2015. vol. 12. No. 4

Mind-wandering is a specific state of consciousness, during which attention fully or partially switches from perception of external sensory information to inner mental processes. This state is largely spontaneous, and its content usually cannot be consciously controlled. Thoughts during mind wandering are generated by endogenous mental processes focusing on goals of high personal significance. These thoughts adversely interfere with processing of incoming information, thus leading to decreased efficacy of the ongoing activity, resulting in attentional lapses and errors. Dreaminess as a personality trait is directly related to mind wandering. Switching to the mind-wandering state is related to competition between the motivational value of this process with the motivational value of current explicit activities, and it depends on cognitive (executive) control processes. The motivational value of mind wandering itself depends not only on the personal significance of the current thought content; this state appears also to be one of the basic human needs providing humans with the analysis of past experience and planning future activities, and thus is highly advantageous in a long-term perspective. Mind-wandering is closely related to a number of other psychological phenomena such as reflection, metacognition (meta-consciousness), and mindfulness. The current review distinguishes between these phenomena and presents an approach to consider mind wandering a distinct process hallmarked by adverse effects on the ongoing activity.

Age-related brain changes are the main cause of cognitive decline. Active cognitive task performance as well as resting-state activity might be a sensitive index for studying differences in aging. We investigated age-related changes in the spontaneous neuronal activity with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in a resting-state condition. To evaluate differences in aging, we analyzed functional connectivity between resting-state networks in two groups of older and younger healthy volunteers. Seven resting-state networks were isolated, and cross-correlation matrices were computed for the time courses. Older subjects showed decreased activity of the auditory, visual, sensory-motor networks, frontoparietal and salience networks accompanied by increased coupling of the salience network with the sensorimotor and default mode network compared to younger subjects. The age-related differences in functional connectivity may be due to aging impairment of the prefrontal cortex leading to a loss of activation in the salience, sensorimotor and visual networks in older subjects compared to the younger subjects. However, the default mode network was more prominent in the left hemisphere and showed more coupling with the salience network in older subjects than in younger subjects, indicating possible compensatory engagement of cognitive control regions in resting-state cognition. The results show that independent of task design and performance the functional connectivity method reflects neural changes in the aging brain.

Humans often change their views or opinions while interacting with each other. This often leads to behavioral changes. Such changes are often reciprocal and ultimately lead to an agreement or conclusion. One way to experimentally study human reciprocity would be to offer participants to take part in collective problem solving. This study analyzed feedback-related negativity (FRN) components of visual event-related potentials (ERP) in order to examine how the brain activity changes during joint performance of a task aimed at identifying a genuine image of a famous masterpiece as opposed to its mirror reflection as a function of a number of matched answers. The results of our electroencephalographic analysis showed that both erroneous and mismatched choices evoked comparable FRN responses in the brain activity of jointly working participants, possibly reflecting individual learning process based on action-monitoring and error-detection. When the subjects were asked to judge the stimuli for the second time following the peer’s feedback, the number of matched answers significantly increased while the amplitude of prediction error signal and FRN decreased, indicating conformity changes, possibly underlying the attunement. Our results agree with previous FRN findings supporting the neurobiological model of reinforcement learning, offering a possible neural mechanism of behavioral reciprocity and social attunement.

Brain responses of 7-10-year-old Finnish children to two speech contrasts incorporated in pseudowords (PWs) and varying in perceptual difficulty were studied. An oddball paradigm was used to record event-related potentials (ERPs) to a standard PW /baka/ and two deviant PWs: the easier = /baga/ and the more difficult /bag*a/ that sounded as intermediate between /baka/ and /baga/. An ability of children to actively discriminate the more difficult contrast was investigated in two separate behavioral sessions that alternated with the ERP recording blocks. The enhanced amplitude of the most negative response to the standard, not to the deviants, suggested formation of an acoustic template for the frequent PW during the experiment. There was no reliable block effect on the amplitude of the mismatch negativity (MMN), an automatic index of an experience-dependent auditory memory trace. This suggests consolidation of the short-term representation of the repetitively presented PW that took place during passive exposure to stimuli, rather than changes in the preattentive discrimination process. This was also supported by the evidence from a behavioral discrimination test. No perceptual learning to discriminate the difficult speech contrast could be seen in the children in the absence of the active behavioral discrimination.

It seems that in contemporary psychology of emotion not only data collection and their analysis is topical, but also theoretical interpretations of these facts that psychology in the 20th century was full of. Although no theory can explain all richness of collected facts in the field, it does not mean that the creation of these theories is useless for the understanding of human emotional life. One of the attempts to integrate these theories is represented in the compositional theory of emotion (Breslav, 1976, 1977а, 1984). In this article the theory was used for the first time for the understanding of moral emotions of shame and guilt, as well as the understanding of the mechanism of development and instability of partnership love. The design of the main compositional elements of shame and guilt was proposed, which allows see in a more precise way the similarity and difference of shame and guilt. In particular, similar elements include the existence of transgression in the object-matter of these emotions and the understanding of the transgression’s negative estimation by others. However, while with shame the main agent of stimulation is a beholder of the transgression, with guilt it is the victim. In the first case the locus of estimation is the personality of transgression’s agent, in the second – the transgression and its consequences for the victim. While experiencing shame directs the person on defending him/herself, guilt – on the compensation of transgression’s damage to the victim. The compositional theory of emotion also enables us to understand better the conditions of positive and negative development of love. In particular, this sentiment’s inclusion in the existing system of needs, habits and relationships of the lover’s personality is considered. At a certain stage love can become central, which means its dominant place in the hierarchy of the person’s relationships. If this process fails, love will decrease gradually and the target of love’s valence will be transformed. In its turn, the survival of love requires daily efforts from lovers.

The mediating role of attitudes toward personality traits in the relationships between corresponding traits and painting preferences was studied. Attitudes toward traits represent bipolar (positive vs. negative)  evaluations of a given trait. In this study, the crucial emphasis was made on openness to experience which, as the extant literature reports, is a key predictor of artistic preferences and positive attitudes toward art in general. 110 participants aged 20-30 studied reproductions of 20 paintings related to five painting schools including hyperrealism, realism, impressionism, surrealism, and abstract art.. A principal component analysis revealed two latent variables of preferences for 14 out of 20 paintings such that the former component characterized conventionally traditional genres whereas the latter component characterized conventionally mental genres comprised of surrealism and abstract art.  The preference for traditional genres positively correlated with extraversion, agreeableness, and openness as well as with attitudes toward each of the five traits. On the contrary, the preference for mental genres correlated with openness and attitude toward openness only. The effect sizes provided evidence that attitudes toward traits may be more substantial predictors of painting preferences than the traits themselves. Moreover, in line with the hypothesis, positive attitude toward openness eliminated a direct effect of trait openness on the preferences of traditional genres fully and mental genres partially. Similar mediating effects were found a posteriori in the context of traditional genres for extraversion, agreeableness, and attitudes toward these traits. The authors presume openness to experience to be a unique personality predictor when paintings differ from routine visual perception are in the limelight such as mental genres mentioned above. The implications and limitations of the study are discussed.

The aim of the study is to find age characteristics of oculomotor task  performance using the Letter Cancellation Test and images of different complexity. Healthy subjects aged 14-75 years and patients with early stages of Parkinson disease (PD) aged 42-75 years took part in the study. Completion time of Letter Cancellation Test in healthy volunteers differs insignificantly with age; in patients with PD there is a tendency to perform longer on the test. Quantity of mistakes during the performance on the test by healthy volunteers on a greater degree depends on age, and patients during the search of the letter commit as much mistakes, as healthy people of their age group do. The success of performance on the task of viewing images of various levels of complexity depends on the age of the volunteers and worsens in PD. Herewith, both healthy participants of senior age and patients have better results in viewing more complex images. Thus, we found that in the conditions of complex visual environment motor function is less susceptible to age-related changes, and at the same time the ability to concentrate attention has several stages of development. In patients with PD, despite hypokinesia and oculomotor dysfunctions, cognitive component does not suffer in task performance on visual search. The results of the study can contribute to diagnostics of early dementia or cognitive dysfunctions of a light degree in people of senior age, as well as in attention deficit disorder in young age. 

The main objective of the study is the search of relationships between mood, personality traits and emotional intelligence (EI). The additional goal is acquisition of the new psychometric data on the used questionnaires. To measure mood, the Russian adaptation of the questionnaire PANAS was used, which assesses mood by the scales of positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA). Personality traits were measured with the help of the Big 5 questionnaire, emotional intelligence was measured with the help of the questionnaire EmIn. Questionnaires were used on a sample of 71 subjects aged 18-49 years. Data was received about the reliability of the scales of all the used questionnaires, which in whole was satisfactory – Chronbach’s α of all the scales except one lie in the range from .78 to .89. Positive correlations of some scales of the EmIn questionnaire (general EI, interpersonal EI, management of emotions) were found with the scale PA and negative correlations were found with the scale NA. Scales of interpersonal EI and understanding of emotions had only positive correlations with the scale PA. Negative correlation of neuroticism with the scale PA and positive correlation with the scale NA were found. Extraversion was positively correlated with the scale PA and had no correlations with the scale NA. In whole the acquired results correspond to the results of the similar studies, conducted in other countries. The necessity to move from one-time measurements to data collection about participants’ mood for a long period of time (the so-called experience sampling) is validated. It will allow acquiring more reliable information about emotional background, characteristic for this or that participant, and analyzing relationships between personality traits and emotional intelligence, from the one side, and dynamic characteristics of emotional states, from the other side. 

The article presents the review of contemporary literature on the problem of the Flynn effect (FE). The FE is the increase of intelligence tests scores throughout the XX century with the rate of approximately 3 IQ points per decade. The article describes the essence of the FE and methods of its measurement, metaanalytical data on the size and stability of the FE between populations and in time.  Authors also considered the manifestation of the FE in cognitive tasks different from intelligence tests, and in the domain of intellectual achievements. The special attention is devoted to the discussion of the causes of the FE. The most popular hypotheses are the environmental explanations of the FE (improvement of nutrition, changes in the family structure, growth in quantity and quality of cognitive stimulation, etc.). Along with that, there are explanations which connect the FE with genetic changes, as well as with artifacts that appear in the process of intelligence testing. It is also debated whether the FE depicts the real increase in intelligence in people. The data is provided that shows that the FE is more pronounced in tasks that have lowest loadings on the general factor of intelligence (g factor). At the same time there is data that prove the decrease in genotypic intelligence. It is concluded that the FE is associated with the change in structure of cognitive abilities and acquisition of problem solving skills, which capture rules and abstract reasoning operations. Thus the FE masks the tendency of decrease in genotypic intelligence. In the conclusion of the article the practical consequences of the FE in the sphere of education, forensic practice and social policies are analyzed.

The present paper focuses on the most popular form of group creativity, brainstorming. Both advantages and shortcomings of the method were examined. There are a number of factors which determine to a considerable degree the effectiveness of brainstorming. Novelty and variability of ideas exchanged, as well as the size of a brainstorming group are the most important ones. Analysis of scientific literature on this topic showed that inhibiting effects which often take place within a brainstorming session are small in dyads, but increase rapidly with group size. Face-to-face communication among members of a brainstorming group also plays an essential role in their creative performances. This role is rather controversial: face-to-face communication may either stimulate or impede individual creative activity. There are various modifications in traditional brainstorming based on mediated communication among individuals. Brainwriting and electronic brainstorming are the most popular. These methods have some advantages over traditional face-to-face brainstorming, such as a higher degree of anonymity, opportunities to contribute ideas simultaneously without waiting to articulate them, and a lower risk of the dominance of one or a few individuals. New methods of group idea generation, comprising advantages of various forms of brainstorming, tend to occur.