2011. vol. 8. No. 4

The papers provides a theoretical basis for future elaboration of the concept of “relationship to oneself” in the conext of personology. The possibilities of self-attitude research are unveiled, based on personological synthesis of cultural-historical, ontological, and psychological ideas on self-attitudes that can be found in the works of M. Foucault, M.M. Bakhtin, M.K. Mamardashvili, S.L. Rubinstein. Based on the author’s methodological perspective, reconstruction, and systematization of those ideas, original theoretical, interpretational, and reflective-phenomenological models of development of relationship to oneself are developed and presented.

Computer games can attract persons of any age: along with teenage gamers (addressed in most studies), adult gamers are becoming more numerous, but existing research of the latter age group of gamers is rather scanty. The papers presents a typology of computer games, a review of existing psychological research of adult gamers, and results of an original online study of adult gamers’ psychological variables in comparison to those of older teenagers. The following instruments were used: Personal Preference Inventory by A. Edwards, locus of control inventory, and Personality Factors of Decision-Making. The analysis is given of associations between adult gamers’ psychological features and the following variables: 1) preferred type of computer games, 2) gender, 3) gaming experience, and 4) time spent gaming in a single week.

The problem of influence of informational technology upon preschoolers’ development is studied. The paper also present results of a formative experiment investigating the influence of computer-based learning games upon development of thinking in 6-7 year old children. An attempt to define the extent of the effect of computer games on preschoolers’ development is made. The theoretical considerations and experimental data indicate that computer games promote development of practical thinking.

The paper presents a study of association between flow experience arising within computer games and Internet dependency. Theoretical analysis undertaken by the authors indicates that despite partial similarity between the concepts of Internet dependency and flow experience (e.g., both involve repeated behaviour), they have different psychological meaning. The notion of Internet dependency, apart from psychological characteristics of the respective phenomenon, refers to current social norms. Flow experience, in turn, is associated with subjectivity and personal choice. An empirical study of 1574 computer gamers from China indicates that Internet dependency and flow experience within computer games are not directly associated: their association depends on current social norms, as well as gamers’ age, gender, and intrinsic motivation.

Users of specialized software packages (e.g., scientists and other specialists) do not always have the necessary resources and desire to adapt to complicated interfaces offered by the software packages they use. This human factor issue is particularly important within virtual reality contexts. The paper presents a study of user interaction with virtual reality, the phenomenon of presence, and its influence upon users’ performance at solving spatial transformation problems.

The paper presents a model of providing supervisory support to young specialists working in centres that provide distance psychological counseling using existential analysis. The goals, tasks, expected results, and metholodogical basis of supervisory support are presented, as well as specific forms the supervision organization can take.

A general orientation in a contradictory situation could involve either rejection of one of the opposing interpretations in favour of the other, or rejection of both, or looking for alternative possibilities that would allow to deem both interpretations valid. This orientation involves a number of mental processes, and a number of approaches can be used to assess it. The paper presents a review of existing methods assessing categorization processes, new experience aberrations, attention direction associated with object perception and event explanation/prediction, subjective control, choice, situational solution search, integration of different forms of thinking, self-awareness, and action strategy flexibility.

The paper presents a review of studies of hints in problem solving undertaken from a psychology of creativity position. Studies of hint priming in elementary cognitive tasks and those of hinting in complex problem-solving tasks are compared. A short review of priming types is given, and studies of sensitivity to priming at different creativity levels and under different types of creative set are presented. The authors describe presetting as a specific type of priming that is not associated with task solution by content. Studies of emotional and motivational, cognitive, and somatic presetting that improves problem solving are reviewed. Theories of the mechanisms behind this priming effect are described.