Correlative psychophysiology

Traditional psychophysiological studies are conducted, as a rule, from the standpoint of "correlative (matching) psychophysiology." In these studies, mental phenomena are directly compared with localized elementary physiological phenomena. The task of such studies, formulated, as a rule, in terms of the reactivity paradigm, is the development of ideas about the physiological mechanisms of mental processes and states. Within the framework of such ideas, “mental processes” are described in terms of excitation and inhibition of brain structures, properties of receptive fields of neurons of sensory structures, etc.
Solving the problems of correlative psychophysiology does not require any special methodology that could, in the words of PK Anokhin, become a “conceptual bridge” between psychology and physiology. If a psychologist, when studying the perception of complex visual patterns, registers any electrophysiological indicator or a neurophysiologist, when discussing the properties of the activity of neurons of sensory structures, uses the terms “perception”, “image”, etc., their work can be considered psychophysiological from the standpoint of correlative psychophysiology.
Correlative psychophysiology has been repeatedly criticized by both psychologists and psychophysiologists.