Modern problems of science and education. Category "Image of the World" in modern psychology Imprint of the collection

As you know, the psychology and psychophysiology of perception are characterized by, perhaps, the largest number of studies and publications, an immense amount of accumulated facts. Research is carried out on the most different levels: morphophysiological, psychophysical, psychological, theoretical-cognitive, cellular, phenomenological (“phenographic” - K. Holzkamp) 2, at the level of micro- and macroanalysis. Phylogenesis, ontogeny of perception, its functional development and the processes of its restoration are studied. A wide variety of specific methods, procedures, indicators are used. Got spread different approaches and interpretations: physicalistic, cybernetic, logical-mathematical, "model". Many phenomena have been described, including completely amazing ones that remain unexplained.

But what is significant, according to the most authoritative researchers, now there is no convincing theory of perception capable of embracing accumulated knowledge, outline a conceptual system that meets the requirements of dialectical materialist methodology.

In the psychology of perception, in essence, physiological idealism, parallelism and epiphenomenalism, subjective sensationalism, and vulgar mechanism are preserved in an implicit form. The influence of neopositivism is not weakening, but increasing. Reductionism is especially dangerous for psychology, destructivethe very subject of psychological science. As a result, open eclecticism prevails in works that claim to cover a wide range of problems. The miserable state of the theory of perception with the wealth of accumulated concrete knowledge is evidence

1 Leontiev AM.Selected psychological works: In 2 volumes. Moscow: Pedagogy,
1983. T. I. S. 251-261.

2 Cf. Holzkamp K.Sinnliehe Erkenntnis: Historischen Upsprung und gesellschaftliche
Function der Wahrnehmung. Frankfurt / Main, 1963.

Leontiev A, N.Image of the world

That there is now an urgent need to revise the fundamental direction in which research is moving.

Of course, all Soviet authors proceed from the fundamental provisions of Marxism, such as the recognition of the primacy of matter and the secondary nature of spirit, consciousness, psyche; from the position that sensations and perceptions are a reflection of objective reality, a function of the brain. But we are talking about something else: about the embodiment of these provisions in their specific content, in the practice of research psychological work; about their creative development in the very, figuratively speaking, the flesh of research of perception. And this requires a radical transformation of the very formulation of the problem of psychology of perception and the rejection of a number of imaginary postulates, which by inertia remain in it. The possibility of such a transformation of the problem of perception in psychology will be discussed.

The general position that I will try to defend today is that the problem of perception must be posed and worked outas the problem of the psychology of the image of the world.(I will note, by the way, that the theory of reflection in German is Bildtheorie, that is, the theory of the image.) Marxism poses the question in this way: “... sensation, perception, representation and, in general, human consciousness,” Lenin wrote, “is taken as an objective image reality "1.

Lenin also formulated an extremely important idea about the principled path along which a materialist analysis of the problem should consistently follow. This is the path from the external objective world to sensation, perception, image. The opposite path, Lenin emphasizes, is a path that inevitably leads to idealism.

This means that every thing is primarily placed objectively - in the objective connections of the objective world; that it - for the second time - posits itself also in subjectivity, human sensibility, and in human consciousness (in its ideal forms). It is necessary to proceed from this in the psychological study of the image, the processes of its generation and functioning.

Animals, humans live in the objective world, which from the very beginning acts as a four-dimensional: three-dimensional space and time (movement), which is "objectively real forms of being" 3.

This proposition should by no means remain for psychology only a general philosophical prerequisite, allegedly not directly affecting the specific psychological study of perception, understanding of its mechanism.

1 Lenin V.I.Floors, collection op. T. 18.P. 282-283

2 See ibid. P. 52.

3 Ibid. P. 181.

532 Theme

Nizmov. On the contrary, it makes a lot of things to be seen differently, not the way it developed within the framework of bourgeois psychology. This also applies to understanding the development of the sense organs in the course of biological evolution.

From the above Marxist position it follows that the life of animals from the very beginning proceeds in the four-dimensional objective world, that the adaptation of animals occurs as an adaptation to the connections that fill the world of things, their changes in time, their movement; that, accordingly, the evolution of the sense organs reflects the development of adaptation to the four-dimensionality of the world, i.e. provides orientation in the world as it is, and not in its individual elements.

I say this to the fact that only with such an approach can many facts be comprehended that elude zoopsychology, because they do not fit into the traditional, essentially atomic, schemes. Such facts include, for example, the paradoxically early appearance in the evolution of animals of the perception of space and the estimation of distances. The same applies to the perception of movements, changes in time - the perception, so to speak, of continuity through discontinuity.But, of course, I will not touch on these issues in more detail. This is a special, highly specialized conversation.

Turning to a person, to the consciousness of a person, I must introduce another concept - the concept of the fifth quasi-dimension, in which the objective world is revealed to man.It - semantic field, system of meanings.

The introduction of this concept requires a more detailed explanation.

The fact is that when I perceive an object, then I perceive it not only in its spatial dimensions and in time, but also in its meaning. When, for example, I glance at a wrist watch, then, strictly speaking, I do not have an image of the individual features of this object, their sum, their "associative set". By the way, this is the basis for the criticism of associative theories of perception. It is also not enough to say that I have first of all a picture of their form, as Gestalt psychologists insist on it. I do not perceive the form, but an item that has a watch.

Of course, in the presence of a corresponding perceptual task, I can distinguish and realize their form, their individual signs - elements, their connections. Otherwise, although all this is included in textureimage in his sensual fabric,but this texture can be curled up, blurred, replaced without destroying, without distorting the objectivity of the image.

The thesis I have expressed is proved by many facts, both obtained in experiments and known from everyday life... It is unnecessary for perceptual psychologists to list these facts. I will only note that they appear especially vividly in images-representations.

The traditional interpretation consists here in ascribing properties such as meaningfulness or categoricality to perception itself.

Leontiev A, N.Image of the world

As for the explanation of these properties of perception, they, as R. Gregory correctly says, 1 at best remain within the boundaries of the theory of H. Helmholtz. I will note right away that the deeply hidden danger here lies in the logical need to appeal ultimately to innate categories.

The general idea I advocate can be expressed in two positions. The first is that the properties of meaningfulness, categoricality are the characteristics of the conscious image of the world, not immanent to the image itself,his consciousness. They, these characteristics, express the objectivity revealed by the aggregate social practice, idealizedin the system of meanings that each individual finds as out-of-his-existing- perceived, assimilated - and therefore the same as what is included in his image of the world.

I will express it differently: meanings do not appear as what lies in front of things, but as what lies behind the appearance of things- in the cognized objective connections of the objective world, in various systems in which they only exist, they only reveal their properties. Meanings, therefore, carry a special dimension. This dimension intrasystemic connections of the objective objective world. She is the fifth quasi-dimension of it!

Let's summarize.

The thesis I advocate is that in psychology the problem of perception should be posed as the problem of building in the consciousness of the individual a multidimensional image of the world, an image of reality.That, in other words, the psychology of the image (perception) is concrete scientific knowledge about how in the process of their activity individuals build the image of the world - the world in which they live, act, which they themselves alter and partially create; it is also knowledge of how the image of the world functions, mediating their activity in objectively realthe world.

Here I must interrupt myself with some illustrative digressions. I recall the dispute between one of our philosophers and J. Piaget when he came to us.

You succeed, - said this philosopher, referring to Piaget, -
that the child, the subject in general, builds the world with the help of a system of operations. how
can you take this point of view? This is idealism.

I do not at all stand on this point of view, - answered J. Piaget, - in
on this problem my views coincide with Marxism, and it is completely wrong
it is good to consider me an idealist!

But how, then, do you claim that for a child the world
the way its logic builds?

Piaget never gave a clear answer to this question. The answer, however, exists and is very simple. We are really building, but not the World, but the Image, actively "drawing out" it, as I usually say,

1 Cf. Gregory R.Intelligent eye. M., 1972.

534 Topic 7.Man as a subject of knowledge

From objective reality. The process of perception is the process, the means of this "scooping", and the main thing is not how, with what means this process proceeds, but what is obtained as a result of this process. I answer: the image of the objective world, objective reality. The image is more adequate or less adequate, more complete or less complete ... sometimes even false ...

Let me make another digression of a completely different kind.

The fact is that the understanding of perception as a process through which the image of a multidimensional world is built, with every link, act, moment, every sensory mechanism, comes into conflict with the inevitable analyticism of scientific psychological and psychophysiological research, with the inevitable abstractions of a laboratory experiment.

We highlight and investigate the perception of distance, discrimination of shapes, color constancy, apparent movement, etc. etc. By careful experiments and the most precise measurements, we seem to drill deep, but narrow wells that penetrate into the depths of perception. True, we do not often manage to lay "communication routes" between them, but we continue and continue this drilling of wells and scoop out from them a huge amount of information - useful, as well as of little use and even completely useless. As a result, whole waste heaps of incomprehensible facts have now formed in psychology, which mask the true scientific relief of the problems of perception.

It goes without saying that by this I do not at all deny the necessity and even inevitability of analytical study, the isolation of certain particular processes and even individual perceptual phenomena in order to study them in vitro. You just can't do without it! My idea is completely different, namely, that, isolating the studied process in the experiment, we are dealing with some abstraction, therefore, the problem of returning to the integral subject of study in its real nature, origin and specific functioning immediately arises.

In relation to the study of perception, this is a return to the construction of an image in the consciousness of an individual external multidimensional world,the world as it isin which we live, in which we act, but in which our abstractions in themselves do not "inhabit", as does not exist ^ for example, in it such a thoroughly studied and thoroughly worn out "phi-movement" "1.

Here I am again forced to retreat.

Many decades of research in the psychology of perception have dealt primarily with the perception of two-dimensional objects - lines, geometric shapes, and generally images on a plane. On this basis, the main direction in the psychology of the image arose - Gestalt psychology.

1 Cf. Gregory R.Eye and brain. M., 1970.S. 124-125

Leontiev A.N.Image of the world

At first it was singled out as a special "quality of form" - Gestalt-qualitat; then they saw in the integrity of the form the key to solving the problem of the image. The law of "good shape", the law of pre-ness, the law of figure and background were formulated.

This psychological theory, generated by the study of flat images, itself turned out to be “flat”. In essence, it closed the possibility of the "real world - psychic gestalt" movement, as well as the "psychic gestalt - brain" movement. Substantial processes turned out to be replaced by the relations of projectivity, isomorphism. V.Kehler publishes the book "Physical Gestalts" 1 (it seems that K.Goldschtein wrote about them for the first time), and K.Koffka already explicitly states that the solution to the contraverse of spirit and matter, psyche and brain consists in the fact that the third is primary. and this third is Gestalt - form. A far from the best solution is offered in the Leipzig version of Gestalt psychology: form is a subjective a priori category.

And how is the perception of three-dimensional things interpreted in Gestalt psychology? The answer is simple: it consists in transferring the laws of perception of projections on a plane to the perception of three-dimensional things. The things of the three-dimensional world thus appear as closed planes. The main law of the field of perception is the law of "figure and background". But this is not the law of perception at all, but the phenomenon of perception of a two-dimensional figure against a two-dimensional background. It refers not to the perception of things of the three-dimensional world, but to some of their abstraction, which is their contour 2. In the real world, the definiteness of an integral thing appears through its connections with other things, and not through its "outlining 3.

In other words, with its abstractions, gestalt theory replaced the concept of objectivethe world the notionfields.

It took years in psychology to experimentally separate and oppose them. It seems that this was first done best by J. Gibson, who found a way to see the surrounding objects, the environment as consisting of planes, but then this situation became ghostly, lost its reality for the observer. It was possible to subjectively create the "field", but it turned out to be inhabited by ghosts. This is how a very important distinction arose in the psychology of perception: the “visible field” and the “visible world” 4.

IN last years, in particular, in studies carried out at the Department of General Psychology, this distinction received a fundamental theoretical

1 Kdhler W.Die physischen Gestalten in Ruhe und stationaren Zustand. Brounschweig, 1920.

2 Or, if you like, a plane.

3 Ie operations of selection and vision of the form.

4 Cf. Gibson J.J.The Perception of the Visual World. L .; N.Y., 1950.

536 Theme7. Man as a subject of knowledge

Tic lighting, and the discrepancy between the projection picture and the object image is a fairly convincing experimental 1 justification 2.

I stopped at the Gestalt theory of perception, because in it the results of reducing the image of the objective world to individual phenomena, relations, characteristics, abstracted from the real process of its generation in human consciousness, a process taken in its entirety, are especially clearly reflected in it. It is necessary, therefore, to return to this process, the necessity of which lies in the life of a person, in the development of his activity in an objectively multidimensional world. The starting point for this must be the world itself, and not the subjective phenomena it causes.

Here I come to the most difficult, one might say, critical point of the train of thought I am testing.

I want to immediately express this point in the form of a categorical thesis, deliberately omitting all necessary reservations.

This thesis is that the world in its remoteness from the subject is amodal.We are talking, of course, about the meaning of the term "modality", which it has in psychophysics, psychophysiology and psychology, when, for example, we talk about the form of an object given in visual or tactile modality or in modalities together.

In putting forward this thesis, I proceed from a very simple and, in my opinion, completely justified distinction between properties of two kinds.

One is such properties of inanimate things that are found in interactions with things (with "other" things), i.e. in the interaction "object-object". Some properties are found in interaction with things of a special kind - with living sentient organisms, i.e. in the interaction "object-subject". They are found in specific effects depending on the properties of the recipient organs of the subject. In this sense, they are modal, i.e. subjective.

The smoothness of the surface of an object in the interaction "object-object" reveals itself, say, in the physical phenomenon of reducing friction. When touched by hand - in a modal phenomenon of tactile sensation of smoothness. The same surface property appears in the visual modality.

So, the fact is that one and the same property - in this case a physical property of the body - causes, acting on a person, a perfect

1 It was also possible to find some objective indicators that dismember the visible field
and objects, a picture of an object. After all, the image of an object has such a characteristic,
as measurable constancy, i.e. constant coefficient. But as soon as
the objective world slips away, transforming into a field, so the field reveals it
aconstance. This means that it is possible to dismember the objects of the field and the objects of the world by measuring.

2 Logvinenko AD., Table V.V.Research of perception under field inversion conditions
view // Ergonomics. VNIITE Proceedings. 1973. Issue. 6.

Leontiev A.I.Image of the world

Chenno's impressions are different in modality. After all, "shine" does not look like "smoothness", and "dullness" does not look like "roughness". Therefore, sensory modalities cannot be given a "permanent residence" in the external objective world. I emphasize externalbecause a person, with all his sensations, himself also belongs to the objective world, there is also a thing among things.

Engels has one notable idea that the properties that we learn about through sight, hearing, smell, etc., are not completely different; that our self absorbs various sensory impressions, combining them into a whole as "Joint"(Engels's italics!) properties. “It is the task of science to explain these different properties available only to different senses ...” 1.

120 years have passed. And finally, in the 60s, if I am not mistaken, the idea of \u200b\u200bmerging in a person these "joint", as Engels called them, splitting sensesproperties has become an experimentally established fact.

I mean the study by I. Rock 2.

In his experiments, subjects were shown a square made of hard plastic through a reducing lens. “The subject took the square with his fingers from below, through a piece of cloth, so that he could not see his hand, otherwise he could understand that he was looking through a reducing lens ... We ... asked him to give his impression of the size of the square ... We asked the subjects to draw a square of the corresponding size as accurately as possible, which requires the participation of both sight and touch. Others had to choose a square of equal size from a series of squares presented only visually, and still others from a series of squares, the size of which could only be determined by touch ...

The subjects had a certain holistic impression about the size of the square ... The perceived size of the square ... was about the same as in the control experiment with only visual perception. "

So, the objective world, taken as a system of only "object-object" relationships (ie the world without animals, before animals and humans), is amodal. Only with the emergence of subject-object connections, interactions, there are many different and, moreover, changing from type to type 3 modalities.

This is why, as soon as we are distracted from subject-object interactions, sensory modalities drop out of our descriptions of reality.

1 K. Marx, F. EngelsOp. T. 20.P. 548.

2 Cf. Rock I., Harris C.Sight and touch // Perception. Mechanisms and models. M.,
1974.S. 276-279.

3 I mean the zoological species.

538 Topic 7.Man as a subject of knowledge

From the duality of connections, interactions "0-0"and "OS", provided they coexist, and the well-known duality of characteristics occurs: for example, such and such a section of the spectrum of electromagnetic waves and, say, red light. At the same time, one should not only lose sight of the fact that both characteristics expresses the "physical relationship between physical things" 1.

A further naturally arising question is the question of the nature, origin of sensory modalities, their evolution, development, the necessity, non-randomness of their changing "sets" and different, in Engels's term, "compatibility" of the properties reflected in them. This is an unexplored (or almost unexplored) problem of science. What is the key approach (position) for an adequate solution to this problem? Here I must repeat my main idea: in psychology, it should be solved as a problem of the phylogenetic development of the image of the world, since:

(1) an "indicative basis" of behavior is needed, and this is an image,

(2) this or that lifestyle creates the need for an appropriate
his orienting, managing, mediating image into an object
nome world.

In short. One must proceed not from comparative anatomy and physiology, but from ecologyin its relation to the morphology of the sense organs, etc. Engels writes: "What is light and what is non-light depends on whether it is a night animal or daytime" 2.

There is a special issue about "combinations"

1. Alignment (modalities) becomes, but in relation to
feelings, image; she is his condition 3. (As an object - a "node of properties",
so the image is a "knot of modal sensations.")

2. Alignment expresses spatialitythings as odds
their existence).

3. But it also expresses their existence in time, therefore the image
in principle there is a product not only simultaneous, but also successively

1 K. Marx, F. EngelsOp. Vol. 23, p. 62.

2 K. Marx, F. EngelsOp. T.20. S. 603.

3 B.M. Velichkovsky drew my attention to one study related to the early
infancy: Aronson£., Rosenbloom S.Space perception in early infancy:
perception within a common auditory visual space // Science. 1972. V. 172. P. 1161-1163.
One of the experiments studied the reaction of a newborn to bending and
talking mother. The fact is that if the sound comes from one side and the mother's face
is on the other, then there is no reaction. Similar data, both psychological and
biological, allow us to talk about perception as a process of forming an image. We are not
we can start with the elements of perception, because the formation of an image presupposes
compatibility. One property cannot characterize an object. The subject is a "node
properties ". A picture, an image of the world arises when properties are "tied in a knot", from this
development begins. First comes the consistency relation, and then the splitting
joint with other properties.

Leontiev A.N.Image of the world

thalignment, merging 1. The most characteristic phenomenon of the alignment of viewpoints is children's drawings!

General conclusion: any actual impact fits into the image of the world, i.e. into some "whole" 2.

When I say that everything that is actual, i.e. now, the property affecting perceptual systems "fits" into the image of the world, this is not an empty, but a very meaningful position; it means that:

(1) the boundary of an object is established on the object, i.e. branch
it does not occur at the sensory, but at the intersections of the visual axes.
Therefore, when using the probe, the sensor is shifted 3. it
means that does not exist objectification of sensations, perceptionFor the Cree
tic of "objectification", i.e. referring secondary signs to real
the world, there is a criticism of subjective-idealistic concepts. Otherwise
speaking, I stand on what not perception posits itself in the object, but
thing- through activities- posits himself in the image. Perception
and there is his "subjective belief"... (Positioning for the subject!);

(2) fitting into the image of the world also expresses the fact that the object is not
consists of "sides"; he acts for us as one continuous;
discontinuity is only its moment *.The phenomenon of the "core" of the object appears
that. This phenomenon expresses objectivityperception. Reconstruction processes
acceptance obeys this core. Psychological evidence: a) c
brilliant observation of G. Helmholtz: “not everything that is given in the sensation,
enters into the "image of representation" "(tantamount to the fall of the subjective
idealism in the style of Johannes Müller); b) in the phenomenon of increments to pseudo-
scopic image (I see the edges coming from the suspended in space
plane) and in experiments with inversion, with adaptation to the optical
the woman's world.

So far, I have touched on the characteristics of the image of the world common to animals and humans. But the process of generating a picture of the world, like the picture of the world itself, its characteristics change qualitatively when we turn to a person.

1 None of us, getting up from the desk, will move the chair so that it
hit a bookcase if he knows the display is behind this chair. World
behind me is present in the picture of the world, but absent in the actual visual world.
Because we do not have panoramic vision, the panoramic picture of the world does not disappear, it
just acts differently.

2 Cf. Uexkull V., KriszatG. Streifziige durch die Umwelten von Tieren und Menschen.
Berlin, 1934.

3 When the probe touches an object, the sensor moves from the hand to
tip of the probe. Sensitivity there ... I can stop probing this object with the probe
Move your hand slightly over the probe. And then the feeling returns to the fingers, and
the tip of the probe loses its sensitivity.

4 "Tunnel effect": when something interrupts its movement and, as a result of its
impact, it does not interrupt its existence for me.

540 Topic 7. Man as a subject of knowledge

In man the world acquires in the image the fifth quasi-dimension.It is by no means subjectively attributed to the world! This is the transition through sensibility beyond sensibility, through sensory modalities to the amodal world.The objective world appears in meaning, i.e. the picture of the world is filled with meanings.

The deepening of knowledge requires the removal of modalities and consists in such removal, therefore science does not speak the language of modalities, this language is banished in it. The picture of the world includes the invisible properties of objects: a) amo-distant- discovered by industry, experiment, thinking; b) Supersensible- functional properties, qualities, such as "cost", which are not contained in the substrate of the object. They are represented in meanings!

It is especially important to emphasize here that the nature of the meaning is not only not in the body of the sign, but also not in formal sign operations, not in the operations of meaning. She - in the totality of human practice, which in its idealized forms is included in the picture of the world.

Otherwise, it can be said this way: knowledge, thinking are not separated from the process of forming the sensory image of the world, but are included in it, adding to sensuality. [Knowledge enters, science does not!]

Some general conclusions.

1. The formation of the image of the world in a person is his transition beyond
"Directly sensual pictures". The image is not a picture!

2. Sensuality, sensory modalities are increasingly "indifferent
are ". The image of the world of the deaf-blind is no other than the image of the world of the sighted-hearing-
go atbut created from another building material, from the material of other mo
ranges, woven from another sensual fabric. Therefore it keeps
its simultaneity, and this is a problem for research!

3. "Depersonalization" of modality is not at all the same as
impersonality of the sign in relation to the meaning.

Sensory modalities in no way encode reality. They carry it within themselves 1.That is why the disintegration of sensuality (its perversion) gives rise to the psychological unreality of the world, the phenomenon of its “disappearance”. This is known and proven.

4. Sensual modalities form an obligatory texture of the image.
for the world. But the texture of the image is not equal to the image itself! So lively
the object shines through behind the smears of oil. When I look at the pictured
I can't see the brushstrokes, and vice versa! Texture, material is removed
way, not destroyed in it.

1 I always read with chagrin on the pages of modern psychological literature such statements as “coding in such and such sensations”. What does it mean? Conditionally passed? No relationship. It is established by us. No coding required! The concept is not good!

Leontiev A.N.Image of the world

The image, the picture of the world, includes not the image, but the depicted one (image, reflection is revealed only by reflection, and this is important!).

So, the involvement of living organisms, the system of processes of their organs, their brain in the objective, subject-discrete world leads to the fact that the system of these processes is endowed with a content that is different from their own content, a content that belongs to the objective world itself.

The problem of such "endowment" gives rise to the subject of psychological science!

Of course, all Soviet authors proceed from the fundamental provisions of Marxism, such as the recognition of the primacy of matter and the secondary nature of spirit, consciousness, and psyche; from the position that sensations and perceptions are a reflection of objective reality and a function of the brain. But we are talking about something else: about the embodiment of these provisions in their concrete content, in the practice of research psychological work; about their creative development in the very, figuratively speaking, the flesh of research of perception. And this requires a radical transformation of the very formulation of the problem of psychology and the rejection of a number of imaginary postulates, which are preserved by inertia. The possibility of such a transformation of the problem of perception in psychology will be discussed.

The general position that I will try to defend today is that the problem of perception should be posed and developed as a problem of the psychology of the image of the world.(Note that by the way, that the theory of reflection in German is Bildtheori, that is, the image.)

This means that every thing is primarily placed objectively - in the objective connections of the objective world; that it - for the second time posits itself also in subjectivity, human sensibility, and in human consciousness (in its ideal forms). It is necessary to proceed from this in the psychological study of the image, the process of generation and functioning.

Animals, humans live in the objective world, which from the very beginning acts as a four-dimensional: three-dimensional space and time (movement), which is "objectively real forms of being"

This proposition should by no means remain for psychology only a general philosophical premise, allegedly not directly affecting the concrete psychological study of perception, the understanding of mechanisms. On the contrary, it makes a lot of things to see differently, not as it developed in the framework of Western psychology. This also applies to understanding the development of the sense organs in the course of biological evolution.

Life of animals fromfrom the very beginning takes place in the four-dimensional objective world, the adaptation of animals occurs as an adaptation to the connections that fill the world of things, their changes in time, their movement, which, accordingly, the evolution of the sense organs reflects the development of adaptation to the four-dimensional world as it is, and not in its individual elements.

Turning to a person, to the consciousness of a person, I must introduce another concept - the concept of the fifth quasi-dimension,in which the objective world is revealed to man. It - semantic field, system of meanings.

The introduction of this concept requires a more detailed explanation.

The fact is that when I perceive an object, then I perceive it not only in its spatial dimensions and in time, but also in its meaning. When, for example, I glance at a wrist watch, then, strictly speaking, I do not have an image of the individual features of this object, their sum, their “associative set”. By the way, this is the basis for the criticism of associative theories of perception. It is also not enough to say that I have, first of all, a picture of their form, as Gestalt psychologists insist on it. I do not perceive the form, but thing that is watch.

Of course, in the presence of a corresponding perceptual task, I can distinguish and realize their form, their individual signs - elements, their connections. Otherwise, although all this is included in textureimage in his sensual fabric,but this texture can be rolled up, blurred, replaced without destroying or distorting the objectivity of the image.

The thesis I have expressed is proved by many facts, both obtained in experiments and known from everyday life. It is unnecessary for perceptual psychologists to list these facts. I will only note that they appear especially vividly in images-representations.

The traditional interpretation consists here in ascribing properties such as meaningfulness or categoricality to perception itself. As for the explanation of these properties of perception, they, as R. Gregory correctly says (1), at best remain within the boundaries of the theory of H. Helmholtz. I note right away that the deeply hidden danger here lies in the logical need to appeal ultimately to innate categories.

The general idea I advocate can be expressed in two positions. The first is that the properties of meaningfulness, categoricality are the characteristics of the conscious image of the world, not immanent to the image itself,his consciousness. They, these characteristics, express the objectivity revealed by the aggregate social practice, idealizedin the system of meanings that each individual finds as "Out-of-his-being"- perceived, assimilated - and therefore the same as what is included in his image of the world.

I will express it differently: meanings do not appear as something that lies in front of things, but as something that lies behind the appearance of things- in the cognized objective connections of the objective world, in various systems in which they only exist, they only reveal their properties. Meanings, therefore, carry a special dimension. This dimension intrasystemic connections of the objective objective world. She is the fifth quasi-dimension of it!

Let's summarize.

The thesis I advocate is that in psychology the problem of perception should be posed as the problem of building in the consciousness of the individual a multidimensional image of the world, an image of reality.That, in other words, the psychology of image (perception) is concrete scientific knowledge about how in the process of their activity individuals build an image of the world - the world in which they live, act, which they themselves alter and partially create; it is also knowledge of how the image of the world functions, mediating their activity in objectively realthe world.

Here I must interrupt myself with some illustrative digressions. I recall the dispute between one of our philosophers and J. Piaget when he came to us.

It turns out, - said this philosopher, referring to Piaget, - that the child, the subject in general, builds the world with the help of a system of operations. How can you take this point of view? This is idealism.

I do not at all adhere to this point of view, - answered J. Piaget, - in this problem my views coincide with Marxism, and it is completely wrong to consider me an idealist!

But how, then, do you assert that for a child the world is such as his logic builds?

Piaget never gave a clear answer to this question.

The answer, however, exists and is very simple. We are really building, but not the World, but the Image, actively "scooping" it, as I usually say, from objective reality. The process of perception is the process, the means of this "scooping", and the main thing is not how, with what means this process proceeds, but what is obtained as a result of this process. I answer: the image of the objective world, objective reality. The image is more adequate or less adequate, more complete or less complete ... sometimes even false ...

Let me make another digression of a completely different kind.

We isolate and investigate the perception of distance, the distinction of forms, the constancy of color, apparent movement, etc., etc. Through careful experiments and the most precise measurements, we seem to drill deep, but narrow wells that penetrate into the depths of perception. True, we do not often manage to lay "communication routes" between them, but we continue and continue this drilling of wells and scoop out a huge amount of information from them - useful, as well as of little use and even completely useless. As a result, whole waste heaps of incomprehensible facts have now formed in psychology, which mask the true scientific relief of the problems of perception.

It goes without saying that by this I do not at all deny the necessity and even the inevitability of analytical study, the isolation of certain particular processes and even individual perceptual phenomena in order to study them in vitro. You just can't do without it! My idea is completely different, namely that, isolating the studied process in the experiment, we are dealing with some abstraction, therefore, the problem of returning to the integral subject of study in its real nature, origin and specific functioning immediately arises.

In relation to the study of perception, this is a return to the construction of an image in the consciousness of an individual. external multidimensional world,the world as it isin which we live, in which we act, but in which our abstractions in themselves do not "inhabit", as, for example, such a detailed and carefully measured "phi-movement" does not live in it (2).

Here I am again forced to retreat.

Many decades of research in the psychology of perception dealt primarily with the perception of two-dimensional objects - lines, geometric shapes, and generally images on a plane. On this basis, the main trend in the psychology of the image arose - gestalt psychology.

At first it was singled out as a special "quality of form"; then they saw in the integrity of the form the key to solving the problem of the image. The law of "good shape", the law of pregnancies, the law of figure and background were formulated.

This psychological theory, generated by the study of flat images, itself turned out to be “flat”. In essence, it closed the possibility of the "real world - psychic gestalt" movement, as well as the "psychic gestalt - brain" movement. Substantial processes turned out to be replaced by the relations of projectivity, isomorphism. V. Koehler publishes the book "Physical Gestalts" (it seems that K. Goldstein wrote about them for the first time), and K. Koffka already directly states that the solution to the contraverse of spirit and matter, psyche and brain consists in the fact that the third is primary and this is the third there is qestalt - form. A far from the best solution is offered in the Leipzig version of Gestalt psychology: form is a subjective a priori category.

And how is the perception of three-dimensional things interpreted in Gestalt psychology? The answer is simple: it consists in transferring the laws of perception of projections on a plane to the perception of three-dimensional things. Thus, things of the three-dimensional world appear as closed planes. The main law of the field of perception is the law of "figure and background". But this is not the law of perception at all, but the phenomenon of perception of a two-dimensional figure against a two-dimensional background. It refers not to the perception of things of the three-dimensional world, but to some of their abstraction, which is their outline *. In the real world, however, the definiteness of an integral thing appears through its connections with other things, and not through its "outlining" **.

In other words, with its abstractions, Gestalt theory replaced the concept of objective the worldthe notion fields.

It took years in psychology to experimentally separate and oppose them. It seems that this was first done by J. Gibson, who found a way to see the surrounding objects, the surrounding environment as consisting of planes, but then this situation became ghostly, lost its reality for the observer. It was possible to subjectively create the "field", but it turned out to be inhabited by ghosts. This is how a very important distinction arose in the psychology of perception: the “visible field” and the “visible world”.

In recent years, in particular in studies carried out at the Department of General Psychology, this distinction has received a fundamental theoretical coverage, and the discrepancy between the projection picture and the subject image is a fairly convincing experimental justification (3).

I stopped at the Gestalt theory of perception, because in it the results of reducing the image of the objective world to individual phenomena, relations, characteristics, abstracted from the real process of its generation in human consciousness, a process taken in its entirety, are especially clearly reflected in it. Therefore, it is necessary to return to this process, the necessity of which lies in the life of a person, in the development of his activity in an objectively multidimensional world. The starting point for this must be the world itself, and not the subjective phenomena it causes.

Here I come to the most difficult, one might say, critical point of the train of thought I am testing.

I want to immediately express this point in the form of a categorical thesis, deliberately omitting all necessary reservations.

In putting forward this thesis, I proceed from a very simple and, in my opinion, completely justified distinction between properties of two kinds.

One is such properties of inanimate things that are found in interactions with things (with "other" things), that is, in the interaction "object - object". Some properties are found in interaction with things of a special kind - with living sentient organisms, that is, in the interaction "object - subject". They are found in specific effects depending on the properties of the recipient organs of the subject. In this sense, they are modal, that is, subjective.

So, the fact is that one and the same property - in this case a physical property of the body - causes, acting on a person, impressions that are completely different in modality. After all, "shine" does not look like "smoothness", and "dullness" is not like "roughness

Therefore, sensory modalities cannot be given a "permanent residence" in the external objective world. I emphasize external,because a person, with all his sensations, himself also belongs to the objective world, there is also a thing among things.

In his experiments, subjects were shown a square made of hard plastic through a reducing lens. “The subject took the square with his fingers from below, through a piece of cloth, so that he could not see his hand, otherwise he could understand that he is looking through a reducing lens. We asked him to give his impression of the size of the square ... We asked some subjects to draw a square of the corresponding size as accurately as possible, which requires the participation of both sight and touch. Others had to choose a square of equal size from a series of squares presented only visually, and still others from a series of squares, the size of which could only be determined by touch ...

The subjects had a certain holistic impression of the size of the square. The perceived size of the square was approximately the same as in the control experiment with only visual perception ”(4).

So, the objective world, taken as a system of only “object-object” relationships (ie, the world without animals, before animals and humans), is amodal. Only with the emergence of subject-object connections, interactions, do multivariate and, moreover, varying from species to species (meaning the zoological species) modalities arise.

This is why, as soon as we are distracted from subject-object interactions, sensory modalities drop out of our descriptions of reality.

From the duality of bonds, interactions "O-O" and "O-S", provided that they coexist, the well-known duality of characteristics occurs: for example, such and such a section of the spectrum of electromagnetic waves and, say, red light. At the same time, one should not only lose sight of the fact that one and the other characteristic expresses the "physical relationship between physical things" "

Here I must repeat my main idea: in psychology, it should be solved as a problem of phylogenetic development of the image of the world, because:

A) you need an "indicative basis" of behavior, and this is an image;

B) this or that way of life creates the need for an appropriate orienting, managing, mediating image of it in the objective world.

The question of "combinations" is especially important.

1. Combination (of modalities) becomes, but in relation to feelings, image; she is his condition. (As an object is a “knot of properties”, so an image is a “knot of modal sensations”.)

2. Alignment expresses spatialitythings as a form of their existence).

3. But it also expresses their existence in time, therefore the image is, in principle, a product not only of simultaneous, but also successivecombining, merging **. The most characteristic phenomenon of the alignment of viewpoints is children's drawings!

General conclusion: any actual impact fits into the image of the world, that is, into a certain "whole" 14 .

When I say that every property that is actual, that is, that is now influencing perceptual systems, "fits" into the image of the world, then this is not empty, but a very meaningful position; it means that:

(1) the boundary of the object is established on the object, that is, its separation occurs not at the sensory, but at the intersections of the visual axes. Therefore, when using the probe, the sensor is shifted. This means that it does not exist objectification of sensations, perceptions!Behind the criticism of "objectification", that is, the attribution of secondary signs to the real world, lies the criticism of subjective-idealistic concepts. In other words, I stand on the fact that not perception posits itself in the object, but the object- through activities- posits himself in the image. Perception is his "subjective positing".(Positioning for the subject!);

(2) fitting into the image of the world also expresses the fact that the object is not made up of "sides"; he acts for us as one continuous; discontinuity is only its moment.The phenomenon of the "core" of the object appears. This phenomenon expresses objectivityperception. Perception processes are subject to this core. Psychological proof: a) in the brilliant observation of H. Helmholtz: “not everything that is given in sensation is included in the“ image of representation ”(tantamount to the fall of subjective idealism in the style of Johannes Müller); b) in the phenomenon of additions to the pseudoscopic image (I see the edges coming from a plane suspended in space) and in experiments with inversion, with adaptation to an optically distorted world.

The deepening of knowledge requires the removal of modalities and consists in such removal, therefore science does not speak the language of modalities, this language is banished in it.

The picture of the world includes the invisible properties of objects: a) amodal- discovered by industry, experiment, thinking; b) Supersensible- functional properties, qualities, such as "cost", which are not contained in the substrate of the object. They are represented in meanings!

It is especially important to emphasize here that the nature of meaning is not only not in the body of the sign, but also not in formal sign operations, not in the operations of meaning. She - in the totality of human practice, which in its idealized forms is included in the picture of the world.

Some general conclusions

1. The formation of the image of the world in a person is his transition beyond the "directly sensory picture". The image is not a picture!

2. Sensuality, sensory modalities are increasingly "indifferent". The image of the world of the deaf-blind is not different from the image of the world of the sighted-hearing person, but is created from a different building material, from the material of other modalities, woven from a different sensual fabric. Therefore, it retains its simultaneity, and this is a problem for research!

3. The “depersonalization” of modality is not at all the same as the impersonality of a sign in relation to meaning.

Sensory modalities in no way encode reality. They carry it within themselves.That is why the disintegration of sensuality (its perversion) gives rise to the psychological unreality of the world, the phenomenon of its “disappearance”. This is known and proven.

4. Sensual modalities form an obligatory texture of the image of the world. But the texture of the image is not equal to the image itself. So in painting, behind the strokes of oil, the object shines through. When I look at the depicted object, I do not see strokes. The texture, the material is removed in an image, and not destroyed in it.

The image, the picture of the world, includes not the image, but the depicted (depiction, reflection opens only reflection, and this is important!).

The problem of such "endowment" gives rise to the subject of psychological science!

1. Gregory R. Intelligent Eye. M., 1972.

2. Gregory R. Eye and Brain. M., 1970, p. 124-125.

* Or, if you like, a plane.

** T. e. operations of selection and vision of the form.

3. Logvinenko AD, Stolin VV Research of perception in the conditions of inversion of zero vision. - Ergonomics: Proceedings of VNIITE, 1973, no. 6.

4. Rock I., Harris C. Sight and touch. - In the book: Perception. Mechanisms and models. M., 1974. p. 276-279.

Collection output:

PSYCHOLOGY OF THE IMAGE A.N. LEONTIEVA

Goryachev Vadim Vladimirovich

cand. psychol. Sci., Associate Professor, Ryazan Branch of MPSU, Ryazan

The image is a rather active concept and is used in different ways in the system of scientific knowledge: psychological, historical, philosophical, pedagogical, ethnographic. In psychology, the image is often defined in the context of sensory perception and reflection of reality, the study of consciousness and the development of human cognitive activity. A fundamentally new problematic situation not only in the system of psychological knowledge, but also in general educational space outline the approaches to the image of the world in the context of the psychology of perception, expressed by A.N. Leontiev in his work "The Image of the World". As the scientist wrote: “the formation of the image of the world in a person is a transition beyond the limits of the“ directly sensory picture ”. The purpose of our article is to consider the category of "image" in the works of A.N. Leontiev, and above all, the position he made about the existing relationship and interdependence of reflection and activity.

Analyzing the state of the theory of perception, A.N. Leontiev comes to the conclusion that in psychology there is a large amount of accumulated knowledge in this direction, but a full-fledged theory is actually absent. From the point of view of a scientist, it is necessary to revise the very fundamental direction in which research is moving. Of course, A.N. Leont'ev proceeds from such fundamental provisions of dialectical materialism as the recognition of the primacy of matter in relation to spirit, consciousness, psyche, understanding of sensation and perception as a reflection of objective reality and brain function. The researcher insisted on translating these provisions into the practice of experimental work, while the author considered it necessary to radically change the very formulation of the problem of psychology of perception and abandon the imaginary postulates that remain in it.

One of the main provisions, endured and protected by A.N. Leontiev, is as follows: the problem of perception should be posed as a problem of the psychology of the image of the world and developed from this point of view. In this case, the problem should be analyzed consistently materialistically, believing that every thing primarily exists objectively - in the objective relations of the real world, and that it secondarily posits itself in human consciousness, the direction of research should be the same.

A.N. Leont'ev also touches on the problem of biological development of the sense organs in connection with the four-dimensionality of the real world. He rightly points out the need to understand the phylogenetic evolution of the sense organs as a process of adaptation to four-dimensional space. Further A.N. Leontiev introduces the concept of the so-called fifth dimension, in which objective reality is revealed to a person, understanding by it a kind of semantic field or system of meanings. “In a person, the world acquires in the image the fifth quasi-dimension. It is by no means subjectively attributed to the world. It is a transition through sensuality, through sensory modalities to the amodal world. The objective world appears in meaning, that is, the picture of the world is filled with meanings. " In this way, perceiving a certain object, the subject does not have an image of its individual features, their simple totality (criticism of associative theories) and does not perceive, first of all, the form (criticism of Gestalt psychology), but perceives the object as a categorized object. Naturally, in the presence of an appropriate perceptual task, it is possible to perceive both individual elements of the object and its form, but in the absence of such, it is precisely objectivity that comes to the fore.

A.N. Leontiev introduces the division of the image into its texture or sensual fabric and objectivity. Facture is understood as a set of individual elements of perception and connections between them, its main feature is the ability to collapse and replace without distorting objectivity. The most common explanation this phenomenon (an indirect connection between the sensory fabric and the objectivity of the image) consists in ascribing the categorical nature of perception itself. It is essential that with such an approach there is a logical need to refer to ontogenetic a priori categories, which, according to the scientist, seems to be very dangerous.

In contrast to this approach, the author puts forward a fundamentally new idea: the properties of meaningfulness and categoricality should be understood as characteristics of the conscious image of the world that are not immanent in the image itself. O.E. Baksansky notes referring to A.N. Leont'ev that: “These characteristics, express the objectivity revealed by the totality of social practice, idealized in the system of meanings, which each individual his image of the world. Thus, meanings are something that lies behind the "appearance of things", in the objective connections of the real world, cognized by the subject. In other words, meanings form in themselves a certain special dimension, which, according to A.N. Leont'ev is the fifth quasi-dimension of reality.

A.N. Leont'ev in his work defines perception as a means of building an image of reality (building an image, but not reality itself), an image more or less adequate to the latter. An important point on which the scientist focuses attention is the inadmissibility of being limited in research by an analytical approach. With regard to the psychology of perception, this problem consists in returning to that holistic image of reality, which is built in the consciousness of the subject, in the process of perception of the latter. In other words, the image of the world cannot be reduced to a set of separate phenomena, characteristics and relationships, abstracted from the real process of its functioning in the consciousness of the subject. Based on this provision, A.N. Leontiev expresses the idea of \u200b\u200bthe amodality of the real world in its separation from the subject. Putting forward this thesis, the author proceeds to distinguish all the information that can be acquired about an object into a property of two types:

properties of inanimate objects that can be detected in the process of their interaction with other inanimate objects;
properties of inanimate objects that can be detected only in the process of their interaction with living organisms that have a certain way of arranged sense organs.

Properties of the second kind are manifested in specific effects perceived by specially adapted sense organs and depending on the structure of the latter; it is in this sense that they, according to A.N. Leont'ev are subjective or modal. It is essential that the same characteristics of objects can cause impressions of different modalities in the subject. In addition, such a property of perception as the integrity of an image has been empirically substantiated, that is, data from different senses are organized in a certain way into a certain single image, and during this process contradictions are resolved. Which can arise between information coming from different sources.

Important, from our point of view, is the position discussed by A.N. Leont'ev that any influence fits into the image of the world, that is, into a certain whole. As an empirical justification, the scientist cites the following established facts:

not everything given in sensations reduces the situation into a subjective image;
there is the phenomenon of "completing" the image, that is, the attribution of the situation to actually absent, but subjectively necessary elements.

Thus, the image of the world is a certain model, which is built on the basis of subjective experience, and in the future itself mediates the perception of this experience.

Summarizing the above, I would like to highlight the most fundamental ideas of A.N. Leontyev regarding the category "image of the world" he introduced into scientific circulation:

The image of the world is not the sum of perceptual images, the image is not a sensory picture.
The image of the world mediates the interaction of the subject with reality.
The world outside the subject is amodal, modalities of sensations appear as a result of the subject-object relationship of the individual with reality.
Information from different senses is in a certain way coordinated in the image of the world into a single representation, that is, conflicting data are in some way coordinated into a consistent image.
The modal characteristics of sensations caused by objects of reality depend on what biological species the perceiving subject belongs to.
The image of the world presents not only objects that are actually present in the subject's perception thesaurus, it represents a relatively stable idea of \u200b\u200breality.

The listed provisions, from our point of view, are very significant in the context of studying the image of the world. Particularly noteworthy is the formulation of the problem of the existence of a certain formation, which acts as an intermediary between objective reality and a perceiving subject, functioning in the form of a prism, which arouses the subject's interest in some of its elements and makes him completely ignore others. In addition, the thesis of A.N. Leont'ev on the amodality of the surrounding reality outside the subject, that is, the world acquires modal characteristics only in the process of the subject's interaction with reality.

In the context of the study of the phenomenon of the image of the world, the idea of \u200b\u200bA.N. Leont'ev that this formation is not a simple summation of perceptual data, that is, it is a relatively stable formation that is the result of processing perception data. Associated with such an understanding of the image of the world is the fact that any incoming information is embedded in some existing structure of the subject, the result of which is his ability and ability to take into account those objects in the environment. Which are not currently in the current field of perception.

In conclusion, I would like to note that A.N. Leont'ev, the provisions were not appreciated by a wide circle of researchers, and the phenomenon of the image of the world still remains practically little studied in russian psychology... Probably, this situation is associated with certain methodological difficulties, the overcoming of which will allow us to consider the image of the world as an object of psychological science in the broadest sense.

Bibliography:

Baksansky O.E., Kucher E.N. Cognitive image of the world: scientific monograph / O.E. Baksansky, E.N. Coachman. M .: "Canon +" ROOI "Rehabilitation", 2010. - 224 p.
Leontiev A.N. Selected psychological works: in 2 volumes. T. 2 - M. Pedagogy, 1983.320 p.
Leontiev A.N. Image of the World // World of Psychology. 2003. No. 4. S. 11-18.

As you know, the psychology and psychophysiology of perception are characterized, perhaps, by the largest number of studies and publications, an immense amount of accumulated facts. Research is conducted at various levels: morphophysiological, psychophysical, psychological, theoretical-cognitive, cellular, phenomenological (“phenographic” - K. Holzkamp) 2, at the level of micro- and macroanalysis. Phylogenesis, ontogeny of perception, its functional development and the processes of its restoration are studied. A wide variety of specific methods, procedures, indicators are used. Various approaches and interpretations have become widespread: physicalistic, cybernetic, logical-mathematical, "model". Many phenomena have been described, including completely amazing ones that remain unexplained.

1 Leontiev AM.Selected psychological works: In 2 volumes. Moscow: Pedagogy,
1983. T. I. S. 251-261.

2 Cf. Holzkamp K.Sinnliehe Erkenntnis: Historischen Upsprung und gesellschaftliche
Function der Wahrnehmung. Frankfurt / Main, 1963.

Leontiev A, N.Image of the world

That there is now an urgent need to revise the fundamental direction in which research is moving.

Animals, humans live in the objective world, which from the very beginning acts as a four-dimensional: three-dimensional space and time (movement), which is "objectively real forms of being" 3.

1 Lenin V.I.Floors, collection op. T. 18.P. 282-283

2 See ibid. P. 52.

3 Ibid. P. 181.

532 Theme

The introduction of this concept requires a more detailed explanation.

The traditional interpretation consists here in ascribing properties such as meaningfulness or categoricality to perception itself.

Leontiev A, N.Image of the world

Let's summarize.

Here I must interrupt myself with some illustrative digressions. I recall the dispute between one of our philosophers and J. Piaget when he came to us.

I do not at all stand on this point of view, - answered J. Piaget, - in
on this problem my views coincide with Marxism, and it is completely wrong
it is good to consider me an idealist!

But how, then, do you claim that for a child the world
the way its logic builds?

1 Cf. Gregory R.Intelligent eye. M., 1972.

534 Topic 7.Man as a subject of knowledge

Let me make another digression of a completely different kind.

Here I am again forced to retreat.

1 Cf. Gregory R.Eye and brain. M., 1970.S. 124-125

Leontiev A.N.Image of the world

In other words, with its abstractions, gestalt theory replaced the concept of objectivethe world the notionfields.

In recent years, in particular in studies carried out at the Department of General Psychology, this distinction has received a fundamental theoretical

1 Kdhler W.Die physischen Gestalten in Ruhe und stationaren Zustand. Brounschweig, 1920.

2 Or, if you like, a plane.

3 Ie operations of selection and vision of the form.

4 Cf. Gibson J.J.The Perception of the Visual World. L .; N.Y., 1950.

536 Theme7. Man as a subject of knowledge

Tic lighting, and the discrepancy between the projection picture and the object image is a fairly convincing experimental 1 justification 2.

Here I come to the most difficult, one might say, critical point of the train of thought I am testing.

I want to immediately express this point in the form of a categorical thesis, deliberately omitting all necessary reservations.

In putting forward this thesis, I proceed from a very simple and, in my opinion, completely justified distinction between properties of two kinds.

So, the fact is that one and the same property - in this case a physical property of the body - causes, acting on a person, a perfect

2 Logvinenko AD., Table V.V.Research of perception under field inversion conditions
view // Ergonomics. VNIITE Proceedings. 1973. Issue. 6.

Leontiev A.I.Image of the world

I mean the study by I. Rock 2.

The subjects had a certain holistic impression about the size of the square ... The perceived size of the square ... was about the same as in the control experiment with only visual perception. "

This is why, as soon as we are distracted from subject-object interactions, sensory modalities drop out of our descriptions of reality.

1 K. Marx, F. EngelsOp. T. 20.P. 548.

2 Cf. Rock I., Harris C.Sight and touch // Perception. Mechanisms and models. M.,
1974.S. 276-279.

3 I mean the zoological species.

538 Topic 7.Man as a subject of knowledge

(1) an "indicative basis" of behavior is needed, and this is an image,

(2) this or that lifestyle creates the need for an appropriate
his orienting, managing, mediating image into an object
nome world.

There is a special issue about "combinations"

1. Alignment (modalities) becomes, but in relation to
feelings, image; she is his condition 3. (As an object - a "node of properties",
so the image is a "knot of modal sensations.")

2. Alignment expresses spatialitythings as odds
their existence).

3. But it also expresses their existence in time, therefore the image
in principle there is a product not only simultaneous, but also successively

1 K. Marx, F. EngelsOp. Vol. 23, p. 62.

2 K. Marx, F. EngelsOp. T.20. S. 603.

Leontiev A.N.Image of the world

thalignment, merging 1. The most characteristic phenomenon of the alignment of viewpoints is children's drawings!

General conclusion: any actual impact fits into the image of the world, i.e. into some "whole" 2.

When I say that everything that is actual, i.e. now, the property affecting perceptual systems "fits" into the image of the world, this is not an empty, but a very meaningful position; it means that:

2 Cf. Uexkull V., KriszatG. Streifziige durch die Umwelten von Tieren und Menschen.
Berlin, 1934.

4 "Tunnel effect": when something interrupts its movement and, as a result of its
impact, it does not interrupt its existence for me.

540 Topic 7. Man as a subject of knowledge

The concept of "image" is a significant category of psychology (AN Leontiev, SD Smirnov, SL Rubinshtein, and others). The image is the initial link and at the same time the result of any cognitive act. Modern researchers understand the image as a cognitive hypothesis, comparable to objective reality. The image of the world is functionally and genetically primary in relation to any specific image or separate sensory experience. Hence, the result of any cognitive act will not be a separate image, but a changed image of the world, enriched with new elements. This means that the concept of the image of the world embodies the idea of \u200b\u200bintegrity and continuity in the origin, development and functioning of the cognitive sphere of the individual. And the image of the world acts as a multilevel integral system of a person's ideas about the world, other people, about himself and his activities.

The image of the world is the subject of research by many sciences interested in human knowledge. Over the centuries, the image of the world has been built, revealed and discussed by thinkers, philosophers, scientists from various points of view. The picture of the image of the world allows you to better understand a person in all his connections and dependences on the world around him. The category of the image of the world is significant for revealing the characteristics of a person's consciousness through the context of ethnic groups, cultures, mentality, etc. Different approaches to understanding the image of the world reveal its dependence on various external and internal variables.

The concept of the image of the world (world-view) was formulated by Robert Redfield and is associated, first of all, with his name. According to Redfield's definition, “an image or picture of the world” is a vision of the universe that is characteristic of a particular people, these are the ideas of members of society about themselves and about their actions, their activity in the world, she studies a person's view of the outside world.

Redfield argues that there is no single nationwide picture of the world. In one culture, there are several cultural traditions: in particular, the cultural tradition of "schools and temples" (as Redfield calls it - a great tradition) and the tradition of the village community (a minor tradition). Accordingly, the traditions (“worldviews”) of different communities are different. Based on this, we can say that the "picture of the world" studies the view of a member of a culture on the outside world.

The image and / or picture of the world is a fairly developed category of Russian psychology. Research in this direction was carried out by E.Yu. Artemieva, G.A. Berulava, B.M. Velichkovsky, V.P. Zinchenko, E.A. Klimov, A.N. Leontiev, V.S. Mukhina, V.F. Petrenko, V.V. Petukhov, S.D. Smirnov and many others.

The image of the world is a holistic, multi-level system of human ideas about the world, about other people, about himself and his activities. This concept embodies the idea of \u200b\u200bintegrity and continuity in the origin, development and functioning of the sphere of the cognitive personality. Defining the content of the concept of "image of the world", we mean the totality of man's ideas about the world, reflecting the subject-object relations of the material and ideal substances (visible and assumed) inhabiting this world in time and space.

According to Rubinstein, the image of the world is a specific human activity, superimposed on a person's life, theoretical and practical experience, forming a special psychological integrity.

The image of the world forms the content side of human consciousness and together with it has an emotional and cognitive unity. The cognitive-emotional plan of consciousness is determined by the adequacy of the picture of the world to the needs, interests and values \u200b\u200bof a person, that is, by the system of his subjective evaluation criteria. In other words, cognitive processes are necessarily integrated with emotional ones.

Possession of a complete and accurate image of the world constitutes the main wealth of a person, basic capital, which cannot be bought for all the wealth of the world, nor can it be conquered by defeating other peoples and states. The complete image of the world includes such personal characteristics as:

1. Friendship is a personal relationship between people, conditioned by spiritual closeness, common interests. Due to the fact that emotional experiences play a very large role in friendship, its formation and development depends on the frequency of contacts, belonging to one group, and joint activities. If youth friendship, characterized by emotional attachment, is based primarily on joint activities, then with age, a genuine need for another person as a person is formed, based on the development of the need to realize oneself, to correlate one's experiences with the experiences of another person. On this basis, an intensified search for a friend is carried out, and the possibility of his idealization arises. For an adult, the grounds for friendship are more differentiated, since friendly feelings can be localized in love, family or parental relationships.

2. Aspiration is a motive that is not presented to the subject in its objective content, due to which the dynamic aspect of activity comes to the fore.

3. Initiative - a manifestation of activity by a person, not stimulated from the outside and not determined by circumstances beyond his control.

5. Will is the ability of a person to achieve his goals while overcoming obstacles. The basis for the implementation of volitional processes is the mediation of a person's behavior through the use of socially developed tools or means. It builds a process that has significant individual variations, conscious control over certain emotional states or motives. Through this control, it becomes possible to act in spite of strong motivation or to ignore strong emotional experiences. The development of will in a child, starting from early childhood, is carried out through the formation of conscious control over immediate behavior during the assimilation of certain rules of behavior.

6. Aspiration - the desire and willingness to act in a certain way.

As well as functional mechanisms such as:

7. Decisiveness - the readiness to move on to practical actions, the formed intention to perform a certain act.

8. Self-confidence - a person's readiness to solve rather difficult problems when the level of aspirations does not decrease only because of fears of failure. If the level of abilities is significantly lower than those required for the intended action, then self-confidence takes place.

9. Perseverance - personal quality... It is characterized by the ability to overcome external and internal obstacles while achieving the assigned task.

10. Attention is the process of ordering information coming from outside in terms of the priority of the tasks facing the subject. Allocate voluntary attention, due to the setting of a conscious goal, and involuntary, represented by an orienting reflex that arises when exposed to unexpected and new stimuli. The effectiveness of attention can be determined by the level of attention (intensity, concentration), volume (breadth, distribution of attention), switching speed and stability.

11. Concentration - the concentration of a person's attention.

An important role in drawing up a complete picture of the world is played by such vital indicators as:

12. Activity is a concept that indicates the ability of living beings to produce spontaneous movements and change under the influence of external or internal stimuli - stimuli.

13. Escapism is a person's departure from reality to the world of fantasies and dreams.

14. Interest is an emotional state associated with the implementation of cognitive activity and characterized by the motivation of this activity.

The picture of the world is built according to the type of model - Man does not capture element-by-element and passively the "material inventory" of the external world and does not apply those primitive methods of dividing the world into elements that come to mind first, but imposes on him those operators who model this world, "casting "model into consistently refined and deepened" forms ". This process of mental modeling of the world, under all conditions, is actively implemented. In this case, action is possible only when the subject, through his existing picture of the world and its simultaneous transformation, isolates discrete problem situations from continuous reality. It is with the dismemberment of continuous reality into some conventional segments (situations) that Yu.M. Lotman connects the meaning and purpose of actions. "That which has no end has no meaning. Meaningful is associated with the segmentation of non-discrete space."

The image of the World (model of the world), therefore, must have "... an internal excess of space." This excess is a condition for an adequate division of reality, a source of meaning and goal formation. The image of the world, due to the originality of the life of any person, is always individual. Naturally, it is constantly being corrected in accordance with new information, but at the same time, the main features remain unchanged for a long time.

The structure of the image of the world includes meanings, meanings and a system of space-time coordinates. It is accepted to consider the image of the world as a static formation, as a passive repository of knowledge. How can the temporary be preserved in concepts, ideas? The concepts of birth and death, beginning and end, emergence and disappearance, creation and destruction are formed in a person gradually, starting from the earliest childhood. Together with the concepts of rhythm, movement, speed, acceleration, expectation and immobility, and many others, they are part of the arsenal of temporary concepts that allow the subject to grasp and understand the picture of the world.

It is important to consider the living functioning of the image of the world during the execution of an action in a situation. The image of the world is realized in action. The projection of the image of the world on perception gives emotional accentuations, semantic, motivational differentiations in grasping the present situation. Each situation has its own changes.

It is necessary to remember about the influence of the image of the world on the mental work of the subject.

"" We oppose the one-dimensionality, linearity and homogeneity of time in the model of the image of the world. It is necessary to find a way to combine spatial, temporal and semantic. The idea of \u200b\u200btime heterogeneity and semantic differentiations in cognitive time maps "".

The image of the world can be viewed as an organized system of personal cognitions of an organism that constitute a model or image of reality (that is, “the image by which things exist”). This suggests that personality cognitions are directly based on cognitive structure, and indirectly based on mental and psychological structures. This further suggests that images of the world tend to be “encapsulated,” that is, they are smaller than all of reality. The image of the world has the property of openness, that is, it is capable of changes as the subject develops and self-develops.

A. Leontyev's work emphasizes “the image of the human world is a universal form of organizing his knowledge, which determines the possibilities of cognition and behavior control”.

In the theory of activity, the integrity of the image of the world is derived from the unity of the objective world reflected in it and the systemic nature of human activity. The active nature of the image of the world is manifested in the presence in it, along with the coordinates of space and time inherent in the physical world, of the fifth quasi-dimension: a system of meanings that embodies the results of aggregate social practice. Their inclusion in the individual act of cognition is ensured by the participation of a holistic image of the world in the generation of cognitive hypotheses, which act as an initial link in the construction of new images.

The continuous generation of an interconnected system of cognitive hypotheses that meet external stimuli is an expression of the active nature of the image of the world - in contrast to the traditional ideas about cognitive images as arising from reflex processes - reactive, unfolding in response to external influences.

The image of the world and concepts close to it - a picture of the world, a model of the universe, a scheme of reality, a cognitive map, etc. - have different content in the context of various psychological theories.

World image as a cognitive map

Studies of the model of the world, as a reflection of the subjective experience of a person, were undertaken, first of all, within the framework of the cognitive direction, in connection with the problem of perception, storage and processing of information in human consciousness. The main function of consciousness is defined as cognition of the world, which is expressed in cognitive activity. At the same time, the volume and type of processing of active information coming from the external environment depends on the subject's assumptions regarding the nature of the perceived object, on the choice of a method for describing it. The collection of information and its further processing is determined by the cognitive structures available in the consciousness of the subject - "maps" or "schemes" with the help of which a person structures perceived stimuli.

The term "cognitive map" was first proposed by E. Tolman, who defined it as an indicative scheme - an active structure aimed at searching for information. W. Neisser noted that cognitive maps and diagrams can appear as images, since the experience of an image is also a certain internal aspect of the readiness to perceive an imaginary object. Images, according to W. Naysser, are "not pictures in the head, but plans for collecting information from a potentially accessible environment." Cognitive maps exist not only in the perception of the physical world, but also at the level of social behavior; any choice of action involves anticipating a future situation.

The image of the world as a semantic memory

The issue of representing the world to a person was also considered in studies of the processes of memorizing and storing information, the structure of memory. Thus, episodic memory is contrasted with semantic memory, understood as a kind of subjective thesaurus possessed by a person - organized knowledge about verbal symbols, their meanings and relationships between them, as well as the rules and procedures for their use. The semantic memory stores the generalized and structured experience of the subject, which has two levels of organization: categorical (pragmatic), which makes it possible to determine the belonging of the concept of any object to a certain semantic class and its relation to other objects of the same class, and syntagmatic (schematic), describing simultaneously existing relationships of objects or a sequence of actions.

The image of the world as a system of meanings and a field of meaning

The concept of "image of the world" in Russian psychology was actively discussed by A.N. Leontiev, who defined it as a complex multi-level formation with a system of meanings and a field of meaning. “Image function: self-reflection of the world. This function of "interference" of nature in itself through the activity of subjects, mediated by the image of nature, that is, the image of subjectivity, that is, the image of the world<…>... A world that opens up through a person to himself.

A.N. Leont'ev noted that the problem of the mental should be posed from the perspective of building in the consciousness of an individual a multidimensional image of the world as an image of reality. Based on the theoretical views of A.N. Leont'ev, three layers of consciousness can be distinguished in the conscious picture of the world: 1 - sensory images; 2 - meanings carried by sign systems formed on the basis of interiorization of subject and operational meanings; 3 - personal meaning.

The first layer is the sensory fabric of consciousness - these are sensory experiences that "form the obligatory texture of the image of the world." The second layer of consciousness is made up of meanings. The bearers of meanings are objects of material and spiritual culture, norms and images of behavior enshrined in rituals and traditions, sign systems and, above all, language. In the meaning, socially developed ways of acting with reality and in reality are fixed. The interiorization of subject and operational meanings on the basis of sign systems leads to the emergence of concepts. The third layer of consciousness forms personal meanings. That is, what an individual puts into specific events, phenomena or concepts, the awareness of which may not substantially coincide with the objective meaning. Personal meaning expresses the “meaning-for-me” of life objects and phenomena, reflects a person's biased attitude to the world.

A person not only reflects the objective content of certain events and phenomena, but at the same time fixes his attitude towards them, experienced in the form of interest and emotion. The system of meanings is constantly changing and developing, ultimately determining the meaning of any individual activity and life in general.

The image of the world as a whole

A.N. Leont'ev revealed the differences between the image of the world and the sensory image: the first is amodal, integrative and generalized, and the second is modal and always concrete. He stressed that the basis of the individual image of the world is not only sensual, but the entire socio-cultural experience of the subject. The psychological image of the world is dynamic and dialectical, it is constantly changing with new sensory ideas and incoming information. It is noted that the main contribution to the process of constructing the image of an object or situation is made not by individual sensory impressions, but by the image of the world as a whole. That is, the image of the world is a background that precedes any sensory impression and realizes it as a sensory image of an external object through its content.

The image of the world and being consciousness

V.P. Zinchenko developed the idea of \u200b\u200bA.N. Leontyev on the reflective function of consciousness, including the construction of emotionally colored relationships to the world, to oneself, to people. V.P. Zinchenko identified two layers of consciousness: existential, which includes the experience of movements, actions, as well as sensory images; and reflective, uniting meanings and meanings. Thus, everyday and scientific knowledge correlates with meanings, the world of human values, experiences, emotions correlates with meaning.

The image of the world and human activity

According to S.D. Smirnov, the image of the world is primary in relation to sensory impressions from the perceived stimulus, any emerging image, being a part, an element of the image of the world as a whole, does not so much form as it confirms, clarifies it. "This is a system of expectations (expectations), which confirms the object - hypotheses, on the basis of which the structuring and object identification of individual sensory impressions are based." S. D. Smirnov notes that a sensual image taken out of context by itself does not carry any information, since "it is not the image that orientates, but the contribution of this image to the picture of the world." Moreover, for the construction of the image of external reality, the primary is the actualization of a certain part of the already existing image of the world, and the clarification, correction or enrichment of the actualized part of the image of the world occurs in the second place. Thus, it is not the world of images, but the image of the world that regulates and directs human activity.

The image of the world is a fundamental condition for the mental life of the subject

However, many researchers offer a broader understanding of the image of the world; its representation at all levels of human mental organization. So, V.V. Petukhov singles out in the image of the world the basic, "nuclear" structures, reflecting the deep connections between man and the world, not dependent on reflection, and "superficial" ones associated with conscious, purposeful knowledge of the world. The concept of the world is defined as a fundamental condition for the mental life of the subject.

The image of the world as an "integrator" of human interaction with reality

E.Yu. Artemieva understands the image of the world as an "integrator" of traces of human interaction with objective reality. She builds a three-level systemic model of the world image.

The first level - the "perceptual world" - is characterized by a systematic meaning and modal perceptual, sensory objectivity.

The second level - the "picture of the world" - is represented by relationships, and not by sensory images, which retain their modal specificity.

The third level - "image of the world" - is a layer of amodal structures that are formed during processing of the previous level.

The image of the world and the life path of the individual

In the works of S.L. Rubinstein, B.G. Ananyeva, K.A. Abulkhanova-Slavskaya and others, the image of the world is considered in the context of a person's life path, through the system of cognition of being in the world. It is revealed that the formation of the image of the world occurs in the process of a person's cognition of the world around him, comprehension of significant events in his life. The world for a person appears in the specifics of the reality of being and becoming his own "I" of a person.

World image and lifestyle

S.L. Rubinstein characterizes a person as a subject of life, in his own existence and in relation to the world and another person, emphasizing the integrity, the unity of man and the world. The world, in his understanding, is “a set of people and things communicating with each other, more precisely, a set of things and phenomena correlated with people,<…> an organized hierarchy of different ways of being ”; "The totality of things and people, which includes what belongs to a person and to which he relates by virtue of his essence, what can be significant for him, what he is directed towards." That is, a person, as a whole, is included in relationships with the world, acting, on the one hand, as a part of it, and on the other, as a subject that cognizes and transforms it. It is through a person that consciousness enters the world, being becomes conscious, acquires meaning, becoming the world - a part and product of human development. In this case, an important role is played not only by human activity, but also by contemplation as an activity to cognize the world.

As a properly human way of existence, a person singles out "life", which manifests itself in two forms: "as the real causality of the other, expressing the transition to another ... and, secondly, as an ideal intentional" projection "of oneself - already inherent only in a specifically human way of life" ...

S.L. Rubinstein identified two layers, the standard of living: involvement in direct interconnections and reflection, comprehension of life. S.L. Rubinstein emphasized the importance not only of the relationship "man - the world", but also the relationship of a person with other people, in which the formation of consciousness and self-consciousness takes place. “In reality, we always have two interconnected relationships - a person and being, a person and another person<…> these two relationships are interconnected and interdependent. "

In correlating the content of one's life with the life of other people, the meaning of life is revealed to a person. The world in the works of S.L. Rubinstein is considered in its infinity and continuous variability, which is reflected in the understanding of the specifics of his cognition and human interaction with him. "The property of the world appears in their dynamic, changing attitude to man, and in this respect, not the last, but the main, decisive role is played by the worldview, man's own spiritual image." The ideas of S.L. Rubinstein are significant for understanding the problem of the life path of an individual through the context of understanding his image of the world and himself in the world.

The image of the world - a person's worldview in the context of the realities of life

A special place for us to understand the phenomenon of the image of the world is occupied by V.S. Mukhina. The problem of the image of the world is considered here, on the one hand, when discussing the development of the inner position of the individual and his self-awareness, and on the other hand, when considering the ethnic features of the picture of the world. In any case, this problem is discussed in the context of the relationship between the inner space and self-awareness of the individual with the peculiarities of the realities of life.

According to V.S. Mukhina, a person builds his worldview, his ideology on the basis of an internal position, through the formation of a system of personal meanings in the context of the peculiarities of the realities of his life. Historically and culturally determined realities of human existence are divided into:

1 - the reality of the objective world;

2 - the reality of figurative-sign systems;

3 - the reality of social space;

4 - natural reality.

The worldview in this respect is presented as a generalized system of human views on the world as a whole, on the place of humanity in the world and on his individual place in it. Worldview according to V.S. Mukhina is defined as a person's understanding of the meaning of his behavior, activity, position, as well as the history and prospects for the development of the human race. Content filling of the image of the world in the process of personality development and self-awareness is mediated by a single mechanism of identification and isolation. The idea of \u200b\u200bthe world is formed in the context of a certain culture in which a person was born and raised. It is noted that "the picture of the world is built in the child's consciousness primarily under the influence of those positions that are characteristic of adults, influencing the child's consciousness." Thus, the consideration of the features of the image of the world must be carried out in conjunction with the realities of human development and being.

The structure of self-awareness - the image of oneself in the world

V.S. Mukhina revealed that in the internal psychological space of a person born into this world, through identification, self-consciousness is built, which has a structure that is universal for all cultures and social communities. "The structure of a person's self-consciousness is built inside the system that generates it - the human community to which this person belongs." In the process of growing up, the structural links of self-awareness, thanks to a single mechanism of personality development, identification and isolation, acquire a unique content, which at the same time carries the specifics of a particular sociocultural community. The structural links of self-awareness, the content of which is specific in various ethnic, cultural, social and other conditions, are essentially an image of oneself in the world and serve as the basis for the vision of the world as a whole.

It can be concluded that the image of the world forms the meaningful side of human consciousness and together with it possesses an emotional and cognitive unity. The changes taking place in the world, transformations of the realities of human being, meaningfully change the content of the structural links of the personality's self-awareness and modify the image of the world. At the same time, the structure of self-awareness and the image of the world act as a stable system of human connections with the world, which allows him to maintain integrity and identity with himself and the world around him.

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