2010. vol. 7. No. 3

The concept of  distributed and situational cognition is nowadays widely discussed in cognitive sciences and other fields of knowledge. It states that the forming of cognitive result is due not only to the operations of individual intelligence but mainly to its interaction with the environment, other individuals and material objects. Two principal problems of such an approach are presented by the randomness of cognitive system borders as well as insufficient attention to the nature and the reasons of situational environment explaining cognitive processes existence in «natural conditions». To solve the former it is proposed to pay the most attention not to cognition but to the process of problem solving. To solve the latter it is possible to use functional and evolutional arguments.

The manifestations of temperament in terms of auditory evoked potentials generation due to realization of odd-ball paradigm were studied. The subjects were divided into two groups according to the coincidence of three questionnaires (formal-dynamic behavior characteristics questionnaire, structure of temperament questionnaire, Eysenck’s personality questionnaire) results.  Significant differences between groups in N2 wave amplitude and complex N2-P3 were found. There was a number of significant correlations of questionnaire data and evoked potentials parameters for the group with coincided questionnaire results; the other group showed much less correlations. The data obtained confirm the conditionality of the temperament by brain processes and point to the principal differences in psycho-physiological manifestations of temperament.

The specificity of longitude and systematic Internet-resources usage influence is shown. The results of the study of age-specific memorization of simple, complicated and non-verbal meaningless material by subjects having different experience of Internet-activity are presented.

There are different measuring procedures for the description of personality. The effort is made to study the problem of person’s individuality identity as characterized by different measuring procedures. The question of the possibility to perceive differently theoretically based methods as equivalent in psychological studies is answered.

The study is dedicated to the investigation of the specificity of self-assessment of emotional intelligence from the view-point of a theoretical model of cultural relevance. The model includes three dimensions (prototypicality, value, frequency) and proposes their influence on external validity of self-assessment. At the first stage of the study the emotional intelligence questionnaire was constructed on the basis of the Act Frequency approach (Buss, Craik, 1983). At the second stage, the questionnaire items were assessed according to three dimensions of relevance proposed by the model. At the third stage, emotional intelligence was measured by means of the constructed questionnaire and emotional intelligence tests. It was, thus, revealed that the correlation between questionnaire's items and external criteria was predicted by their value (in positive direction). In comparison with accuracy of self-estimates, their level was influenced to a greater extent by the cultural relevance of the questionnaire items.

The phenomenology of perceptive attention in stimulus-distractor derivation condition is analyzed. Two oppositely directed effects — that of interference and of redundancy — are marked out. Formal prediction of the effect based on mathematic theory of connection is proposed. Hierarchic hypothesis of interaction of different distractor effects is looked at and is substantiated by experimental study of probabilistic learning with varying frequency of conflicting and congruent trials in Stroop test. It is assumed that word-colour combinations and probabilities appeal to different levels of distractor effects. It was found that low probability of conflicting trials leads to significant reinforcement of Stroop effect and practical impossibility to train; high probability leads to its practical disappearance.