Levels of mental reflection. Fundamentals of mental function. Features of mental reflection

Psyche according to materialistic teaching is understood as a property of specially organized matter - the brain.

That the psyche is truly a product of the activity of the brain, special property it is proven by numerous experiments on animals and clinical observations on people. Thus, with certain lesions of the brain, changes in the psyche always inevitably occur, and quite definite ones at that: with damage to the occipital-parietal parts of the cortex of the left hemisphere of the brain, a person’s orientation in space is disrupted, and with damage lower sections- perception of speech, music. These and other examples indicate that the psyche is inseparable from the activity of the brain. A natural scientific analysis of brain activity is given in the works of Ivan Mikhailovich Sechenov and Ivan Petrovich Pavlov. Sechenov wrote that the reflexes of the human brain include three parts. First- this is stimulation in the senses. Second- processes of excitation and inhibition occurring in the brain. Third- external movements and actions of a person. The psyche is the central link of the reflex.

Pavlov's teaching about conditioned reflexes, arising in the cerebral cortex, revealed the physiological mechanism of mental activity. However, studying physiological mechanisms The work of the brain is not exhausted by the study of the psyche. You should always remember that the psyche is reflection of the surrounding world by the brain. Therefore, it has its own content, i.e. what a person reflects in the world around him.

Features of mental reflection . What characterizes the psyche as a reflection?

The mental consciousness of a person is considered as a result of the reflective activity of the human brain, as subjective reflection of the objective world.

Psyche is a “subjective reflection of the objective world.”

1 feature – activity. Mental reflection is not a dead, mirror-like, one-act reflection, but a process that is constantly developing and improving, creating and overcoming its contradictions. Psychic reflection is active a multi-act process during which external actions are refracted through internal features the one who reflects, and therefore it is a subjective reflection of the objective world. If in inanimate nature the object reflecting the impact is passive and only undergoes certain changes, then living beings have an “independent power of response,” i.e. any impact takes on the character of interaction, which even at the lowest levels mental development is expressed in adaptation (adaptation) to external influences and in one or another selectivity of responses.

Feature 2 – subjectivity.Psyche- this is a reflection in which any external influence is always refracted through previously established characteristics of the psyche, through the mental state that a particular living being (human) has at the moment . Therefore, the same external influence can be reflected differently different people and even by the same person different time and at different conditions. We constantly encounter this phenomenon in life, in particular in the process of teaching and raising children. Thus, all students in the class listen to the same explanation from the teacher, but learn the educational material in different ways; All schoolchildren are subject to the same requirements, but students perceive and fulfill them differently. Refraction external influences through the internal characteristics of a person depends on many circumstances: age, achieved level of knowledge, previously established attitude towards this species influence, degree of activity and, most importantly, the formed worldview. Thus, the content of the psyche are images of real objects, phenomena, events that exist independently of us and outside of us (i.e., images of the objective world). But these images arise in each person in a unique way, depending on his past experience, interests, feelings, worldview, etc. This is why reflection is subjective. All this gives the right to say that psyche is a subjective reflection of the objective world. This feature of the psyche lies in the renewal of such an important pedagogical principle as the need to take into account age and individual characteristics children in the process of their education and upbringing. Without taking into account these features, it is impossible to know how each child reflects the measures of pedagogical influence.

3 feature. Contents of the psyche is the image objective, objects, phenomena, events existing independently of us and outside of us (i.e., the objective world). The emerging images are snapshots, casts of existing phenomena and events. The subjectivity of mental reflection in no way denies the objective possibility of correctly reflecting the real world.

Next important feature mental reflection is and what it wears anticipatory character (“advanced reflection” Pyotr Konstantinovich Anokhin). The anticipatory nature of mental reflection is the result of the accumulation and consolidation of experience. It is in the process of repeated reflection of certain situations that the future reaction model . As soon as a living creature finds itself in a similar position, the very first impacts trigger the entire response system.

Cumulativeness another one peculiarity mental reflection (from Latin cumulo - accumulate). The type of reflection is such that the last impression is superimposed on the previous one and changes the reflective ability of the psyche, i.e. the internal experience of the individual is included in the reflection and changes reflective abilities.

Permanence(French permanent, from Latin permaneo - I remain, continue, i.e. continuously ongoing, constant) is also distinctive feature psyche from other forms of reflection. The psyche is not a one-time act; it lasts over time.

Functions of the psyche

(Let us turn to the definition of the psyche given in the textbook by Anatoly Gennadievich Maklakov)Psyche is a property highly organized living matter, consisting in active reflection subject of the objective world, in the subject’s construction of a picture of this world inalienable from him and regulation on this basis of behavior and activity.

From this definition follows a number of fundamental judgments about the nature and mechanisms of manifestation of the psyche. Firstly, psyche is a property only living matter. And not just living matter, but highly organized living matter. Consequently, not all living matter has this property, but only that which has specific organs that determine the possibility of the existence of the psyche.

Secondly, main feature psyche lies in the ability to reflect the objective world. What does this mean? Literally this means the following: highly organized living matter with a psyche has the ability to receive information about the world around it. At the same time, obtaining information is associated with the creation of a certain mental state by this highly organized matter, i.e. subjective in nature and idealistic (immaterial) in essence, an image that, with a certain degree of accuracy, is a copy of material objects of the real world.

Third, the information received by a living being about the surrounding world serves as the basis for regulation internal environment a living organism and the formation of its behavior, which generally determines the possibility of a relatively long existence of this organism in constantly changing environmental conditions. Consequently, living matter with a psyche is capable of responding to change external environment or on the impact of environmental objects.

Thus, the psyche performs a number of important functions.

1. Reflection of the influences of the surrounding reality. The psyche is a property of the brain, its specific function. This function is in the nature of reflection. The mental reflection of reality has its own characteristics.

Firstly, this is not a dead, mirror reflection, but a process that is constantly developing and improving, creating and overcoming its contradictions.

Secondly, with the mental reflection of objective reality, any external influence is always refracted through previously established characteristics of the psyche, through specific human states. Therefore, the same impact can be reflected differently by different people and even by the same person at different times and under different conditions.

Thirdly, mental reflection is a correct, true reflection of reality. Emerging images of the material world are snapshots, copies of existing objects, phenomena, and events.

2. Regulation of behavior and activity. The human psyche and consciousness, on the one hand, reflect the influence of the external environment, adapt to it, and on the other hand, regulate this process, constituting the internal content of activity and behavior. The latter cannot but be mediated by the psyche, since it is with its help that a person realizes motives and needs, sets goals and objectives for his activity. Develops ways and techniques to achieve its results. The behavior in this case is external form manifestations of activity.

3. A person’s awareness of his place in the world around him. This function of the psyche, on the one hand, ensures correct adaptation and orientation of a person in the objective world, guaranteeing him a correct understanding of all the realities of this world and an adequate attitude towards them. On the other hand, with the help of the psyche, a person realizes himself as a person endowed with certain individual and socio-psychological characteristics, as a representative of a particular society, social group who is different from other people and has a unique interpersonal relationship with them.

1. The fundamental property of the psyche is its active nature. The mental is generated in activity; on the other hand, activity itself is controlled by mental reflection. Mental reflection is anticipatory in nature: the mode of action, performing a regulatory function, is ahead of the action itself. Indeed, before doing something, a person does it in his mind, he builds an image of a future action.

2. The main way of existence of the psyche, from the point of view of S.L. Rubinstein, is its existence as a process. Mental phenomena arise and exist only in the process of continuous interaction of the individual with the world around him, the continuous influence of the external world on the individual and his response actions. However, the mental exists not only as a process, but as a result, a product of this process, a result mental process is a mental image that is fixed in a word, that is, signified. Images and concepts are means of understanding the world; they record knowledge about the world. But they reflect not only knowledge about objects and phenomena, but also the subject’s attitude towards them; they also reflect their significance for a person, for his life and activity. Therefore, the image and concept are always emotionally colored. Every act of reflection is the introduction into action of new determinants of behavior, the emergence of new motives. Objects and phenomena, reflected in images and concepts, encourage a person to continuously interact with the world.

It can be argued that the holistic act of reflection of an object by the subject is the unity of such opposite sides as processivity and effectiveness, knowledge and attitude, the intellectual component (images and meanings) and the emotional and motivational.

3. Mental reflection has such a characteristic as partiality; it is always subjective, that is, mediated by the experience of the subject, his motives, knowledge, emotions, etc. All this constitutes internal conditions, which characterize the activity of the subject, the spontaneity of his mental activity. The mediation of external influences by internal conditions in the process of mental reflection is called the principle of determinism, formulated by S.L. Rubinstein: external reasons act through internal conditions. This the most important moment was missed by the Bnhevnornists, in their stimulus-response formula it is precisely the central link that is missing, that is, human consciousness, which determines the nature of human reactions to external influences.

Features of mental reflection. Reflection is inherent in all matter. The interaction of any material bodies leads to their mutual changes. This phenomenon can be observed in the field of mechanics, in all manifestations of electrical energy, in optics, etc. The fact that the psyche is a kind of reflection once again emphasizes its inextricable connection, unity with matter. However, mental reflection is qualitatively different; it has a number of special properties.

What characterizes the psyche as a reflection? The mental consciousness of a person is considered as a result of the reflective activity of the human brain, as a subjective reflection of the objective world. A comprehensive disclosure of the essence of the psyche as a reflection is given in the works of V. I. Lenin, and above all in his work “Materialism and Empirio-Criticism.” “Our sensations, our consciousness,” according to V.I. Lenin, “are only image the outside world..." 1 .

The psyche is not a dead, mirror image, but an active process. V.I. Lenin wrote: "Reflection nature in human thought must be understood not “deadly”, not “abstractly”, not without movement,not without controversy , and in the eternal process movement, the emergence of contradictions and their resolution" 2 . Lenin's theory of reflection is the philosophical basis of scientific psychology, as it provides a correct materialist understanding of the psyche as a process of subjective reflection of reality. If in inanimate nature an object reflecting influence is passive and only undergoes certain changes, then living beings have "independent reaction force" 3 , i.e. any impact takes on character interactions, which even at the lowest stages of mental development is expressed in adaptation (adaptation) to external influences and in one or another selectivity of responses.

The psyche is a reflection in which any external influence (i.e., the influence of objective reality) is always refracted through the mental state that a particular living creature currently has. Therefore, the same external influence can be reflected differently by different people and even by the same person at different times and under different conditions. We constantly encounter this phenomenon in life, in particular in the process of teaching and raising children. Thus, all students in the class listen to the same explanation from the teacher, but learn the educational material in different ways; All schoolchildren are subject to the same requirements, but students perceive and fulfill them differently.

The refraction of external influences through the internal characteristics of a person depends on many circumstances: age, the achieved level of knowledge, previously established attitude towards this type of influence, the degree of activity and, most importantly, on the formed worldview.

Thus, the content of the psyche are images of real objects, phenomena, events that exist independently of us and outside of us (i.e., images of the objective world). But these images arise in each person in a unique way, depending on his past experience, interests, feelings, worldview, etc. That is why reflection is subjective. All this gives the right to say that psyche - subjective reflection of the objective world.

This feature of the psyche underlies such an important pedagogical principle as the need to take into account the age and individual characteristics of children in the process of their training and upbringing. Without taking into account these features, it is impossible to know how each child reflects the measures of pedagogical influence.

Psychic reflection - this is a true, true reflection. The emerging images are snapshots, casts, copies of existing objects, phenomena, events. The subjectivity of mental reflection in no way denies the objective possibility of correctly reflecting the real world.

Recognition of the correctness of mental reflection is of fundamental importance. It is this property that makes it possible for a person to understand the world, establish objective laws in it and their subsequent use in the theoretical and practical activities of people.

The correctness of the reflection is verified by socio-historical practice humanity. “For a materialist,” V.I. Lenin pointed out, “the “success” of human practice proves the correspondence of our ideas with the objective nature of the things that we perceive.” 1 . If we can foresee in advance when a solar or lunar eclipse will occur, if we can calculate in advance the flight orbit of an artificial Earth satellite or the carrying capacity of a ship, and subsequent practice will confirm the calculations made; if, having studied the child, we outline certain measures of pedagogical influence and, having applied them, obtain the desired result, then all this means that we have correctly learned the corresponding laws of cosmic mechanics, hydrodynamics, and child development.

An important feature of psychic reflection is that it carries anticipatory character("advanced reflection" - P.K. Anokhin;"anticipatory reaction" - N. A. Bernshtein).

The anticipatory nature of mental reflection is the result of the accumulation and consolidation of experience. It is in the process of repeatedly reflecting certain situations that a model of future reaction gradually develops. As soon as a living creature finds itself in a similar position, the very first impacts trigger the entire response system.

So, mental reflection is an active, multi-act process, during which external influences are refracted through the internal characteristics of the one who reflects, and therefore the psyche is a subjective reflection of the objective world.

The psyche is a correct, true reflection of the world, verified and confirmed by socio-historical practice. Mental reflection is anticipatory in nature.

All these features of mental reflection lead to the fact that the psyche acts as behavior regulator living organisms.

The listed features of mental reflection are, to one degree or another, inherent in all living beings, but the highest level of mental development - consciousness - is characteristic only of humans. In order to understand how human consciousness arose and what its main features are, we should consider the development of the psyche in the process of animal evolution.

Psyche (from the Greek psychikos - spiritual) is a form of active reflection by the subject of objective reality, arising in the process of interaction of highly organized living beings with the outside world and carrying out a regulatory function in their behavior (activity). The central category in this definition is the active display or reflection of reality.

Mental reflection is not a mirror, mechanically passive copying of the world (like a mirror or a camera), it is associated with a search, a choice; in mental reflection, incoming information is subjected to specific processing, i.e. mental reflection is an active reflection of the world in connection with some necessity, with needs. This is a subjective, selective reflection of the objective world, since it always belongs to the subject, does not exist outside the subject and depends on subjective characteristics. You can define the psyche as a “subjective image of the objective world” - this is our idea or picture of the world, according to which we feel, make decisions and act.

The fundamental property of the psyche - subjectivity - determined introspection as the main method of its research from ancient times until the emergence of the first research centers at the end of the 19th century. Introspection is self-observation organized according to special rules.

IN domestic psychology Basically, a rationalistic way of cognition is adopted, based on logic and experience, which connects the psyche with the activity of the brain, the development of which is determined by the evolution of living nature. However, the psyche cannot be reduced simply to nervous system. Mental properties are the result of neurophysiological activity of the brain, but contain the characteristics of external objects, and not internal physiological processes through which the mental arises. Signal transformations taking place in the brain are perceived by a person as events taking place outside of him - in external space and the world.

Mental phenomena are correlated not with a separate neurophysiological process, but with organized sets of such processes, i.e. psyche is system quality brain, implemented through multi-level functional systems brain, which are formed in a person in the process of life and his mastery of historically established forms of activity and experience of mankind through active activity. Thus, specifically human qualities (consciousness, speech, work, etc.) are formed in a person only during his lifetime, in the process of assimilating the culture created by previous generations. Consequently, the human psyche includes at least three components, as shown in Fig. 3.

Fig.3. The structure of the subject’s mental reflection of the external and internal world.

Functions of the psyche.

The definition and concept of the psyche, analyzed above, gives an idea of ​​the functions of the psyche or answers the question - why does the subject need a psyche?

Even W. James, the founder of the functional approach in psychology (the forerunner of behaviorism - the science of behavior) believed that the psyche serves the purpose of adapting the individual to the surrounding world and therefore reflects it. Accordingly, the functions of the psyche include: 1) reflection, 2) adaptation necessary for survival and interaction with environment– biological, physical, social. From the definition of the psyche it is clear that it also performs 3) a regulatory function, that is, it directs and regulates the activity of the subject and controls behavior. In order to regulate behavior adequately to the conditions of the external and internal environment, that is, adaptively, it is necessary to navigate this environment. Consequently, it is logical to highlight 4) the orientation function of the psyche.

Named above mental functions 5) ensure the integrity of the body, which is necessary not only for survival, but also for the preservation of physical and mental health subject.

Modern domestic psychologists are expanding the list of traditionally considered mental functions. Thus, V. Allakhverdov in his works pays great attention 6) cognitive or educational function of the psyche and considers the psyche as an ideal cognitive system. One of the famous Russian methodologists B. Lomov, based on a systems approach, identifies 7) the communicative function of the psyche, since the psyche of the subject arises and develops in interaction with others, that is, it is included as a component in other systems (an individual within a group, etc. ).

Ya. Ponomarev drew attention to the fact that human behavior can be non-adaptive (for example, creative behavior - where a person, when implementing his ideas, sometimes acts contrary to common sense and the instinct of self-preservation). Accordingly, he added 8) the function of creative activity, which leads a person to create new reality that goes beyond what already exists.

It seems that this is an incomplete list of the functions of the psyche, that is, why and for what it is needed by an individual, personality and subject of activity. Psychological science is waiting for new discoveries in the study of mental phenomena.

FEATURES OF MENTAL REFLECTION

Etymologically the word ʼʼpsycheʼʼ (Greek soul) has a dual meaning. One meaning carries the semantic load of the essence of a thing. The psyche is the essence where the externality and diversity of nature gathers into its unity, it is a virtual compression drive, it is a reflection of the objective world in connections and relationships.

Mental reflection is not a mirror, mechanically passive copying of the world (like a mirror or a camera), it is associated with a search, choice, in mental reflection incoming information is subjected to specific processing, i.e. mental reflection is an active reflection of the world in connection with some necessarily, with needs, this is a subjective selective reflection of the objective world, since it always belongs to the subject, does not exist outside the subject, depends on subjective characteristics. The psyche is a subjective image of the objective world. The psyche cannot be reduced simply to the nervous system. Mental properties are the result of the neurophysiological activity of the brain, but they contain the characteristics of external objects, and not the internal physiological processes through which the mental arises. Signal transformations taking place in the brain are perceived by a person as events taking place outside him, in external space and the world. The brain secretes psyche, thought, just as the liver secretes bile. The disadvantage of this theory is that they identify the psyche with nervous processes and do not see the qualitative differences between them. Mental phenomena are correlated not with a separate neurophysiological process, but with organized sets of such processes, i.e. the psyche is a systemic quality of the brain, realized through multi-level functional systems of the brain that are formed in a person in the process of life and his mastery of historically established forms of activity and experience humanity through its own active activity. Specifically human qualities (consciousness, speech, work, etc.), human psyche are formed in a person only during his lifetime, in the process of assimilating the culture created by previous generations. The human psyche includes at least three components: the external world, nature, its reflection - full-fledged brain activity - interaction with people, active transmission of human culture and human abilities to new generations.

Mental reflection is characterized by a number of features˸

1) it makes it possible to correctly reflect the surrounding reality, and the correctness of the reflection is confirmed by practice; 2) the mental image itself is formed in the process active work person; 3) mental reflection deepens and improves; 4) ensures the appropriateness of behavior and activity;

5) refracted through a person’s individuality;

6) is of a proactive nature.