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Internal and external activities according to Leontiev. Psychological theory of activity of A. The purpose of the work is to consider the theory of A.N. Leontyev

The structure of activity, according to A. N. Leontiev, assumes the presence of two aspects: operational and motivational. The operational aspect (activity - action - operation - psychophysiological functions) includes structures of transformations with varying degrees of condensation and automation. The motivational aspect of activity (motive - goal - conditions) is a hierarchy of incentives that cause these transformations.

In addition, we can talk about the significance of functional relationships within aspects and their hierarchical two-way relationship (activity - motive, action - goal, operation - conditions).

A. N. Leontyev has repeatedly emphasized the integrity of the intra-aspect division: an activity can include one single action and even an operation, be an action or an operation (Leontyev, 1975). In other words, in order to get closer to how A. N. Leontiev understood the structure of activity, we must abandon dividing its structure into “bricks” and perceive it as a specific system.

According to A. N. Leontiev, each of the activities belonging to a person (or formed by him) meets (or at least should meet) a certain need of the subject, is attached to the object of this need and fades away as a result of its satisfaction.

The activity can be reproduced again, and under completely new conditions. The main thing that allows us to identify the same activity in its different manifestations is the object to which it is directed. Thus, the only adequate identifier of activity is its motive. Activity without a motive does not exist, and any unmotivated activity is an ordinary activity with a subjectively and/or objectively hidden motive.

Components of individual human activities are the actions that implement them. According to A. N. Leontiev, action is “a process subordinate to the idea of the result that should be achieved, i.e. a process subordinated to a conscious goal" (Leontiev, 1975). The identification of goals and the design of actions subordinate to them lead to the division of functions hidden in the motive. The function of motivation is retained by the motive, and the function of choosing the direction of action is taken over by the goal. Therefore in general case the object that stimulates activity and the objects that direct its actions do not coincide.

Activity in relation to the actions that implement it is not an additive process (it never acts as an arithmetic sum of actions). It does not exist except in the form of an action or chain of actions. But at the same time, activity and action represent independent realities.

The same action can participate in the implementation of various activities and move from one activity to another. The opposite is also possible: the same motive is concretized in different sets of goals, that is, it gives rise to different chains of actions. For a person, especially in cases of his interaction with other people, the role common goal fulfills a conscious motive, which turns into a goal motive.

“Identification of a goal (i.e. awareness of the immediate result, the achievement of which is carried out by a given activity, capable of satisfying the need objectified in its motive) is a special, almost unstudied process” (Leontyev, 1975). Every goal exists in some objective situation. Therefore, the action associated with it must be carried out depending on the specific conditions that arise. “Ways of carrying out actions. - writes A. N. Leontyev, - I call operations "

Just as actions are related to the goals associated with them, their constituent operations are related to the conditions for achieving the corresponding goals. Actions and operations have different origins. The genesis of action is associated with the exchange of activities between individuals. The origin of operations is associated with the results of the transformation of actions that take place when they are included in other actions with subsequent technicalization.

Initially, each operation is formed as an action subordinated to a specific goal and having its own indicative basis. Then this action is included in another action by the operational composition itself and becomes one of the operations that implement it. Here it ceases to be carried out as a special, purposeful process: its goal is not highlighted, for consciousness it no longer exists. Moreover, the operation can be torn away from the person and performed automatically (Logvinov, 1980).

The connection between the components of the operational and motivational aspects is two-way. The direct connection is closed through mental processes occurring within the subject, and is already quite obvious from the above description. Feedback is closed through the objects to which the activity is directed. The transformation of objects leads to a change in the conditions in which individual operations are performed, to the deformation of goals associated with the corresponding actions, and to the exhaustion of the very motive of activity as the need that causes it is satisfied.

Thus, not only the operational components of activity, following changes in needs refracted in the motivational aspect, are mobile, but also motivational components, following changes in the object of activity caused by the activity of the subject.

The fundamental position of the theory of activity is the concept of three forms of its manifestation. Theoretically, they are distinguished:

The internal component of activity (taking place within the framework of consciousness);

External activity of the subject (including consciousness and objects of the external world);

Activity as something embodied in things and signs, which reveals:
content of human culture.

Unity of external and internal activities. Activity theory distinguishes two forms of activity: external (practical, material) and internal (ideal, mental, “theoretical”) activity. For a long time, psychology studied only internal activity. External activity was seen as an expression of internal activity. But gradually the researchers came to the conclusion that the structure of these two forms is the same, that is, it represents a commonality. Internal activity, like external activity, is stimulated by needs and motives, is accompanied by emotional experiences, has its own operational and technical composition, that is, it consists of a sequence of actions and operations that implement them. The difference is that actions are performed not with real objects, but with their images, and instead of a real product, a mental result is obtained

Conducted studies by L. S. Vygotsky, A. N. Leontyev, P. Ya. Galperin, D. B. Elkonin and others show that internal activity arose from external, practical activity through the process of interiorization, i.e., by transferring corresponding actions to the mental plan. To successfully reproduce some action “in the mind,” it is necessary to master it in material terms, to form your own internal plan of action with similar objects. During internalization, external activity, although it does not change its fundamental structure, is greatly transformed: it occurs sequential change and reduction of external material actions and the formation of internal, ideal actions performed in mentally. In the psychological literature one can often find the following example of internalization. associated with teaching a child to count. First, he counts the sticks (the real object of operation), placing them on the table (external activity). Then he does without sticks, limiting himself only to external observation of them. Gradually, sticks become unnecessary, and counting turns into a mental action (internal activity). Numbers and words (mental objects) become the object of operation.

At the same time, internal actions anticipate and prepare external ones, and exteriorization of activity occurs. The mechanism of exteriorization proceeds on the basis of the transformation of the internal patterns that emerged during interiorization and the previously formed internal ideal plan of action.

The relationship between external and internal activities can be presented as follows (Figure 2) (Psychology and Pedagogy, 1998):

S. L. Rubinstein has a different point of view, according to which one cannot talk about the formation of “internal” mental activity from the “external” practical one through internalization, since the internal (psychic) plane exists even before interiorization.

“When studying mental activity or mental processes, it is fundamentally important to take into account that they usually occur simultaneously at different levels and that, at the same time, any external opposition of “higher” mental processes to “lower” ones is illegal, because every “higher” mental process presupposes “lower” ones. "and is carried out on their basis. Mental processes occur at several levels at once, and the “highest” level actually always exists only inseparably from the “lower ones.” They are always interconnected and form a single whole” (Rubinstein 1989).

Main literature

1 Abulkhanova-Slavskaya K A Brushlinsky A V Philosophical and psychological concept of S L Rubinstein M Nauka 1989 248s

2 Gippenreiter Yu B Introduction to general psychology Course of lectures M CheRo 1998 334s

3 Leontyev A A Activity mind (Activity Sign Personality) M Meaning 2001 392 s

4 Leontyev A N Activity Consciousness Personality M Politizdat 1975 304s

additional literature

1 Anokhin PK Selected works Philosophical aspects of the theory of functional systems
M Science 1978 405s

2 Asmolov A G Cultural-historical psychology and the construction of worlds M -
Voronezh NPO "Modek" 1996 768с

3 Brushlinskii A V Polikarpov V A Thinking and communication Mn Universitetskoe
1990 214c

4 Brushlinsky A V S L Rubinshtein - the founder of the activity approach e
psychological science // Sergei Leonidovich Rubinstein Essays on remembrance
materials M Nauka 1989 S 61—102

5 Zinchenko V P Morgunov E B Developing man Essays on Russian
psychology M Trivola 1994 212s

6 Kozubovsky V M General psychology" Methodology, consciousness activity Mn
Amalthea 2003 224 s

7 Lobanov A P Systematic methodology for the formation of scientific concepts in adolescents
Mn NESSI 2002 222 s

8 Logvichov I I Simulation modeling of educational programs M Pedagogy 1980
128s

9 Psychology and pedagogy / Edited by K A Abulkhanova et al. - M Perfection 1998
320s

10 Rubinstein L Fundamentals of general psychology St. Petersburg Peter 2000 712с

11 Rubinshtein S L Principles of creative amateur activity Towards philosophical foundations
modern pedagogy // Questions of psychology 1986 No. 4 P 101-108

12 Sechenov I M Selected philosophical and psychological works of M State-
Politizdat 1947 647 p.

13 Cook of a practicing psychologist / Compiled by S Yu Golovin - Mn Harvest 2001 976

14 Stepanova M A The place of Galperin’s theory in the psychological concept
activities // Questions of psychology 2002 No. 5 P 28-41

15 Talzina N F Development of PY Galperin’s activity approach in psychology /
Questions of psychology 2002 No. 5 S 42-49

16 Ukhtomsky A A Selected works L Nauka 1978 358s

17 Yudin E G Activity and systematicity // Systemic research Yearbook M
Progress 1976 C 14-29

Theory of activity of Alexey Leontyev

The concept of activity, according to A. N. Leontiev, is interpreted as follows. It is based on the concept of action, that is, a process whose object and motive do not coincide with each other. Both of them, the motive and the object, must be reflected in the psyche of the subject: otherwise the action is deprived of its meaning for him. Next, the concept of operation is introduced. The psychological fusion of individual private actions into a single action represents the transformation of the latter into operations. At the same time, the content that previously occupied the place of the conscious goals of these private actions occupies in the structure complex action the structural location of the conditions for its implementation. Another type of operation is born from the simple adaptation of an action to the conditions of its implementation. Finally, the concept of activity is introduced as an action that has received an independent motive. In this, and only in this case, we are dealing with a conscious motive. Awareness of the motive is not initial, but requires some special act of reflection of the relationship of the motive of a given specific activity to the motive of a broader activity. The most important feature of Leontiev’s concept is that in it the structure of activity and the structure of consciousness are mutually transferable concepts; they are related to each other within the framework of one whole system. The fact that usually the analysis of the structure of activity precedes the analysis of the structure of consciousness is associated with the genetic approach. But genetically, consciousness cannot be understood otherwise than as a product of activity. Functionally, their connections are mutual activity and “controlled by consciousness,” and at the same time, in a certain sense, it itself controls it. It is therefore necessary to particularly dwell on the problem of the connection between the structure of activity and the structure of consciousness.

Already in his first works, A. N. Leontyev emphasizes that the emergence of a differentiated internal structure in activity is a consequence of the emergence of collective labor activity. It is possible then, and only then, when a person subjectively reflects the real or possible connection of his actions with the achievement of a common final result. This allows a person to perform individual actions that would seem to be ineffective if taken in isolation, outside of collective activity. “Thus, along with the birth of actions,” writes A. N. Leontyev, of this main “unit” of human activity, the basic, social in nature “unit” of the human psyche arises, the rational meaning for a person of what his activity is aimed at.” At the same time, there also appears the possibility of designation, presentation of the objective world itself, realized with the help of language, as a result of which consciousness arises in its own sense, as a reflection of reality through linguistic meanings. The genesis, development and functioning of consciousness are derived from one or another level of development of the forms and functions of activity: “Together with the change in the structure of human activity, the self changes internal structure his consciousness." How? Mental reflection is always "biased." But it contains something that is correlated with objective connections, relationships, interactions, what is included in social consciousness and enshrined in language, and what depends on the attitude of this particular subject to the reflected object. Hence the distinction between meaning and personal meaning, so often analyzed by different authors. The development of production requires a system of subordinate actions. In terms of consciousness, this means a transition from a conscious goal to a conscious condition of action, the emergence of levels of awareness. But the division of labor and production specialization lead to a “shift of motive to goal” and the transformation of action into activity. New motives and needs are created, and further qualitative differentiation of awareness occurs. Another step is the transition to the actual internal mental processes, the emergence of the theoretical phase of practical activity. Internal actions appear, and subsequently internal activities and internal operations are formed according to the general law of shifting motives. But activity that is ideal in its form is not fundamentally separated from external, practical activity. Both of them “are equally meaningful and meaning-forming processes. It is in their commonality that the integrity of a person’s life is expressed.” Action is internally connected with personal meaning. As for conscious operations, they are correlated with meanings that crystallize for the individual’s consciousness the social experience he assimilates.

Just like activity, consciousness is not a simple sum of elements; it has its own structure, its own internal integrity, its own logic. And if human life is a system of successive and coexisting or conflicting activities, then consciousness is what unites them, what ensures their reproduction, variation, development, their hierarchy.

In the book "Activity. Consciousness. Personality" these ideas received new development. First of all, the indivisible, molar nature of activity is emphasized, since it is “a system that has its own structure, its own internal transitions and transformations, its own development,” “included in the system of relations of society.” In society, a person falls not only under external conditions, to which he adapts his activity, the social conditions themselves carry within themselves the motives and goals of his activity, thus society creates the activity of the individuals who form it. Primary activity is controlled by the object itself (the objective world), and secondarily by its image, as a subjective product of activity that carries subject content. The conscious image is understood here as an ideal measure, embodied in activity; it, human consciousness, essentially participates in the movement of activity. Along with the “consciousness-image,” the concept of “consciousness of activity” is introduced, and in general, consciousness is defined as the internal movement of its constituents, included in the general movement of activity. Attention is focused on the fact that actions are not special “separates” within the activity; human activity does not exist except in the form of an action or chain of actions. One and the same process appears as activity in its relation to the motive, as an action or chain of actions in its subordination to the goal. Thus, action is not a component or a unit of activity: it is precisely its “formative”, its moment. Next, the relationship between motives and goals is analyzed.

The concept of “goal motivation” is introduced, i.e. a conscious motive, acting as a “general goal” (the goal of an activity, not an action), and a “goal zone”, the identification of which only depends on the motive; the choice of a specific goal, the process of goal formation, is associated with “testing goals through action.”

At the same time, the concept of two aspects of action is introduced. "Besides its intentional aspect (what is to be achieved) action also has its operational aspect (how, in what way this can be achieved."

Hence, a slightly different definition of an operation is the quality of an action that forms an action. The question is raised about the division of activity into units that are more fractional than an operation. Finally, the concept of personality is introduced as an internal aspect of activity. It is and only as a result of the hierarchization of the individual’s individual activities that carry out his social nature of relations with the world that he acquires a special quality and becomes a person. A new step in the analysis is that if, when considering activity, the concept of action acted as the central one, then in the analysis of personality, the main thing becomes the concept of hierarchical connections of activities, the hierarchy of their motives. These connections, however, are in no way determined by the personality as some kind of extra-activity or supra-activity formation; the development and expansion of the range of activities itself leads to tying them into “knots,” and hence to the formation of a new level of consciousness of the individual. But among the problems that have not been fully developed is, in particular, the problem of motive; this concept itself remained internally inconsistent in Leontyev, although it was not contradictory.

After the publication of “Activity. Consciousness. Personality,” A. N. Leontyev wrote two new works on activity. The first is a report at the All-Union Psychological Congress on June 27, 1977, published posthumously. Here the accents are placed most clearly and, by the way, the directions are just as clearly outlined further development. We are talking about the problem of activity and attitude, the problem of supra-situational activity, the problem of goal setting, the problem of skills. The main idea of the entire publication is that “activity as a unit of real human existence, although realized by the brain, is a process that necessarily includes extracerebral links, which are decisive. The second work is one of the most recent (beginning of 1978), and it was not completed. This is an article “On further psychological analysis of activity" (manuscript). Here Leontyev returns to the problem of activity and communication, sharply contrasting his position with attempts to “bifurcate” a person’s life into parallel processes of activity and processes of communication: “.. “Not only do the relationships of individuals to the objective world not exist outside of communication, but their communication itself is generated by the development of these relationships.” Two more areas of Leontiev’s work in the last years of his life were especially closely related to personality problems. Alexei Nikolaevich’s appeal to the problems of the psychology of art is not accidental: It is difficult to find an area of human activity in which a person as an integral personality would realize himself more fully and comprehensively. Therefore, A. N. Leontyev’s interest in art did not fade away until very recently. Unfortunately, he left almost no publications on the psychology of art, although he often and willingly spoke on these topics.

Defining the subject of psychological science as the generation and functioning in activity of a mental reflection of reality, A. N. Leontiev could not help but turn to the detailed development of both and the psychological mechanisms of sensory reflection, and the essence and structure of activity. Already in the articles of the 50s, A. N. Leontyev, relying, in particular, on the research conducted under his leadership on the formation of pitch hearing, and then the activity of the visual system, formulated the well-known hypothesis of “assimilation”. Later, his interests shifted to the study of the objectivity of human perception, both experimentally (experiments with pseudoscopic vision, etc.) and theoretically. The main provisions of A. N. Leontiev in the last period of his activity regarding sensory reflection are as follows. Firstly, “the mental reflection generated by activity is a necessary moment of the activity itself, a guiding, orienting and regulating moment. This, as it were, two-way process of mutual transitions, however, constitutes a single movement from which mental reflection is inseparable, for it does not exist otherwise than in this movement." Secondly, such reflection is possible only as part of some whole “image of the world”.

This is something more than a “direct sensory picture”: the image of the world “appears in meaning”, and the entire totality of human practice “in its idealized forms enters into the picture of the world”. Two points are extremely important here: a) the predetermination of this designated, meaningful objective world to each specific act of perception, the need to “fit” this act into a ready-made picture of the world; b) this picture of the world acts as a unity of individual and social experience. Associated with all these ideas is the proposition about the amodality of objective perception. As is known, during his lifetime A. N. Leontiev did not write a general work on perception, although his publications in this direction were quite numerous. In the early 70s, he conceived a book called “The Psychology of the Image,” later Alexey Nikolaevich found another title, “The Image of the World,” but it remained unwritten.

Leontiev's theory of activity, as well as the work of Vygotsky, attracts considerable attention from representatives of cultural psychology and the sociocultural approach. Perhaps they will play a role in ethnopsychology.

Theories of action and theories of activity -

Based on materials by Konstantin Efimov, website of the Faculty of Psychology of Moscow State University.

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The theory was based on the dialectical principle of Marxist philosophy: “Existence gives rise to consciousness.” He asserted the primacy of matter and the secondary nature of consciousness. Based on this, Leontyev believed that the psyche is a special type of activity. Activity was understood as such interaction with the environment, as a result of which an ideal image of this environment arises, which then begins to regulate behavior.

Basic provisions: - the main characteristic of human activity is its subject, i.e. the beginning of interaction with the object, and then with its image. The subject of the activity is what the activity is aimed at. The object can be a material object or an ideal object (thoughts, feelings, experiences). - genetically initial is the objective practical activity of a person. From it arise all other types of mental activity, cognitive, intellectual, and mental. This happens due to the process of interiorization, in which external practical actions become internal actions and move into the internal plane of consciousness.

The main concepts of this theory are activity, consciousness and personality.

Human activity has a complex hierarchical structure. It consists of several nonequilibrium levels. The top level is the level of special activities, then comes the level of actions, followed by the level of operations, and the lowest is the level of psychophysiological functions.

The central place in this hierarchical structure is occupied by action, which is the main unit of activity analysis. Action is a process aimed at realizing a goal, which, in turn, can be defined as an image desired result. It is necessary to pay attention to the fact that the goal in this case is a conscious image. While performing a certain activity, a person constantly keeps this image in his mind. Thus, action is a conscious manifestation of human activity. Exceptions are cases when a person, due to certain reasons or circumstances, has impaired adequacy of mental regulation of behavior, for example, during illness or in a state of passion. The main characteristics of the concept of “action” are four components. First, action includes as a necessary component an act of consciousness in the form of setting and maintaining a goal. Secondly, action is at the same time an act of behavior. It should be noted that action is a movement interconnected with consciousness. In turn, from the above one can draw one of the fundamental conclusions of activity theory. This conclusion consists of a statement about the inseparability of consciousness and behavior. Thirdly, the psychological theory of activity introduces the principle of activity through the concept of action, contrasting it with the principle of reactivity. The concept of “reactivity” implies a response or reaction to the influence of any stimulus. The stimulus-response formula is one of the main tenets of behaviorism. From this point of view, the stimulus influencing a person is active. Activity from the point of view of activity theory is a property of the subject itself, i.e. characterizes a person. The source of activity is located in the subject himself in the form of a goal towards which the action is aimed. Fourthly, the concept of “action” brings human activity into the objective and social world. The fact is that the goal of an action can have not only a biological meaning, such as obtaining food, but can also be aimed at establishing social contact or creating an object not related to biological needs.

Based on the characteristics of the concept “action” as the main element of activity analysis, we formulate fundamental principles psychological theory of activity:

Consciousness cannot be considered as closed in itself: it must manifest itself in activity (the principle of “blurring” the circle of consciousness).

Behavior cannot be considered in isolation from human consciousness (the principle of the unity of consciousness and behavior).

Activity is an active, purposeful process (the principle of activity). Human actions are objective; their goals are social in nature (the principle of objective human activity and the principle of its social conditionality).

The action itself cannot be considered as the element of the initial level from which the activity is formed. Action is a complex element, which often itself consists of many smaller ones. This situation is explained by the fact that every action is determined by a goal. Human goals are not only varied, but also of different scales. There are large goals that are divided into smaller private goals, and those, in turn, can be divided into even smaller private goals, etc. For example, let's say you want to plant an apple tree. To do this you need:

1) choose the right place for landing; 2) dig a hole; 3) take a seedling and sprinkle it with soil. Thus, your goal is divided into three subgoals. However, if you look at individual goals, you will notice that they also consist of even smaller goals. For example, in order to dig a hole, you must take a shovel, press it into the ground, remove it and throw the dirt away, etc. Consequently, your action aimed at planting an apple tree consists of smaller elements - private actions.

Now you need to pay attention to the fact that each action can be performed in different ways, i.e. by using in various ways. The way an action is performed is called an operation. In turn, the method of performing an action depends on the conditions. IN different conditions Different operations can be used to achieve the same goal. In this case, conditions mean both external circumstances and the capabilities of the acting subject himself. Therefore, a goal given under certain conditions is called a task in activity theory. Depending on the task, an operation can consist of a variety of actions, which can be divided into even smaller (private) actions. Thus, operations are larger units of activity than actions.

The main property of operations is that they are little or not realized at all. In this way, operations differ from actions, which presuppose both a conscious goal and conscious control over the course of the action. Essentially, the operations level is the level of automatic actions and skills. Skills are understood as automated components of conscious activity that are developed in the process of its implementation. Unlike those movements that are automatic from the very beginning, such as reflex movements, skills become automatic as a result of more or less prolonged practice. Therefore, operations are of two types: operations of the first type include those that arose through adaptation and adaptation to living conditions and activities, and operations of the second type include conscious actions, which, thanks to automation, have become skills and moved to the area of unconscious processes. At the same time, the former are practically not realized, while the latter are on the verge of consciousness.

Based on the above, we can conclude that it is difficult to distinguish a clear line between operations and actions. For example, when baking pancakes, you don't think twice about turning the pancake from one side to the other - this is an operation. But if, when performing this activity, you begin to control yourself and think about how to do it better, then you are faced with the need to perform a number of actions. In this case, turning the pancake turns into the goal of a whole series of actions, which in itself cannot be considered as an operation. Consequently, one of the most informative signs distinguishing actions and operations is the relationship between the degree of awareness of the activity being performed. In some cases, this indicator does not work, so you have to look for another objective behavioral or physiological sign.

Now let's move on to the third, lowest level of the structure of activity - psychophysiological functions. In activity theory, psychophysiological functions are understood as physiological mechanisms for ensuring mental processes. Since a person is a biosocial being, the course of mental processes is inseparable from the physiological level processes that provide the possibility of carrying out mental processes. There are a number of capabilities of the body, without which most mental functions cannot be carried out. Such capabilities primarily include the ability to sense, motor abilities, and the ability to record traces of past influences. This also includes a number of innate mechanisms fixed in the morphology of the nervous system, as well as those that mature during the first months of life. All these abilities and mechanisms are given to a person at his birth, i.e. they are genetically determined.

Psychophysiological functions provide both the necessary prerequisites for the implementation of mental functions and the means of activity. For example, when we try to remember something, we use special techniques for faster and better memorization. However, memorization would not have occurred if we did not have mnemonic functions, which consist in the ability to remember. The mnemonic function is innate. From the moment of birth, the child begins to remember a huge amount of information. Initially, this is the simplest information, then, in the process of development, not only the volume of memorized information increases, but also changes quality parameters memorization. At the same time, there is a memory disease in which memorization becomes completely impossible (Korsakov's syndrome), since the mnemonic function is destroyed. With this disease, events are completely unmemorable, even those that happened a few minutes ago. Therefore, even when such a patient tries to specifically learn a text, not only the text is forgotten, but also the very fact that such an attempt was made. Consequently, psychophysiological functions constitute the organic foundation of activity processes. Without them, not only specific actions are impossible, but also setting tasks for their implementation.

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Introduction

In the theory of activity A.N. Leontiev, activity is considered here as the subject of analysis. Since the psyche itself cannot be separated from the moments of activity that generate and mediate it, and the psyche itself is a form of objective activity. When deciding on the relationship between external practical activity and consciousness, the position is accepted that the internal plane of consciousness is formed in the process of collapsing initially practical actions. With this interpretation, consciousness and activity are distinguished as an image and the process of its formation, while the image is an “accumulated movement”, collapsed actions. This postulate has been implemented in many studies.

The use of activity theory to explain the characteristics of the human psyche is based on the concept of higher mental functions developed by L.S. Vygotsky.

The purpose of the work is to consider the theory of A.N. Leontyev.

The objectives of the work are to characterize the general provisions of the theory of activity of A.N. Leontyev; justify the concept of “activity” according to A.N. Leontiev; indicate the formation of voluntary movements according to A.N. Leontiev.

1. General provisions theory of activity A.N. Leontyev

Activity theory is a system of methodological and theoretical principles for the study of mental phenomena. The main subject of research is the activity that mediates all mental processes. This approach began to take shape in domestic psychology in the 20s XX century In the 1930s two interpretations of the activity approach in psychology were proposed - S.L. Rubinstein (1889-1960), who formulated the principle of the unity of consciousness and activity, and A.N. Leontyev (1903-1979), who, together with other representatives of the Kharkov psychological school, developed the problem of the common structure of external and internal activity.

In the theory of activity S.L. Rubinstein, which began with his article “The Principle of Creative Amateur Activity,” written in 1922 and finalized in the 1930s, the psyche is considered as the subject of analysis here through the disclosure of its essential objective connections and mediations, in particular through activity . When deciding on the relationship between external practical activity and consciousness, the position is accepted that “internal” mental activity cannot be considered as being formed as a result of the collapse of “external” practical activity. In his formulation of the principle of mental determinacy external reasons act through internal conditions. With this interpretation, activity and consciousness are considered not as two forms of manifestation of something single, differing in the means of empirical analysis, but as two instances that form the indissoluble unity of psychology. Tutorial. Edited by Egorov A.A. - Moscow: “Science”, 2000. P. 140. .

These methodological guidelines were formed by A.N. Leontyev back in the late 1920s, when he worked for L.S. Vygotsky within the framework of the cultural-historical concept. He studied the processes of memory, which he interpreted as an objective activity occurring under certain conditions of socio-historical and ontogenetic development. In the early 30s. became the head of the Kharkov activity school and began the theoretical and experimental development of the problem of activity. In experiments conducted under his leadership in 1956-1963, it was shown that, based on adequate action, it is possible to form pitch hearing even in people with poor musical hearing. He proposed to consider activity (correlated with motive) as consisting of actions (having their own goals) and operations (agreed with conditions). The basis of personality, in normal and pathological conditions, was the hierarchy of its motives. Conducted research on a wide range of psychological problems: the emergence and development of the psyche in phylogenesis, the emergence of consciousness in anthropogenesis, mental development in ontogenesis, the structure of activity and consciousness, the motivational and semantic sphere of personality, methodology and history of psychology.

2. The concept of activity according to A.N. Leontiev

The concept of activity, according to A.N. Leontiev, is interpreted as follows. It is based on the concept of action, that is, a process whose object and motive do not coincide with each other. Both of them - the motive and the subject - must be reflected in the psyche of the subject: otherwise the action is deprived of its meaning for him. Next, the concept of operation is introduced. The psychological fusion of individual private actions into a single action represents the transformation of the latter into operations. Moreover, the content that previously occupied the place of the conscious goals of these particular actions occupies the structural place of the conditions for its implementation in the structure of a complex action. Another type of operation is born from the simple adaptation of an action to the conditions of its implementation. Finally, the concept of activity is introduced as an action that has received an independent motive. In this, and only in this case, we are dealing with a conscious motive. Awareness of the motive is not initial, but requires some special act - the act of reflecting the relationship of the motive of a given specific activity to the motive of a broader activity. The most important feature of Leontiev’s concept is that in it the structure of activity and the structure of consciousness are interchangeable concepts; they are connected with each other within the framework of one integral system. The fact that usually the analysis of the structure of activity precedes the analysis of the structure of consciousness is associated with the genetic approach. But genetically, consciousness cannot be understood otherwise than as a product of activity. Functionally, their connections are mutual - the activity is “controlled by consciousness”, and at the same time, in a certain sense, it itself controls it. It is therefore necessary to particularly dwell on the problem of the connection between the structure of activity and the structure of consciousness.

Already in his first works A.N. Leontyev emphasizes that the emergence of a differentiated internal structure in activity is a consequence of the emergence of collective labor activity. It is possible then, and only then, when a person subjectively reflects the real or possible connection of his actions with the achievement of a common final result. This allows a person to perform individual actions that would seem to be ineffective if taken in isolation, outside of collective activity. “Thus, along with the birth of actions,” writes A.N. Leontyev, “this main “unit” of human activity gives rise to the main, social in nature “unit” of the human psyche - a reasonable meaning for a person of what his activity is directed at.” At the same time, there also appears the possibility of designation, presentation of the objective world itself, realized with the help of language, as a result of which consciousness arises in its own sense, as a reflection of reality through linguistic meanings. The genesis, development and functioning of consciousness are derived from one or another level of development of the forms and functions of activity: “Together with the change in the structure of a person’s activity, the internal structure of his consciousness changes.” How? Mental reflection is always “biased.” But it contains something that is correlated with objective connections, relationships, interactions, which is included in the public consciousness and enshrined in language, and something that depends on the relationship of this particular subject to the reflected object. Hence the distinction between meaning and personal meaning, so often analyzed by various authors. The development of production requires a system of subordinate actions. In terms of consciousness, this means a transition from a conscious goal to a conscious condition of action, the emergence of levels of awareness. But the division of labor and production specialization lead to a “shift of motive to goal” and the transformation of action into activity. New motives and needs are created, and further qualitative differentiation of awareness occurs. Another step is the transition to the actual internal mental processes, the emergence of the theoretical phase of practical activity. Internal actions appear, and subsequently internal activities and internal operations are formed according to the general law of shifting motives. But activity that is ideal in its form is not fundamentally separated from external, practical activity. Both of them “are equally meaningful and meaning-forming processes. It is in their commonality that the integrity of a person’s life is expressed.” Action is internally connected with personal meaning. As for conscious operations, they are correlated with meanings that crystallize for the individual’s consciousness the social experience he has assimilated. Asmolov A.S. Psychology of Personality. M.: UNITY-DANA, 2003. P. 113. .

In the book “Activity. Consciousness. Personality” these ideas received a new development. First of all, the indivisible, molar nature of activity is emphasized, since it is “a system that has its own structure, its own internal transitions and transformations, its own development,” “included in the system of relations of society.” In society, a person is not simply subject to external conditions to which he adapts his activities, the social conditions themselves carry the motives and goals of his activities, thus society creates the activities of the individuals who form it. Primary activity is controlled by the object itself (the objective world), and secondarily by its image, as a subjective product of activity that carries subject content. The conscious image is understood here as an ideal measure, embodied in activity; it, human consciousness, essentially participates in the movement of activity. Along with “consciousness-image” the concept of “consciousness-activity” is introduced, and in general consciousness is defined as the internal movement of its constituents, included in the general movement of activity. Attention is focused on the fact that actions are not special “separates” within the activity; human activity does not exist except in the form of an action or chain of actions. One and the same process appears as activity in its relation to the motive, as an action or chain of actions in its subordination to the goal. Thus, action is not a component or a unit of activity: it is precisely its “formative”, its moment. Next, the relationship between motives and goals is analyzed.

The concept of “motive-goal” is introduced, i.e. a conscious motive, acting as a “general goal” (the goal of an activity, not an action), and a “zone of goals”, the identification of which only depends on the motive; the choice of a specific goal, the process of goal formation, is associated with “testing goals through action.”

At the same time, the concept of two aspects of action is introduced. “In addition to its intentional aspect (what is to be achieved), action also has its operational aspect (how, in what way this can be achieved."

Hence, a slightly different definition of operation is the quality of an action that forms an action. The question is raised about the division of activity into units that are more fractional than an operation. Finally, the concept of personality is introduced as an internal aspect of activity. It is and only as a result of the hierarchization of individual activities of the individual that carry out his social nature of relations with the world that he acquires a special quality - he becomes a personality. A new step in the analysis is that if, when considering activity, the concept of action acted as the central one, then in the analysis of personality, the main thing becomes the concept of hierarchical connections of activities, the hierarchy of their motives. These connections, however, are in no way determined by the personality as some kind of extra-activity or supra-activity formation; the development and expansion of the range of activities itself leads to tying them into “knots”, and hence to the formation of a new level of consciousness - the consciousness of the individual. But among the problems that have not been fully developed is, in particular, the problem of motive - this concept itself remained internally inconsistent among Leontyev, although it was not contradictory.

After the publication of “Activity. Consciousness. Personality" A.N. Leontyev wrote two new works on activity. The first is a report at the All-Union Psychological Congress on June 27, 1977, published posthumously. Here the accents are placed most clearly and, by the way, the directions for further development are just as clearly outlined. We are talking about the problem of activity and attitude, the problem of supra-situational activity, the problem of goal setting, the problem of skills. The main idea of the entire publication is that “activity as a unit of real human existence, although realized by the brain, is a process that necessarily includes extracerebral links, which are decisive. The second work is one of the most recent (early 1978) and was not completed. This is an article “On further psychological analysis of activity” (manuscript). Here Leontyev returns to the problem of activity and communication, sharply contrasting his position with attempts to “bifurcate” a person’s life into parallel processes of activity and processes of communication: “...Not only the relationships of individuals to the objective world do not exist outside of communication, but their communication itself is generated by the development of these relationships." Two more areas of Leontiev’s work in the last years of his life were especially closely related to personality problems. Alexey Nikolaevich’s appeal to the problems of the psychology of art is not accidental: it is difficult to find an area of human activity in which a person as an integral personality would realize himself more fully and comprehensively. Therefore, the interest of A.N. Leontyev's passion for art did not fade away until very recently. Unfortunately, he left almost no publications on the psychology of art, although he often and willingly spoke on these topics.

Leontiev's theory of activity, as well as the work of Vygotsky, attracts considerable attention from representatives of cultural psychology and the sociocultural approach. Perhaps they will play a role in the ethnopsychology of B.M. Kedrov. Psychology. Tutorial. - Moscow: “Science”, 2001. P. 96. .

3. Formation of voluntary movements according to A.N. Leontiev

The formation of voluntary movements, as the transfer of control when constructing movements to conscious control, occurs as follows. According to I.M. Sechenov, involuntary movements are regulated based on feedback proprioceptive sensations, which provide information about the characteristics of the movements being performed, and exteroceptive sensations, which allow us to analyze the signs of a specific situation in which the movement is realized. The possibility of conscious control over the implementation of the movement arises only in connection with the emergence of social and labor activity and language. Accordingly, human movements can be controlled based on various verbal instructions and self-instructions. In ontogenesis, according to L.S. According to Vygotsky, voluntary regulation is distributed in nature: the adult gives a verbal instruction, which defines the reflected goal of the movement, and the child carries it out. Subsequently, the child has the opportunity to self-regulate movement with the help of his own speech, first external, then internal.

In the theory of activity A.N. Leontiev proposed a structural structure of activity, which involves the separation of the actual activity, actions, and operations.

Activity is a form of active interaction during which an animal or a person expediently influences objects in the surrounding world and thereby satisfies its needs. Already at relatively early stages of phylogenesis, mental reality arises, represented in orientation-research activity, designed to serve such interaction. Its task is to examine the surrounding world and form an image of the situation to regulate the animal’s motor behavior in accordance with the conditions of the task facing it. If it is characteristic of animals that they are able to focus only on external, directly perceived aspects of the environment, then for human activity, due to the development of collective work, it is characteristic that it can be based on symbolic forms of representing objective relationships.

Among the components of the activity are:

- motives that motivate the subject to activity;

- goals as predicted results of this activity, achieved through actions;

- operations, with the help of activities are implemented depending on the conditions of this implementation.

Actions are a process of interaction with any object, which is characterized by the fact that it achieves a predetermined goal. The following components of the action can be distinguished:

- decision-making;

- implementation;

- control and correction.

At the same time, in making a decision, the image of the situation, the image of action, and the integral and differential programs are linked. Implementation and control are carried out cyclically. In each of them, both learned and individually developed means and tools are used.

Kinds:

- managers,

- executive,

- utilitarian-adaptive,

- perceptual,

- mnemonic,

- mental,

- communicative actions.

An operation (Latin operatio - action) is an executive unit of human activity, correlated with a task and with the objective conditions of its implementation. The operations by which a person achieves his goals are the result of mastering socially developed methods of action. First of all, congenital or early formed perceptual, mnestic and intellectual acts were considered as operations.

This or that activity may begin to play a decisive role in the psychological formations that arise during the ontogenetic development of a person. Such activities are designated “leading activities.”

Leading activity is an activity during the implementation of which the emergence and formation of basic psychological new formations of a person occurs at one or another stage of his development and the foundations are laid for the transition to a new leading activity.

Kinds:

- direct communication between the baby and adults;

- object-manipulative activity in early childhood;

- role-playing game for preschool age;

- educational activities of schoolchildren;

- professional and educational activities of youth.

Children's activity is a form of activity that represents the child's active interaction with the outside world, during which the development of his psyche occurs in ontogenesis. When implementing an activity, by adjusting it to different, including socially modeled, conditions, it is enriched and fundamentally new components of its structure emerge.

Genesis. A change in the structure of a child’s activity also determines the development of his psyche.

The most independent early activity is objective activity. It begins with mastering actions with objects, such as grasping, manipulation, actual objective actions, which involve the use of objects for their functional purpose and in a way that is assigned to them in human experience. Particularly intensive development substantive actions occurs in the second year of life, which is associated with mastering walking. Somewhat later, on the basis of objective activity, other types of activity are formed, in particular play.

As part of the role-playing game, which is the leading activity in preschool age, mastery of elements of adult activity and interpersonal relationships occurs.

Educational activity is the leading activity of primary school age, within which the controlled appropriation of the foundations of social experience occurs, primarily in the form of intellectual basic operations and theoretical concepts.

Detailed analysis educational activities given in the works of D.B. Elkonin (1904-1984) and V.V. Davydova (1930-1998).

Developmental training. It has been shown that the average norms of mental development of a schoolchild are generated existing system learning based on a naturalistic approach to development. Gave a logical and psychological basis for the theory of developmental learning. In accordance with his idea that in a person’s action there is always the consciousness of another person, he views the development of a child as occurring in the context of two types of relationships: child - object - adult (in this case, the child - adult relationship is mediated by the object) and child - adult - object (in this case, the child-object relationship is mediated by an adult). main feature“reasonable thinking” is that it is based on theoretical concepts, the content of which - in contrast to everyday (empirical) concepts - is not actual existence, but mediated, reflected existence. These concepts act simultaneously both as a form of reflection of a material object and as a means of its mental reproduction, i.e. as special mental actions. Based on the Hegelian-Marx understanding of the relationship between the logical and the logical in the formation of individual consciousness, the principle of activity, the principle of the universality of ideal existence, the basic concepts of developmental education were defined (the development of reflection and imagination, age-specific development, etc.) and the main pedagogical technologies were designed, which have found practical implementation , primarily on the basis of the Moscow experimental school No. 91.

The theory of developmental learning was further developed within the framework of the concept of social-genetic psychology created by V.V. Rubtsov and his staff.

The concept of social-genetic psychology was created within the framework of the cultural-historical school of L.S. Vygotsky, A.N. Leontyev. Here the mental development of the child is explained here through joint activities. The basis is an analysis of the general structure of activity, where a new mental function is interpreted as formed within the framework of the cooperation of participants’ actions joint activities. The genesis of cognitive action is determined by the ways of interaction between participants in joint activities (distribution of initial actions and operations, exchange of actions, as well as mutual understanding, communication, planning and reflection) Kozlov V.I. Personality formula. St. Petersburg: Peter, 2000. P. 227. .

Based on the material of thinking formation, it is shown that:

1. Cooperation and coordination of objective actions constitute the basis for the origin of the intellectual structures of a child’s thinking, while the type of distribution of activity performs the function of specific modeling of the content of the intellectual structure as part of the relations of participants in the activity;

2. The basis for the child’s identification and further assimilation of the content of the intellectual structure is his performance of a special action to replace subject transformations (redistribution of activities); By performing this action, the child turns to the foundations of organizing the joint activity itself, reveals the common nature of this or that objective transformation for all participants in the joint work; At the same time, it is necessary for the participants to have a reflexive, meaningful analysis of the form of joint actions under construction and subsequent planning of new forms of organizing joint activities that are adequate to the substantive content of the object;

3. The form of organization of joint action is a channel for the transmission of culture, since the interaction of participants in a joint situation mediates historically established schemes of cognitive actions by Akimova M.K. Psychology. Tutorial. - Moscow: “Pedagogy”, 2003. P. 112. .

Conclusion

Defining the subject of psychological science as the generation and functioning in activity of the mental reflection of reality, A.N. Leontyev could not help but turn to the detailed development of both - the psychological mechanisms of sensory reflection, and the essence and structure of activity. Already in articles of the 50s, A.N. Leontiev, relying, in particular, on studies conducted under his leadership on the formation of pitch hearing, and then on the activity of the visual system, formulated the well-known “assimilation” hypothesis. Later, his interests shifted to the study of the objectivity of human perception - both experimentally (experiments with pseudoscopic vision, etc.) and theoretically. Basic provisions of A.N. Leontiev in the last period of his activity concerning sensory reflection are as follows. Firstly, “the mental reflection generated by activity is a necessary moment of the activity itself, a moment that guides, orients and regulates it. This seemingly two-way process of mutual transitions, however, constitutes a single movement, from which mental reflection is inseparable, for it does not exist except in this movement.” Secondly, such a reflection is possible only as part of some whole “image of the world.”

This is something more than a “direct sensory picture”: the image of the world “appears in meaning”, and the entire totality of human practice “in its idealized forms enters the picture of the world.” Two points are extremely important here: a) the pre-determined nature of this designated, meaningful objective world for each specific act of perception, the need to “fit” this act into a ready-made picture of the world; b) this picture of the world acts as a unity of individual and social experience. Associated with all these ideas is the proposition about the amodality of objective perception. As is known, during the life of A.N. Leontiev did not write a general work on perception, although his publications in this direction were quite numerous. In the early 70s, he conceived a book called “The Psychology of the Image”; later Alexey Nikolaevich found another title - “The Image of the World”, but it remained unwritten.

Bibliography

Akimova M.K. Psychology. Tutorial. - Moscow: “Pedagogy”, 2003. - 489 p.

Asmolov A.S. Psychology of Personality. M.: UNITY-DANA, 2003.

Kedrov B.M. Psychology. Tutorial. - Moscow: “Science”, 2001. - 113 p.

Kozlov V.I. Personality formula. St. Petersburg: Peter, 2000.

Psychology. Tutorial. Edited by Egorov A.A. - Moscow: “Science”, 2000. - 531 p.

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Psychology of educational activity as a scientific concept. Her general structure: need - task - motives - actions - operations. The main provisions of the theory of educational activity, developed in domestic psychology on the basis of cultural-historical theory.

The structure of activity, according to A. N. Leontiev, presupposes the presence two aspects: operational and motivational. Operational aspect(activity-action-operation-psychophysiological functions) includes structures of transformations with varying degrees of convolution and automation. Motivational aspect of activity(motive-goal-conditions) represents a hierarchy of incentives that cause these transformations.

In addition, we can talk about the significance of functional relationships within aspects and their hierarchical two-way relationship (activity-motive, action-goal, operation-conditions).

A. N. Leontiev has repeatedly emphasized the integrity of the intra-aspect division: an activity can include one single action and even an operation, be an action or an operation (Leontiev, 1975). In other words, in order to get closer to how A. N. Leontiev understood the structure of activity, we must refuse to separate its structure into “bricks” and perceive it as a specific system.

According to A. N. Leontiev, each of the belonging to a person (or formed by him) activities answers (or at least should answer) a certain needs the subject, strives for the object of this need and fades away as a result of its satisfaction.

The activity can be reproduced again, and under completely new conditions. The main thing that allows us to identify one and the same activity in its different manifestations is subject, to which it is directed. Thus, the only adequate identifier for an activity is its motive. Activity without a motive does not exist, and any unmotivated activity is an ordinary activity with a subjectively and/or objectively hidden motive.

The components of individual human activities are the actions that implement them. According to A. N. Leontiev, action is called“a process subordinated to the idea of the result that should be achieved, i.e. a process subordinated to a conscious goal” (Leontiev, 1975). The identification of goals and the design of actions subordinate to them lead to the division of functions hidden in the motive. The function of motivation is retained by the motive, and the function of choosing the direction of action is taken over by the goal. Therefore, in the general case, the object that stimulates activity and the objects that direct its actions do not coincide.

The fundamental position of the theory of activity is the concept of three forms of its manifestation. Theoretically, the following stand out:

· | internal component of activity (taking place within the framework of consciousness);

· external activity of the subject (including consciousness and objects of the external world);

· activity as something embodied in things and signs, which is the content of human culture.

Unity of external and internal activities. Activity theory identifies two forms of activity: external(practical, material) and internal(ideal, mental, “theoretical”) activity. Internal activities, like the external one, is stimulated by needs and motives, is accompanied by emotional experiences, has its own operational and technical composition, that is, it consists of a sequence of actions and the operations that implement them. The difference is that actions are performed not with real objects, but with their images, and instead of a real product, a mental result is obtained.

The studies conducted by L. S. Vygotsky, A. N. Leontyev, P. Ya. Galperin, D. B. Elkonin and others show that internal activity arose from external, practical activity through the process interiorization, that is, by transferring the corresponding actions to the mental plane. To successfully reproduce some action “in the mind,” you must master it in material terms and form your own internal plan of action with similar objects. During internalization, external activity, although it does not change its fundamental structure, is greatly transformed: a consistent change and reduction of external material actions occurs and internal, ideal actions performed on the mental plane are formed. In the psychological literature one can often find the following example of internalization related to teaching a child to count. First, he counts the sticks (the real object of operation), placing them on the table (external activity). Then he does without sticks, limiting himself only to external observation of them. Gradually, sticks become unnecessary, and counting turns into a mental action (internal activity). The objects of operation are numbers and words (mental objects).

At the same time, internal actions anticipate, prepare external actions, and exteriorization activities. The mechanism of exteriorization proceeds on the basis of the transformation of the internal laws that emerged during interiorization.

dimensions and a previously formed internal ideal plan of action.

The relationship between external and internal activities can be presented in the following form (Fig. 2) (Psychology and Pedagogy, 1998):

Rice. 2. The relationship between internal and external activities

S. L. Rubinstein has a different point of view, according to which it is impossible to talk about the formation of “internal” mental activity from “external” practical activity through interiorization, since the internal (mental) plane exists even before interiorization.

“When studying mental activity or mental processes, it is fundamentally important to take into account that they usually occur simultaneously at different levels and that, at the same time, any external opposition of “higher” mental processes to “lower” ones is illegal, because every “higher” mental process presupposes “lower” ones. and is carried out on their basis<...>. Mental processes take place at several levels at once, and the “highest” level actually always exists only inseparably from the “lower” ones. They are always interconnected and form a single whole” (Rubinstein, 1989).

1.2 Cognitive processes

1. The concept of sensation. Properties of sensations. Classification of sensations.

Feel- this is a reflection of individual aspects of an object or phenomenon, without attributing them to a specific object with its objective meaning (for example, the sensation of a light spot, a loud sound, a sweet taste).

Types of sensations

In psychology, there are various approaches to the classification of sensations. The traditional approach involves identifying types of sensations depending on the specifics of the sense organs: distinguish between visual, auditory, gustatory, tactile and olfactory sensations. However, this classification is not exhaustive. Currently, the classification of sensations is based on two basic principles: systematic and genetic.

Systematic classification was proposed by the English physiologist C. Sherrington (1857-1952). Taking as a basis the nature of the reflection and the location of the receptors, he divided all sensations into three groups: exteroceptive, proprioceptive and interoceptive.

The largest group is exteroceptive sensations, reflecting the properties of objects and phenomena of the surrounding world and arising when a stimulus acts on receptors located on the surface of the body. Among the sensations of this group, contact and distance sensations are distinguished. For the occurrence contact sensations a direct effect of the object on the receptor is necessary. So, in order to evaluate the taste of food, we need to taste it; to feel the character of the surface of an object, we need to touch it.

For distant sensations do not require direct contact with the object, since the receptors react to irritations coming from objects distant at some distance. Proprioceptive (lat. proprius - own) sensations- these are sensations that reflect the movement and position of the body in space thanks to receptors located in the muscles, ligaments and vestibular apparatus.

Proprioceptive sensations, in turn, are divided into kinesthetic (motor) and static, or balance sensations. The receptors of the last subgroup are located in the semicircular canals of the inner ear.

Interoceptive (organic) sensations- these are sensations that arise when a stimulus acts on receptors in internal organs and tissues and reflecting the internal states of the body. Interoreceptors inform a person about various conditions internal environment body (for example, about the presence of biologically useful and harmful substances in it, body temperature, pressure, chemical composition liquids).

Auditory sensations occur under the influence of an irritant - a sound wave - on the organ of hearing.

The following stages of the occurrence of auditory sensations can be distinguished:

Changes in air pressure cause the eardrum (outer and middle ear) to vibrate;

Sounds cause oscillatory excitations of various localizations on the basilar membrane, which are then encoded;

Neurons corresponding to a particular location are activated (in the auditory cortex, different neurons are responsible for different sound frequencies). Since sound travels slower than light, there will be (depending on the direction) a noticeable difference between the sounds perceived by the left and right ears.

Visual sensations occur when electromagnetic waves act on the visual receptor - the retina of the eye. In the center of the retina there are special nerve cells - cones, which provide the sensation of color. In the peripheral areas of the retina there is another type nerve cells- rods characterized by high sensitivity to brightness transitions. Cones represent daytime vision, rods represent night (twilight) vision.

Light waves reflected by an object are refracted as they pass through the lens of the eye and form an image on the retina.

Taste sensations caused by chemicals dissolved in saliva or water. Studies have shown that a person is able to distinguish between four primary nykh taste: sweet, salty, bitter and sour.

Taste sensations arise due to the influence of a stimulus on special organs located on the surface of the tongue - taste buds, each of which contains chemoreceptors. Our taste sensitivity is largely determined by which part of the tongue is stimulated. It is known that the tip of the tongue is most sensitive to sweets, its edges to sour, the front and side surfaces to salty, and the soft palate to bitter.

Olfactory sensations, like taste, they arise on the basis of chemical stimulation. Volatile chemicals can cause either a rejection reaction or, depending on the physiological state of the body, a pleasant or unpleasant sensation. The difference lies not in the processes of detection of chemical substances, but in the context of this detection at further stages of information processing in the nervous system.

Olfactory receptors (called olfactory cells) are located in the mucous membrane of the upper nasal cavity. A person has about 50 million of them.

Skin sensations arise as a result of the influence of an irritant on receptors located on the surface of our skin. Skin receptors respond to three types of stimulation: pressure or touch, temperature and pain. In accordance with this, skin sensations include tactile, temperature and pain sensations.

Tactile sensations - these are sensations of touch. The greatest acuity of tactile sensitivity is characteristic of parts of the body that actively perform motor functions. These are the tips of the fingers and toes, the tip of the tongue. The stomach, back, and outer side of the forearm are much less sensitive.

As noted by L.M. Wecker, sensations of touch or pressure occur only if the mechanical separator causes deformation of the skin surface. When pressure is applied to a very small area of skin, the greatest deformation occurs precisely at the site of direct application of the irritant. If the pressure acts on a surface of a large area, then in this case it is distributed unevenly: its lowest intensity is felt in the depressed areas of the surface, and the highest is felt along the edges of the depressed area. When you lower your hand into water, the temperature of which is equal to body temperature, pressure is felt only at the boundary of the part of the surface immersed in the liquid, i.e. It is there that the deformation of this surface is most significant. It should be noted that the intensity of the sensation of pressure depends on the rate of deformation of the skin surface.

Properties of sensations

These properties include: quality, intensity, duration (duration) and spatial localization.

Quality- the main feature of a given sensation, which allows one to distinguish one type of sensation from another and varies within a given type. For example, specific features make it possible to distinguish auditory sensations from visual ones, but at the same time there are variations in sensations within each type: auditory sensations are characterized by pitch, timbre, loudness; visual, respectively, by color tone, saturation and lightness. The quality of sensations is largely determined by the structure of the sensory organ, its ability to reflect the influence of the outside world.

Intensity- this is a quantitative characteristic of sensations, i.e. greater or lesser strength of their manifestation. She's for hanging on the strength of the stimulus and on the functional state of the receptor. According to the Weber-Fechner law, the intensity of sensations ( E) is directly proportional to the logarithm of the stimulus strength (7): E = k log I + s.

Duration (duration)- temporary characteristics of sensations; This is the time during which a specific sensation persists immediately after the cessation of exposure to the stimulus. In relation to the duration of sensations, concepts such as “latent period of reaction” and “inertia” are used.

Spatial localization- a property of sensations, which lies in the fact that the sensations experienced are correlated with the part of the body that is affected by the stimulus.

2. Psychophysics of sensations

Psychophysics- the science of measuring sensations, studying the quantitative relationships between the intensity of a stimulus and the strength of sensation.

Basic psychophysical law. Gustav Fechner attempted to develop an accurate quantitative method measurements of sensations (mental phenomena). The fact that strong stimuli cause strong sensations, and weak stimuli – weak sensations, has been known for a long time. The task was to determine the magnitude of the sensation for each stimulus presented. The attempt to do this in quantitative form dates back to the research of the Greek astronomer Hipparchus (160 – 120 BC). He developed a magnitude scale that classifies stars visible to the naked eye into six categories: from the faintest (sixth magnitude) to the brightest (first magnitude).

Ernst Heinrich Weber, based on experiments on distinguishing the pressure on the skin and the weight of weights lifted on the palm, established that instead of simply perceiving the difference between stimuli, we perceive the ratio of this difference to the size of the original stimulus. Before him, a similar conclusion had already been made in the middle of the 19th century. French physicist and mathematician Pierre Bouguer regarding brightness visual sensations. G. Fechner expressed the pattern formulated by E. Weber in mathematical form:

where ΔR is the change in stimulus required to detect a subtle difference in stimulation; R is the magnitude of the stimulus and
k is a constant, the value of which depends on the type of sensation. The specific numerical value k is called the E. Weber ratio. Subsequently, it was discovered that the value of k does not remain constant over the entire range of stimulus intensity, but increases in the region of low and high values. However, the ratio of the increment in the magnitude of the stimulus and the strength of the sensation, or the ratio of the increase in the stimulus to its initial value, remains constant for the middle region of the range of intensity of stimuli that cause almost all types of sensations (Booger-Weber Law).

Subsequently, the measurement of sensations became the subject of research by G. Fechner. Based on the Bouguer-Weber law and on his own assumption that the sensation of a stimulus is the accumulated sum of equal increments of sensation, G. Fechner first expressed all this in differential form as dR = adI / I, then integrated (taking R = 0 at intensity stimulus equal to the absolute threshold (I 0)) and obtained the following equation:

R=clog I/Iο

where R is the magnitude of sensation; c is a constant, the value of which depends on the base of the logarithm and on the Weber ratio; I – stimulus intensity; I 0 – absolute intensity threshold.

The above equation is called basic psychophysical law, or the Weber-Fechner law, according to which sensations are described by a decreasing increment curve (or logarithmic curve). For example, the increase in brightness felt when replacing one light bulb with ten will be the same as when replacing ten light bulbs with a hundred. In other words, an increase in the magnitude of the stimulus in geometric progression corresponds to an increase in sensation in arithmetic progression.

Later, attempts were made to clarify the basic law of psychophysics. Thus, the American psychophysicist S. Stevens established the power-law, rather than logarithmic, nature of the relationship between the strength of sensation and the intensity of the stimulus:

where R is the strength of sensation; I – stimulus intensity; I 0 – the value of the absolute threshold of sensation; с – constant; n – exponent depending on the modality of sensations (values are given in reference books).

The generalized psychophysical law proposed by Yu. Zabrodin took into account the fact that the nature of the relationship between sensations and influencing stimuli is determined by a person’s awareness of the processes of sensation. Based on this, Yu. Zabrodin introduced the z indicator into the formula of S. Stevens’ law, characterizing the degree of awareness:

From the formula it is clear that at z = 0 the formula of the generalized law of Yu. Zabrodin takes the form of the Weber-Fechner law, and at z = 1 – the Stevens law.

Modern scaling studies indicate that Yu. Zabrodin’s equation is not a generalized “ultimately” psychophysical law, i.e. it cannot cover the entire existing variety of psychophysical functions. In general, Yu.M. Zabrodin developed a system-dynamic approach to the analysis of sensory processes.

Having posed the task of measuring sensations, G. Fechner assumed that a person is not able to directly quantify their magnitude. Therefore, he proposed an indirect method of measurement - in units of physical magnitude of the stimulus. The magnitude of the sensation was represented as the sum of its barely noticeable increments above the starting point. To designate it, G. Fechner introduced the concept of a threshold of sensations, measured in stimulus units. He distinguished between an absolute sensitivity threshold and a discriminative (differential) threshold.

Quantitative characteristics of sensations. In addition to the qualitative characteristics of sensations in the psychology of sensory processes, considerable attention is paid to their quantitative characteristics: thresholds, or limens(Latin limen – threshold), and sensitivity. To measure sensations means to find a quantitative relationship between the intensity of the stimulus acting on the receptor and the strength of the sensation.

However, not every stimulus causes a sensation. As a rule, threshold values of stimuli should correspond to the approximate limiting level of absolute sensitivity of the body. If the stimulus is too weak and does not cause a response, then such an effect is called subthreshold, or subthreshold. A stimulus whose intensity exceeds threshold values is called suprathreshold. The boundaries between sensations adequate to the stimulus and subthreshold and suprathreshold are defined as absolute sensitivity threshold.

Lower (minimum) absolute threshold of sensations- this is the minimum intensity of the stimulus necessary to produce a barely noticeable difference in the strength of sensations. The value of the lower absolute threshold of sensations is specific for each modality of sensations. Thus, the sensation of light from a candle flame burning in the dark in clear weather occurs in a person at a distance of approximately 48 meters. Feel the sound of a mechanical watch ticking at a distance of 6 meters. The sensation of the taste of sugar in water appears when one teaspoon of sugar is dissolved in 8 liters of water.

Upper (maximum) absolute threshold of sensations– this is the maximum value of the stimulus, after which inadequate or even painful sensations occur. For example, at a distance of 100 m from an aircraft, the sound of its turbines operating at full power is perceived as pain in the ears.

Discrimination threshold or differential threshold, is the minimum difference in the strength of two stimuli of the same type necessary to perceive a change in the strength of the sensation. In other words, how much of the original stimulus strength must be added to produce a barely noticeable difference. This threshold is different for each modality of sensation:

· for visual sensations – 0.01, that is, to feel a change in the brightness of the light, you need to add to 100 candles (light bulbs),
at least 1;

· for auditory sensations – 0.1, that is, to get a barely noticeable increase in the sound of the choir, you need to add 10 more singers to 100;

· for taste sensations – 0.2, that is, 20% of the original.

All these data are a consequence of the Bouguer-Weber law.

3. Perception: physiological basis, properties, types.

Perception- this is a holistic reflection of objects, situations, phenomena that arise from the direct impact of physical stimuli on the receptor surfaces of organs Physiological basis of perception

The physiological basis of perception is the processes taking place in the sense organs, nerve fibers and the central nervous system. Thus, under the influence of stimuli at the endings of the nerves present in the sensory organs, nervous excitation arises, which is transmitted along pathways to the nerve centers and, ultimately, to the cerebral cortex. Here it enters the projection (sensory) zones of the cortex, which represent, as it were, the central projection of the nerve endings present in the sense organs. Depending on which organ the projection zone is connected to, certain sensory information is generated.

It should be noted that the mechanism described above is the mechanism by which sensations arise. And indeed, at the level of the proposed scheme, sensations are formed. Consequently, sensations can be considered as a structural element of the process of perception. Own physiological mechanisms of perception are included in the process of forming a holistic image in subsequent stages, when excitation from the projection zones is transferred to the integrative zones of the cerebral cortex, where the formation of images of real world phenomena is completed. Therefore, the integrative zones of the cerebral cortex, which complete the process of perception, are often called perceptual zones. Their function differs significantly from the functions of projection zones.

This difference is clearly revealed when the activity of one or another zone is disrupted. For example, if the functioning of the visual projection zone is disrupted, so-called central blindness occurs, i.e., if the periphery - the sensory organs - is fully operational, the person is completely deprived of visual sensations, he sees nothing. The situation is completely different with lesions or disruption of the integrative zone. A person sees individual spots of light, some contours, but does not understand what he sees. He ceases to comprehend what affects him, and does not even recognize familiar objects. A similar picture is observed when the activity of integrative zones of other modalities is disrupted. Thus, when the auditory integrative zones are disrupted, people cease to understand human speech. Such diseases are called agnostic disorders (disorders leading to the impossibility of cognition), or agnosia,

The physiological basis of perception is further complicated by the fact that it is closely related to motor activity, emotional experiences, and various thought processes. Consequently, having begun in the sense organs, nervous excitations caused by external stimuli pass to the nerve centers, where they cover various zones of the cortex and interact with other nervous excitations. This entire network of excitations interacting with each other and widely covering different zones crust, and makes up physiological basis perception.

Analysis and synthesis ensure the selection of the object of perception from environment, and on this basis all its properties are combined into a holistic image.

Temporary nerve connections that ensure the process of perception can be of two types: formed within one analyzer and interanalyzer. The first type occurs when the body is exposed to a complex stimulus of one modality. For example, such a stimulus is a melody, which is a peculiar combination of individual sounds that affect the auditory analyzer. This entire complex acts as one complex stimulus. In this case, nerve connections are formed not only in response to the stimuli themselves, but also to their relationship - temporal, spatial, etc. (the so-called relation reflex). As a result, a process of integration, or complex synthesis, occurs in the cerebral cortex.

The second type of neural connections formed under the influence of a complex stimulus are connections within different analyzers, the emergence of which I.M. Sechenov explained by the existence of associations (visual, kinesthetic, tactile, etc.). These associations in humans are necessarily accompanied by

are expressed in the auditory image of words, thanks to which perception acquires a holistic character. For example, if you are blindfolded and given a spherical object in your hands, after having been told that it is an edible object, and at the same time you can feel its peculiar smell, taste its taste, then you will easily understand what you are dealing with. In the process of working with this familiar, but invisible to you, this moment you will definitely mentally call it an object, i.e., an auditory image will be recreated, which in its essence is a kind of generalization of the properties of the object. As a result, you will be able to describe even what you are not currently observing. Consequently, thanks to the connections formed between analyzers, we reflect in perception such properties of objects or phenomena for the perception of which there are no specially adapted analyzers (for example, the size of an object, specific gravity and etc.).

Thus, at the heart of the complex process of constructing a perception image are systems of intra-analyzer and inter-analyzer connections that provide best conditions vision of stimuli and taking into account the interaction of the properties of an object as a complex whole.

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Internal and external activities according to Leontiev. Psychological theory of activity of A. The purpose of the work is to consider the theory of A.N. Leontyev

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Introduction

The use of activity theory to explain the characteristics of the human psyche is based on the concept of higher mental functions developed by L.S. Vygotsky.

The purpose of the work is to consider the theory of A.N. Leontyev.

The objectives of the work are to characterize the general provisions of the theory of activity of A.N. Leontyev; justify the concept of “activity” according to A.N. Leontiev; indicate the formation of voluntary movements according to A.N. Leontiev.

1. General provisions theory of activity A.N. Leontyev

2. The concept of activity according to A.N. Leontiev

At the same time, the concept of two aspects of action is introduced. “In addition to its intentional aspect (what is to be achieved), action also has its operational aspect (how, in what way this can be achieved."

3. Formation of voluntary movements according to A.N. Leontiev

In the theory of activity A.N. Leontiev proposed a structural structure of activity, which involves the separation of the actual activity, actions, and operations.

Among the components of the activity are:

- motives that motivate the subject to activity;

- goals as predicted results of this activity, achieved through actions;

- operations, with the help of activities are implemented depending on the conditions of this implementation.

Actions are a process of interaction with any object, which is characterized by the fact that it achieves a predetermined goal. The following components of the action can be distinguished:

- decision-making;

- implementation;

- control and correction.

At the same time, in making a decision, the image of the situation, the image of action, and the integral and differential programs are linked. Implementation and control are carried out cyclically. In each of them, both learned and individually developed means and tools are used.

Kinds:

- managers,

- executive,

- utilitarian-adaptive,

- perceptual,

- mnemonic,

- mental,

- communicative actions.

This or that activity may begin to play a decisive role in the psychological formations that arise during the ontogenetic development of a person. Such activities are designated “leading activities.”

Leading activity is an activity during the implementation of which the emergence and formation of basic psychological new formations of a person occurs at one or another stage of his development and the foundations are laid for the transition to a new leading activity.

Kinds:

- direct communication between the baby and adults;

- object-manipulative activity in early childhood;

- role-playing game for preschool age;

- educational activities of schoolchildren;

- professional and educational activities of youth.

Genesis. A change in the structure of a child’s activity also determines the development of his psyche.

As part of the role-playing game, which is the leading activity in preschool age, mastery of elements of adult activity and interpersonal relationships occurs.

Educational activity is the leading activity of primary school age, within which the controlled appropriation of the foundations of social experience occurs, primarily in the form of intellectual basic operations and theoretical concepts.

Detailed analysis educational activities given in the works of D.B. Elkonin (1904-1984) and V.V. Davydova (1930-1998).

The theory of developmental learning was further developed within the framework of the concept of social-genetic psychology created by V.V. Rubtsov and his staff.

Based on the material of thinking formation, it is shown that:

3. The form of organization of joint action is a channel for the transmission of culture, since the interaction of participants in a joint situation mediates historically established schemes of cognitive actions by Akimova M.K. Psychology. Tutorial. - Moscow: “Pedagogy”, 2003. P. 112. .

Conclusion

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