These are images of objects and phenomena that appear in the brain and do not currently affect the senses. The physiological basis of ideas are traces left in the cerebral cortex from excitations that occurred before. Under the influence of a stimulus, old nerve connections in the cerebral cortex are revived, and an image appears.

This is the result of processing and generalization of past perceptions. Without perceptions, ideas could not be formed: those born blind have no ideas about colors and colors, those born deaf have no sound ideas.

The difference between ideas and perceptions is that ideas give a more generalized reflection of objects. They reflect characteristic, visual signs of objects and phenomena. For example, the representation of a river reflects a strip of water flowing between two banks. We perceive many rivers, of different widths, with different banks, with different flow speeds. The presentation reflects visual signs characteristic of any river. 6 representations generalize individual perceptions, emphasize the constant signs of things and phenomena and omit the random ones found in individual perceptions.

In ideas, as in perceptions, reality is reflected in the form of visual images. To imagine means to mentally see or mentally hear something, to reflect visually, and not just to know.

Performance- a higher level of cognition than perception; it is a stage of transition from sensation to thought. This is a visual and at the same time generalized image that reflects the characteristic features of the object. The main feature of the presentation is the interpenetration of the visual and the generalized in it. This is the result of the interaction of two signal systems: the initial signals in the formation of ideas are the signals of the first signal system (colors, smells, shapes, etc.), but ideas become a generalized image due to the participation of the second signal system (spoken or written word) in their formation.

General and single views

There are performances single And general, in contrast to perceptions, which are always singular. A representation based on the perception of one specific object will be singular, since it reflects a single object. A representation that generally reflects a number of similar objects is general. In the formation of general ideas, the most important role is played by speech, naming a number of objects in one word.

A single representation reflects the special features characteristic of a given individual object. The general representation reflects features that are common to many similar objects, that is, features that are present in each object of this group.

Compare, for example, the image of the Neva - a river encased in granite, with the image of a river in general. The image of the Neva is a single idea, the image of the river is a general one. But even a single representation, in comparison with the image of perception, is generalized, since it generalizes a number of perceptions of a changing object. The image of the Neva, i.e. a single idea, is formed on the basis of its reflection at different times: during an ice drift, under the ice, on a hot summer afternoon, when the color of the water reflects the blue sky, on a gray autumn day, in a strong wind, when water appears on the Neva waves, in a flood, when the water overflows its banks.

The changing reflection also contains constant, characteristic signs of objects and phenomena that become decisive in the representation. Single representations are generalized, resulting in the emergence of general representations.

In the educational process, ideas are formed on the basis of students' acquaintance with individual phenomena, on the basis of the formation of individual ideas and their subsequent generalization.

A general representation, in contrast to a single representation, is devoid of individual features that are characteristic only of a separate representation. The general presentation contains only those features that apply to all phenomena of this kind. However, general ideas are also visual in nature - they are a reflection of the visual features of objects, phenomena, and processes.

Types of representations

Representations are divided according to the types of perceptions on which they are based. Distinguish visual (image of a person, object, landscape), auditory (presentation of a musical melody), olfactory (representation of the smell of ether), taste(representation of the taste of lemon), tactile-motor (imagining the position of your body when jumping) representations. The division of ideas into types is arbitrary: in this division they are guided by one characteristic of an object, although it also has other characteristics. Often ideas arise from the activities of two or more analyzers and are synthetic in nature.

Ideas are formed in the process of human activity, therefore, depending on the profession, predominantly one type of ideas develops: for an artist - visual, from the composer - auditory, for an athlete and a ballerina - motor, at the chemist - olfactory, at the taster - gustatory.

Muscle-motor representations cause so-called rudimentary movements. They are invisible, but can be recorded with special devices. When we imagine exactly how to perform a certain movement, at that moment, in the motor centers of the cerebral cortex, nervous excitations arise, leading to weak motor impulses. Such rudimentary movements are called ideomotor acts.

You can conduct an experiment in which these movements become noticeable. If a person takes a string with a small weight tied to it with two fingers and thinks hard about the weight swinging, then the weight will actually begin to swing slowly. Associated with the idea of ​​some kind of movement, the process of excitation leads to a barely noticeable movement of the working organ. Tensely imagining the movement, a person unconsciously begins to carry it out, albeit in a very weak form.

It has now been proven that the idea of ​​movement causes action currents, or biocurrents, in the muscles. These currents can be used to construct a mechanical arm connected by wires to a current collector bracelet worn on the arm. A mechanical hand performs the movements that a person can only imagine. He mentally squeezes his hand - the mechanical hand clenches into a fist.

Ideomotor acts are also used to explain the so-called “mind reading” (experiments of Wolf Messing and Mikhail Kuni): the guesser “guesses” the ideomotor signals that the conductor involuntarily gives him, who is thinking hard about what movements and in what direction he must make in order to fulfill his plans. The guesser does not “read thoughts”, but senses ideomotor signals from the muscles of the guide’s hand. Biocurrents also arise in the muscles of the speech organs. Using special devices, you can record the movements that the speech organs make when solving a mental problem. This shows that thinking always occurs in speech form.

General psychology.(Textbook for students of pedagogical institutes). Ed. V. V. Bogoslovsky and others. 2nd ed., revised. and additional - M.: Education, 1973. - 351 p. pp. 208-211.

Reproduction of sensory perceptions leads to the emergence of new, unique mental formations - ideas.

Performance- this is a reproduced image of an object, based on our past experience. While perception gives us an image of an object only in its immediate presence, as a result of the irritations that fall from it on our peripheral receptor apparatus, representation is an image of an object, which - on the basis of previous sensory influence - is reproduced in the absence of the object . It is in this, that is, in the different attitude of ideas and perceptions to objects, to phenomena of reality, that the main difference between representation and perception lies.

Like perceptions, ideas, even general ones, are visual; representations are images. Compared to perception, representations are usually less vivid, although the degree of vividness of a representation varies greatly.

Representations are further distinguished by some greater, sometimes less fragmentation. When carefully analyzing or trying to establish all the sides or features of an object, the image of which is given in the representation, it usually turns out that some sides, features or parts are not represented at all. At the same time, we may have a single general idea of ​​a very complex whole, for example, the general image of some work of art.

Finally, ideas differ in their greater or lesser generality. By transferring in time the data of experience, knowledge obtained in the process of effectively reflecting the world, from the present to the future and from the past to the present, memory processes inevitably to some extent distract these data from the particular conditions of a single moment in space and time. Therefore, they inevitably take the first step towards abstraction and generalization. Reproduced memory images and representations are a step or even a whole series of steps leading from a single image of perception to a concept and a generalized representation with which thinking operates. Firstly, the representation may be a more or less individualized image of the memory of a single scene, of a certain person, not in general, but as he appeared before us at one particularly memorable moment. Secondly, the idea can be figurative, but generalized knowledge about some object as it generally appears to us, regardless of any specific particular situation in which it was somehow perceived by us in one case or another. Such an idea of ​​a certain individual object in abstraction from the specific conditions of place and time, from the specific conditions of the situation in which it actually appeared before us, presupposes a well-known abstraction, a certain abstraction that takes place within the visual-figurative content of the representation. It already requires some processing. This processing of the reproduced image-representation is prepared in some cases already within perception, which, as we have seen, can also have varying degrees of generality. This processing is expressed in the fact that in the image-representation some basic, most essential features that characterize a given object come to the fore and retain the greatest constancy, being significantly related to its meaning; others seem to fade into the background, receding into the background. In presentation, these latter features are often distinguished by great instability, variability, and fluidity. The instability of representations, expressed in the variability and fluidity of some parts, properties or details of the image-representation, seems to introduce a number of variables into the representation. This circumstance also has a positive meaning. Thanks to it, representation acquires greater potential for a generalized representation of various objects than if it were an absolutely stable formation, unchanged in all its parts, properties and details.

Finally, a representation can be a generalized image not of a single object or person, but of an entire class or category of similar objects. The existence of such general ideas has been the subject of great philosophical and psychological discussions (J. Berkeley and others). However, the existence of schemes is beyond doubt, and the scheme, being visual, is also a kind of representation. A diagram of a device, a machine, a diagram of the nervous system, localization of functions in the brain, etc. represent in a visual form not a single object, but a set of homogeneous objects, giving an idea of ​​their structure. Forms of schematization, i.e., mental generalizing processing of a reproduced image-representation, are extremely diverse. They provide various types of generalized representations. Of particular importance are those types of generalizing processing of representation that lead to the creation of an artistic image that combines the character of individualization and typicality. In such an artistic image, the decisive factor is no longer reproduction, but transformation, which characterizes the activity not of memory, but of imagination.

Thus, representations may have varying degrees of generality; they form a whole stepwise hierarchy of increasingly generalized ideas, which at one pole turn into concepts, while at the other - in the images of memory they reproduce perceptions in their individuality.

Representations are actually images of memory only in the case when the image-representation reproduces what was previously perceived and is, to one degree or another, realized in its relation to it. When an idea arises or is formed without reference to what was previously perceived, even using what was perceived in a more or less transformed form, the idea is not an image of memory proper, but rather of the imagination. Finally, representation functions in the system of thinking. By being included in mental operations, representation, along with new functions, acquires new features. By introducing the concepts here, we at the same time briefly summarize their main features.

Chapter 9. Presentation

Definition of representation and its main characteristics. Representation as a mental process of reflecting objects or phenomena that are not perceived at the moment. Types of representations: representations of memory, representations of imagination. Mechanisms of the emergence of ideas. The main characteristics of representations: clarity, fragmentation, instability, impermanence. Representations as a result of image generalization. General and specific views.

Types of performances. Classification of representations by modality: visual, auditory, motor, tactile, olfactory, etc.
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Classification of representations by content and degree of generalization. Characteristics of certain types of representations.

Individual characteristics of performance and its development. Individual characteristics of presentation: visual type, auditory type. motor type. Stages of formation of ideas in people. Conditions for the development of ideas.

Primary memory images and non-verifying images. General concept of primary memory images. General concept of reconciling images. Similarities and differences between memory images and persistent images.

9.1. Definition of a view and its main characteristics

We receive primary information about the world around us through sensation and perception. The excitement that arises in our sense organs does not disappear without a trace at the very moment when the effect of stimuli on them ceases. After this, so-called sequential images appear and persist for some time. Moreover, the role of these images for a person’s mental life is relatively small. Of much greater importance is the fact that, even long after we have perceived an object, the image of this object must again be evoked by us - accidentally or intentionally. This phenomenon is called “representation”.

Τᴀᴋᴎᴍ ᴏϬᴩᴀᴈᴏᴍ, performance - This the mental process of reflecting objects or phenomena that are not currently perceived, but are recreated on the basis of our previous experience.

The root of representation is the perception of objects that took place in the past. Several types of representations can be distinguished. First of all, this memory representations, i.e. ideas that arose on the basis of our direct perception in the past of any object or phenomenon. Secondly, this imagination. At first glance, this type of representation does not correspond to the definition of the concept of “representation”, because in the imagination we display something that we have never seen, but this is only at first glance. Imagination is not born out of nowhere, and if we, for example, have never been

in the tundra, this does not mean that we have no idea about it. We have seen the tundra in photographs, in films, and also read its description in a geography or natural history textbook, and on the basis of this material we can imagine an image of the tundra. Consequently, imagination representations are formed on the basis of information received in past perceptions and its more or less creative processing. The richer the past experience, the brighter and more complete the corresponding idea should be.

Ideas do not arise on their own, but as a result of our practical activity. Moreover, ideas are of great importance not only for the processes of memory or imagination, but they are extremely important for all mental processes that ensure human cognitive activity. The processes of perception, thinking, and writing are always associated with ideas, as well as memory, which stores information and thanks to which ideas are formed.

Representations have their own characteristics. First of all, representations are characterized visibility. Representations are sensory-visual images of reality, and this is their closeness to images of perception. But perceptual images are a reflection of those objects of the material world that are perceived at the moment, while representations are reproduced and processed images of objects that were perceived in the past. For this reason, representations never have the degree of clarity that is inherent in images of perception - they, as a rule, are much paler.

The next characteristic of representations is fragmentation. The representations are full of gaps, some parts and features are presented vividly, others are very vague, and still others are completely absent. For example, when we imagine someone's face, we clearly and distinctly reproduce only individual features. which, as a rule, we focused our attention on. The remaining details only appear slightly against the background of a vague and indefinite image.

An equally significant characteristic of representations is their instability And impermanence. Thus, any evoked image, be it an object or someone’s image, will disappear from the field of your consciousness, no matter how hard you try to hold it. And you will have to make another effort to evoke it again. At the same time, ideas are very fluid and changeable. First one and then another detail of the reproduced image comes to the foreground. Only in people who have a highly developed ability to form ideas of a certain type (for example, musicians have the ability to form auditory ideas, artists have visual ideas), these ideas are quite stable and constant.

It should be noted that ideas are not just visual images of reality, but are always, to a certain extent, generalized images. This is their proximity to concepts. Generalization occurs not only in those representations that relate to a whole group of similar objects (the idea of ​​a chair in general, the idea of ​​a cat in general, etc.), but also in the representations of specific objects. We see every object familiar to us more than once, and each time we form some new image of this object, but when we evoke in our minds an idea of ​​this object, the image that arises is always generalized

character.
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For example, imagine your dining table or the cup you usually use. You have seen these objects more than once and from different sides, but when you were asked to imagine them, they appeared in your mind not in the plural, but in some generalized image. This generalized image is characterized primarily by the fact that it emphasizes and presents with the greatest clarity the constant features of a given object, and on the other hand, the features characteristic of individual, private memories are absent or presented very faintly.

Our ideas are always the result of a generalization of individual images of perception. The degree of generalization contained in the representation must vary. Representations characterized by a high degree of generalization are called general representations.

It is also necessary to emphasize the following very important feature of representations. On the one hand, representations are visual, and in this respect they are similar to sensory and perceptual images. On the other hand, general ideas contain a significant degree of generalization, and in this respect they are similar to concepts. However, representations are a transition from sensory and perceptual images to concepts.

Representation, like any other cognitive process, performs a number of functions in the mental regulation of human behavior. Most researchers identify three main functions: signaling, regulating and tuning.

The essence of the signal function of representations is to reflect in each specific case not only the image of an object that previously influenced our senses, but also diverse information about this object, which, under the influence of specific influences, is transformed into a system of signals that control behavior.

I.P. Pavlov believed that ideas are the first signals of reality, on the basis of which a person carries out his conscious activities. He showed that ideas are very often formed according to the mechanism of a conditioned reflex. Thanks to this, any ideas signal specific phenomena of reality. When in the course of your life and activity you come across some object or some phenomenon, you form ideas not only about what it looks like, but also about the properties of this phenomenon or object. It is this knowledge that subsequently acts as a primary orientation signal for a person. For example, when you see an orange, you imagine it as an edible and quite juicy object. Therefore, orange is able to satisfy hunger or thirst.

The regulatory function of ideas is closely related to their signaling function and consists in the selection of the necessary information about an object or phenomenon that previously influenced our senses. Moreover, this choice is not made abstractly, but taking into account the real conditions of the upcoming activity. Thanks to the regulatory function, exactly those aspects, for example, of motor representations are updated, on the basis of which the task is solved with the greatest success.

Is it possible to study

Representation occupies a special place among mental cognitive processes. L.M. Wekker proposes to consider representations as secondary images.

“Representations are an extremely important intermediate link that connects primary-signal mental processes, organized in the form of images of various types, and secondary-signal mental, or speech-mental mental processes, which already constitute a “specially human” level of mental information.

Already the consideration of such an important property of primary images as generality, which not by chance completes the list of empirical characteristics of perception and is a “cross-cutting” parameter of all mental processes, has led to the question of the extremely important relationship between perception and memory. Since the generality of the image expresses the attribution of the object displayed in it to a certain class, and the class should not be the content of the actual, i.e., currently occurring reflection, the obligatory mediating link here is the inclusion of apperception, i.e., images formed in the past experience and embodied in those standards extracted from memory with which each actual percept is compared.

Such standards are secondary images, or representations that accumulate the characteristics of various individual images. On the basis of these characteristics, a “portrait of a class of objects” is constructed and thereby ensures the possibility of transition from a perceptual-figurative to a conceptual-logical representation of the structure of a class of objects that are homogeneous in any set of their characteristics.

representation

However, representation can be considered as a link between perception and memory; it connects perception with thinking. It should be noted that very little research is currently being conducted on this important mental process. Why?

ʼʼThe study of secondary images faces significant difficulties both at the starting point of analysis - when describing their main empirical characteristics, and at the stage of the theoretical search for patterns that determine the organization of this category of “first signals”. These methodological difficulties are caused primarily by the absence of a present, directly acting stimulus object, with which the actual content of the representation must be directly correlated. In addition, due to the lack of direct influence of the represented object, the representation itself is a “volatile” structure that is difficult to fix.

In this regard, the experimental psychological study of secondary images, despite its theoretical and applied relevance, lags disproportionately behind the study of primary, sensory-perceptual images. There is very little “established” empirical material here, and the available data is extremely fragmentary and scattered.

Consequently, we can conclude that the study of representations is an urgent and at the same time completely unsolved problem. For example, a very significant problem is the study of the processes of forming ideas about oneself.

According to: Wekker L.M. Mental processes: In 3 volumes. T.1.- L.: Leningrad State University Publishing House, 1974.

The next function of views is customization. It manifests itself in the orientation of human activity based on the nature of environmental influences. Thus, while studying the physiological mechanisms of voluntary movements, I.P. Pavlov showed that the emerging motor image ensures the adjustment of the motor apparatus to perform the appropriate movements. The tuning function of representations provides a certain training effect of motor representations, which contributes to the formation of an algorithm of our activity.

However, ideas play a very significant role in the mental regulation of human activity.

9.2. Types of representations

Today, there are several approaches to constructing a classification of representations (Fig. 9.1). Since the basis of ideas is past perceptual experience, the main classification of ideas is based on the classification of types of sensation and perception. For this reason, it is customary to distinguish the following types of representations: visual, auditory, motor (kinesthetic), tactile, olfactory, gustatory, temperature and organic.

It should be noted that this approach to classifying representations cannot be considered as the only one. Thus, B. M. Teplov said that the classification of representations can be carried out according to the following criteria: 1) according to their

In this chapter, we will first consider the classification of ideas, which are based on sensations.

Visual performances. Most of the ideas we have are related to visual perception. A characteristic feature of visual representations is that in some cases they are extremely specific and convey all the visible qualities of objects: color, shape, volume. However, more often than not, one side predominates in visual representations, while the others are either very unclear or absent altogether. For example, often our visual images lack three-dimensionality and are reproduced in the form of a picture, rather than a three-dimensional object. Moreover, these paintings in one case are colorful, and in other cases colorless.

What determines the character, or “quality,” of our ideas? The nature of our visual representations mainly depends on the content and the practical activity in the process of which they arise. Thus, visual representations play a central role in the visual arts, because not only drawing from memory, but also drawing from life is impossible without well-developed visual representations. Visual representations also play an important role in the pedagogical process. Even the study of such a subject as literature requires, in order to successfully master the material, the “inclusion” of the imagination, which, in turn, relies heavily on visual representations.

In the field of auditory representations, speech and musical representations are of utmost importance. In turn, speech representations can also be divided into several subtypes: phonetic representations and timbre-intonation speech representations. Phonetic representations occur when we imagine a word aurally without associating it with a specific voice. This kind of representation is quite important when learning foreign languages.

Timbre-intonation speech ideas take place when we imagine the timbre of the voice and the characteristic features of the intonation of a person. This kind of performance is of great importance in the work of an actor and in school practice when teaching a child expressive reading.

The essence of musical ideas consists mainly in the idea of ​​the relationship between sounds in pitch and duration, since a musical melody is determined precisely by pitch and rhythmic relationships. For most people, there is no timbre element in musical representations, because a familiar motive, as a rule, is not represented as played on any instrument or sung by any voice, but as if it sounds “in general”, in some kind of “abstract sounds”. At the same time, among highly qualified professional musicians, timbre coloring can manifest itself in musical performances with complete clarity.

Teplov Boris Mikhailovich (1896-1965) - famous domestic psychologist. In the early period of creativity, he conducted a series of studies in the field of perception and representation, as well as thinking. Subsequently, he conducted research on individual differences. B. M. Teplov was the founder of the scientific school of differential psychology. Developed the concept of abilities. Based on the teachings of I.P. Pavlov on the types of higher nervous activity, he developed a research program to study the physiological foundations of individual psychological differences in humans, as a result of which he proposed the theory of individual differences. In his research he paid considerable attention to the study of problems in the psychology of art.

Another class of representations is motor representations. By the nature of their occurrence, they differ from visual and auditory ones, since they are never a simple reproduction of past sensations, but are always associated with current sensations. Every time we imagine the movement of any part of our body, a weak contraction of the corresponding muscles occurs. For example, if you imagine that you are bending your right arm at the elbow, then contractions will occur in the biceps of your right arm, which can be recorded by sensitive electrophysiological devices. If we exclude the possibility of this reduction, then representations become impossible. It has been experimentally proven that whenever we motorically imagine pronouncing a word, instruments record a contraction in the muscles of the tongue, lips, larynx, etc. Consequently, without motor ideas we would hardly be able to use speech and communicate with each other it would be impossible.

However, with any motor representation, rudimentary movements are performed that give us corresponding motor sensations. But the sensations received from these rudimentary movements always form an inextricable whole with certain visual or auditory images. In this case, motor ideas can be divided into two groups: ideas about the movement of the whole body or its individual parts and speech motor ideas. The former are usually the result of the fusion of motor sensations with visual images (for example, imagining the bending of the right arm at the elbow, we, as a rule, have a visual image of a bent arm and motor sensations coming from the muscles of this arm). Speech motor representations are the fusion of speech-motor sensations with auditory images of words. Consequently, motor representations are either visual-motor (representations of body movement) or auditory-motor (speech representations).

It should be noted that auditory representations are also very rarely purely auditory. In most cases, they are associated with motor sensations of the rudimentary movements of the speech apparatus. Consequently,

auditory and motor speech representations are qualitatively similar processes: both are the result of the fusion of auditory images and motor sensations. Moreover, in this case, we can rightfully say that motor ideas are equally associated with both auditory images and motor sensations. Thus, when imagining an object, we accompany the visual reproduction with the mental utterance of a word denoting this object; therefore, together with the visual image, we reproduce an auditory image, which, in turn, is associated with motor sensations. It is quite legitimate to ask whether it is possible to reproduce visual ideas without accompanying them with auditory images. Probably possible, but in this case the visual image will be very vague and indefinite. A relatively clear visual representation is possible only when reproduced together with an auditory image.

However, all the main types of our ideas are to some extent related to each other, and the division into classes or types is very arbitrary. We talk about a certain class (type) of representations in the case when visual, auditory or motor representations come to the fore.

Concluding our consideration of the classification of representations, it is extremely important for us to dwell on one more, very important, type of representation - spatial representations. The term “spatial representations” is applied to those cases where the spatial form and placement of objects are clearly represented, but the objects themselves may be very vague in their representation. As a rule, these representations are so schematic and colorless that at first glance the term “visual image” is not applicable to them. At the same time, they still remain images - images of space, since they convey one side of reality - the spatial arrangement of things - with complete clarity.

Spatial representations are mainly visuomotor representations, and sometimes the visual component comes to the fore, sometimes the motor component. Chess players playing blindly operate very actively with ideas of this type. In everyday life, we also use this type of ideas, for example, when it is extremely important to get from one point of a populated area to another. In this case, we imagine a route and move along it. Moreover, the image of the route is constantly in our minds. As soon as we are distracted, that is, this idea leaves our consciousness, we can make a mistake in movement, for example, passing our stop. For this reason, when moving along a particular route, spatial representations are as important as the information contained in our memory.

Spatial representations are also very important in mastering a number of scientific disciplines. Thus, in order to successfully master educational material in physics, geometry, and geography, a student must be able to operate with spatial concepts. In this case, it is necessary to distinguish between flat and three-dimensional (stereometric) spatial representations. Many people are quite good at working with flat spatial concepts, but are not able to handle three-dimensional concepts as easily.

At the same time, all ideas differ in the degree of generalization. Representations are usually divided into individual and general. It should be noted that one of the basic differences between ideas and images of perception is essentially that images of perception are always only single, that is, they contain information only about a specific object, and ideas are very often generalized.
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Unit representations are representations based on the observation of a single object. General representations are representations that generally reflect the properties of a number of similar objects.

It should also be noted that all ideas differ in the degree of manifestation of volitional efforts. In this case, it is customary to distinguish between voluntary and involuntary representations. Involuntary ideas are ideas that arise spontaneously, without activating the will and memory of a person. Voluntary ideas are ideas that arise in a person as a result of volitional effort, in the interests of a set goal.

9.3. Individual characteristics of performance and its development

All people differ from each other in the role that representations of one kind or another play in their lives. For some, visual representations predominate, for others, auditory representations predominate, and for others, motor representations predominate. The existence of differences between people in the quality of ideas is reflected in the doctrine of “types of ideas”. In accordance with this theory, all people are divided based on the predominant type of ideas into four groups: persons with a predominance of visual, auditory and motor ideas, as well as persons with mixed types of ideas. The last group includes people who use representations of any kind to approximately the same extent.

A person with a predominance of visual type ideas, remembering a text, imagines the page of the book where this text is printed, as if reading it mentally. If he needs to remember some numbers, for example a phone number, he imagines it written or printed.

A person with a predominance of auditory type ideas, remembering a text, seems to hear spoken words. They also remember numbers in the form of an auditory image.

A person with a predominance of motor-type ideas, remembering a text or trying to remember some numbers, pronounces them to himself.

It should be noted that people with pronounced types of ideas are extremely rare. Most people, to some extent, have ideas of all these types, and it can be quite difficult to determine which of them play a leading role in a given person. Moreover, individual differences in this case are expressed not only in the predominance of ideas of a certain type, but also in the characteristics of ideas. So, some people have pre-

The performances of all types have great brightness, liveliness and completeness, while in others they are more or less pale and schematic. People who have a predominance of vivid and vivid ideas are usually classified as the so-called imaginative type. Such people are characterized not only by the great clarity of their ideas, but also by the fact that ideas play an extremely important role in their mental life. For example, when remembering any events, they mentally “see” pictures of individual episodes related to these events; when thinking or talking about something, they widely use visual images, etc. Thus, the talent of the famous Russian composer Rimsky-Korsakov was that his musical, i.e. auditory, imagination was combined with an unusual wealth of visual images. While composing music, he mentally saw pictures of nature with all the richness of colors and all the subtlest shades of light. For this reason, his works are distinguished by their extraordinary musical expressiveness and “picturesqueness”.

As we have already noted, all people have the ability to use any kind of representation. Moreover, a person must be able to use representations of any type, since performing a certain task, for example, mastering educational material, may require him to predominantly use representations of a certain type. For this reason, it is advisable to develop ideas.

Today there is no data that allows us to unambiguously indicate the time when children’s first ideas appeared. It is quite possible that already in the first year of life, ideas, while still closely connected with perception, begin to play a significant role in the mental life of the child. At the same time, a number of studies have shown that the first memories of life events in children relate to the age of one and a half years. For this reason, we can talk about the emergence of “free ideas” in children precisely at this time, and by the end of the second year of life, visual ideas already play a significant role in the child’s life.

Speech (auditory-motor) concepts also reach a relatively high development in the second year of life, since without this the process of mastering speech and the rapid growth of the child’s vocabulary observed at this age would be impossible. The appearance of the first musical auditory ideas, expressed in memorizing melodies and singing them independently, dates back to this period.

Ideas play an extremely important role in the mental life of a preschool child. Most of the studies have shown that preschoolers, as a rule, think visually and in images. Memory at this age is also largely built on the reproduction of ideas; therefore, the first memories for most people are of the nature of pictures and visual images. At the same time, the first ideas of children are quite pale. Despite the fact that ideas are more significant for a child than for an adult, they are more vivid in an adult. This suggests that in the process of human ontogenesis the development of ideas occurs.

Psychological experiments show that the vividness and accuracy of ideas increase under the influence of exercise. For example, if an experiment requires comparing two sounds separated from each other by an interval of 20-30 seconds,

then at first this task turns out to be almost impossible, since by the time the second sound appears, the image of the first has already disappeared or becomes so dim and unclear that it does not allow for exact comparison. But then, gradually, as a result of exercises, the images become brighter, more accurate, and the task turns out to be quite feasible. This experiment proves that our ideas develop in the process of activity, and that activity that requires the participation of ideas of a certain quality.

The most important condition for the development of ideas is the presence of sufficiently rich perceptual material. The essence of this statement is that our ideas largely depend on the usual way of perception, and this is extremely important to take into account when solving specific problems. For example, most people often represent words of a foreign language visually, and words of their native language - auditory-motor. This is explained by the fact that we constantly hear our native language and learn to speak in the process of communicating with people, and, as a rule, we study a foreign language from books. As a result, representations of foreign words are formed in the form of visual images. For the same reason, our ideas about numbers are reproduced in the form of visual images.

The fact that ideas are formed only on the basis of perceptual images is extremely important to take into account in the learning process. It is inappropriate to set premature tasks that require free manipulation of ideas without support in perception. In order to achieve such manipulation of representations, it is extremely important for the student to form representations of a certain type on the basis of appropriate perceptual images and to have practice in operating with these representations. For example, if you ask students to mentally imagine the location of the cities of Moscow and Tver on a map, they are unlikely to be able to do this if they do not know the map well.

The most important stage in the development of ideas is the transition from their involuntary emergence to the ability to voluntarily evoke the necessary ideas. Many studies have shown that there are people who are completely incapable of voluntarily conjuring up ideas. For this reason, the main efforts in developing the ability to operate with representations of a certain type should first of all be aimed at developing the ability to voluntarily evoke these representations. It should be borne in mind that every representation contains an element of generalization, and the development of representations follows the path of increasing the element of generalization in them.

Increasing the generalizing value of ideas can go in two directions. One way is the way of schematization. As a result of schematization, the representation gradually loses a number of private individual characteristics and details, approaching the scheme. For example, the development of spatial geometric concepts follows this path. Another way is the way of developing typical images. In this case, ideas, without losing their individuality, on the contrary, become more and more specific and visual and reflect a whole group of objects and phenomena. This path leads to the creation of artistic images, which, being as concrete and individual as possible, can contain very broad generalizations.

9.4. Primary memory images and perseverative images

We have become acquainted with such a mental process as representation. At the same time, attention should be paid to the fact that it is extremely important to distinguish ideas from primary memory images and persevering images.

Primary memory images are those that directly follow the perception of an object and are retained for a very short period of time, measured in seconds. Let's do one experiment. For one or two seconds, look at some object - a fountain pen, a table lamp, a picture, etc. Next, close your eyes and try to imagine this object as clearly as possible. You will immediately receive a relatively bright and lively image, which will begin to fade quite quickly and will soon disappear completely. Primary memory images have certain similar characteristics to sequential images: 1) they immediately follow the perception of an object; 2) their duration is very short; 3) their brightness, liveliness and clarity are much greater than those of visual representations; 4) they are copies of a single perception and do not contain any generalization.

On the other hand, they have features that distinguish them from consistent images, which bring them closer to genuine ideas. This should include the following features: 1) primary memory images depend on the focus of attention on the corresponding object during perception - the more attentively the object is perceived, the brighter the primary memory image will be, while the sequential image:? does not depend on the direction of attention during perception; 2) in order to obtain a vivid sequential image, you need to look at the corresponding object for a relatively long time (15-20 s), while the most vivid primary memory images are obtained after a short (one to two seconds) perception time.

Persevering Images are those involuntary images that emerge with exceptional vividness in consciousness after a prolonged perception of homogeneous objects or after such a perception of an object has had a strong emotional impact. For example, everyone who has picked mushrooms or walked for a long time in the forest knows that when you go to bed and close your eyes, quite bright pictures of the forest, images of leaves, grass pop up in your mind.

The same phenomenon is characteristic of auditory images. For example, after you hear some melody, it “sounds in your ears” for a long time and intrusively. Most often, this is the melody that caused a strong emotional experience.

It should be noted that perseverative images are similar to sequential images in their concreteness and clarity, as well as complete involuntariness, as if obsession, and the fact that they are almost a simple copy of perception, without carrying a noticeable element of generalization. But they are different from afterbirths

Chapter 9. Representation - concept and types. Classification and features of the category "Chapter 9. Presentation" 2017, 2018.

Introduction………………………………………………………………………………….3

1. Presentation…………………………………………………….5

1.1 Methods of classifying representations…………………….…5

1.2 Methods of presentation…………………………………...……..7

1.3 Differences and similarities between representation and perception…………..…9

2. Memory……………………………………………………….……10

2.1 Memory processes……………………………………………………………...10

2.2 Memory structure……………………………………………..11

2.3 Types of memory……………………………………………………...12

2.4 Forgetting factors…………………………………………..….14

Conclusion………………………………………………………...16

List of references………………………………….18

Introduction.

The most important feature of the psyche is that the reflection of external influences is constantly used by the individual in his further behavior. The gradual complication of behavior is carried out due to the accumulation of individual experience. The formation of experience would be impossible if the images of the external world arising in the cerebral cortex disappeared without a trace. By entering into various connections with each other, they are consolidated, preserved and

are reproduced in accordance with the requirements of life and activity.

Representation - images of objects, scenes and events that arise on the basis of their recall or productive imagination. Representations arise in the absence of objects related to them; they are usually less vivid and less detailed than, for example, perceptions, but at the same time more schematized and generalized: they reflect the most characteristic visual features characteristic of a whole class of similar objects.

The representation can be visual, auditory, gustatory, olfactory, temperature. Representations also have such basic properties as clarity, fragmentation, instability and generality.

Memory is the remembering, preservation and subsequent use by an individual of his experience. In memory, the following basic processes are distinguished: remembering, storing, reproducing and forgetting.

Memory is a vitally important fundamental human ability.

All living organisms have memory, but it is most highly developed in

person. In addition to the genetic and mechanical memory inherent in animals, humans have other more productive types of memory associated with the use of various mnemonic means. For example, a person has such types of memory as voluntary, logical and indirect.

In general, a person’s memory and imagination can be represented as a kind of tool that serves to accumulate and use life experience.

1. Performance.

Performance- the process of mentally recreating images of objects and phenomena that currently do not affect the human senses.
The term "representation" has two meanings. One of them denotes the image of an object or phenomenon that was previously perceived by analyzers, but at the moment does not affect the senses. The second meaning of this term describes the process of image reproduction itself.

The physiological basis of ideas is made up of “traces” in the cerebral cortex, remaining after real excitations of the central nervous system during perception. These “traces” are preserved due to the well-known “plasticity” of the central nervous system.

1.1 Methods for classifying representations.

By analyzers:

- visual(image of a person, place, landscape);

- auditory(playing a musical melody);

- olfactory(imagination of some characteristic smell - for example, cucumber or perfume);

- taste(ideas about the taste of food - sweet, bitter, etc.);

- tactile(idea about the smoothness, roughness, softness, hardness of an object);

- temperature(idea of ​​cold and heat);

However, often several analyzers are involved in the formation of representations. Thus, imagining a cucumber in one’s mind, a person simultaneously imagines its green color and pimply surface, its hardness, characteristic taste and smell.
Ideas are formed in the process of human activity, therefore, depending on the profession, predominantly one type of ideas develops: for an artist - visual, for a composer - auditory, for an athlete and ballerina - motor, for a chemist - olfactory, etc.

According to the degree of generality.

In this case, we talk about single, general and schematized representations (in contrast to perceptions, which are always single).
Single representations- these are ideas based on the perception of one specific object or phenomenon. They are often accompanied by emotions. These ideas underlie such a memory phenomenon as recognition.
General views- representations that generally reflect a number of similar objects. This type of representation is most often formed with the participation of the second signaling system and verbal concepts.
Schematic representations represent objects or phenomena in the form of conventional figures, graphic images, pictograms, etc. An example would be charts or graphs depicting economic or demographic processes.

According to the degree of volitional effort.

In this case, they are divided into involuntary and voluntary.
Involuntary representations- these are ideas that arise spontaneously, without activating the will and memory of a person.
Arbitrary representations- these are ideas that arise in a person under the influence of will, in the interests of the goal he has set. These ideas are controlled by a person’s consciousness and play a large role in his professional activity.

By origin.

Within this typology, they are divided into ideas that arose on the basis , perception, thinking And imagination.

Most of a person’s ideas are images that arise based perception- that is, the primary sensory reflection of reality. From these images, in the process of individual life, the picture of the world of each individual person is gradually formed and adjusted.
The ideas formed based on thinking, are highly abstract and may have few concrete features. Thus, most people have ideas of such concepts as “justice” or “happiness,” but it is difficult for them to fill these images with specific features. Ideas can be formed based imagination, and this type of ideas forms the basis of creativity - both artistic and scientific.

1.2Properties of representations.

Representations have such basic properties as clarity, fragmentation, instability and generality.

Visibility. A person represents the image of a perceived object exclusively in visual form. In this case, there is a blurring of the outlines and the disappearance of a number of features. The clarity of ideas is poorer than the clarity of perception due to the loss of the immediacy of reflection.

Fragmentation. The presentation of objects and phenomena is characterized by uneven reproduction of their individual parts. Advantage is given to objects (or their fragments) that in previous perceptual experience had greater attractiveness or significance. The fragmentation of representations lies in the fact that upon careful analysis or an attempt to establish all aspects or features of an object, the image of which is given in the representation, it usually turns out that some aspects, features or parts are not represented at all. If instability of representation is an analogue of incomplete constancy, then fragmentation is the equivalent of incomplete integrity or an expression of its deficiency in representation compared to perception.

Instability. The image (or its fragment) presented at a given moment in time can be held in active consciousness only for a certain time, after which it will begin to disappear, losing fragment after fragment. On the other hand, the image of representation does not arise immediately, but as new aspects and properties of the object, new temporary connections are perceived; gradually it is supplemented, changed and “clarified”. In its essence, instability as a manifestation of impermanence is a negative equivalent or expression of the deficiency of constancy inherent in the perceptual image. It is well known to everyone from their own experience and consists in the “fluctuations” of the image and the fluidity of its components.

Generality. The presented object, its image, has a certain information capacity, and the content (structure) of the image of representations is schematized or collapsed. In representation, the material of a particular perception is necessarily associated with the material of previous experience and previous perceptions. The new merges with the old. Ideas are the result of all past perceptions of a particular object or phenomenon. The birch as an image of representation is the result of all past perceptions of birches, both directly and in images. Therefore, a representation, while generalizing a specific object (or phenomenon), can simultaneously serve as a generalization of an entire class of similar objects due to the fact that the represented object does not directly affect the senses.

1.3 Differences and similarities between representation and perception.

Similarity between representation and perception. When forming images of representation and perception, the emerging image is significantly modified in comparison with the original image under the influence of a number of factors: needs, motivation, attitudes, life experiences, etc.

The difference between representation and perception.

Images of representation are, as a rule, less vivid, less detailed and more fragmented than images of perception;

They reflect the most characteristic features of a given subject, and secondary details are often omitted;

The instability of the image, its tendency to self-destruction;

Greater distortion of the image compared to the image of perception;

Under the influence of language and inner speech, the representation is translated into an abstract concept.

2. Memory.

Memory- one of the mental functions and types of mental activity designed to preserve, accumulate and reproduce information. The ability to store information about events in the external world and the body’s reactions for a long time and repeatedly use it in the sphere of consciousness to organize subsequent activities.

Memory is based on associations or connections. Objects or phenomena that are connected in reality are also connected in human memory. We can, having encountered one of these objects, by association remember another associated with it; to remember something means to connect what you want to remember with something already known, to form an association.

2.1 Memory processes

The main memory processes are memorization, preservation, recognition, reproduction and forgetting.

Memorization– a process aimed at preserving in memory received impressions, sensations, perceptions, thoughts and experiences, a prerequisite for storage.

Preservation- the process of accumulating material in the memory structure, including its processing and assimilation. Saving experience makes it possible for a person to learn, develop his perceptual (internal assessments, perception of the world) processes, thinking and speech.

Reproduction and recognition– processes of restoration of what was previously perceived. The difference between them is that recognition takes place when the object is encountered again, when it is perceived again. Reproduction occurs in the absence of an object.

Forgetting- loss of the ability to reproduce, and sometimes even recognize, what was previously remembered. Most often we forget what is insignificant. Forgetting can be partial (reproduction is incomplete or with an error) and complete (impossibility of reproduction and recognition).

2.2 Memory structure.

Most psychologists recognize the existence of several levels of memory, differing in how long each level can retain information. The first level corresponds to the immediate or sensory type of memory. Its system is supported by fairly accurate and complete data on how the world is perceived by our senses at the receptor level. Duration of data storage 0.1 – 0.5 seconds.

Any information first enters short-term memory (second level), which ensures that information presented once is remembered for a short time, after which the information can be completely forgotten or transferred to long-term memory, but subject to repetition 1-2 times. Short-term memory is limited in capacity. On average, a person can remember from 5 to 9 words, numbers, figures, figures, pictures, pieces of information in one sitting. The volume of short-term memory is individual for each person; the volume of short-term memory can predict the success of learning.

Long-term memory provides long-term storage of information. It comes in two types: 1) long-term memory with conscious access (i.e. a person can voluntarily retrieve and remember the necessary information); 2) long-term memory is closed (a person under natural conditions does not have access to it; only through hypnosis, irritation of parts of the brain can access it and update in all details images, experiences, pictures of his whole life).

Working memory is a type of memory that manifests itself during the performance of a certain activity, serving this activity by storing information coming from both short-term memory and long-term memory necessary to perform the current activity.

Intermediate memory ensures the retention of information for several hours, accumulates information during the day, and the time of night sleep is allocated by the body to cleanse intermediate memory and categorize information accumulated over the past day, transferring it to long-term memory. At the end of sleep, intermediate memory is again ready to receive new information. In a person who sleeps less than three hours a day, intermediate memory does not have time to be cleared, as a result, the performance of mental and computational operations is disrupted, attention and short-term memory decrease, and errors appear in speech and actions.

Long-term memory with conscious access is characterized by a pattern of forgetting: everything unnecessary, secondary, as well as a certain percentage of necessary information is forgotten.

2.3. Types of memory.

In accordance with the type of material being remembered, the following types of memory are distinguished.

Genetic memory is determined by the genotype and is passed on from generation to generation. It is obvious that human influence on this type of memory is very limited (if it is possible at all).

Involuntary memory - information is remembered by itself without special memorization, but in the course of performing an activity, in the course of working on information. Strongly developed in childhood, weakens in adults.

Voluntary memory – information is remembered purposefully using special techniques. The efficiency of random memory depends on:

From the goals of memorization (how firmly, for how long a person wants to remember). If the goal is to learn in order to pass an exam, then soon after the exam a lot will be forgotten; if the goal is to learn for a long time, for future professional activity, then little information is forgotten.

From learning techniques. Methods of learning are:

Mechanical verbatim repetition - mechanical memory works, a lot of effort and time are spent, and the results are poor. Rote memory is memory based on repeating material without comprehending it;

Logical retelling, which includes logical comprehension of the material, systematization, identification of the main logical components of information, retelling in your own words - logical memory (semantic) works - a type of memory based on the establishment of semantic connections in the memorized material. The efficiency of logical memory is 20 times higher, better than mechanical memory;

Figurative memorization techniques (translation of information into images, graphs, diagrams, pictures) – figurative memory works. Figurative memory can be of different types: visual, auditory, motor-motor, gustatory, tactile, olfactory, emotional:

Mnemonic memorization techniques are special techniques to facilitate memorization. The most common technique is to organize an associative field around memorized concepts.

2.4 Forgetting factors.

Most memory problems are not related to difficulties in remembering, but rather in recall. Some data from modern science suggest that information is stored in memory indefinitely, but most of it cannot be used by a person. It is practically inaccessible to him, he “forgot” it, although he rightly claims that he once “knew” about it, read, heard, but... This is forgetting, temporary situational, sudden, complete or partial, selective, etc. .p., i.e. a process leading to a loss of clarity and a decrease in the volume of data that can be updated in the psyche. The depth of forgetting can be astonishing; sometimes “those who have forgotten deny the very fact of their acquaintance with what they need to remember, and do not recognize what they have repeatedly encountered.

Forgetting can be caused by various factors. The first and most obvious of them is time. It takes less than an hour to forget half of the material you learned mechanically.

Forgetting depends to a large extent on the nature of the activity immediately preceding and occurring after memorization.

The negative influence of activity preceding memorization is called proactive inhibition. The more similar the new material is to that which has already been studied, the more pronounced the inhibition is. The negative influence of the activity following memorization is called retroactive inhibition; it is especially pronounced in cases where, after memorization, an activity similar to it is performed or if this activity requires significant effort.

An important factor in forgetting is usually considered to be the degree of activity in using available information. What is forgotten is what there is no constant need or necessity. This is true most of all in relation to semantic memory for information received in adulthood.

Childhood impressions and motor skills (riding a bicycle, playing the guitar, swimming) remain fairly stable for decades, without any exercise. There is, however, a known case where a man, who had been in prison for about three years, forgot how to tie not only his tie, but also his shoelaces.

Forgetting may be due to the work of defense mechanisms in our psyche, which displace traumatic impressions from consciousness into the subconscious, where they are then more or less reliably retained. Consequently, what is “forgotten” is something that disturbs the psychological balance and causes constant negative tension (“motivated forgetting”).

To reduce forgetting you need to:

Understanding, comprehension of information (mechanically learned, but completely incomprehensible information is forgotten quickly and almost completely);

Repetition of information (the first repetition is needed 40 minutes after memorization, since after an hour only 50% of the mechanically memorized information remains in the memory);

It is necessary to repeat it more often in the first days after memorization, since on these days the losses from forgetting are maximum. Remember that 30 repetitions over the course of a month is more effective than 100 repetitions per day. Therefore, systematic, without overload, studying, memorizing in small portions throughout the semester with periodic repetitions after 10 days is much more effective than concentrated memorization of a large amount of information in a short session, causing mental and mental overload and almost complete forgetting of information a week after the session.

Conclusion.

Our mental world is diverse and diverse. Thanks to the high level of development of our psyche, we can do a lot and know a lot. In turn, mental development is possible because we retain the acquired experience and knowledge. Everything that we learn, our every experience, impression or movement leaves a certain trace in our memory, which can persist for quite a long time and, under appropriate conditions, appear again and become an object of consciousness. Therefore, under memory we understand sealed, preservation, subsequent recognition and reproduction of traces of past experience.

It is thanks to memory that a person is able to accumulate information without losing previous knowledge and skills. Memory occupies a special place among mental cognitive processes. Many researchers characterize memory as a “end-to-end” process that ensures the continuity of mental processes and unites all cognitive processes into a single whole. The awareness that an object or phenomenon perceived at the moment was perceived in the past is called recognition. However, we can do more than just recognize objects. We can call in our knowledge

an image of an object that we do not perceive at the moment, but we perceived it before. This process - the process of recreating the image of an object that we perceived earlier, but not perceived at the moment, is called playback Not only objects perceived in the past are reproduced, but also our thoughts, experiences, desires, fantasies, etc. A necessary prerequisite for recognition and reproduction is imprint, or memorization, what was perceived, as well as its subsequent preservation.

Thus, memory is a complex mental process consisting of

several private processes related to each other. Memory is necessary for a person - it allows him to accumulate, save and subsequently use personal life experience; it stores knowledge and skills. Psychological science faces a number of complex tasks related to the study of memory processes: the study of how traces are imprinted, what are the physiological mechanisms of this process, what conditions contribute to this imprinting, what are its boundaries, what techniques can expand the volume of imprinted material. In addition, there are other questions that need to be answered. For example, how long can these traces be stored, what are the mechanisms for storing traces for short and long periods of time, what are the changes that memory traces that are in a hidden (latent) state undergo, and how these changes affect the course of human cognitive processes.

List of used literature.

1. Grigorovich A.A., Martsinkovskaya T.D. Pedagogy and psychology: Textbook - M: Gardariki, 20012. Maklakov A. G. General psychology. - St. Petersburg: Peter, 2001.

3. Stolyarenko L.D. Fundamentals of Psychology: Higher Education, Rostov n/Don: Phoenix, 2003

4. Shcherbatykh Yu.V. General psychology". – St. Petersburg: Peter, 2008.

Internet resources.

5. http://ru.wikipedia.org

Formation of this image.

Description

The physiological basis of ideas is made up of “traces” in the cerebral cortex, remaining after real excitations of the central nervous system during perception. These “traces” are preserved due to the well-known “plasticity” of the central nervous system.

Classification

According to leading analyzers:

• visual(image of a person, place, landscape);
• auditory(playing a musical melody);
• olfactory(imagination of some characteristic smell - for example, cucumber or perfume);
• taste(ideas about the taste of food - sweet, bitter, etc.)
• tactile(idea about the smoothness, roughness, softness, hardness of an object);
• temperature(idea of ​​cold and heat).

However, often several analyzers are involved in the formation of representations. Thus, imagining a cucumber in one’s mind, a person simultaneously imagines its green color and pimply surface, its hardness, characteristic taste and smell. Ideas are formed in the process of human activity, therefore, depending on the profession, predominantly one type of ideas develops: for an artist - visual, for a composer - auditory, for an athlete and ballerina - motor, for a chemist - olfactory, etc.

By degree of generalization:

• Single representations- these are ideas based on the perception of one specific object or phenomenon. They are often accompanied by emotions. These ideas underlie such a memory phenomenon as recognition.
• General views- representations that generally reflect a number of similar objects. This type of representation is most often formed with the participation of the second signaling system and verbal concepts.
• Schematic representations describe objects or phenomena in the form of conventional figures, graphic images, pictograms, etc. An example is diagrams or graphs depicting economic or demographic processes.

By origin:

• Based on perception. Most of a person’s ideas are images that arise on the basis of perception - that is, the primary sensory reflection of reality. From these images, in the process of individual life, the picture of the world of each individual person is gradually formed and adjusted.
• Based on thinking. Ideas formed on the basis of thinking are highly abstract and may have few concrete features. Thus, most people have ideas of such concepts as “justice” or “happiness,” but it is difficult for them to fill these images with specific features.
• Based on imagination. Ideas can be formed on the basis of imagination, and this type of ideas forms the basis of creativity - both artistic and scientific.

According to the degree of volitional effort:

• Involuntary representations- these are ideas that arise spontaneously, without activating the will and memory of a person, for example - dreams.
• Arbitrary representations- these are ideas that arise in a person under the influence of will, in the interests of the goal he has set. These ideas are controlled by a person’s consciousness and play a large role in his professional activity.

Properties

Basic properties:

Mental representation

Mental representation(eng. mental representation) or cognitive representation(English cognitive representation) is an actual mental image of a particular event, that is, a subjective form of vision of what is happening.

Mental representation (mental imagery of things that are not actually present in the senses) of modern philosophy, especially in fields of metaphysics such as philosophy of mind or ontology, is one of the predominant ways of explaining and describing the nature of ideas and various concepts.

Mental representations (or mental images) allow one to imagine things that a person has never experienced before, as well as those things that do not exist in nature. For example, a person can imagine himself in a place where he has never been before. Despite the fact that this has either never happened or is impossible in principle, the human brain is capable of creating mental images of objects, phenomena or actions.

And although the initial and most vivid representation will be the visual one, mental imagery can also include representations in any of the sensory modalities, such as hearing, smell or taste. In his research “The Case for Mental Imagery”, the American philosopher Stephen Kosslyn suggested that that with the help of visualizing objects, a person is able to cope with problems by mentally imagining ways to solve them.

Approaches to Understanding

The question of mental representations goes back to the work of the first generation of cognitive scientists. It was then and until the 1990s that problems relating to the definition of representations and their role in thinking processes were declared key for both cognitive psychology and cognitive linguistics, and the concept of representation itself was widely discussed in foreign literature, especially in the literature on artificial intelligence research. This was due to the interest of the first generation of cognitive scientists in the nature of knowledge as such and in the nature of the various mental processes related to its emergence and use, as well as the cognitive abilities involved in these processes.

In cognitive psychology

Artificial intelligence specialists have pointed out that knowledge and its representation are the central problems of cognitive science, formulated here as questions about “what data structures are appropriate for representing knowledge” and “what operations on these cognitive structures are necessary in order to provide reasonable human behavior."

Almost ten years later, in his Introduction to Cognitive Science, the Canadian philosopher P. Thagard noted that “most cognitive scientists agree that knowledge in the human mind consists of mental representations” and that “cognitive science asserts that people have mental procedures which operate with mental representations to carry out thinking and action." He believed that the main types of cognitivist mental representations include: rules, concepts, analogies, images and so-called “connectionist connections” (artificial neural networks).

The concept of representation came to cognitive science from psychology, where it was, however, used in a narrower sense. Disagreeing with J. Piaget, in whose works the terms “symbolization” and “representation” are almost interchangeable, E. Bates says that “representation” is “the recall of various action procedures for operating with an object in the absence of perceptual reinforcement with sides of the object." Although the main thing for symbolic activity, as for representation, is the “power of substitution,” there are important differences between symbolization and representation. Thus, representation is “static” and creates “mental units”, and symbolization, which primarily involves material units, is selective, since it selects some parts of the whole that should “represent”.

In cognitive linguistics

In linguistics, the frequent use of the term “representation” is associated with N. Chomsky. He wrote: “Since the 1950s, the focus of research in generative grammar has gradually shifted to the linguistic knowledge possessed by each individual speaker of a language, as well as to the systems of linguistic knowledge possessed by native speakers—that is, to the species-specific ability of a person to acquire and use natural language." In this understanding, language acts as a natural object, an integral part of the human mind, which is physically represented in the human brain and which is one of the generic biological characteristics. Within the framework of these provisions, linguistics is a branch of individual psychology and cognitive sciences, and also deals with identifying the properties of the central component of human nature, defined within the biological environment.

According to N. Chomsky, each expression is an internal object, which consists of two sets of information: phonetic and semantic. These sets are called phonetic and semantic representations, respectively, but there is no similarity between these representations and the characteristics of the environment.

Mental representation and language

The special role of the ability to speak and understand what is heard as cognitive abilities has been recognized by psychologists for a long time, which, in turn, is the reason for deep scientific and practical interest in the psychology of speech. For example, in their work, two leading American psychologists, George Miller and Philip Johnson-Laird, “Language and Perception,” analyze how language and the linguistic meanings of words reflect the results of his cognitive processes processed in the human psyche, the results of perception of the world, etc. . P.

The scientist who picked up the idea of ​​analyzing language through the prism of mental representations was N. Chomsky. He connected the concept of “language ability” with an internalized system of mental representations - as an innate (recorded in the human bioprogram) source of information about language. According to N. Chomsky, mastery of language and speech organs is similar to the formation and development of a child’s other organs. The cognitive ability of speech creates the necessary prerequisites for speaking as the “performance” of language. If this ability were not innate, it would be impossible to explain the rapid mastery of the language system on the basis of the meager data received by the child in the first years of his “cognitive growth”.

Criticism of old approaches

At the turn of the century, this term began to be used less and less in scientific works, as uncertainty and conflict were evident in the understanding of “representation”. The main reasons for the gradual abandonment of the use of this term include:

Thus, due to the dual perception of “mental representations” depending on the approach to the study of this term, philosophers and cognitive scientists have still not been able to give a clear definition of this term. Individual components of scientific research and concepts sometimes contradict each other (for example, the statement that representation is the structure of consciousness as a reflection of objects in the real world clearly contrasts with the definition of mental representation as the ability of the brain to create images of actually non-existent objects), which makes The problem of studying this phenomenon is still relevant today.

Notes

1. S. Rubinstein. Memory. Representation// Fundamentals of general psychology. - Peter, 2017. - P. 261.
2. Cognitive psychology. Textbook for universities. Ed. V. N. Druzhinina, D. V. Ushakova. - M.: PER SE, 2002. - P. 115-142. - 480 s.
3. Mckellar, P. Imagination and thinking: A psychological analysis. Oxford, England: Basic Books, 1957
4. – M.: Institute of Linguistics; Tambov: Tambov State University named after. G. R. Derzhavina, 2007. – No. 4. – P.8.
5. Kosslyn S., Thompson, W.L., Ganis G. The Case for Mental Imagery. - Oxford University Press, 2006.
6. Kubryakova E. S., Demyankov V. Z. On the problem of mental representations // Questions of cognitive linguistics. – M.: Institute of Linguistics; Tambov: Tambov State University named after. G. R. Derzhavina, 2007. – No. 4. – P.9.
7. Schank R., Kass A. Knowledge Representation in People and Machines // Meaning and Mental Representation / Edit. by U. Eco, M. Santambrogio, P. Violi. - Bloomington: Indiana University Press (English) Russian, 1988. P.181–200.
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in other languages
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• Shapiro, Lawrence (2014). "When Is Cognition Embodied." Current Controversies in Philosophy of Mind. ed. Uriah Kriegel. New York, NY: Routledge, 73-90.
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• Thagard P. Mind. Introduction to Cognitive Science. – Cambridge (Mass.): MIT, 1996.