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Medyntsev A.A., Sabadosh P.A., Kogan A.A., Moskvina V.D., Nemirova S.A., Kayutina D.V. (2020). The role of anticipatory attention in insight and non-insight solutions in the anagram solution task. National Psychological Journal, [Natsional’nyy psikhologicheskiy zhurnal], (13)1, 66–77

Background. In modern psychology the study of mechanisms of creative thinking is of great interest. Attention is one of the important factors affecting the operation of intuitive thinking component.

The Objective of the paper is to study the effect of anticipatory attention on the insight and analytical frequency in solving anagrams.

Design. During the experiment, the participants performed two successive tasks. The first task included stimuli identification when the subjects were presented with stimuli — anagrams and pseudowords. The task was to identify the anagram correctly. In the second task (if the stimulus had been the anagram), the participants had to solve the anagram, noting whether the solution was analytical or an insight. The anagram and pseudoword had different letter order. The participants were divided into two groups: the experimental group whose subjects were informed about the difference and were asked to use it for a lexical solution and the control group whose subjects were not informed about the difference.

It was expected that the identification of the anagram in the first task will shape anticipatory attention patterns for the experimental group, which will affect the frequency of insight solutions in the second task. Results. The subjects of the experimental group were found to have a correlation relationship between the speed characteristics of the first and second tasks for analytical solutions. For insight solutions, no such connection was found.

Conclusion. The results demonstrate that insights and analytical solutions are the result of two separate processes of finding solutions that proceed in parallel.

Received: 09/09/2019

Accepted: 01/16/2020

Pages: 66-77

DOI: 10.11621/npj.2020.0107

Keywords: insight; anagram; attention; anticipatory attention; creativity; creation;

By: ; ; ; ; ; ;

Available Online: 03/31/2020

Dreneva A.A. (2020). Categorical search for three-dimensional shapes in participants with different level of mathematical expertise. National Psychological Journal, [Natsional’nyy psikhologicheskiy zhurnal], (13)1, 57–65.

Background. The paper considers the issue of categorical search for three-dimensional geometric shapes. The results of the previous studies on the real-world objects showed that pre-attentive extrafoveal analysis provides an effective identification of the target, reflecting in the right direction of the first saccade compared with the random search.

Objective. In this study, we investigated the efficacy of extrafoveal analysis during categorical search for pyramids in two groups of participants: mathematicians and psychologists.

Design. 15 mathematicians and 17 psychologists aged 18-25 participated in the study. Each participant performed 144 trialssearching for the target pyramid among the distractor pyramids. In the series 2and 9, any eye movements were prohibited to study covert attention.

Results. The findings of the experiment failed to reveal any differences in the use of extrafoveal analysis and accuracy in both groups. We observed dramatic individual differences, revealed in various degrees of extrafoveal analysis in the search process and in changing the strategy of the task solving. Special series which prohibited eye movements, demonstrated a significant role of covert attention in the categorical search, as well as the possibility and effectiveness of extrafoveal analysis even though while free instruction it could not be used by all participants and all cases.

Conclusion. During categorical search both foveal and extrafoveal processing of stimuli, as well as pre-attentive analysis and covert attention, were simultaneously involved. The dynamics of their interaction was determined by low-level perceptual processes, individual characteristics of the subjects, the task specificity and the instruction.

Received: 02/03/2020

Accepted: 02/15/2020

Pages: 57-65

DOI: 10.11621/npj.2020.0106

Keywords: categorical search; extrafoveal analysis; covert attention; pre-attentive processing; three-dimensional shapes; perceptual processes; механизмы зрительного поиска; attention; interindividual differences;

By: ;

Available Online: 03/31/2020

Kornilova T.V., Kornilov S.A., Zirenko M.S., Chumakova M. A. (2019). Psychometric properties of the modified International Cognitive Ability Resource (ICAR) test battery. National Psychological Journal, [Natsional’nyy psikhologicheskiy zhurnal], (12)3, 32–45.

Background. The emergence of the psychometric tradition in Russian psychology necessitates a thorough exploration and adoption of the international experience in the development of appropriate measurement instruments and methodologies. The goal of the present study was thus to perform a comprehensive evaluation of the International Cognitive Ability Resource (ICAR) instrument in a Russian sample. The modified ICAR instrument consisted of visuo-spatial subtests Three-dimensional Rotation, Mental Reasoning (original ICAR subtests), as well as the previously developed verbal subtests Mill-Hill verbal scale and Analogies (from the ROADS test battery).

Design. The ICAR battery was administered to n=681 individuals (377 females) in the age from 17 to 59 years (Med=23, M=25.83, SD=7.58 лет) who were either college students or adults with a college degree from the city of Moscow who volunteered for the study. The test battery was administered without (n=284) as well as with (n=397) a time limit.

Results. The study demonstrated adequate psychometric properties of the modified ICAR battery, and revealed a fundamentally bifactor structure of the battery both at the level of individual items as well as at the level of subtests. Thus, individual’s performance on each item or subtest can be conceptualized as being driven by specific (e.g., fluid or verbal) as well as general (g) intelligence factors. We also show that introducing the time limit distorts the psychometric structure of the battery, lowers internal consistency, and reduces the g-saturation of the resulting scores, a finding that has important implications for the theory and practice of testing.

Received: 09/07/2019

Accepted: 09/15/2019

Pages: 32-45

DOI: 10.11621/npj.2019.0304

Keywords: cognitive ability; intelligence; Cattell-Horn-Carroll theory; International Cognitive Ability Resource (ICAR);

By: ; ;

Available Online: 10/20/2019

Korneev A.A., Lomakin D.I. (2018) Memorizing and reproducing the sequence of movements by younger schoolchildren and adolescents: age-specific mistakes. National Psychological Journal. 3, 129-138.

Background. The paper describes the results of the experimental study of working memory in early schoolchildren and adolescents. The capacity of working memory develops through preadolescence to adolescence, while the developmental changes of representations of serial order are not clear enough so far.

Objective. The accuracy of delayed reproduction of movements (the open polygonal chains, trajectories) reveals. The sample included 32 early schoolchildren (mean age 10.4±0.75 years old) and 25 adolescents (mean age 14.6±0.3 years old). The subjects reproduced trajectories of different length (from 4 to 6 elements) using the graphical tablet. Another factor in the experiment carried out was a mode of stimulus presentation: the trajectories in were presented either as a static line-drawing (static mode) or a small moving pointer (dynamic mode).

Design. The errors of reproduction in two age groups and in different conditions were analyzed. We distinguished three types of errors: (1) severe distortions which are caused by inability to keep the sequence in working memory; (2) insertions or omissions of elements of the trajectory which are related to the problems of encoding the visual spatial information in the motor representation; (3) distortions of proportions of the trajectories, which are related with visual-motor coordination during motor reproduction of the sequences.

Research results showed that in adolescence the accuracy of delayed reproduction is better than in early ages. The most obvious difference in accuracy between the groups of early schoolchildren and adolescents were observed in dynamic mode. The analysis of different types of errors revealed that adolescents less often make insertions and omissions of elements. It may be caused by development of executive functions in adolescents.

Conclusion. The study showed that the capacity of working memory increases in adolescents. In addition, the precision of the representation of serial information are higher in adolescents in the more complicated dynamic mode.

Received: 01/20/2018

Accepted: 02/12/2018

Pages: 129-138

DOI: 10.11621/npj.2018.0312

Keywords: working memory; serial movements; graphic movements; adolescents; early schoolchildren; internal representation;

By: ; ;

Available Online: 09/30/2018

Nourkova V.V., Gofman A.A. (2018). Intentional Forgetting: Current Status and Future Prospects of Research. National Psychological Journal. 3, 117-128.

Background. Classical psychology has considered forgetting as a negative process of failure of memorization and extraction, but did not deem it a separate mental process with specific features. The pioneer studies of intentional forgetting were conducted only in the late 1960s. Therefore, it seems to us relevant to present an analysis of the research methods that have been used to study purposeful forgetting.

The Objective is to analyze thoroughly intentional forgetting in modern cognitive psychology and to justify the assumption that the productive development of intentional forgetting issues should be associated with the priority attention to the regulating function of the mnemonic goal and its structure. A hypothesis lies in the fact that a particular operation of the mnemonic action of forgetting consists in disconnecting the content links between the constituent mnemonic elements made during memorizing process.

Design. Two of the most common experimental procedures for inducing the effect of reducing the reproduction of stimulus material after the "Forget" instruction are described: the item method and the list method. The results show four ways of interpreting the intentional forgetting effect: the aspirations of the subjects to meet the experimenter's expectations, selective encoding and selective processing of the material presented, the mechanism of active "retrieval inhibition" and eliminating the mnemonic trace. The concept of mnemonic action introduced in the works of P.I. Zinchenko and the concept of the mnemonic scheme as a program for the subsequent reproduction of V.Ya. Lyaudis are considered.

The Research Results suggest that when trying to perform an inadequate mnemonic query, the subject is forced to implement an additional operation, which may be attributed to potential forgetting operations. The development of this hypothesis consists in the theoretical description of operations that destroy the existing mnemonic scheme, followed by an empirical test of their amnesogenic effectiveness. Such an approach can be used in further studies of intentional forgetting.

Conclusion. Encoding and processing of mnemonic material, extraction, and the mechanism for inhibited reproduction play a role in shaping the effect of intentional forgetting. Considering the fact that the mnemonic trace can fade over time or for other reasons, forgetting is deemed as a multifaceted process. Prospects for the development of this subject area should be conducted using the mnemonic construct.

Received: 03/26/2018

Accepted: 04/12/2018

Pages: 117-128

DOI: 10.11621/npj.2018.0311

Keywords: intentional forgetting; retrieval inhibition; mnemonic goal; mnemonic action; mnemonic scheme;

By: ; ;

Available Online: 09/30/2018

Volkova N.N., Gusev A.N. (2018). Cognitive styles and loudness discrimination: individual differential analysis. National Psychological Journal. 1, 106-116.

Background. The paper highlights the necessity of studying the role of various high-level psychological mechanisms that participate in regulating sensory perceptual processes occurring under perceptual uncertainty.

Objective. The objective was to study the role of cognitive styles as crucial factors of individual differences that determine the performance of near-threshold and threshold sensory tasks on loudness discrimination.

Design. The tasks represented the discrimination of loudness of 1000Hz tonal signals in the ‘similar-different’ paradigm. The stimulus factor was presented by the difficulty level set by the value of difference between the stimuli (2 or 1 dB). Five cognitive styles (augmenting-reducing, leveling-sharpening, flexibility-rigidity of cognitive control, equivalence range, and focusing-scanning) were considered as factors of individual differences. The sensitivity index A‵, RT and its stability, and also confidence index for each task were analyzed.

Results. The significant and quasi-significant (0.05<p<0.1) effects of separate cognitive styles and also their interactions effects were identified. These effects varied depending on the task difficulty level. Cognitive styles ‘augmenting-reducing’ (p=0.008) and ‘leveling-sharpening’ (p=0.044), together with their interaction (p=0.042), affected sensitivity in threshold task; the interaction of these styles affected sensitivity in near-threshold task (p=0.047). ‘Flexibility-rigidity of cognitive control’ (p=0.042) as well as the interaction of ‘augmenting-reducing’ and ‘leveling-sharpening’ affected RT (p=0.073) and its stability (p=0.083). Subjective confidence in the near-threshold task depended on such cognitive styles as ‘flexibility-rigidity of cognitive control' (p=0.081), and ‘equivalence range’ (p=0.043); the threshold task depended on ‘focusing-scanning’ (p=0.021), ‘flexibility-rigidity of cognitive control' (p=0.071), and ‘equivalence range’ (p=0.018), alongside the interaction of the latter two (p=0.052). The results were compared to the ones of threshold and near-threshold visual signal detection tasks performance.

Conclusion. Being crucial situational determinants of solving sensory tasks under perceptual uncertainty, the type and difficulty level of the task mediate the effects of individual differences factors on sensory performance indices. The results are discussed within the framework of system activity approach in psychophysics.


Received: 01/18/2018

Accepted: 02/09/2018

Pages: 106-116

DOI: 10.11621/npj.2018.0110

Keywords: individual differences; psychophysics; sensory task; cognitive styles; loudness discrimination;

By: ; ;

Available Online: 03/30/2018

Cherkasova A.N., Kovyazina M.S., Muromtseva T.S. (2018). The influence of memory on the results of dichotic listening. National Psychological Journal. 1, 88-97.

Background. The paper presents the review of the research devoted to functional asymmetry of auditory perception in dichotic listening. The practical application problem of dichotic listening for researching other cognitive functions (attention, executive functions) is considered. The influence of different variables on the results of dichotic listening is analyzed. Particular attention is paid to memory, as it can ‘distort’ the indices of functional asymmetry of auditory perception.

The Objective is to study the influence of memory on the results of dichotic listening.

Progress Report. 4 variants of word dichotic listening test were used, in which variables determining the degree of memory influence on the result (the instruction and the number of dichotic pairs in series) is ranged. Laterality index (LI), accuracy scores: total (AS), right-ear (RAS), left-ear (LAS); efficiency score (ES) were calculated. The research involved 80 healthy people aged 18 to 63 years divided randomly into 4 groups of 20 people, and 7 patients with blood stroke aged 25 to 75 years.

Research Results. It was shown that the wording of the instructions (participants were instructed to report all the words they had heard or the words they had heard most clearly) does not have any influence on the results of dichotic listening, the number of dichotic pairs in series (1 or 4) has an influence (comparing by LI U=227 , р<0,05; by AS U=0, р<0,05; by RAS U=2, p<0,05; by LAS U=0, р<0,05; by ES U=174,5, р<0,05). When the variant with 1 dichotic pair in series was presented, high accuracy scores and high efficiency score were noted; laterality index was approaching zero. This variant cannot be used to assess the functional asymmetry of auditory perception in healthy people and in participants who suffered a stroke.

Conclusion. In order to control the influence of memory on the results of dichotic listening can be used modified variant with 1 dichotic pair in series. But it is necessary to increase the complexity of the task that is offered to the participants. The authors consider that the presentation of fused words is possible. The stimuli presented to different auditory channels simultaneously should merge into a single perception unit.

Received: 11/26/2017

Accepted: 12/03/2017

Pages: 98-105

DOI: 10.11621/npj.2018.0109

Keywords: dichotic listening; auditory perception; functional asymmetry; memory; instruction; dichotic pair; blood stroke;

By: ; ; ;

Available Online: 03/30/2018

Almazova O.V., Bukhalenkova D.A., Veraksa A.N. (2016). The voluntariness in the preschool age: a comparative analysis of various approaches and diagnostic tools. National Psychological Journal. 4, 14-22.

Most modern psychologists who deal with preschool age emphasize the development of executive functions as one of the most important factors in this age. The paper compares two most important and common approaches to disclosing and diagnosing voluntariness in the preschool age: the model of executive functions «unity with diversity» of A. Miyake and the skills theory of L.A. Venger. The model of the executive functions considers three main components of executive functions: working memory; flexibility of attention or switching; restraining control. The basis of cognitive abilities theory is the concept of cultural facilities (sensory standards, visual models, etc.) that are being developed throughout the preschool period. In accordance with these two diagnostic complexes were drawn up, aimed at diagnosing voluntariness in preschool years. The study involved 48 children aged 5-6 years, kindergarten students (24 girls and 24 boys) conducted in Moscow, Russia. The results showed that despite a variety of theoretical approaches to early childhood and voluntariness they reverberate the same reality. 

The most revealing methods (the results of which you can predict the eventual consequences) were elaborated: the method of «Inhibition» (subtest of neuropsychological diagnostic complex techniques NEPSY-II, Korkman et al, 2007) in the case of A. Miyake model, and methods of «Schematization» in the abilities theory of L.A. Venger (Venger, Kholmovskaya, 1978).

Received: 11/25/2016

Accepted: 12/03/2016

Pages: 14-22

DOI: 10.11621/npj.2016.0402

Keywords: preschool age; voluntariness; executive functions; intelligence; working memory;

By: ; ; ;

Available Online: 12/30/2016

Nourkova V.V., Gofman A.A. (2016). Forgetting: the availability, accessibility, and intentional control problem. Part 2. National Psychological Journal. 4, 3-13.

The paper focuses on the phenomenon of forgetting as a primal and generally productive memory process. The cases that require temporary and permanent forgetting of the data stored in the long-term memory are contrasted. The main methodological obstacle in forgetting research is identified as arising from the logical prohibition to argument from the negative, i.e. “the evidence of absence is not the evidence of absence”. Two mechanisms of forgetting are discussed in the paper: transformation of the memory trace and modulation of trace accessibility. The former mechanism of forgetting consists of memory trace destruction (memory trace decay, retroactive and proactive interference, and «catastrophic» interference) or its transformation that leads to forming a new memory representation. The most promising way to legitimize the trace destruction mechanism is narrowing the further research to episodic memory subsystem. The latter mechanism of forgetting consists of both passive failure in access to appropriate memory content (the tip of the tongue phenomenon, the category size effect, the fan effect) and the process of active retrieval inhibition. This phenomenon represents temporary inhibition of competing semantically similar responses in semantic memory, and motivational inhibition of self-deprecating memories in autobiographical memory. Thus, a variety of experimental paradigms in intentional forgetting research are considered. Contrary to the common claim that forgetting is а universal and homogeneous phenomenon, we propose that forgetting strategies might vary in different memory subsystems, and also depend on activity characteristics during encoding, storage and retrieval.

Received: 12/14/2016

Accepted: 12/17/2016

Pages: 3-13

DOI: 10.11621/npj.2016.0401

Keywords: forgetting; availability problem; accessibility problem; memory trace decay; interference; retrieval inhibition; intentional forgetting;

By: ; ;

Available Online: 12/30/2016