Background. The popularity of using virtual reality in various areas of life is growing steadily every year. The use of virtual reality in sports, including sports of the highest achievements, has both advantages and disadvantages that will be considered in this paper.

The Objective is to study main aspects of using virtual reality in sports, including the historical aspect of the method, the main current areas of using the method, the existing advantages and limitations of the method for using in sports practice, including sports of the highest achievements.

Results and conclusions of the study. It is shown using virtual reality technologies in sports has a whole range of advantages, including removing restrictions imposed by real sports: preventing sport injury; creating environmental conditions (weather, humidity, rivalry, etc.), lack of dependence on sport equipment, weather or location, and the ability to engage in hard-to-reach and expensive sports accordingly. However, there are a number of problems that make it difficult to use virtual reality in sports, in particular, using sport equipment and assessing skill transfer.

Background. The paper presents an innovative quantitative method for assessing neuropsychic fatigue based on the entropy approach. The relevance of the work is connected with the need to determine the neuropsychic state and resistance to stress in different conditions of human activity. This approach is consistent with the trends of modern psychology research on self-organization in the aspect of identifying the processes that underly the stress response during overcoming physical and central fatigue. The proposed method includes the formula of conditional deterministic entropy, tools of nonequilibrium thermodynamics in its information interpretation (I. Prigogine’s theorem on the minimum of entropy production).

Objective. The approbation results of the criterion estimates of neuropsychic stability for the prediction of motor-motor capabilities, behaviour and state of the individual are shown.

Background. The study of students and athletes (71 boys and 72 girls, average age -20- + 3 years) was conducted based on the data provided by the Biological Faculty of Moscow Lomonosow State University. The approbation of the method carried out on the basis of the data of psycho-physiological indicators (tapping test) allowed to assess the stability of the neuropsychic state of athletes. Results. The data confirmed the validity of the method and made it possible to identify stable and unstable states associated with the growth of neuropsychic stress that may result in central fatigue.

Conclusion. The regularities revealed in the experimental samples do not only correspond to the data of the tapping test technique, but also show more accurate and qualitatively meaningful assessments of the neuropsychic stress and the state of the system as a whole. The approach makes it possible to create a device for monitoring neuropsychic stress, i.e. «Halter tapping», and also allows to make similar assessments of sports teams in the process of training, for example, for game sports.

Background. The physical nature of fatigue is complex. Fatigue leads to the depletion of the internal resources of the body. As a result, the pace of work slows down, with accuracy, rhythm and coordination of movements to be disturbed. Freestyle wrestling is a complex sport that imposes a whole complex of strict requirements on athletes, not only physically (strength, physical fitness, endurance, etc.), but also on the psychological and physiological level (using cognitive resources when choosing actions, reaction speed, and features of attention processes in time pressure conditions, etc.). Therefore, it is important to study the effects of physical fatigue on the psychophysiological indicators of wrestlers. The identification of such indicators reflecting the maximized functional conditions for each specific sport and for freestyle wrestling, in particular, will improve the efficiency of training athletes.

The Objective is to study the dynamic development of psychological and psychophysiological indicators in freestyle wrestlers before and after increased physical activity using psychological and electrophysiological methods, as well as to identify possible types of character accentuations in freestyle wrestlers related to the specifics of psychological and psychophysiological presented to this sport requirements. Background. The dynamics of the functional state in freestyle wrestlers was studied before and after increased physical activity. Physical activity was a training session in order to prepare athletes for competitive activity. To study the psychological and psychophysiological indicators of wrestlers, SAN questionnaires of Spielberger-Khanin test were used on a par with electrophysiological methods (EEG). Before training, athletes filled out test forms (SAN, Spilberger-Khanin and Schmishek-Leonhard methods), after which background EEG recording was performed. For statistical data analysis, the Statistica 8 package (for Windows, V 8.0, StatSoft) and the T-test for dependent samples were used. Accentuations of character typical of wrestlers were revealed using K. Leonhard’s (modification of S. Schmishek) method of studying accentuated personalities. We compared the performance of wrestlers of the group with high hypertimity (group 1) and the group with low hypertimity (group 2) in terms of the dynamics of the frequency of theta rhythm and alpha rhythm before and after exercise.

Results. Physical fatigue caused by strong physical exertion significantly affected a decrease in the subjective feeling of well-being, activity, and mood among athletes. In addition, physical fatigue was expressed in a significant decrease in the dominant and average frequency of the theta rhythm in the right hemisphere, as well as in a significant increase in the alpha rhythm in the left hemisphere. Freestyle wrestlers are mainly characterized by a hyper-type character accentuation type associated with mobility and balance of the nervous system, according to the literature. In a state of calm wakefulness, fighters with a hyperthymic type of accentuation are characterized by a low level of anxiety and a low frequency of theta rhythm, which, according to published data, is associated with the activity of the anterior cingulate gyrus, which is involved in the implementation of cognitive processes such as awaiting rewards and making decisions. In the conditions of struggle, there is a sharp increase in the level of anxiety in hyperthymic athletes and a decrease in the dominant frequency of the alpha rhythm in the right hemisphere. Simultaneously, a decrease in the theta rhythm frequency is observed in all wrestlers.

Conclusion. The results obtained allow us to suggest the existence of a certain functional system in freestyle wrestlers, which allows adapting the body’s regulatory systems for the effective implementation of sports activities through the activation of certain brain structures, in particular, the anterior cingulate gyrus. However, this study is pilot (the sample was only 9 athletes), therefore, the results can be illegally extrapolated to a wide selection, but they can be considered as a reserve for further work in this direction.

Background. Team sports are not only the most exciting sporting events. but also complex activities that make serious demands on players. The effectiveness of the team depends not only on the high level of gaming interaction. but also on the relationship between the players. The work is based on the material of sports teams and is devoted to the study of the phenomenon of group cohesion. As a basic model. the authors choose a 4-factor model that describes cohesion in sports teams. The paper also considered the phenomenon of the emergence of the aggregate subject in the process of joint activity. when the participants feel themselves as a whole and experience feelings of satisfaction and a surge of energy. 

Objective. The main objective of the work is to investigate the relationship between the level of team cohesion and subjective feelings of unity of its players. As additional variables in the study there is a sport (football and volleyball) and team level (amateur and professional). 

To test the assumptions. two methods were used (the Sport Team Cohesion Questionnaire and the Subject Unity Index). which allow not only to determine the overall level of cohesion and unity. but also to reveal the structure of both phenomena. The study involved two men’s volleyball and two men’s football teams of different ages: 8-9 years (39 athletes); 12-14 years (24 athletes) and 18-25 years (41 athletes). 

Design. For amateur groups represented by children’s and teenage sports teams. significant correlations between unity and unity were obtained (r = 0.618. p <0.01; r = 0.477. p <0.05). For professional teams. no significant correlations were found. Influence of the sport on cohesion is also different for amateur and professional teams. In the first case. the cohesion is higher for football players (U = 118. p <0.05). and in the second case for volleyball players (U = 124. p <0.05). 

Results. The findings indicate that the professional level of players affects group cohesion and the phenomenon of group unity. The authors explain this by the fact that for professionals the main motive of the activity is to receive a reward for the game. and for the amateurs - the pleasure from joint actions.

This paper attempts to analyze dissociation from the perspective of phenomenology as experience of persons engaged in activities related to high stress (physical and/ or psychological). 

Dissociation is usually correlated with the so-called reaction fading in life-threatening situations, which along with the reactions of “fight or flight” reveal both in humans and the representatives of the animal world (“fight, flight or freeze”). However, unlike animals humans are often able to act purposefully in dissociative states, or randomly enter them. Specific features and diversity of manifestations of dissociation in humans are determined by the linguistic nature of human consciousness, which is logical to appeal to the philosophers of the phenomenological direction within which consciousness is the subject matter of their research. 

Based on the concept of Henri Bergson and Gilles Deleuze various manifestations of dissociation are detected: from the grave symptoms of PTSD (the so-called invasion of symptoms) to controlled arbitrarily selected dissociative strategies for athletes. Dissociative experiences by experts of extreme careers are considered: law enforcement officers who participated in missions in «hot spots», and EMERCOM psychologists. Dissociation mechanism in terms of phenomenology is defined. 

The development and application of adequate diagnostic tools, psychological work with the athletes to regulate the focus of attention during the competition is supposed to contribute to the achievement of a high sports results.