Concepts of consciousness in classical psychology. Psychology of consciousness. Biological basis of motivation. Instinct

Psychology of consciousness is the science of the properties of consciousness, its elements, connections between them and the laws to which they obey. The most important functions and properties must be derived from the structure of consciousness. What is the content of consciousness? It is very diverse. The central area of ​​consciousness that is clear and distinct is the “focus of consciousness”; and beyond it there is another area, with unclear and indistinct content - the “periphery of consciousness.” The contents of these areas are in constant flux.

The German psychologist W. Köhler described his content of consciousness, which included images of the immediate surrounding world, images of memories, feelings of one’s strength and well-being, and acute negative emotional experiences.

W. James identified two types of states of consciousness: stable and changeable, i.e. those images on which our thoughts stop and we reflect; and quickly passing, i.e. those thoughts that replace each other. V. James compared the whole process with the flight of a bird, in which periods of calm soaring are combined with flapping wings. He also put forward the idea of ​​the “stream of consciousness” as a continuously changing process, describing its properties: continuity, variability, the impossibility of “entering the same river.” The fact of internal experience is that some conscious processes are taking place. States of consciousness are replaced by one another in it. Within the boundaries of personal consciousness, its states are changeable (states of consciousness are unique, since both the subject and the object have changed, objects are identical, not sensations). Every personal consciousness represents a continuous sequence of sensations. It perceives some objects willingly, rejects others, makes a choice between them - this is a process of attention. In the stream of consciousness, impressions are not equal in importance. There are more, there are less significant. The contents of consciousness are related to interests, hobbies, habits and intentions. And those that are more significant direct the flow as a whole. He believed that consciousness is indivisible into elements, and that each part of the stream of thought, as a subject, remembers the previous ones, knows the objects known to these parts, concentrates its concerns on some of them as its own, and assigns to the latter all other elements of cognition." Performing a function adaptation, consciousness overcomes the difficulties of adaptation when the stock of reactions (reflexes, skills and habits) is insufficient: it filters stimuli, selects significant ones from them, compares them with each other and regulates the behavior of the individual. Being personally isolated, individual consciousness forms the basis of personality as “empirically given.” an aggregate of objectively knowable things."

W. Wundt - German psychologist, physiologist and philosopher, founded in 1879 the world's first laboratory of experimental psychology at the University of Leipzig. Based on an understanding of psychology as the science of direct experience, discovered through careful and strictly controlled introspection, he tried to isolate the “simplest elements” of consciousness. This objective elements (coming from the outside, from the object) - simple impressions, sensations and ideas that have properties: quality, intensity; subjective(associated with the subject, his internal experiences) - feelings, emotions, for which he identified 3 parameters: pleasure-displeasure; excitement-calming; voltage-discharge. Complex feelings are made up of these elements. Feelings provide a connection between elements, a synthesis of elements of consciousness: perception is the process of the entry of any content into the field of consciousness (associations, by similarity, by contrast, by temporal and spatial contiguity, cause-and-effect...) and apperception(associated with the area of ​​​​clear vision) - concentration of consciousness (attention) on any content, i.e. the content falls into the realm of clear consciousness. Organization of the unit more high order- act of apperception (letters - into words, words - into phrases, etc., i.e. the unification of small units of consciousness into large ones). Also W. Wundt established the basic laws mental life:

A. The law of mental relations: all elements of consciousness are connected.

B. Law of contrast - are perceived more clearly.

B. The law of creative synthesis - the complex is not reducible to the simple.

D. The law of goal heterogeneity - the process of achieving a goal can give rise to new goals.

Physiology was considered as a methodological standard, which is why V. Wundt’s psychology was called “physiological.” But the study of higher mental processes, in his opinion, should be carried out using other methods (analysis of myths, rituals, religious ideas, language), which was reflected in his 10-volume work “Psychology of Nations”.

Consciousness, in his opinion, is something that is accessible to introspection; it exists only in introspection. The main method is introspection, experiment is an auxiliary one. He conducted an experiment with a metronome, where he described the properties of consciousness (impressions), after which he identified 3 of its main properties:

1. rhythmicity (connectedness, grouping of impressions) – consciousness is a structure. Individual elements of consciousness tend to form groups of elements that are interconnected. This may be involuntary or controlled by attention. Due to grouping, the volume of attention and consciousness can increase.

2. heterogeneity - two areas: the area of ​​​​vague consciousness and clear consciousness and the point of fixation, which is located in the center of the area of ​​​​clear consciousness (this is the area of ​​​​the brightest consciousness). This is the field of attention and the periphery.

3. has volume - the number of simple impressions that the subject in given time perceives as a single whole (16-40 metronome beats). People group impressions differently - highlighting an area of ​​the field of attention.

Another American scientist E. Titchener, a student of W. Wundt, tried to combine the theories of W. Wundt and W. James. Soul - totality mental processes experienced by a person throughout his life. Consciousness is a set of mental processes occurring in the soul at a given moment in time. Consciousness is a cross section of the soul. There is a level of clear consciousness and a level of vague consciousness. Clarity, sensory intensity – degree of attention, wave height.

Let us turn to the structure of consciousness. One of the first ideas about the structure of consciousness was introduced by S. Freud. Its hierarchical structure is as follows : subconscious-conscious-superconscious, and she, apparently, has already exhausted her explanatory material. But more acceptable ways to analyze consciousness are needed, and the subconscious and unconscious are not at all necessary as a means in the study of consciousness. More productive is the old idea of ​​L. Feuerbach about the existence of consciousness for consciousness and consciousness for being, developed by L. S. Vygotsky. It can be assumed that this is a single consciousness in which there are two layers: existential and reflexive. What is included in these layers?

A. N. Leontyev identified 3 main constituents of consciousness: the sensory fabric of the image, where sensory images give conscious experiences the quality of a living, real world that exists outside of us, the images retain their original objective relevance, meaning and meaning. The deep nature of mental sensory images lies in their objectivity, in the fact that they are generated in processes of activity that practically connect the subject with the external objective world.

N.A. Bernstein introduced the concept of living movement and its biodynamic fabric. Thus, when adding this component, a two-layer structure of consciousness is obtained. The existential layer is formed by the biodynamic fabric of living movement and action and the sensual fabric of the image. On the existential layer of consciousness, decisions are made very complex tasks, since for effective behavior in a certain situation it is necessary to update the desired image and motor program, that is, the mode of action must fit into the image of the world. The reflex layer forms the meaning–content public consciousness, assimilated by a person - these can be operational meanings, objective, verbal meanings, everyday and scientific meanings-concepts, and meaning - subjective understanding and attitude to the situation, information. On the reflective layer there is a correlation between the world of ideas, concepts, everyday and scientific knowledge with meaning and peace human values, experiences, knowledge with meaning. Misunderstandings are associated with difficulties in comprehending meanings. The processes of understanding meanings and the meaning of meanings act as means of dialogue and mutual understanding. Biodynamic fabric and meaning are accessible to the outside observer and some form of recording and analysis. Sensual fabric and meaning are only partially accessible to introspection. An outside observer can draw conclusions about them based on indirect data, such as behavior, products of activity, actions, reports of introspection.

In the psychology of consciousness, the method of introspection, which translated from Latin means “I look, I peer inside,” was recognized as the main and only method of psychology. Thanks to this method, knowledge about the structure of consciousness expanded, where the center and periphery were distinguished; the idea was formed that the content of consciousness are objects that differ from consciousness. The consciousnesses of different people were compared at that time to closed spheres that are separated by an abyss. No one can cross this abyss, no one can directly experience the states of my consciousness the way I experience them.

The ideological father of the method of introspection is considered English philosopher J. Locke (1632 – 1704). He believed that there are two sources of our knowledge: the first is the objects of the external world, to which our external senses are directed and as a result we receive impressions of external things. The second is the activity of one’s own mind - thinking, doubt, faith, reasoning, cognition, desires, which is cognized with the help of an internal feeling - reflection. He notes that reflection is a special direction of attention to the activity of one’s own soul and the maturity of the subject.

J. Locke contains two important statements that there is the possibility of splitting the psyche. Mental activity can proceed, as it were, at two levels: processes of the first level - perception, thoughts, desires; processes of the second level - observation, or “contemplation” of these perceptions, thoughts, desires. And the second statement contains the fact that the activity of the soul of the first level is present in every person and even in a child. Mental activity of the second level requires special organization. This is a special activity. Without it, knowledge about mental life is impossible.

These statements were accepted by the psychology of consciousness and the following scientific and practical conclusions were also made: in order to find out what is happening in the content of the consciousness of another person, a psychologist can conduct psychological research only on himself, putting himself in the same conditions and observing himself. The second conclusion was that introspection does not happen by itself and requires a special activity in which long training is required.

Psychologists of the time noted important additional advantages of the introspection method. Firstly, it was believed that the causal relationship of mental phenomena is directly reflected in consciousness. The second advantage: introspection supplies psychological facts, so to speak, in their pure form, without distortion.

In psychology of the late nineteenth century. a grand experiment began to test the capabilities of the introspection method. Scientific journals of the time were filled with articles containing introspective reports; In them, psychologists described in great detail their sensations, states, experiences that appeared in them when certain stimuli were presented, when certain tasks were set. These were not descriptions of the facts of consciousness in natural life circumstances, which in itself might be of interest. These were laboratory experiments that were carried out “under strictly controlled conditions” to obtain consistency of results between different subjects. The subjects were presented with individual visual or auditory stimuli, images of objects, words, phrases; they had to perceive them, compare them with each other, report the associations that they had.

E. Titchener introduced two more additional requirements, in which introspection would be directed toward isolating the simplest elements of consciousness, i.e., sensations and elementary feelings; and also in this method, the subjects had to avoid in their answers terms that describe external objects, and talk only about their sensations that were caused by these objects, and about the qualities of these sensations. For example, the subject could not say: “I was presented with a large, red apple.” A should have reported something like this: “First I got a feeling of red, and it overshadowed everything else; then it gave way to the impression of being round, at the same time a slight tickling sensation appeared in the tongue, apparently a trace of a taste sensation. A quickly transient muscular sensation also appeared in the right hand...” Those. the subject was required to perform a sophisticated analysis of “internal experience”, an analytical attitude, and avoidance of “stimulus errors”.

In these studies we see the problems and difficulties, as well as the pointlessness of such “experimental psychology”. Contradictions accumulated in the results, which did not coincide among different authors and even sometimes among the same author when working with different subjects. This pushed towards the collapse of the foundations of psychology - the elements of consciousness. Psychologists began to find contents of consciousness that could not be decomposed into individual sensations or presented as their sum. The systematic application of introspection found the non-sensory, ugly, elements of consciousness. Among them, for example, are “pure” movements of thought, without which, as it turned out, it is impossible to reliably describe the thinking process.

In psychology, instead of the triumph of science, which has such a unique method, a crisis situation has arisen. The arguments put forward in defense of the method of introspection have not been strictly tested. These were statements that seemed true only at first glance. The use and discussion of the introspection method in practice revealed a number of shortcomings that cast doubt on the method as a whole, and with it the subject of psychology - the subject with which the introspection method was inextricably linked.

In the second decade of the 20th century, i.e. a little over 30 years after its founding scientific psychology, a revolution took place in it: a change in the subject of psychology. It was not consciousness, but the behavior of humans and animals. J. Watson, the founder of the new direction, wrote: “...psychology must... abandon the subjective subject of study, the introspective method of research and the old terminology. Consciousness with it structural elements, indivisible sensations and sensory tones, with its processes, attention, perception, imagination - all these are just phrases that cannot be defined.

Currently, the method of introspection as a subjective report of subjects is used together with experimental method to collect primary data and test hypotheses. It is a method of obtaining data rather than interpreting it. A subjective report has no purpose or technique; the product is a selective report based on the interests of the subject or experimenter. The facts of the subjective report are considered as material for further analysis. The experimenter must, in each individual case, apply a special methodological technique that will allow him to reveal the connections that interest him. Subject in in this case– a naive observer from whom a report is required in ordinary terms Everyday life. The experimental psychologist exists to come up with an experimental technique that will force the mysterious process to open up and expose its mechanisms.

By the end of the first quarter of the 20th century, the psychology of consciousness had almost ceased to exist. There were three reasons for this:

1) limitation to such a narrow range of phenomena as the content and state of consciousness;

2) the idea of ​​​​decomposing the psyche into its simplest elements was false;

3) limited in its capabilities was the method that the psychology of consciousness considered the only possible - the method of introspection.

Related information.

Elements of consciousness:

Feel

Representation

Feelings

Acts of will

Processes of consciousness:

Perception

Apperception (will and attention).

Founder of structuralism

Edward Titchener (1867-1927)

William James (1842-1910)

Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920)

W. James distinguishes two types states of consciousness phenomena:

1. Sustainable

   Changeable, quickly passing

Transitional moments from one state to another are very difficult to catch by self-observation.

Mindflow– movement of consciousness, continuous change of its contents and states

Processes of consciousness are divided into two large classes:

Involuntary

free

ExperimentsWundt .

By using metronome, the direct purpose of which is to set the rhythm when playing musical instruments, are well demonstrated both types of processes as well as a number of other remarkable properties of consciousness. Experience Wundt consisted of presenting the subject with a series of sounds, then interrupting him and giving a second series of the same sounds. There was a ban on counting sounds, and the subject had to answer the question: were the sounds the same length or different?

Wundt discovered the important fact that human consciousness is capable of almost unlimited saturation with some content if it is actively united into larger and larger units. Wundt's student Titchener developed a method of analytical introspection. The main thing in his method was an attempt to avoid “stimulus error,” that is, confusion between the mental processes of perceiving an object and the influence of the object itself. The result of his atomistic approach was the book “Essays on Psychology” with a list of 44,000 elementary sensations.

The ability to enlarge units is found in the simplest perceptual processes and in thinking.

Measure of volume of consciousness– a series of eight double beats (or 16 separate sounds).

Acts of apperception– organization of a higher order unit, namely the understanding of a phrase consisting of many words and an even larger number of individual sounds.

The simplest elements of consciousness W. Wundt announced separate impression or Feel.

Each sensation has a number of properties (attributes):

Quality (visual, auditory, olfactory, etc.)

Intensity, extent (i.e. duration)

Spatial extent (visual sensations have them, but auditory ones do not)

Objective elements of consciousness– sensations, with their properties described.

Subjective elements of consciousness:

Satisfaction – Displeasure

Excitement – ​​Calm

Voltage - Discharge

These pairs are independent axes of three-dimensional space of the entire emotional sphere.

7. Behavior as a subject of psychology. Behaviorism (J. Watson, B. F. Skinner) and neo-behaviorism (E. Tolman). Behavior as a subject of psychology

The beginning of the 20th century was marked by the emergence and development of behaviorism as a reaction to unsuccessful experimental studies of “physiological psychology.” The subject of behaviorism, or “behavioral psychology,” is behavior. According to behaviorists, knowing the strength of the current stimuli and taking into account the past experience of the “subject”, it is possible to study the processes of learning, the formation of new forms of behavior, without delving into its physiological mechanisms.

American psychologist J. Watson, based on the research of I. P. Pavlov, concluded that consciousness does not play any role in learning. It has no place in psychology. New forms of behavior should be considered as conditioned reflexes. They are based on several innate, or unconditioned, reflexes.

Behaviorism and neobehaviorism Behaviorism is a movement in psychology that rejected both consciousness and the unconscious as the subject of psychology. The origins of behaviorism should be sought in studies of the psyche of animals. Behaviorism as an independent scientific movement is based on the work of Edward Thorndike, who, based on the study of cat behavior, formulated two “laws of learning.” The law of exercise states that the more often actions are repeated, the more firmly they are consolidated. The Law of Effect refers to the role of “rewards” and “punishments” in building or destroying various forms of behavior. Teaching of I.P. Pavlova about conditioned reflex and the theory of the combination reflex V.M. Bekhterev also had a significant influence on the formation of “psychology without consciousness.” The father of behaviorism is John Watson (1913, manifesto “Psychology through the eyes of a behaviorist”). The task of psychology, in his opinion, is to study the behavior of living beings that adapt in physical and social environment. The goal is to create means of controlling behavior. The main mechanism of behavior is the connection between stimulus and response (S -> R). Watson's experimental study on the formation of a feeling of fear to neutral or even pleasant objects. Watson combined the baby's display of a fluffy white rabbit with a harsh sound. As a result, the child began to react by crying not only to the rabbit itself, but also to all similar objects (this phenomenon was called “generalization”). Thus, Watson tried to show that irrational behavior (for example, alcoholism, etc.) is based on “wrong” circuits of stimuli and reactions that were established in childhood.

Watson's follower E. Ghazri introduced the probabilistic principle into the description of the relationship between stimulus and response. B. Skinner shared the classical (passive) reflex of I.P. Pavlova and operant conditioning, in which the subject is active in seeking reinforcement for his behavior. Reinforcement is a necessary consequence of an action performed Living being. Skinner refers to operant learning as all forms of human mental life: perception, attention, thinking. He introduced the concept of “symbolic reinforcement” and described society as a system of symbolic reinforcements.

In the early 1930s, attempts appeared to expand the subject of behavioral psychology by taking into account phenomena that are not directly observable in the study (neobehaviorism). Edward Tolman came to the conclusion that it was necessary to introduce the concept of “intermediate variables”. Those. behavior is a function of environmental stimuli, intermediate variables (intentions, expectations, knowledge - past experiences recorded in the system of established reactions), heredity and age. Tolman introduced the concept of a “cognitive map” - holistic structures for representing the world. The presence is proven by experiment: the rat, having studied the structure of the maze, runs to the place where the food is located, regardless of the point from which it begins to move. She does not focus on the sequence of movements that once led her to success, but uses a holistic view of the structure of the labyrinth.

Currently, modifications of behaviorism are widespread in American psychology and are represented, first of all, by the theory of social learning by A. Bandura and D. Rotter.

The psychology of consciousness was not a holistic approach. Rather, it was a conglomeration of several research paradigms, united by a common subject and agreement in the view of psychology as the science of “direct experience” (W. Wundt).

Functional psychology of consciousness

Functional psychology(eng. functional psychology) - direction in psychology in the USA late XIX- beginning XX century, which declared the subject of psychological research to be the functions of mental processes, consciousness in behavior, in adaptation (adaptation) to the environment, to practical situations.

James used the metaphor "stream of consciousness" which captured the dynamism of mental phenomena. Accordingly, analytical introspection lost its heuristic value: if you stop the stream of consciousness that was in the act of analytical introspection, it lost its properties and turned into a dead “slice” of the reality of mental life. The purpose of psychology James believed in the study of adaptive function. Consciousness, according to James, is a vital function of a person living in a complex environment. James introduced the “personal” dimension of consciousness, believing that conscious experience is always experienced as “mine,” as “belonging to me.”

The psychology of consciousness laid the foundations of scientific psychology as an independent discipline. Wrongfully narrowing the class of mental phenomena, limiting them only to conscious experience, the psychology of consciousness nevertheless formulated many laws of the functioning of the psyche, which have not been refuted to this day.

For James, consciousness was an adaptive act created by nature to survive in changing conditions. Consciousness, according to W. James, is not a flat picture, but a certain changeable, continuous flow of functional acts, which can only be stopped based on the laws of short-term memory.

Flow has the characteristic of being limited. There is also an important property of the flow - the choice of objects to which it is directed, selectivity. According to James, the selective property of consciousness is one and the same. That is, attention is a continuous, changeable, highly individual and selective flow. Physiological conditions of attention are:

1. Excitation of the cortical (ideational) center by external sensory stimulation forms the so-called preperception (anticipation of the object of attention), which is attention. Preperception (image creation) is half of the perception (perception) of the desired object. That is, simply put, we see only those objects that we perceive.

2. The sense organ must be adapted to the most distinct perception of external impressions (through the adaptation of the corresponding muscular apparatus). In the case of adaptive movements, an organic feeling of tension of attention appears, which we usually consider as a feeling of one’s own activity. Therefore, any object capable of arousing our sensitivity causes adaptation of the senses and, consequently, a feeling of activity, and an increase in the clarity of this object in consciousness.

The mechanisms of attention according to James depend on the degree of voluntary attention. Involuntary attention involves tuning the senses, sensitization, changing the circulatory system, etc., that is, something that has an adaptive value to the stimulus in order to achieve its greater clarity. In the case of voluntary attention, we are talking about the ideation center, which forms a state of readiness in relation to the environment, a state of preperception, the expectation of finding and selecting a weak signal in the conditions of solving a problem.

Structural psychology of consciousness

Structural psychology (English structural psychology) a term introduced by E. Titchener to designate his psychology, which was opposed to functional psychology.

Representatives: Wilhelm Wundt, Edward Bradford Titchener

The method of structural psychology is analytical - description of experiences in categories of elements of consciousness.

The main task of psychology(according to W. Wundt) is the decomposition of the direct experience of consciousness into elements, highlighting the connections of the elements with each other and determining the laws of these connections. The elements of consciousness are sensations, ideas and feelings.

The description of all types of feelings, in turn, fits into three dimensional space, which consists of coordinate axes:

• pleasures - displeasures;
• voltage – discharge;
• excitement - calm.

The main processes of the psyche, the result of the creative synthesis of which is consciousness, are the processes:

• the process of direct reflection of objective reality by the senses (perception)
• active process through which consciousness realizes its potential for self-organization at a qualitatively different level than the simple sum of its elements and leads to the formation of meaningful and ordered sets of mental elements ().

Simultaneously with Wundt's structural psychology, the theory of acts of consciousness of Franz Brentano (1838-1917) developed. The main subject in it was not the content and structure of consciousness, but the activity of consciousness. Brentano also tried to find units of the psyche, but found them in elementary mental acts. Brentano published his fundamental work “Psychology from an Empirical Point of View” in 1874.

Under the influence of Wundt and Brentano, an original direction arose within the psychology of consciousness - the Würzburg school, whose representatives concentrated on the problem.

Remember that the first device was a metronome. Listen to the metronome and record it after Wundtom A natural property of consciousness is its rhythmicity, let us say rhythm. Rhythm in a broader sense means the organization of impressions. Or, in other words, the coherence of these impressions. After Wundtom we draw a significant conclusion. If consciousness can be studied using introspection, then there is a model of consciousness. Consciousness can be thought of as a structure resembling a visual field. There is periphery and focus. This model also resembles the retina of the eye, which also has a central point and a periphery. The retina is a physiological organ. In this version, psychology is called physiological. But Wundt not a physiologist.

Lecture 4 (10.10.97) (top)

Gradually there is a transition from philosophy to psychology. Philosophy is not a science, it is the very condition for the existence and emergence of any sciences. Philosophy itself arose in the 6th century. BC, when the first philosophical schools. What happened before philosophy? There was a myth, a mythology. In the myth, and this is its undoubted advantage, everything was clear and there were no problems. But it’s clear in a special way. For example, lightning struck, which means Zeus was angry. Or, for example, if you injured your leg along the way, it means that another deity punished you. Any philosopher emerges from a myth that had meaning. But the meaning is mythological, incorrect for us, and obviously unscientific. And then the philosopher ventured to ask, “Why is there anything in the world at all?” There is something reasonable, say, why there is goodness, honor, conscience, etc. in the world. There is no need to explain to anyone why there is evil in the world, because everyone has their own selfish interests and people sometimes cause harm when they collide with each other. And in order to explain why there is good, the philosopher restores the meaning, but a reasonable meaning - "logos", a reasonable word. But all this was a long time ago, and today there is mythology? Every psychologist in real life may be a philosopher. For example, a philosopher sees the inscription “MMM - no problem.” The philosopher will ask who doesn’t have problems, me? No, the predecessor who believed in perfumes has no problems. There may have been a queue lined up near this sign. People in line for vouchers have some pieces of paper, but they have no idea about money. Therefore, the philosopher warns that it may turn out that tomorrow not only will there be no more money, but they will certainly lose what they have in their hands now. The philosopher looked at the line, somewhere in the newspaper it was written “Tomorrow.” These people - not philosophers, but people from the past, have no concept of time, not only money. They have no tomorrow, they want to live yesterday.

But we are talking about professional philosophers. Do they do science? No. They create the conditions for the emergence of sciences, they make an effort of thought. The world is incomprehensible, but they take the risk of understanding it. Suppose that a science appears, for example psychology. What should and can a researcher do? Not only does it risk asking the question “why?” he begins to explore and search for questions. Him "logos" not just a meaning, but a concept with which one can reason and the results can be verified by experience. A philosopher accompanies us from above; sometimes we will ask him questions and receive answers. Do our concepts make sense? And which? The philosopher always has a name: Plato, Aristotle, Descartes.

Second question. Classical psychology of consciousness: facts and concepts. The structure of consciousness and its properties. Development of ideas about consciousness. Gestalt psychology . Possibilities and limitations of the introspection method.

If we study something scientifically, we have a conscious idea, a model. This means that Wundt must have a model of consciousness, which is hardly accurate, it is rather a metaphor. Wundt says that consciousness can be thought of as a visual field. When we look at something, we always focus on a certain point, then there is a center in consciousness. And there is the periphery. Another research question. This is the second third of the 19th century. Wundt builds psychology on the model of the natural sciences, which distinguish parts in their subject. And consciousness has objective and subjective elements. How many elements does this structure include? Or what is the volume of consciousness?

Volume of consciousness- this is the number of interconnected elements (simple impressions according to Wundt), which the subject currently perceives as a single whole.

Consciousness is rhythmic and therefore structural. The simplest experience, using the identification or identification technique. The subject is presented with a certain set of metronome beats. Starting from par 8 – 16 strokes. The subject does not count them. He listened to them. After a short time, approximately the same equal set is presented, maybe a little more and a little less, or exactly the same. And please tell me, has it become more, less or the same? And then let's assume that he answers correctly. This means that he can contain this entire set as a whole in the structure of consciousness. Wundt conducts experiments on different people and comes to the conclusion that the volume of consciousness varies quite widely in quantity, from 16 to 40 elements, simple impressions. Apparently, because the elements are connected to each other in their own way. For one it is just a pair of blows, for another it is four, and for the third it is its own groups of sensations, acting as units. Then Wundt asks the subject to clarify the elements, to try to identify the element itself. If the subject concentrated his internal effort in the center, the focus of consciousness, then Wundt believes that around the center there is a special area where the elements acquire special properties. This central part called the field of attention.

What are the properties of the elements in the field of attention? Clarity and distinctness of consciousness. Clarity will require a small, simple effort of introspection. First of all, it is sensory clarity. When something has become clear, understandable, this is cognitive clarity. But here there is another clarity – of sensations. And then, to explain, we will resort to another model. This model of consciousness resembles a top hat. And if you look at it from the side, it’s like a step with a base. And this model was proposed by Wundt’s student, Edward Titchener. This model is called the wave of attention. And then what is clarity? The outer boundary in the first model is the base in the model Titchener. And the inner one is a vertical line. Attention is the main property of consciousness. Sensory clarity. If the elements are clear in the field of attention, then on the periphery they are vague. And it must be said that clarity can be replaced, for example, by intensity or degree of attention.

What is it clarity? This is what happens to elements in the field of attention itself, this is the separation of elements from similar neighboring ones. Distinctiveness, ability to distinguish, distinguishability of elements. Highlighting individual metronome beats, individual letters in a word or phrase. This repeats the identification technique.

Attention span – from 3-4 to maximum 6 Wundtu.

Attention span- this is the number of elements that the subject at a given moment (at a given time) perceives clearly and distinctly.

Is it possible to expand your attention span? Wundt would have said in the language of George Miller, whose number was different (7 +/- 2). The number of seats, say 6, cannot be increased. But in each place, in principle, you can form another unit. And then it must be said that to form other units of consciousness in classical psychology means to somehow connect the elements with each other. And connections are associations. For example, you can associate objects that are observed simultaneously in space with each other - this is a spatial association. Elements that follow each other sequentially in time are a temporary association. Elements are connected by meaning, like letters in a word - a semantic association. There are associations based on the similarity of objects, or, on the contrary, on contrasting differences. There are many possibilities to connect elements with each other.

It is sometimes said that teaching Wundt And Titchener- This is associationism. And we can say it differently. Associationism arose long before Wundt. There were many associates. And if we're talking about Wundte, then we want to name the concept that he considered basic. Wundt will say that consciousness is of course a structure, but it is not static, forces act, the structure can change. Let's say, according to the model, there are forces that pull outward or toward the center. If there is a focus of consciousness, then we are interested in the central forces and they have two names, as the model suggests.

The outer limit of the volume of consciousness. And then something is beyond this border. But we are inside the volume and do not perceive what is there. On the periphery they operate according to Wundtu perceptual powers. If something attracts attention, it crosses the border. But what happens at the internal border? There are forces at work here too. This is the basic concept Wundt– apperception, apperceptive powers. They seem to control our attention; it is they who allow us to expand, or rather change the amount of attention. Apperception has several definitions.

Apperception is the process by which the elements of consciousness become clear and distinct. That is, this attention is not as a state of clear and distinct consciousness, but attention as a process.

Second. Apperception is a process of transformation (for example, enlargement) of units of consciousness. And then small simplest example only to understand what apperception is.

The essence of experience. IN German there are words consisting of large number letters, more than 6 or even 10-12. Such a word is taken and the subject is asked to isolate individual elements, that is, to achieve clarity and distinctness of each letter. Thus, each letter is presented in turn. And someday the attention span becomes full and the last letter pushes out the first, etc. And, as a rule, at this moment the subject suddenly realizes that this is not a set of letters, but a word, the letters are interconnected in meaning and, as soon as he understands this, all the elements (both those that have almost fallen and those that have not yet were presented) get to the top of the model Titchener(or to the center, in the model Wundt). The power of attention has enlarged the element of consciousness.

And then the concept of apperception can be supplemented. Apperception according to the result, according to what the subject in this case can observe in himself - this is clarity and distinctness (in the center, from the objective side). But from the subjective side (feelings, but not in the sense of sensory, but in the sense of emotionality) this was expressed in different ways, some displeasure at first, but if this continues, then a feeling of activity arises, a feeling of effort, internal introspective work.

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Psychology as a science

• Psychology (from the Greek Psyche - soul + logos - teaching, science) is the science of the patterns of development and functioning of the psyche as a special form of life.
• Psyche (from the Greek Psychikos - spiritual) is a form of active reflection by the subject of objective reality, arising in the process of interaction of highly organized living beings with the outside world and carrying out a regulatory function in their behavior (activity).

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• The object of psychology is highly organized living beings, carriers of the psyche
• The subject of psychology is psyche

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Historical perspective on the subject of psychology

• 6th century BC – V century AD: the subject of psychology is the soul.
• Plato: The idea (eidos) of any thing or being is the deepest, most intimate and essential thing in it. In man, the role of idea is performed by his immortal soul.

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• Aristotle: the soul is not an independent entity, but a form, a way of organizing a living body.
• The soul has various abilities as stages of its development: vegetative, sensory and mental (inherent only to humans).
• The mind in its highest, essential expression is something different from the body. Hierarchy of levels cognitive activity ended with the “supreme mind”, which was not mixed with anything corporeal or external.
• “If the eye were a living thing, its soul would be sight” (Aristotle)

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Middle Ages:

• Scholasticism (Greek σχολαστικός - school scientist) is a systematic medieval philosophy, which is a synthesis of Christian (Catholic) theology and Aristotelian logic.

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Renaissance:

• The German scholastics R. Gocklenius and O. Kassmann first introduced the term “psychology” (1590).

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Age of Enlightenment. René Descartes (1596-1650):

• developed the doctrine of consciousness in the context of a psychophysical problem,
• introduced a criterion for distinguishing the psyche,
• introduced the concept of reflex, thereby laying the foundation for the natural scientific study of animal and human behavior.

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Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679):

• There is nothing in the world except material bodies;
• Associations are related traces of sensations;
• Associations are a universal law of psychology.

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John Locke (1632 - 1704):

• “There is nothing in the mind that is not in the feeling”;
• Formation of simple ideas from complex ones through various operations (connection, comparison, etc.);
• Association is “an incorrect, i.e., not corresponding to a natural correlation, connection of ideas, when ideas that are not related in themselves are connected in the minds of some people in such a way that it is very difficult to separate them.”

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Definition of consciousness

• Consciousness is a form of reflection of objective reality in the human psyche.
• Consciousness is the ability to reproduce reality, as well as specific mechanisms and forms of such reproduction at its different levels.

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Classical psychology of consciousness

• Structural psychology of consciousness (W. Wundt, E. Titchener)
• Functional psychology of consciousness (W. James)

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Structural psychology of consciousness

W. Wundt defined the main tasks of psychology:

1. analysis of the process of consciousness by the method of introspection;
2. identification of elements of consciousness;
3. establishing patterns of their connection.

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• Structure and properties of consciousness according to W. Wundt:
• Structure: Field of consciousness and focus of consciousness (field of attention)

Properties:

• rhythmicity (connectedness, grouping of impressions) – consciousness is a structure
• heterogeneity – center and periphery
• has a volume - the number of simple impressions that the subject at a given time perceives as a single whole (7+\-2)

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• How does consciousness work?
• The mechanism of interaction of elements of consciousness (simple sensations) - association
• The process of a new image entering the focus of consciousness is called apperception.

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• E. Titchener - founder of structuralism
• Studied the elements of consciousness
• He proposed the metaphor of “Waves of Consciousness”, the conscious thing that lies on the crest of the wave (in the field of attention).

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• E. Titchener introduced the wave metaphor to explain the phenomenon of attention. Thus, he emphasized the intermittent nature of attention, i.e. argued that at any given time only one content reaches the “crest of the wave of attention” (apperception).
• He described the phenomenon of “accommodation” of attention - the preferential apperception of that content that is better consistent with the previous one.

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Functional psychology of consciousness

• W. James - founder of the functional approach
• Consciousness is a stream, a river in which thoughts, sensations, memories, sudden associations constantly interrupt each other and intertwine in a bizarre, “illogical” way

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4 properties of consciousness:

1. every "state of consciousness" strives to be part of a personal consciousness;
2. within the boundaries of personal consciousness, his states are changeable;
3. every personal consciousness represents a continuous sequence of sensations;
4. It accepts some objects willingly, rejects others, and generally makes a choice between them all the time.

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• The unconscious or unconscious is a set of mental processes over which there is no subjective control.

There are:

• unconscious mechanisms of conscious actions;
• unconscious motivators of conscious actions;
• "supraconscious" processes.

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Modern ideas about consciousness. Laws of consciousness

• Hume's Law: random events must always be justified in the human mind by non-random reasons.
• Freud-Festinger Law: the mechanism of consciousness, faced with contradictory information, begins its work by trying to distort this information or even remove it from the surface of consciousness.
• The law of pattern breaking: an unexpected change in context causes emotional shock and disruption in behavior until, as a result of the work of the protective belt of consciousness, a reinterpretation of the situation occurs and a new context is found, from the point of view of which this situation will be further considered.

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Laws of consciousness

• Uznadze’s Law: violation of situational patterns leads to the destruction of habitual patterns of behavior, to difficulties in accepting the most simple solutions, causes a disruption in behavior.
• James's Law: everything that is unchangeable disappears from consciousness, that is, it ceases to be realized, or a change occurs in the idea of ​​this unchangeable given to consciousness. In other words, only information that changes either objectively or subjectively can be realized.
• Law of classification: any specific stimulus (object) always appears in the surface content of consciousness only as a member of a certain class of stimuli (objects), while the class cannot consist of only one member.

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Functions of consciousness

• reflective,
• generative (creative-creative),
• regulatory-evaluative,
• reflexive function is the main function that characterizes the essence of consciousness. The objects of reflection can be:
• reflection of the world,
• thinking about it
• ways a person regulates his behavior,
• the processes of reflection themselves,
• your personal consciousness.

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Properties of consciousness

• reactivity;
• sensitivity;
• dialogism;
• polyphony;
• spontaneity of development;
• reflectivity.

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