions of existence;
• regenerative- the ability to restore the body of lost or damaged organs and tissues;
• immunosuppression - immunity of the body to infectious agents and foreign substances of an antigenic nature,
• reflexivity - the ability to respond through stereotyped holistic acts - reflexes - in response to certain classes of external influences-stimuli;
• cyclic development over time those. the passage within the boundaries from birth to death of many cycles (daily, seasonal), within which there is a regular change in the functions carried out;
• sensitivity- the ability of a living organism to transform physical and biological influences into phenomena of psychic reality;
• susceptibility- the ability to reflect external influences and construct oneself due to this as a subject of mental reflection;
• learnability - the ability of a living being to modify its own behavior in the direction of expanding the range of available reactions, expanding its adaptive capabilities through the accumulation of life experience;
• learnability— the orientation of a living being to reproduce in its own behavior individual variants of activity developed by other individuals.

The main stages in the development of the psyche in the animal world e: I (lowest) - elementary sensitivity. II - objective perception. III (highest) - a reflection of interdisciplinary connections.

Stage 1 – this is the stage of the elementary, sensory psyche. For animals with such a psyche, the world around them is presented in the form of such individual properties, elements on which the satisfaction of basic vital needs depends. Instincts are leading here. Instinct is the complex innate actions of animals by which the animal satisfies its needs.

Stage 2 – perceptual psyche. Animals that are at this stage reflect the world around them no longer in the form of individual elements, but in the form of images of integral things and their relationships to each other. At this stage, animals develop skills. Skill is a way of behavior acquired in individual life and fixed as a result of exercises.

Stage 3 – intellectual behavior- the simplest forms of mental activity based on establishing connections between objects.

Lecture 3. The concept of the psyche and its evolution

Irritability and sensitivity. Stages of development of the psyche. The role of mental reflection in the adaptation of living organisms and the evolution of behavior.

Localization of the psyche.

In the history of natural science, there have been various attempts to "localize" the psyche in nature.

· "panpsychism", - all nature is endowed with a soul, including inanimate (for example, stones).

· "biopsychism" - the psyche is characteristic of all living things, including plants.

· "anthropopsychism" - the psyche exists only in humans, and animals, like plants, are only "living automata".

· "Neuropsychism" refers to the psyche is available only in creatures with a nervous system, etc.

Criteria for the presence of a mental form of reflection

External criteria- the psyche was attributed to any being, not because it showed certain properties of behavior, but simply because it belonged to a certain class of objects; the presence of a psyche in this class was postulated axiomatically.

Internal(functional criteria) - the ability to search behavior, the ability to "flexible" (as opposed to hard-coded) adaptation to the environment, i.e., to individual learning, the ability to "play" actions in the internal plan, etc.

Hypothesis of A.N.Leontiev

As an objective criterion of the psyche, A. N. Leontiev (Fig. 1) proposes to consider the ability of living organisms to respond to biologically neutral influences. Biologically neutral (another term is "abiotic") effects are those types of energy or properties of objects that are not directly involved in the metabolism, but they are in an objectively stable relationship with biologically significant objects and, therefore, are their potential signals. When a living organism acquires the ability both to reflect biologically neutral properties and to establish their connection with biologically significant properties, then the possibilities of its survival turn out to be wider. The reflection of biologically neutral properties turns out to be inextricably linked with a qualitatively different form of activity of living beings - behavior, which can be considered as "inserted activity". It is "inserted" between the actual situation and the biological vital act - metabolism. The meaning of this activity is to provide a biological result where conditions do not allow it to be realized directly, immediately.

Irritability is the ability of living organisms to respond to biologically significant influences. The roots of the plant are irritable in relation to the nutrients contained in the soil: when they come into contact with a solution of these substances, they begin to absorb them.

Sensitivity- this is the ability of organisms to reflect effects that are biologically neutral, but objectively related to biotic properties. When it comes to sensitivity, "reflection", according to the hypothesis of A. N. Leontiev, has two aspects: objective and subjective. In an objective sense, "to reflect" means to react, primarily motorically, to a given agent. The subjective aspect is expressed in the inner experience, sensation, of this agent. Irritability has no subjective aspect. Figure 1. Leontiev A.N.

The Soviet scientist A. N. Severtsov (Fig. 2) noted two fundamentally different ways of adapting living organisms to changes in environmental conditions (1) by changing the structure and functioning of organs and (2) by changing behavior without changing organization. The first way was common in plants and animals; the second took place only in animals, and was associated with the development of the psyche. Within the second (behavioral, or mental) way of adaptation, A.N. Severtsov, in turn, singled out two different directions. One of them consisted in slow changes in inherited forms of behavior - instincts. The evolution of instincts took place under the influence of slowly occurring changes in the external environment. Its pace coincided with the pace of change in the morphological organization of animals. Another direction consisted in the development of the ability for individual learning, or, in the terminology of A. N. Severtsov, the ability for "reasonable actions." "Reasonable actions", according to Severtsov, are rapid changes in behavior, a kind of "invention" of new ways of behavior in response to rapid changes in the environment, in the face of which instinct is helpless. These actions should not have been fixed, inherited, because their advantage was their high plasticity. Therefore, only the ability to them was inherited. The latter, according to Severtsov, determines the height of the mental organization of the animal

Figure 2. Severtsev A.N.

The impetus for the emergence of mental reflection (sensitivity) could be the transition from life in a homogeneous, homogeneous environment to an environment of discrete, material-shaped objects. The simplest living organisms existed in a homogeneous solution of nutrients with which they were in direct contact. For the assimilation of these substances, it was enough for them to have a simple irritability.

If there were several biotic properties to which organisms were irritable, then a vital reaction to one of them could prepare (condition) a reaction to another. In other words, already at the stage of irritability, some properties could acquire a dual function: direct participation in metabolism and signaling another vital impact. The next step could be that, due to changes in the environment, some influences ceased to be vitally significant in themselves. However, the organism continued to react to them as signals of biotic influences. Thus, sensitivity probably appeared on the basis of irritability. At the same time, it meant a qualitatively new type of reflection. The point is not only in the appearance of its subjective component: together with it, for the first time, the organism's ability to reflect objective connections between the properties of the environment appeared. Naturally, this type of reflection could appear and be further developed only under conditions where there was a stable connection between objects or their individual properties. Such a stable connection was ensured by the object-formed environment.

The process of development of the psyche

The main tendencies of mental development:

Complication of forms of behavior (forms of physical activity);

Improving the ability to individual learning;

Complication of forms of mental reflection (simultaneously as a consequence and as a factor of previous tendencies).

the level of mental development of an animal is determined by a complex relationship of such factors as its morphology, living conditions (ecology) and its behavioral activity.

A. N. Leontiev distinguishes three stages in the evolutionary development of the psyche: (1) the stage of the elementary sensory psyche, (2) the stage of the perceptual psyche, (3) the stage of intellect.

CE Fabry retains only the first two stages, dissolving the stage of intellect into the stage of the perceptual psyche because of the difficulty of separating "intellectual" and "non-intellectual" forms of behavior in higher mammals. Then K, E. Fabry introduces the division of each stage into at least two levels: the highest and the lowest, allowing for the possibility of the existence of intermediate levels as well.

Table 1. The main stages in the development of the psyche.

Features of the nervous system	Characteristics of mental reflection	Characteristics of behavioral features
I stage. Stage of elementary sensory psyche.(protozoa, worms, crustaceans, higher and lower insects)
Diffuse reticular nervous system	Individual properties of an object or a combination of properties that have biological significance	positive and negative taxis, instincts, conditional reflexes.
II stage Perceptual psyche (perception, representation)(insects, fish, mollusks, birds, most mammals)
The brain and spinal cord appear, the sensory organs develop, the motor organs develop.	A holistic reflection of the object and situation. The emergence of representations. Identification of operations as independent acts that correspond not to a need, but to the conditions in which it is satisfied.	Instinct. Skill. Problems are solved by trial and error.
III stage The stage of intellect and manual thinking.(monkeys)
The development of the brain, the complication of the structure of brain cells, the appearance of convolutions, an increase in the area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe cerebral cortex. The appearance of the frontal lobes, an increase in the weight of the brain.	Reflection of connections and relationships between objects (visual - effective thinking)	There appear instrumental activity and intellectual ways of solving problems. Illumination reaction (AHA!). When repeated, the problem is solved immediately. Broad transfer of the found solutions to a similar situation. Solution of two phase problems.
IV stage Stage of Consciousness(Human)
Colossal progress of the brain. 1/15 of body weight. Differentiation of the frontal lobes. The appearance of the center of speech.	Reflection of significant stable relationships between objects. Reflection becomes indirectly speech, conceptual thinking and rational logical cognition arise.	The discrepancy between the subject and motive of the activity. The manufacture of tools and their preservation and transmission - from generation to generation. The social nature of labor (separation of functions) The purposeful nature of the activity, its planning. The emergence of speech and language.

Basic definitions

taxis- (from Greek. taxis- order, location) - inborn mechanisms of spatial orientation of the motor activity of animals in the direction of favorable vital environmental conditions (positive taxis) or in the direction from unfavorable (negative taxises) for life conditions.

The degree of complexity and function of taxis depend on the evolutionary development of animals.

(For example, in plants - they are expressed in a change in the direction of growth, in lower organisms (unicellular and lower multicellular) - acceleration or deceleration of movement.

Insects on a summer evening are irresistibly attracted to a lit lamp - this is also a manifestation of taxis).

Animals with developed NS can actively choose the direction of movement and maintain this direction (topotaxis). Such taxises are constant components of even complex forms of behavior.

reflexes- (from lat. reflexus - inverted, reflected) - (1) the reaction of a particular organ (organ system), determined by the influence of external and / or internal environmental factors on the corresponding receptors, mediated by NS and manifested in the form of muscle contraction, secretion, etc. .P.

(2) It is a chain of events where signals from any sense organ are transmitted through the nervous system and cause an automatic response.

There are conditioned and unconditioned reflexes.

(3) These are the reactions of the body carried out by the NS in response to the effects of external or internal stimuli.

Unconditioned reflexes- more ancient, individual and species genetically fixed, carried out with the participation of the central nervous system, the stereotypical reactions of the organism of the organism to external and internal stimuli.

(for example, the actions of a chick ensure that it hatches from an egg, a person pulls his hand away from hot, secretion of gastric juice or salivation at the sight of food).

Conditioned reflex- individually acquired adaptive reactions of animals and humans, arising on the basis of the formation of a temporary connection between a conditioned stimulus and an unconditional reflex act.

The essence is the transformation of an insignificant stimulus into a signal one, by repeatedly reinforcing the stimulus with an unconditioned stimulus.

(Pavlov's experiments with a dog)

Instinct- (1) an innate form of behavior, a response of the whole organism, which is significant for the species as a whole.

(2) an innate, flexible program of specialized behavior, which includes the preparation of actions, the sequence of their implementation, its regulation with the help of direct and feedback, as well as with the help of a general and corrected adaptation to environmental conditions.

Physiologically, this is a chain of unconditioned reflexes - the end of the first reflex is a trigger for another.

(maternal, self-preservation, etc.)

Skill- a form of behavior acquired by a living organism during its life on the basis of accumulated experience.

Modern ideas about the mechanisms of instincts

According to ethological theory, instinct is due to the action of both external and internal factors. External factors include special stimuli, which are called "key stimuli". To date, a large number of key stimuli have been studied in many animal species. As it turned out, signals of any modality can play this role: colors, smells, sounds, visual forms, movements, etc. Under natural conditions, several signs usually act, uniting in a “starting situation”.

Internal factors include endogenous stimulation of the centers of instinctive actions, which leads to a decrease in the threshold of their excitation. Very indicative in this respect are the facts of the expansion of the spectrum of stimuli that cause instinctive actions, and especially the facts of the spontaneous occurrence of the latter. According to the model of K. Lorenz, usually, that is, in the absence of an extreme exacerbation of need, the endogenous activity of the centers of instinctive actions is inhibited or blocked. Appropriate stimuli release this blockage, acting like a key that opens a lock. Therefore, such incentives are called key ones.

At present, views have also changed significantly on the important, long-discussed question of the relationship between instinct and learning. Previously, forms of behavior based on instinct and on learning were opposed. It was believed that instinctive actions are rigidly programmed, and the animal is capable of their implementation without any individual "finishing". According to current data, this is far from the case. It is shown that many instinctive actions must go through a period of formation and training in the course of the individual development of the animal. This form has been called obligate (that is, obligatory) learning. Thus, many instinctive acts are "finished" in the individual experience of the animal, and we can say that such completion is also programmed. It ensures the adaptation of instinctive action to environmental conditions. Of course, the plasticity of instinctive action is limited in this case and is determined by the genetically given "reaction norm".

Facultative learning provides much greater plasticity of behavior. This term refers to the process of mastering new, purely individual, forms of behavior. If during obligate learning all individuals of a species improve in the same (video-typical) actions, then with optional learning they master individual-special forms of behavior that adapt them to the specific conditions of the individual's existence.

Cases of transmission of a new way of behavior "invented" by some animal to other individuals of the population, and then to subsequent generations, are described. This phenomenon is called behavioral tradition. Actions "according to tradition" differ from species-typical behavior in that they are not inherent in all individuals of the species, but only in those that live in a common limited territory. In essence, any action of animals is a complex interweaving of species-typical and acquired elements of behavior. According to Fabry, at the stage of the perceptual psyche, each behavioral act is formed in ontogenesis through the implementation of genetically fixed components of species experience in the process of individual learning.

The fact is that each behavioral act consists of two main phases: search (or preparatory) and final.

The first phase usually begins with endogenous activation and manifests itself in general restlessness and searching actions of the animal - non-directional locomotion, examination of the situation, etc. Usually, as a result of such activity, the animal encounters key stimuli that include the instinctive action itself, and more often a whole chain of such actions. For example, the feeding behavior of a predator begins with a chaotic run and exploration of the territory. The first signs of prey, and then the specific type of prey, orient behavior - the pursuit, sneaking up begins; then comes a series of such instinctive actions as throwing, killing, dismembering the carcass, and finally, grabbing pieces of meat with teeth and swallowing. Only the last two acts - the capture of pieces and swallowing - constitute the final phase of the food-procuring action. All the preceding can be attributed to the search phase, although it has its own micro-stages, each of which has its own search and final micro-phases. For example, many predators kill their prey in a strictly fixed way: this is an instinctive act that completes a certain stage of the hunt.

The most important fact found is that behavior has the greatest plasticity in the search phase. It is here that the animal finds and masters new ways of behavior. On the contrary, the closer to the final phase, the more stereotyped the movements become; in the very final phase, they acquire those properties of stereotype and coercion, which were discussed above. The "specific weight" of the search and final phases in different behavioral acts can be different even in the same animal. But the general rule is that the higher the mental organization of the animal, the more extensive and prolonged the search phase, the richer and more varied individual experience the animal can acquire. It is very important to note that such experience is often accumulated for the future.

Animal language is a complex signaling system. With the help of signals of very different modalities - sounds, movements, postures, smells, colors, etc. - animals transmit information to each other about biologically significant events and states. These are alarms, dangers, threats, obedience, "courtship" and many others. The most important difference between animal language and human language is its lack of a semantic function. This means that the elements of animal language do not denote external objects in themselves, their abstract properties and relations. They are always associated with a specific biological situation and serve specific biological purposes. Many signals, expressing the emotional state of the animal, act according to the mechanism of emotional infection. So, the alarm signal, which is emitted by one of the members of the bird flock, transmits his excitement - alarm - to the rest of the flock, which makes them rise into the air.

The chemical signaling of danger in bees works in a similar way. A bee that stings an enemy releases a special odorous substance; this substance leads to an aggressive state of other bees, which rush to the enemy and also sting him. As a result, the intensity of the chemical signal grows like an avalanche, and with it the number of attacking bees grows.

Another difference in the language of animals is its genetic fixedness. As a result, it is a closed system that contains a limited set of signals, although the number of signals can be quite large. So, for example, about 20 different signals have been deciphered in chickens, and up to 90 in great apes.

It can be fully said that every individual in the animal kingdom knows the language of its species from birth. The knowledge of the language by a person is formed during his lifetime, in the course of his communication with other people. Unlike animal language, human language is an open system: it is constantly evolving, enriched with new concepts and structures.

The genetic fixation of the language of animals is expressed, in particular, in the fact that its elements are key stimuli that turn on or inhibit the corresponding instinctive actions.

So, during the period of feeding chicks, many birds resolutely attack any not too large mobile creature that is near the nest (such are, in particular, small predators that feed on chicks). The question arose, why do they not touch their own chicks? It turned out that the chicks are guarded by their own squeak. These are signals that inhibit their parents' aggression and excite parental behavior.

Animal rituals are a complex set of instinctive actions that have lost their original function and entered another sphere of life as signals or symbols.

In some species of birds, such actions have acquired a symbolic form and the "gift" has become inedible: this function can be a simple pebble or, more often, a twig, which, however, can also serve as nest-building material.

With all the sometimes striking outward similarity of rituals in animals and humans ("kisses", "marriage gifts", etc.), their nature is profoundly different. In animals, these are always genetically programmed, instinctive acts; in humans - actions transmitted through cultural traditions.

Particularly complex forms of communication are observed in animals living in communities. Life in herds, flocks, families is widespread in the animal world.

A characteristic feature of many animal communities is the hierarchy of its members. Each individual usually knows who is stronger and who is weaker than her. The hierarchy is established and maintained with the help of various acts of communication - small skirmishes, rituals, tournaments, etc. Stronger individuals receive advantages in the distribution of food, the choice of marriage partners. Individuals of higher ranks, and especially the leader, have greater "authority": they are obeyed, imitated, followed.

The leader of the pack or herd is usually the strongest and most experienced individual. This contributes to the reproduction of full-fledged offspring, as well as the use and transfer of rich individual experience.

In some communities, there is a clear distribution of functions between individuals; sex, age, rank characteristics serve as the basis.

The distribution of functions is most clearly represented in the reproductive sphere. In many species, the males forage for and bring food to the females, who incubate the eggs or stay with the young. True, it is far from always the breeding of offspring and care for it falls solely on the female. In many birds, the eggs are incubated by the male and female in turn.

In a number of fish, parents jointly grow fry. And in the smelt fish, the male alone does all the work of building the nest, protecting the eggs and raising the young.

Another example of the distribution of functions is observed in a pack of hyena dogs. There, while hunting, the males swallow the meat of the victim in pieces, and then, when they come home, they regurgitate them to the females and puppies.

Particularly impressive is the complexity of organizing a life together with a clear differentiation of functions in social insects - bees, ants, etc.

The honey bee family consists of one queen, many hundreds and even thousands of worker bees and, at a certain period, drones. The queen is occupied only with laying eggs, the worker bees fully serve her and perform numerous works on the hive: they build and clean the combs, take care of the food of the larvae, collect honey supplies, clean and ventilate the nest, and protect it from the invasion of enemies. At the same time, there is a narrow specialization among worker bees: there are bees - "educators", "gatherers", "watchmen", etc. Drones do not participate in any work, they exist only to fertilize the female. When autumn comes, they are killed or expelled from the hive.

Monkey herds also have a clear distribution of functions. Young males, the most mobile and the most moving away from the herd, act as sentries. An old, experienced leader oversees order in the herd and external security. In the event of a large predator approaching, he leads the herd to a safe zone. When moving a herd, females with cubs are surrounded by strong males: some of them, together with the leader, lead the procession, others close it.

Summarizing the above facts, one should single out the main thing that distinguishes the group behavior of animals from the social life of a person - this is its subordination to exclusively biological goals, laws and mechanisms. The group behavior of animals was fixed by natural selection; only those forms of it were recorded that provided the best solution to direct biological problems - nutrition, self-preservation and reproduction.

Human society arose on a completely different basis - on the basis of joint labor activity, unknown and inaccessible to animals. Both in his individual development and in social life, a person got out of the power of biological laws and from a certain moment of anthropogenesis began to obey social laws.

Productive labor was made possible by the use of tools. According to F. Engels, "labor begins with the manufacture of tools." Therefore, the tool activity of animals is considered as one of the biological prerequisites of anthropogenesis, and this problem is in the center of attention of anthropologists and comparative psychologists.

Some time ago it was assumed that the use of tools was available only to great apes, moreover, in captivity. Recently, facts have been discovered of the use of tools in many species of animals, including lower monkeys, birds, and even insects.

J. Lavik-Goodall's studies of the life of chimpanzees in natural conditions have become widely known. She observed that chimpanzees use straws or sticks to extract termites; with these tools they pierce holes in moss-covered termite mounds.

Chewing a mass of last year's leaves, the monkeys make a kind of "sponges" with which they get water from the recesses in the trees.

It is significant that in both of the above cases, the animals not only use, but also make and improve tools: when using a twig, leaves and side shoots are cut off from it; leaves for the "sponge" are chewed. However, the inability of animals to make tools with the help of another tool remains an absolute fact. Here is the line that separates animals from humans.

Animals process tools with the help of natural means - their own organs: teeth, hands, etc. Primitive man began to make his tools, Doing stone on stone. This, at first glance, insignificant shift reflected fundamental progressive changes both in the structure of the activity of primitive man and in his psyche.

Making a tool with the help of another object meant the separation of the action from the biological motive and thus the emergence of a new type of activity - labor. The manufacture of a tool for the future presupposed the existence of an image of the future action, i.e., the appearance of a plan of consciousness. It further assumed the division of labor, that is, the establishment of social relations on the basis of non-biological activity in its content. Finally, it meant the materialization of the experience of labor operations (in the form of a tool) with the possibility of storing this experience and passing it on to subsequent generations.

None of the above is characteristic of the tool activity of animals. They resort to the use of tools only prompted by biological motives and only in a specific situation. They never enter into a relationship with each other about the use of tools, especially about its manufacture.

All this made it possible to define the use of tools by animals as one of the forms of biological adaptation. It has only an external resemblance to the labor actions of a person.

In conclusion, we list the main features of the mental activity of animals that distinguish it from the human psyche.

1. All animal activity is determined by biological motives. This is well expressed in the frequently quoted words of the German psychologist A. Gelb: "An animal cannot do anything senseless. Only a man is capable of this" [cit. according to: 68, p. 5].

2. All animal activity is limited by the scope of visual concrete situations. They are not able to plan their actions, be guided by the "ideally" presented goal. This is manifested, for example, in their lack of manufacturing tools for future use.

3. The basis of animal behavior in all spheres of life, including language and communication, is hereditary species programs. Learning from them is limited to the acquisition of individual experience, thanks to which the specific programs adapt to the specific conditions of the individual's existence.

4. Animals lack the consolidation, accumulation and transfer of the experience of generations in material form, i.e. in the form of objects of material culture.

The term was introduced by E. Haeckel (1866)

The concept of phylogeny means the change in various forms of organic change in the process of evolution. In psychology, phylogenesis is understood as the process of changing the psyche as a product of evolution.

Figure 3

The main stages in the development of the psyche and forms of behavior in the animal world

At the stage of elementary sensitivity, the animal reacts only to individual properties of objects in the external world, and its behavior is determined by innate instincts (nutrition, self-preservation, reproduction, etc.). At the stage of object perception, reality is reflected in the form of integral images of objects and the animal is able to learn, individually acquired behavioral skills appear.

The third stage of intellect is characterized by the animal's ability to reflect interdisciplinary connections, reflect the situation as a whole, as a result, the animal is able to bypass obstacles, "invent" new ways of solving two-phase problems that require preliminary preparatory actions for their solution. The intellectual behavior of animals does not go beyond the bounds of biological need, it operates only within the visual situation.

The human psyche is a qualitatively higher level than the psyche of animals (Homo sapiens is a reasonable person). Consciousness, the human mind developed in the process of labor activity, which arises due to the need to carry out joint actions to obtain food during a sharp change in the living conditions of primitive man. And although the specific biological and morphological features of a person have been stable for 40 millennia, the development of the human psyche took place in the process of labor activity. Thus, the material, spiritual culture of mankind is an objective form of embodiment of the achievements of the mental development of mankind.

In the process of the historical development of society, a person changes the ways and methods of his behavior, transforms natural inclinations and functions into higher mental functions - specifically human, socio-historically conditioned forms of memory, thinking, perception (logical memory, abstract-logical thinking), mediated by the use of auxiliary means , speech signs created in the process of historical development. The unity of higher mental functions forms the consciousness of man.

Questions for self-examination:

1. Origin and development of the psyche in phylogenesis.

2. Stages of the evolutionary development of the psyche.

3. The concept of taxis

4. The concept of instinct

5. The concept of reflex

7. Intelligent behavior.

Material for studying the topic:

1. Gippenreiter Yu.B. Introduction to general psychology. Moscow: CheRo, 1998

2. Leontiev A.N. Lectures on General Psychology. M.: Meaning, 2000.

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Regarding the formation and development of the psyche and behavior in animals, there are a number of hypotheses. One of them, concerning the stages and levels of development of mental reflection, from the simplest animals to humans, is put forward by A.N. Leontiev. At the basis of the stages of mental development described by him, Leontiev put the signs of the most profound qualitative changes that the psyche has undergone in the process of evolution of the animal world. According to this concept, a number of stages and levels can be distinguished in the development of the psyche and behavior of animals. A.N. Leontiev identified two main stages in the development of the psyche: elementary sensory and perceptual. The first includes two levels: the lowest and the highest, and the second - three levels: the lowest, the highest and the highest. As noted by A.N. Leontiev, in the process of evolutionary development, these processes are closely interconnected. The improvement of movements leads to an improvement in the adaptive activity of the body, which, in turn, contributes to the complication of the nervous system, expanding its capabilities, creates conditions for the development of new types of activity and forms of reflection. All this taken together contributes to the improvement of the psyche. A clear, most significant line runs between the elementary sensory and perceptual psyches, marking the main milestone in the grandiose process of the evolution of the psyche. Such a division, however, is too superficial and does not cover the entire diversity of the animal world. Later, taking into account many studies related to behavior, this hypothesis was finalized and refined by K.E. Fabry. K.E. Fabry believes that both within the elementary sensory and within the perceptual psyche, one should single out significantly different levels of mental development: the lower and the higher, while allowing the existence of intermediate levels. It is important to note that large systematic groups of animals do not always and do not fully fit into this framework. This is inevitable, since within the limits of large taxon - (from lat. taxare - evaluate) a set of discrete objects, connected by a certain commonality of properties and features that characterize this set. This can be explained by the fact that the qualities of the highest mental level are always born at the previous level. From the point of view of A.N. Severtsov, changes in living conditions give rise to the need to change behavior, and this then leads to corresponding morphological changes in the motor and sensory spheres and in the central nervous system. But not immediately and even not always functional changes entail morphological changes. Moreover, in higher animals, purely functional changes without morphological rearrangements are often quite sufficient, and sometimes even the most effective. adaptive changes in behavior only. Therefore, behavior in combination with the multifunctionality of the motor organs provides animals with the most flexible adaptation to new living conditions. These functional and morphological transformations determine the quality and content of mental reflection in the process of evolution. At the same time, innate and acquired behavior are not successive steps on the evolutionary ladder, but develop and become more complex together, as two components of one single process. Progressive development of instinctive, genetically fixed behavior corresponds to progress in the field of individually variable behavior. Instinctive behavior reaches its greatest complexity precisely in the higher animals, and this progress entails the development and complication of their forms of learning.

Sensory stage (or stage of elementary sensitivity) - at this stage, animals reflect individual properties of objects and phenomena, there is no holistic reflection of objects;

The lowest level - reticular (diffuse) nervous system - coelenterates

The highest level is the nodal (ganglionic) nervous system - worms.

Perceptual stage (perception) - animals at this stage are able to reflect not only individual properties of objects and phenomena, but also objects and phenomena as a whole.

Lower level: this stage is typical for animals with a ganglionic nervous system with the allocation of various departments. The rudiments of the brain appear, the abdominal region - all arthropods.

Highest level: tubular nervous system - in chordates (lancelets, fish, freshwater, mammals).

The stage of intellect (manual thinking) - animals are able to reflect simple connections between objects, reflect an objective situation, and solve two-phase tasks.

The lowest level - animals in which the central nervous system already appears and the cerebral cortex appears (dogs, cats, dolphins, monkeys).

The first - the stage of the elementary sensory psyche - has two levels: the lowest and the highest. The first stage is characterized by a sensory mode, or level of sensations.

The second - the stage of the perceptual psyche - has three levels: the lowest, the highest and the highest. The allocation of these two stages of the development of the psyche is based on the main characteristics of the methods for obtaining information about the world around us. For the second - a perceptual way, or level of perception

15. General idea of ​​the forms of behavior: instinct, learning, skill, intelligence

Behavior is understood as a certain way organized activity that connects the organism with the environment. While in man the inner plane of consciousness is differentiated from behavior, in animals the psyche and behavior form a direct unity, so that the study of their psyche must be included as a component in the study of their behavior. Instinct is a set of innate components of the behavior and psyche of animals and humans. An integral part of instinctive behavior is its least plastic component. Animals have genetically programmed forms of behavior that are characteristic of a given species and are associated primarily with the food, protective and reproductive spheres. Fairly constant and independent of local changes in the external environment. Conclusions about the "blindness" or "reasonableness" of instincts are incorrect: one should speak, respectively, of their fixity, rigidity and biological expediency. The rigidity of the instinct is also expedient - it reflects the adaptability of the animal to the constancy of its living conditions. The "mistakes" of instinct when an animal enters conditions unusual for it can be compared with "mistakes", illusions of perception; instincts are characterized by the same "irresistibility" and even "coercion". Those and other "mistakes" arise as a result of the automatic operation of involuntary mechanisms - correct, but found themselves in "wrong", artificial, unlikely or even impossible situations in nature. According to ethological theory, instincts are conditioned by the action of external and internal factors. External include special stimuli - key incentives. Internal factors include endogenous stimulation of the centers of instinctive actions, leading to a decrease in the threshold of their excitation. In this sense, the facts of the expansion of the spectrum of stimuli that cause instinctive actions are very indicative, especially the facts of the spontaneous appearance of the latter. According to the model of K. Lorenz, usually the endogenous activity of instinctive actions is inhibited and blocked. Appropriate stimuli release the blockage, acting as a key, hence the name. Nowadays, views on the question of the relationship between instinct and learning have changed significantly. Previously, forms of behavior based on instinct and learning were opposed. It was believed that instinctive actions are strictly programmed and their individual “finishing” is impossible. Later it turned out that this is far from being the case: many instinctive actions must go through a period of formation and training in the course of the individual development of the animal - the period of obligate learning. So many instinctive acts are "finished" in the individual experience of the animal, and this completion is also programmed. It ensures the adaptation of instinctive action to environmental conditions. Of course, the plasticity of instinctive action is limited and determined genetically. Much greater plasticity is provided by optional learning - the process of mastering new, purely individual forms of behavior. If during obligate learning all individuals of a species improve in the same species-typical actions, then with optional learning they master individual-special forms of behavior, adapting them to specific conditions of existence. Different content was put into the concept of instinct at different times:

1) sometimes instinct was opposed to consciousness, and in relation to a person, it served to designate passions, impulsive, thoughtless behavior, "animal nature" in the human psyche, etc.;

2) in other cases, complex unconditioned reflexes, nervous mechanisms for coordinating vital movements, etc., were called instinct.

In phylogeny, before learning, instinctive behavior helped living beings survive and adapt. The next step in evolution was learning (first obligate, then optional learning). The next step in acquiring individual experience after learning is training, education and upbringing.

Learning in the broad sense (in this sense, the term is more often used by foreign authors) includes learning, and then it is understood simply as a change in behavior due to the acquisition of new experience. Types of learning. Usually, behavioral learning includes such processes as habituation, imprinting, imprinting, sensitization, associative learning (anchoring, the formation of simple conditioned reflexes), operant learning, including instrumental learning (trial and error method) and creative learning, sequential learning

Separately, social learning should be singled out - learning social life: how to live among people (or, in the case of animal behavior, how to live among other animals).

With regard to learning as the acquisition of knowledge, there are three types of learning: knowledge building, restructuring and tuning.

A person has several types of learning. The first and simplest of them unites man with all other living beings with a developed central nervous system. This is learning by the mechanism of imprinting, i.e., fast, automatic, almost instantaneous in comparison with the long learning process of adapting the body to the specific conditions of its life using forms of behavior practically ready from birth. For example, it is enough to touch the inner surface of the palm of a newborn with some hard object, as his fingers automatically tighten. Through the described mechanism of imprinting, numerous inborn instincts are formed, including motor, sensory and others. According to the tradition that has developed since the time of I.P. Pavlov, such forms of behavior are called unconditioned reflexes, although the word “instinct” is more suitable for their name. Such forms of behavior are usually genotypically programmed and hardly amenable to change. The second type of learning is conditioned reflex. This type of learning involves the emergence of new forms of behavior as conditioned responses to an initially neutral stimulus that did not previously cause a specific reaction. Stimuli that are capable of generating a conditioned reflex reaction of the organism must be perceived by it. All the main elements of the future reaction must also already be available in the body. Thanks to conditioned reflex learning, they are connected with each other into a new system that provides the implementation of a more complex form of behavior than elementary innate reactions. The third type of learning is operant. With this type of learning, knowledge, skills and abilities are acquired by the so-called trial and error method. It consists of the following. The task or situation faced by the individual generates in him a complex of various reactions: instinctive, unconditional, conditional. The body consistently tries each of them in practice to solve the problem and automatically evaluates the result achieved. That of the reactions or that random combination of them that leads to the best result, i.e., ensures the optimal adaptation of the organism to the situation that has arisen, is distinguished from the rest and fixed in the experiment. This is learning by trial and error. All the types of learning described are found in both humans and animals and represent the main ways in which various living beings acquire life experience. But a person also has special, higher ways of learning, rarely or almost not found in other living beings. This is, firstly, learning through direct observation of the behavior of other people, as a result of which a person immediately adopts and assimilates the observed forms of behavior. Secondly, this is verbal learning, i.e., the acquisition of new experience by a person through language. Thanks to him, a person has the opportunity to transfer to other people who speak, and to receive the necessary abilities, knowledge, skills and abilities, describing them verbally in sufficient detail and understandable for the student.

SKILL (automated action, secondary automatism) - an action formed by repetition, characterized by a high degree of mastery and the absence of element-by-element conscious regulation and control. There are perceptual, intellectual and motor skills, as well as: 1) initially automated skills, formed without awareness of their components; 2) secondarily automated skills, formed with preliminary awareness of the components of the action; they more easily become consciously controlled, more quickly improved and rebuilt. Through the formation of skills, a twofold effect is achieved: the action is performed quickly and accurately, and there is a release of consciousness, which can be directed to mastering more complex actions. This process is of fundamental importance and underlies the development of all skills, knowledge and abilities. In combination with knowledge and skills, skills provide a correct reflection in ideas and thinking: the world, the laws of nature and society, people's relationships, a person's place in society and his behavior. All this helps to determine your position in relation to reality. Skills are characterized by varying degrees of generalization: the wider the class of objects in relation to which the skill can be implemented, the more generalized and labile it is. The process of skill formation includes the definition of its components and such mastery of the operation, which allows you to achieve the highest performance based on the improvement and consolidation of connections between the components, automation and a high level of action readiness for reproduction. The study of skills began with motor skills, but as different aspects of mental activity were studied, sensory and mental skills began to be studied. This classification was fixed, because not only distinctive, but also general properties of the skills of all classes were established. Most often, skills are formed by imitation or development of conditioned reflexes, but also by trial and error, and with an increase in the number of trials, errors become less and less. So, the development of a skill is a process, as it were, coming from two opposite sides: from the side of the subject and from the side of the organism. Individual elements are arbitrarily and consciously singled out from complex movements and their implementation is practiced. At the same time, without the participation of will and consciousness, there is a process of automation of action. The organism in the course of automation takes over a significant part of the work organized by consciousness. The following empirical factors influence the formation of a skill: 1) motivation, learning ability, progress in assimilation, exercise, reinforcement, formation as a whole or in parts; 2) to understand the content of the operation - the level of development of the subject, the availability of knowledge, skills, the method of explaining the content of the operation (direct communication, indirect guidance, etc.). ), feedback feedback; 3) for mastering an operation - the completeness of understanding its content, the gradual transition from one level of mastery to another according to certain indicators (automation, internalization, speed, etc.).

Intelligence is the ability of a person to act purposefully, think rationally and achieve certain results. This ability is necessary when various difficulties and problems arise in a person's life. It can be a mathematical problem, the ability to quickly make a decision and act in a dangerous situation. Types of intelligence. The development of the intellect predetermines both heredity and the development of mental functions. The concept of intelligence includes such types of mental activity as memory, perception, thinking, speech, attention, which are the prerequisites for cognitive activity, the ability to make the most of previously acquired experience, perform analysis and synthesis, improve skills and multiply knowledge. The better the memory and thinking, the higher the intelligence. Both creativity and social intelligence, as well as the ability to solve psychological problems, are important for the level of intelligence. Psychologists use the concept of fluid and crystallized intelligence to determine age-related changes in intelligence. Crystallized, or concrete, intelligence is speech skills, knowledge and the ability to apply one's knowledge in practice or in scientific activities. Fluid, or abstract, intelligence is the ability to think abstractly, draw conclusions and the ability to use them. With age, the fluid intelligence of a person decreases, while the crystallized one, on the contrary, increases. The development of intelligence. In the first ten years of a person's life, intelligence gradually increases. This is easy to verify by performing an age-appropriate test. The intellect of a person of 18-20 years old reaches its peak, although, of course, a person improves his intellect throughout his life, studies, gains experience, etc. The level of intelligence can be predicted relatively early. During the first 18 months of a child's life, nothing can be said about his future intellect, but already at this time it is necessary to develop the mental abilities of the child.

Psyche is the product of a long and complex process of development of organic nature. The simplest microorganisms do not have a psyche. They are characterized by a more elementary form of reflection - irritability.

The emergence of the psychic form of reflection as a property of special matter is associated with the emergence of the simplest nervous system. Such a nervous system first appears in intestinal animals (hydra, jellyfish, sea anemone). This nervous system consists of individual nerve cells with processes intertwined with each other, and is called reticular or diffuse. With such a nervous system, undifferentiated reactions of the whole organism to various stimuli are observed. There is no control center here yet.

The control center appears at the next stage of the development of the nervous system - ganglionic(nodal or chain) nervous system. In worms, nerve nodes (ganglia) are located in each segment of the body. All nodes are interconnected, and the body acts as a single whole. At the same time, the head node is much more complicated than all the others, and reacts more differentially to external stimuli.

nervous system characteristic of insects, represents a further development and complication of the ganglionic nervous system. Here, the abdominal, thoracic and head sections are already clearly distinguished. The head knot, which regulates the movement of the limbs, wings and other organs, becomes noticeably more complicated. Higher insects (bees, ants) have olfactory, gustatory, tactile and visual sensations.

At vertebrates animals, a new type of nervous system appears - the central one, which is characterized by the isolation of the spinal cord and brain. The development of the central nervous system is expressed in gradual corticalization, i.e., an increase in the volume and role of the cerebral cortex.

The development of the central nervous system of different animals occurs differently and unevenly. It is due to the way of life of the species, the characteristics of the habitat.

For birds vision is decisive, and the visual cortex has been most developed in them. At monkeys and human visual sensations play a leading role. Their visual area of ​​the cortex is much better developed than, for example, the olfactory area. With the advent of the central nervous system, a new form of mental reflection appears - the perceptual stage of the development of the psyche. At this stage, animals can simultaneously reflect several stimuli and synthesize them into the image of an object. This creates a subject reflection.