5. Psychological theory of activity

General psychological characteristic of activity. The concept of activity. Motivations for action. The purpose of the activity. Will and attention in activity. The specifics of human activity and its attributes. Types of human activity. Human activity and development.

Basic concepts of the psychological theory of activity. Operational and technical aspects. Development and development of the theory of activity in the works of Russian scientists. The structure of activity. Action as a central component of activity. The main characteristics of the action. The basic principles of the psychological theory of activity. Terms of business. The concept of operations. Automatic actions and skills. Psychophysiological functions of activity.

Theory of activity and the subject of psychology. The need as the initial form of activity of living organisms. The main stages of the formation and development needs. Motive of activity. Leading motive and incentive motives. Unconscious motives: emotions and personal meaning. Mechanisms of formation of motives. The concept of internal activity.

Physiology of movements and physiology of activity. The general concept of a psychomotor. I. Sechenov on the physiology of movements. Reflex movement concept. Types of sensorimotor processes. Sensory reactions and ideomotor processes. Mechanisms of the organization of movements. N. A. Bernstein and his theory of the physiology of movements. The principle of sensory correction. Factors affecting the progress of the movements. Feedback signals. Reflex ring. Levels of building movements according to Bernstein. The process of formation of motor skills and the principle of activity. The main periods and phases of the construction of movements. Automation of movements. The principle of activity and the principle of reactivity. Arbitrary acts.

5.1. General psychological characteristic of activity

One of the most important features of a person is that he is able to work, and any kind of work is an activity. Activity is a dynamic system of interaction of the subject with the world. In the process of this interaction, the emergence of the mental image and its embodiment in the object, as well as the realization by the subject of his relationship with the surrounding reality, occur. Any simplest act of activity is a form of activity of the subject, and this means that any activity has a compelling reason and is aimed at achieving certain results.

The motives of human activity are motives - a set of external and internal conditions that cause the activity of the subject and determine the direction of the activity. It is the motive that prompts activity, determines its direction, i.e., determines its goals and objectives.

A goal is a conscious image of an anticipated result, towards which the action of a person is directed. The goal may be an object, a phenomenon, or a specific action. A task is a goal of an activity set in certain conditions (for example, in a problem situation), which must be achieved by transforming these conditions according to a certain procedure. Any task always includes the following: requirements or goal to be achieved; conditions, i.e., the known component of the problem statement; The sought is the unknown that must be found in order to reach the goal. The task may be a specific goal to be achieved. However, in complex types of activities, tasks most often act as private goals, without the achievement of which the main goal cannot be achieved. For example, in order to master a specialty, a person must first study its theoretical aspects, i.e., solve certain educational tasks, and then put this knowledge into practice and acquire practical skills, i.e. solve a number of practical tasks.

The man of modern society is engaged in a variety of activities. It is hardly possible to classify all kinds of activities, because in order to represent and describe all kinds of human activity, it is necessary to list the most important needs for a given person, and the number of needs is very large, due to the individual characteristics of people.

However, it is possible to summarize and highlight the core activities characteristic of all people. They will meet the general needs that can be found in almost all people without exception, or rather, in those kinds of social human activity, in which every person inevitably joins in the process of their individual development. These activities are play, teaching and work.

A game is a special kind of activity, the result of which is not the production of any material or ideal product. Most often, games have the character of entertainment, aiming at getting a rest. There are several types of games: individual and group, subject and plot, role-playing and games with rules. Individual games are activities when one person is engaged in the game, group games include several individuals. Object games are associated with the inclusion in the game of human activity of any items. Story games unfold according to a specific scenario, reproducing it in basic details. Role-playing games allow human behavior, limited to a specific role, which in the game he assumes. Finally, rules games are governed by a certain system of rules for the behavior of their participants. There are also mixed types of games: subject-role-playing, plot-role-playing, plot games with rules, etc. Relationships that develop between people in a game tend to be artificial in the sense of the word that they are not taken seriously by others. are not a basis for conclusions about a person. Game behavior and game relationships have little effect on the real relationships of people, at least among adults. Nevertheless, games are important in people's lives. For children, games are of primary developmental value. In adults, the game is not a leading activity, but serves as a means of communication and relaxation.

Fig. 5.1. Structural scheme of activity

Another activity is teaching. The doctrine acts as an activity whose goal is the acquisition by a person of knowledge and skills. Teaching can be organized and carried out in special educational institutions. It may not be organized and occur along the way, in other activities as their secondary, additional result. In adults, teaching can acquire the character of self-education. Features of educational activities are that it directly serves as a means of psychological development of the individual.

Labor occupies a special place in the system of human activity . Thanks to work, man has become who he is. Thanks to labor, man built a modern society, created objects of material and spiritual culture, transformed the conditions of his life in such a way that he discovered the prospects for further, almost unlimited development. The creation and improvement of instruments of labor is primarily associated with labor. They, in turn, were a factor in increasing labor productivity, the development of science, industrial production, technical and artistic creation.

Human activity is a very complex and diverse phenomenon (Fig. 5.1). In the implementation of activities involved all the components of the hierarchical structure of man: physiological, mental and social.

5.2. Basic concepts of the psychological theory of activity. Operational and technical aspects of the activity

We begin to consider the theory, which was of great importance for the development of domestic psychology. It was created in the Soviet period, was a central psychological theory and developed over more than 50 years. The development and development of this theory is associated with the names of such famous domestic psychologists as L. S. Vygotsky, S. L. Rubinstein, A. N. Leontyev, A. R. Luria, A. V. Zaporozhets, P. Ya. Halperin and others. Why does this theory occupy such a significant position in Russian psychology? First, earlier we talked about the decisive role of labor and activity in the origin of consciousness and the development of the human psyche. This point of view to date is fundamental to the research methodology of domestic psychologists. Secondly, the psychological theory of activity, based on this point of view, reveals the role of activity in the manifestation of human psychic phenomena, including consciousness. The fact is that we can judge a person, his personality traits, basically, only by the results of his activity.

The psychological theory of activity began to develop in the late 20s - early 30s. XX century. The main difference of this theory is that it is based on the basic principles of dialectical materialism and uses the main thesis of this philosophical direction: it is not consciousness that determines being, human activity, but, on the contrary, being, human activity determines its consciousness. The theory of activity is most fully expounded in the works of A. N. Leontiev.

Names

Leontyev Alexey Nikolaevich (1903-1979) - the famous domestic psychologist. In the late 1920s, working for L. S. Vygotsky and using the ideas of the cultural-historical concept, he conducted a series of experiments aimed at studying higher mental functions (voluntary attention and memory processes). In the early 1930s. He became the head of the Kharkov school of activity and proceeded to the theoretical and experimental development of the problem of activity. As a result, he put forward the concept of activity, which is currently one of the recognized theoretical directions of modern psychology.

In Russian psychology, on the basis of the scheme of activity proposed by Leontiev (activity — action — operation — psychophysiological functions

tion), correlated with the structure of the motivational sphere (motive — purpose — condition), almost all mental phenomena were studied, which stimulated the emergence and development of new psychological industries.

Leontyev considered the logical development of this concept to be the possibility of creating an integral system of psychology as “the science of generation, functioning and structure of the mental reflection of reality in the process of activity”.

The basic concepts of this theory are activity, consciousness and personality. Consider what meaning is embedded in these concepts, what is their structure.

Human activity has a complex hierarchical structure. It consists of several non-equilibrium levels. The upper level is the level of special types of activity, then the level of actions follows, followed by the level of operations, and the lowest is the level of psycho-physiological functions.

The central place in this hierarchical structure is occupied by the action, which is the basic unit of activity analysis. Action is a process aimed at the realization of a goal, which, in turn, can be defined as an image of the desired result. It is necessary to immediately draw attention to the fact that the goal in this case is a conscious image. While performing a certain activity, a person constantly keeps this image in his mind. Thus, action is a conscious manifestation of human activity. Exceptions are cases when a person, due to certain reasons or circumstances, has violated the adequacy of mental regulation of behavior, for example, in case of illness or in the heat of passion.

The main characteristics of the concept of "action" are four components. Firstly, the action includes as a necessary component an act of consciousness in the form of setting and holding a goal. Secondly, action is at the same time an act of behavior. At the same time, attention should be paid to the fact that action is a movement interconnected with consciousness. In turn, from the above, we can make one of the fundamental conclusions of the theory of activity. This conclusion consists in the statement about the continuity of consciousness and behavior.

Thirdly, the psychological theory of activity through the concept of action introduces the principle of activity, opposing it to the principle of reactivity. In what

distinction in terms of "activity" and "reactivity"? The concept of "reactivity" implies a response or response to the effects of a stimulus. The formula “stimulus – reaction” is one of the main tenets of behaviorism. From this point of view, the human stimulus is active. Activity from the point of view of the theory of activity is a property of the subject himself, that is, characterizes a person. The source of activity is in the subject itself in the form of a goal, towards which the action is directed.

Fourth, the concept of “action” brings human activity to the objective and social world. The fact is that the purpose of the action may not only have a biological meaning, such as food extraction, but also can be aimed at establishing social contact or creating an object not related to biological needs.

Based on the characteristics of the concept of “action” as the main element of the analysis of activity, the basic principles of the psychological theory of activity are formulated:

1. Consciousness cannot be regarded as closed in itself: it must manifest itself in activity (the principle of “erosion” of the circle of consciousness).

2. Behavior cannot be considered in isolation from human consciousness (the principle of the unity of consciousness and behavior).

3. Activity is an active, purposeful process (principle of activity).

4. Human actions are substantive; their goals are social in nature (the principle of substantive human activity and the principle of its social conditioning).

The action itself cannot be considered as the element of the initial level from which the activity is formed. Action is a complex element that often itself consists of many smaller ones. Such a provision ob7, makes it clear that each action is determined by a goal. Human goals are not only diverse, but also in different scales. There are large goals that are divided into smaller private goals, and those, in turn, can be divided into even smaller private goals, etc. For example, you want to plant an apple tree. For this you need:

1) choose the right place for landing; 2) dig a hole; 3) take a seedling and sprinkle it with earth. Thus, your goal is divided into three sub-goals. However, if you look at private goals, you will notice that they too consist of even smaller goals. For example, in order to dig a hole, you must take a shovel, press it into the ground, remove and discard the earth, etc. Consequently, your action, directed to plant an apple tree, consists of smaller elements - private actions.

Now it is necessary to pay attention to the fact that each action can be performed in different ways, i.e. using different methods. The way to perform an action is called an operation. In turn, the way the action is performed depends on the conditions. Under different conditions, different operations can be used to achieve the same goal. In this case, the terms imply both external circumstances and the capabilities of the actor himself. Therefore, the goal given in certain conditions in the theory of activity

From the history of psychology

Theory of learning The theory of activity is not the only theory that considers mental development through the prism of the performance of certain labor and behavioral acts. In American psychology, which is the heir of behaviorism, the theory of learning has become very popular and widespread. From the point of view of American psychologists, learning is a relatively stable behavior resulting from practice. Behavioral changes resulting from maturation (rather than practice) or temporary conditions of the body (such as fatigue or conditions caused by medication, etc.) do not include this. It is customary to distinguish four types of learning: a) addiction, b) classical conditioning, c) operant conditioning, and d) comprehensive learning. Habituation is the simplest form of learning, which comes down to learning to ignore a stimulus that has become familiar and does not cause serious consequences; for example, learning to ignore the ticking of new watches. Classical and operant conditioning are associated with the formation of associations, that is, with the learning that some events take place together. In classical conditioning, the body learns that one event is followed by another; for example, the child learns that the taste of milk follows the appearance of the breast.

5.3. Theory of activity and the subject of psychology

Having considered the operational and technical aspects of the activity, we must ask ourselves the question of why this or that action is being taken, where do the goals come from? In order to answer this question, it is necessary to address such concepts as needs and motives.

Need is the initial form of activity of living organisms. The need can be described as a periodically arising state of tension in the organism of living beings. The occurrence of this state in a person is caused by the lack of any substance in the body or the lack of an object necessary for an individual. This state of the organism’s objective need for something that lies outside of it and constitutes a necessary condition for its normal functioning is called need.

Потребности человека могут быть разделены на биологические, или органические (потребность в пище, воде, кислороде и др.), и социальные. К социальным потребностям следует отнести в первую очередь потребность в контактах с себе подобными и потребность во внешних впечатлениях, или познавательную потребность. Эти потребности начинают проявляться у человека в самом раннем возрасте и сохраняются на протяжении всей его жизни.

Как связаны потребности с деятельностью? Для того чтобы ответить на этот вопрос, необходимо выделить два этапа в процессе развития каждой потребности. Первый этап — это период до первой встречи с предметом, который удовлетворяет потребность. Второй этап — после этой встречи.

Как правило, на первом этапе потребность для субъекта оказывается скрыта, «не расшифрована». Человек может испытывать чувство какого-то напряжения, но при этом не отдавать себе отчета в том, чем это состояние вызвано. Со стороны поведения состояние человека в этот период выражено в беспокойстве или постоянном поиске чего-либо. В ходе поисковой деятельности обычно происходит встреча потребности с ее предметом, которой и завершается первый этап «жизни» потребности. Процесс «узнавания» потребностью своего предмета получил название опредмечивания потребности.

In the act of objectification a motive is born. Motive and is defined as the subject of needs, or objectified need. It is through the motive that the need gets its specification, becomes clear to the subject. Following the objectification of needs and the emergence of motive, human behavior changes dramatically. If earlier it was non-directional, then with the advent of the motive it receives its direction, because the motive is that for which the action is performed. As a rule, for the sake of something a person performs many separate actions. And this set of actions caused by one motive is called an activity, and more specifically, a special activity, or a special type of activity. Thus, thanks to the motive, we reached the highest level of the structure of activity in A. I. Leontyev's theory — the level of special activity.

It should be noted that the activity is performed, as a rule, not for the sake of one motive. Any special activity can be caused by a whole range of motives. Poly-motivated human actions are typical. For example, a student at school may strive for success in school not only for the sake of wanting to gain knowledge, but also for the sake of material reward from parents for good grades or for entering a higher educational institution. Nevertheless, despite the poly-motivated human activity, one of the motives is always leading, while others are secondary. These secondary motives are incentive motives that do not so much “launch” as they additionally stimulate this activity.

Motives generate action by forming a goal. As we have already noted, goals are always realized by man, but the motives themselves can be divided into two large classes: conscious and unconscious motives of activity. For example, life goals are a class of conscious motives. These are motive-goals. The existence of such motifs is typical for most adults. Another class is a much larger number of motives. It should be emphasized that, up to a certain age, any motives are unconscious. Such a statement raises a logical question: if motives are unconscious, how far are they represented in consciousness? Does this mean that they are not represented at all in consciousness?

Unconscious motives appear in the mind in a special form. At least there are two such forms. These are emotions and personal meanings.

In the theory of activity, emotions are defined as a reflection of the relation of the result of an activity to its motive. If, from the point of view of the motive, the activity is successful, there are positive emotions, if not successfully - negative ones. Thus, emotions act as primary regulators of human activity. It should be noted that not only A. N. Leontiev speaks about emotions as a variety of mechanisms controlling the state of a human being. Wrote about this 3. Freud, W. Cannon, W. Jam, G. Lange.

Personal meaning is another form of manifestation of motives in consciousness. Under the personal meaning refers to the experience of increased subjective significance of the object, action or event that are in the field of action leading motive. It should be noted that it is the leading motive that possesses a sense-forming function. Incentive motives do not perform a sense-forming function, but only play the role of additional motivators and generate only emotions.

At least two more significant issues are associated with the problem of motivation. This is, firstly, the question of the relationship of motive and personality, and, secondly, the question of mechanisms for the development of motives. Let's stop on the first question.

It is known that we judge a person by his activity and behavior. However, as we have already found out, human activity depends on the motives that determine it. Since human activity is characterized by polymotivation, we can talk about the existence of a system of motives. Moreover, the system of motives of one person will differ from the system of motives of another person, because people differ from each other in their focus in activities. The system of human motives has a hierarchical structure. This structure will be different for different people. In one case, the person will have one vital leading motive. In other cases, there may be one, two, or more leading motives. Leading motives may vary not only in their essence, but also have different strength. To characterize the personality, it is important which motives are used as the foundation of the whole system of motives. It can be just one egoistic motive or a whole system of motives of altruistic orientation, etc. Thus, motives, acting as a source of human activity, characterize his personality.

Another question is the question of how new motives are formed. When analyzing activity, the only way is to move from need to motive, then to goal and activity. In real life, the reverse process, - in the course of activity, new motives and needs are formed. Thus, a child is born with a limited range of needs and, moreover, mostly organic. But in the process of activity, the range of needs, and consequently of motives, is significantly expanding. It must be emphasized that the mechanisms for the formation of motives in modern psychological science are not fully understood. In the psychological theory of activity, one such mechanism is studied in more detail - this is the mechanism for shifting a motive to a target (the mechanism for turning a target into a motive). Its essence lies in the fact that the goal, previously prompted to its implementation by the motive, eventually acquires an independent motive force, that is, it itself becomes the motive. This happens only if the achievement of the goal is accompanied by positive emotions.

From the above description of the mechanism for the formation of motives, a very significant conclusion with regard to the development of the psyche follows. If we have shown in previous examples that the motive is an incentive to activity, that is, it forms the direction of the activity and regulates certain images, then we can conclude that the motive determines the identity of the personality, because we judge a person on the basis of his actions and performance. But if the emergence, or birth, of new motives that determine the regularities of the manifestation of personality traits is connected with activity, then it follows from this that activity influences the development of the personality. Thus, the nature of the activity in which a person is engaged, to a large extent determines the likely ways of its further development, that is, we come to the fundamental formulation of dialectical materialism that being determines consciousness. It is on these principles that the psychological theory of activity is built.

There is another aspect of activity about which we did not speak, but it was he who played a huge role in the fact that the psychological theory of activity for a decade was the leading one in Soviet psychology. Until now, we have been talking only about practical activities, that is, visible to outside observers, but there is another kind of activity — internal activity. What are the functions of internal activity? First of all, internal actions prepare external actions. They help to save human effort, making it possible to quickly select the desired action. In addition, they enable a person to avoid mistakes.

Internal activity is characterized by two main features. First, the internal activity is fundamentally the same structure as the external activity, which differs from it only in the form of flow. This means that internal activity, as well as external, is motivated by motives, accompanied by emotional experiences, has its operational and technical composition. The difference between internal and external activities is that actions are not performed with real objects, but with their images, and instead of a real product, a mental result is obtained.

Secondly, the internal activity originated from the external, practical, through the process of interiorization, that is, by transferring the relevant actions to the internal plan. For successful mental reproduction of some action, you must first master it in practice and get a real result.

It should be noted that through the concept of internal activity, the authors of the theory of activity came to the problem of consciousness and analysis of mental processes. According to the authors of the theory of activity, mental processes can be analyzed from the standpoint of activity, since any mental process is carried out with a specific purpose, has its own tasks and operational-technical structure. For example, the perception of taste by a taster has its own perceptual goals and objectives related to finding differences and evaluating the conformity of tastes. Another example of a perceptual task is detection. We face this task constantly in everyday life, solving visual problems, identifying faces, voices, etc. To solve all these problems, perceptual actions are performed, which can be characterized respectively as actions of discrimination, detection, measurement, identification, etc. More As it turned out, ideas about the structure of activity are also applicable to the analysis of all other mental processes. Therefore, it is not by chance that Soviet psychology has been engaged in the development of an activity approach in psychology for several decades.

As we have already noted, from the position of the activity approach, psychology is the science of the laws of generation, functioning and structure of the mental reflection of the objective reality by an individual in the process of human activity. In this definition, the activity is taken as the initial reality, which psychology deals with, and the psyche is considered as a derivative of it and at the same time as its integral part. Thus, it is stated that the psyche cannot be considered outside the activity, just as the activity cannot be considered without the psyche. Thus, in a simplified form from the position of the activity approach, the subject of psychology is mentally controlled activity.

In conclusion, we should dwell on the methodological significance of the psychological theory of activity. The fact is that the majority of scientific works and studies of domestic psychologists are based on the principles of the activity approach. They study the mental aspects of human activity or patterns of activity, taking into account the psychological characteristics of people. The results of these studies confirmed the feasibility of developing a theory of activity and using the methodology of the activity approach. Moreover, the activity-based approach has eliminated the need to solve such philosophical, theoretical and methodological problems, such as the primacy of being and consciousness, the psychophysiological problem, etc. No one doubts that human activity is real, but at the same time it is also due to subjective (mental) factors. Therefore, by studying the facts of a really existing activity, we can explore its subjective aspects. Consequently, the psyche and the laws of its development can be fully studied in the framework of the activity approach.

Thus, we can draw several conclusions. First, the psyche and human activity are inextricably linked, so the study of the psyche and the study of the laws of its development should be based on the principles of the activity approach. Secondly, the activity in which a person is engaged largely determines the development of his motives and life values, which determine the general orientation of the subject. Consequently, special types of activity affect the patterns of human mental development.

5.4. Physiology of movements and physiology of activity

The general concept of a psychomotor. In the previous sections of this chapter, we met with one of the central concepts of domestic psychological science - activity. Activity is a very complex and multidimensional phenomenon. This phenomenon exists due to the unity of mental and physiological processes. But the unity of the physiological and mental is not the only condition for activity. Activity would be impossible if there were no unity of the above processes and movement. For the first time among domestic scientists, the movement as a necessary condition of our life and work was noted by I. M. Sechenov. In his book “The Reflexes of the Brain”, he wrote: “Does a child laugh at the sight of a toy, does Garibaldi smile, when they drive him for excessive love for the Motherland, does the girl tremble at the first thought of love, does Newton create world laws and write them on on paper - everywhere the final fact is muscle movement. "

The connection of various mental phenomena with movements and human activity I. M. Sechenov called a psychomotor. In his opinion, the primary element of human psychomotor activity is the motor action, which is the motor solution of an elementary task, or, in other words, the achievement of an elementary conscious goal with one or several movements. In turn, the motor action that develops in the process of learning, exercise or repetition should be called the motor or psychomotor skill.

However, is it just an elementary conscious movement, as it may seem at first glance? You already know that any action or conscious movement must always have a goal, that is, it is always aimed at something. Consequently, there must be some sphere or field of application of our efforts. When considering psychomotor problems, this field is usually called the motor field.

Besides the fact that there is a sphere of application of our efforts, in order to realize a conscious movement a sphere is needed from which we draw information. This sphere is called the sensory field. But along with these two components of the conscious movement, another important condition is necessary - the existence of mechanisms for processing sensory information and the formation of a motor act. Thus, to perform a conscious movement requires three components that are equally important and without which movement is impossible.

It should be noted that with the development of the psychology of ideas about the system of organization of movements changed. With the appearance of the work of I. M. Sechenov “Reflexes of the brain” and the substantiation of the term “psychomotor activity”, and then with the discovery of the conditioned reflexes by I. P. Pavlov, the idea of ​​the reflex nature of movements was strengthened in psychology for a long time. In this case, the movement was most often viewed as a response to the information received.

The relationship of perception and response movement became known as the sensorimotor process. In the process of psychomotor research, researchers identified three groups of responses: simple sensorimotor reaction, complex sensorimotor reaction, and sensorimotor coordination.

Any sensorimotor reaction was considered as an independent action or element of a complex psychomotor act. From a physiological point of view, sensorimotor reactions were considered as conditioned reflexes. Let us clarify this point of view using an example (Fig. 5.2). In response to a mosquito bite, a person unwittingly pulled back his leg - this is an unconditioned reflex (1). The central moment of it takes place in the lower parts of the nervous system, although it also has its cortical representation, as a result of which the person felt pain. At the same time, the pain caused a change in the frequency of contractions of the heart - this is a vegetative reaction (2), which is associated with the activity of the vegetative nervous system; it closes in the subcortical nodes of the brain, but also has its cortical representation. The reflex movement of the leg could not drive away the mosquito, and the person, before the consciousness of which pain came, hit his hand on the mosquito, carrying out an arbitrary psychomotor action (3). At the same time, this movement of the hand was also its sensorimotor reaction, the central point of which flowed in the cerebral cortex. The same motor moment could complete another sensorimotor reaction. A person could not feel pain, but see a mosquito, when he was just sitting on his leg. In both cases, the movements of the hand could be exactly the same, but in the second case the sensory point would not be tactile, but visual perception. The localization of the central reaction moment in the brain would also change accordingly.

Another example illustrating the sense of the theory of sensorimotor reactions is a pilot who noticed a deviation in the direction of flight and turned the steering wheel. This sensorimotor reaction to the trigger signal (detection of a deviation) was only a part, one of the acts of a motor action to correct the deviation that had arisen, which required further movements performed according to the mechanism of sensorimotor coordination.

Depending on how complex the central moment of the reaction is, it is customary to distinguish between simple and complex reactions. A simple sensorimotor reaction is the fastest possible response with a previously known simple single movement to a suddenly appeared and, as a rule, known in advance. It has only one parameter - time. Moreover, the latent reaction time is distinguished, that is, the time from the moment the stimulus appears, to which

Fig. 5.2 Схема организации сенсомоторных Процессов (на основе концепции рефлекторных механизмов организации движения)

attention is attracted, before the start of the response movement, and the time of realization of the motor action.

In complex reactions, the formation of a response is always associated with the choice of the desired answer from a number of possible ones. So, if it is necessary to select only one of the buttons on the remote control, which should be pressed in response to a certain signal, then the central moment of the reaction is complicated by choosing a button and recognizing the signal. Therefore, it is customary to call such a complex reaction a choice reaction.

The most difficult variant of the sensorimotor reaction is sensorimotor coordination, in which not only the sensory field is dynamic (for example, when responding to a moving object), but also the realization of a motor act. We are faced with this type of reaction when we are forced not only to observe changes in the sensory field, but also to respond to them with a significant number of complex and multidirectional movements. For example, this happens when you are playing a computer game.

Sensory-verbal and ideomotor reactions are distinguished as special types of psychomotor processes. In sensory-verbal reactions, perception is associated with a verbal response to the perceived. Seis-speech reactions, like sensorimotor ones, have the same three points: sensory, central and motor. But their central moment is very complicated and proceeds in the second signal system, and the motor one is manifested as a motor component of speech.

A special place in psychomotor skills is occupied by ideomotor processes that connect ideas about movement with its implementation. The essence of these processes lies in the formation of automatisms and skills in the course of mastering professional activities. It is assumed that any activity is associated with the acquisition of certain motor skills, without which the successful fulfillment of professional duties is impossible. The process of transforming the idea of ​​movement into a skill with the subsequent successful execution of this movement is an ideomotor process.

It should be noted that the development of psychomotor problems gave its positive results, which were widely used in sports, military affairs, vocational training, etc. However, in the development of psychology, it became clear that movement as a component of activity has a much more complex organization than the sensorimotor process ... Moreover, the main drawback of psychomotor skills was that the motor act was considered as a response to a sensory signal. Action, as we know, is always conscious, that is, it is in the field of our consciousness, controlled by it. We, with the exception of rare cases, are aware of what we are doing. Considering that consciousness is always active, we have the right to assume that conscious movement and activity in general are active, and not reactive, as it is interpreted in the framework of psychomotor. The source of human activity and activity is not the conditions of the external environment, but the human psyche, his needs and motives.

Of course, it cannot be denied that sensorimotor processes do not exist. They are present in human activity, but they are not able to explain all the mechanisms of conscious movements. Their interpretation lacks the most important component of the human psyche - his consciousness. Most likely, sensorimotor reactions are a particular variant of automatisms and nothing more. All this became clear in the course of development.

Names

Bernstein Nikolai Aleksandrovich (1896-1966) - Russian psychophysiologist. He created and applied new research methods - kymocyclography and cyclogrammetry, with the help of which he studied human movements (in the process of work, playing sports, etc.). The analysis of the research obtained allowed him to develop a concept of the physiology of activity and the formation of human movements in health and disease. In the course of his research, Bernstein formulated the idea of ​​a "reflex ring".

On the basis of his developments, the restoration of movements in the wounded during the Great Patriotic War was carried out, and in the postwar years - the formation of skills in athletes. In addition, Bernstein's developments were used in the design of walking automata, as well as other computer-controlled devices.

The general theory of the construction of movements created by him is presented in the monograph "On the construction of movements", 1947.

psychology. A more accurate description of the physiological and mental mechanisms of movements was found, which allows us today to talk not about psychomotor skills, but about the psychology of building movements.

Mechanisms for organizing movements. The concept of physiology of movements existing at present in psychology was formulated and experimentally substantiated by the outstanding Russian scientist N. A. Bernstein.

A neuropathologist by training, a physiologist by his scientific interests, Bernstein acted in the scientific literature as a passionate defender of the principle of activity - one of those principles on which the psychological theory of activity is based. In 1947. published one of Bernstein's main books "On the construction of movements", which was awarded the State Prize. A number of completely new ideas were expressed in this book. One of them consisted in refuting the principle of the reflex arc as a mechanism for organizing movements and replacing it with the principle of the reflex ring.

Bernstein made the object of his study the natural movements of a normal, intact organism, and, in general, human movements. The main focus of Bernstein's research was on labor movements. To study movements, he had to develop a special method for registering them. Before Bernstein's work in physiology, it was believed that the motor act is organized as follows: at the stage of learning to move in the motor centers, its program is formed and fixed; then, as a result of the action of some stimulus, it is excited, motor command impulses go to the muscles, and the movement is realized. Thus, in its most general form, the mechanism of movement was described by the scheme of a reflex arc: a stimulus - the process of its central processing (excitation of programs) - a motor reaction.

The first conclusion that Bernstein came to was that on the basis of such a mechanism, at least some complex movement could not be carried out. If a simple movement, for example a knee reflex, can occur as a result of direct execution of motor commands from the center to the periphery, then complex motor acts that are designed to solve certain problems cannot be structured in this way. The main reason is that the result of any complex movement depends not only on the actual control signals, but also on a number of additional factors that introduce deviations in the planned course of the movements. As a result, the ultimate goal can only be achieved if the course of the movement is constantly being amended. And for this, the central nervous system must have information about the progress of the movement.

Thus, Bernstein proposed a completely new principle of motion control, which was called the principle of sensory corrections.

Consider the factors that, according to Bernstein, influence the course of the movement. First, when performing a movement, the phenomenon of reactive forces arises to a greater or lesser extent. For example, if you wave your hand strongly, reactive forces will develop in other parts of the body, which will change their position and tone.

Secondly, when moving, the phenomenon of inertia arises. If you sharply raise your hand, then it flies up not only due to those motor impulses that are sent to the muscles, but from some moment it moves but inertia, that is, certain inertial forces arise. Moreover, the phenomenon of inertia is present in any movement.

Thirdly, there are certain external forces that influence the course of the movement. For example, if a movement is directed at an object, then it meets resistance from its side. Moreover, this resistance is often unpredictable.

Fourthly, there is another factor that is not always taken into account when starting to perform movements - this is the initial state of the muscles. The state of the muscle changes when performing a movement along with a change in its length, as well as as a result of fatigue and other reasons. Therefore, one and the same motor impulse, reaching the muscle, can give a completely different result.

Thus, there is a whole list of factors that have a direct impact on the progress of the movement. Consequently, the central nervous system needs constant information about the progress of the movement. This information is called feedback signals. These signals can simultaneously travel from muscles to the brain through several channels. For example, when we move, information about the position of individual parts of the body comes from proprioceptive receptors. However, in parallel, information flows through the organs of vision. A similar picture is observed even when performing speech movements. A person receives information not only from receptors that control the movements of the language apparatus, but also through hearing. Moreover, the information arriving through different channels must be consistent, otherwise the execution of the movement becomes impossible.

In a simplified form, this scheme looks like this: effector commands come from the motor center (M) to the muscle (the working point of the muscle). From the working point of the muscle, afferent feedback signals go to the sensory center (3). In the central nervous system, the information received is processed, that is, it is transcribed into motor correction signals, after which the signals again enter the muscle. It turns out a circular control process (Fig. 5.3).

Fig. 5.3. The fundamental difference between the concepts of building movements based on a reflex arc and a reflex ring. Explanations in the text

In this scheme, the reflex arc looks like one of its special cases, when movements are performed that do not need correction, that is, movements of a reflex nature. Bernstein later detailed the reflex ring diagram. The scheme contains the following elements: motor “outputs” (effector), sensory “inputs” (receptor), work point or object (if we are talking about objective activity), transcription unit, program, regulator, master device, comparison device.

With the presence of a greater number of elements, the reflex ring functions as follows. The program records the successive stages of a complex movement. At each specific moment, a particular stage or element is being worked out, the corresponding private program is launched into the master device. Signals from the master device (SW - "what should be") are sent to the comparison device. Feedback signals (IW - "what is") are sent to the same block from the receptor, informing about the state of the working point. In the device of comparison, these signals are compared, and at the output from it signals of the mismatch (V / U) between the required and the actual state of affairs are obtained. Then they go to the decryption unit, from where the correction signals come out, which, through intermediate instances (regulator), go to the effector (Fig. 5.4).

Considering this scheme, you need to pay attention to one interesting detail. The receptor does not always send signals to the comparison instrument. There are times when the signal goes directly to the master device. This happens when it is more economical to rebuild the movement than to correct it. This is especially important in emergency situations.

In addition to the reflex ring, Bernstein put forward the idea of ​​the level construction of movements. In the course of his research, he found that depending on

what information the feedback signals carry - whether they report on the degree of muscle tension, on the relative position of body parts, on the object result of movement, etc. - afferent signals arrive at different sensitive centers of the brain and, accordingly, switch to motor pathways on different levels. Moreover, the level should be understood literally as "layers" in the central nervous system. This is how the levels of the spinal cord and medulla oblongata, the level of subcortical centers, and the level of the cortex were identified. Each level has specific motor manifestations inherent only to it; each level has its own class of movements.

Level A is the lowest and phylogenetically most ancient. In a person, he does not have an independent

Fig. 5.4. Scheme of a reflex ring according to N.A. Bernstein. Explanations in the text

significant value, but is responsible for the most important aspect of any movement - muscle tone. This level receives signals from muscle proprioceptors, which report the degree of muscle tension, as well as information from the organs of balance. This level independently regulates very few movements. They are mainly associated with vibration and tremors. For example, teeth chattering from the cold.

Level B is the level of synergies. At this level, signals are processed mainly from muscle-articular receptors, which report on the relative position and movement of body parts. Thus, this level is closed to the body space. Level B takes a large part in organizing movements of higher levels, and there he takes on the task of internal coordination of complex motor ensembles. The proper movements of this level include stretching, facial expressions, etc.

Level C. Bernstein called this level the level of the spatial field. This level receives signals from sight, hearing, touch, that is, all information about the external space. Therefore, at this level, movements are constructed that are adapted to the spatial properties of objects - to their shape, position, length, weight, etc. All movement movements belong to the movements of this level.

Level D is the level of objective actions. This is the level of the cerebral cortex responsible for organizing actions with objects. This level includes all tool actions and manipulations with objects. Movement on this

level are presented as actions. In them, the motor composition, or a set of movements, is not fixed, but only a specific result is given.

Level E - the highest level - the level of intellectual motor acts. This level includes: speech movements, writing movements, movements of symbolic or coded speech. The movements of this level are determined not by objective, but by abstract, verbal meaning.

Considering the construction of levels of motion, Bernstein makes several very important conclusions. First, in the organization of movements, as a rule, several levels are involved at once - the one on which the movement and all the lower levels are built. So, for example, writing is a complex movement in which all five levels are involved. Level A provides muscle tone. Level B gives smooth roundness and cursive writing. Level C ensures the reproduction of the geometric shape of the letters, the even arrangement of lines on paper. The O level assures proper control of the pen. Level E determines the semantic side of the letter. Based on this position, Bernstein concludes that only those components of movement that are built on the leading level are represented in the human consciousness, and the work of the lower levels, as a rule, is not realized.

Secondly, formally one and the same movement can be built on different leading levels. The level of construction of movement is determined by the meaning, or task, of the movement. For example, a circular movement, depending on how and for what it is performed (finger movement, body movement or action with an object), can be built on any of five levels. This position is extremely interesting for us because it shows the decisive importance of such a psychological category as the task, or goal, of movement for the organization and course of physiological processes. This result of Bernstein's research can be regarded as a major scientific contribution to the physiology of movement.

The process of motor skill formation and the principle of activity.

The development of the reflex ring scheme and the level construction of movements allowed Bernstein to consider the mechanisms of skill formation in a completely new way.

The process of skill formation was described by Bernstein in great detail. Considering this process, he distinguishes a large number of partial phases, which are combined into larger periods.

In the first period, there is an initial acquaintance with the movement and the initial mastery of it. According to Bernstein, everything begins with identifying the motor composition of the movement, that is, with how it should be done, what elements of the movement, in what sequence, in what combination should be performed. Acquaintance with the motor composition of the action occurs through a story, demonstration or explanation, that is, during this period there is an acquaintance with how the movement looks externally or externally.

This phase is followed by another, the most laborious phase of the first period - the phase of clarification of the internal picture of movement. At the same time, a person learns to decode afferent signals into commands. Thus, following the scheme of the reflex ring, the most "hot" are the following blocks: "program", where the external motor composition is clarified;

"Master device", where the internal picture of movement is formed; re-encryption unit, which ensures the development of correct corrections.

The latter is especially important, since it consists of the initial distribution of corrections over the underlying levels, i.e., the construction of the movement is based not on one reflex ring, but on a whole chain of rings, which is formed in the process of working out the correct corrections. As we have already noted, initially the mastery of movement occurs under the control of consciousness, that is, all the processes that make up the reflex ring of the highest level are in the field of consciousness. However, in the course of multiple repetition, feedback signals at the lower levels begin to clear and master. As a rule, they give more accurate and inaccessible to a higher level information about different sides of the movement. For example, at level A there is information about muscle tone and body balance, at level B - about the position of body parts, etc.

This is a list of all the blocks