2018. vol. 15. No. 2

This paper addresses language in its most natural form – in the form of spoken multichannel discourse. It includes the verbal component, prosody, eye gaze, as well as the different kinetic aspects of communication – facial, head, hand and torso gestures. To explore natural multichannel discourse as is, we created a resource “Russian Pear Chats and Stories”. The resource includes 40 sessions with 160 Russian native speakers aged 18–36, 60 men and 100 women; it consists of 15 hours of recording and about 170,000 words. This paper details how the corpus is created and how it can be used. First, we provide an overview of the methodology of multimodality and multichannel corpora. Then we describe the properties of our resource – the data collection set up, the recording software, types of annotation, as well as some avenues of (future) research, including: prosody as an interface between the vocal and gestural channels, specific nature and degree of coordination between manual gestures and elementary discourse units, individual variation and the “portrait” methodology, language production and comprehension in face-to-face communication, and visual attention in natural communication. In its current version, the corpus is available to the scientific community at the project website multidiscourse.ru (in Russian).

Judgments of learning are subjective estimations about the future retrieval of a recently learned piece of information. Judgments of learning might be based on valid cues, and therefore predictive of future performance or on invalid cues and not reliable. Knowing the variables that can affect judgments of learning is especially relevant in educational settings because they might influence the time spent learning new material. Embodied cognition research has shown that we have an internal numerical scale, in which lower numbers are represented on the left of a horizontal line and higher numbers on the right. Our aim was to investigate whether the spatial numerical distribution on the horizontal space is reflected on metacognitive judgements, specifically, on judgments of learning. Participants were presented with words located either on the left or on the right side of the screen. After each word and on a different screen they provided judgments of learning on a scale of 0 to 100 in deciles. After a distractor task, participants completed a recognition test. Results showed that horizontal location of the words did not affect judgments of learning nor the later recognition memory test. Our results support previous research on judgments of learning and spatial location, strengthening the conclusion that judgments of learning are a more deliberative process impervious to spatial numerical distribution.

One of the topics in current psycholinguistic research is the study of the factors affecting syntactic choice in sentence production. Previous research suggests that syntactic choice results from an interplay between linguistic and non-linguistic factors, and a speaker’s attention to the elements of a described event represents one such factor. It is a well-established fact that our attention simultaneously receives input from various attentional modalities (e.g. auditory, motor, olfactory, etc.). Afterwards, attention filters the input by a number of factors (e.g. saliency) and allocates resources to the most prominent and important input at a given moment. This poses the question of whether other attentional modalities affect syntactic choice in a similar manner to visual modality. In this study we aimed to understand whether auditory and visual attention can affect syntactic choice. English native speakers described drawings of simple transitive events while their attention was directed to the location of the agent or the patient of a depicted event by means of either an auditory (monaural beep) or a visual (red circle) explicit lateral cue. We have measured the amount of passive structures produced. Our results were not significant, however there was a visible trend in visual cueing condition. In this paper we discuss possible reasons for such outcomes.

Understanding ambiguous texts has been widely accepted as an indicator of conceptual thinking efficiency. As a kind of ambiguous texts, fables are promising as a tool for measuring cognitive abilities, but rarely used in intelligence research. In this study, we aimed to reveal: 1) the degree to which healthy adults experience difficulties in fables comprehension; 2) the role that psychometric IQ plays in understanding fables’ metaphorical meanings (gists). We hypothesized that: 1) the higher the level of psychometric IQ, the better the understanding of fables’ gists; 2) the higher the level of fables understanding, the higher the ability to pair single fables in accordance to their gists. Twenty-four participants were presented with 3 sets of Aesop’s fables and an IQ test. During in-depth interviews, they were asked to interpret the gist of each fable and pair any two of them within each set. It was shown that healthy adults experience major difficulties with understanding fables’ gists at a highly generalized, abstract level. We found no correlation of psychometric IQ and fables understanding; and no correlation between comprehension depth and fables pairing. This suggests that 1) there is a lack of conceptual thinking in healthy adults and 2) the ability to understand a fable’s gist is not reflected in the results of current psychometric tools but may require more advanced approaches.

This review focuses on language deficits in post-stroke aphasia, their rehabilitation and potential new developments based on current knowledge of human brain function. Language impairments in post-stroke aphasia often become chronic and cause significant communicative difficulties for patients. Though standard rehabilitation methods provide some language improvements, they are usually moderate and often decay over a period of time. These traditional rehabilitation approaches are usually based on existing conventions formed through decades of clinical practice; whilst valuable, they are not often rooted in up-to-date neuroscientific knowledge. In recent decades, human neuroscience has developed at a very high speed, not least due to the advent of non-invasive brain imaging techniques. Currently, it has reached the stage where neuroscientific knowledge can inform clinical practice, and help upgrade the traditional approaches using modern neuroscience tools. Furthermore, traditional practices typically apply the same routines to different patients, even though the nature of the individual deficit – and hence the care needed – are never the same. For instance, aphasic patients demonstrate a massive variety of improvement patterns during natural language recovery. This might be caused by individual differences in the functioning of language neural networks and their dynamics after stroke. Although the problem of individual variability in aphasia is well-known, there is still no comprehensive understanding of all factors that impact this variability. As we highlight in this review, the issue is of high importance for planning language therapy on individual basis. We also analyze neuroscientific underpinnings and clinical efficiency of a language therapy, which is widely used for chronic aphasia rehabilitation – constraint-induced aphasia therapy.

There is currently an increasing interest in the acquisition of reading fluency. This is characterized as automated reading with higher rates of speed and accuracy that enables the reader to carry out processes of higher-level comprehension. A key factor in reading fluency is the establishment of word representations in the reader’s lexicon, which allow the direct visual recognition of words. It is widely accepted that a repeated visual exposure to novel words is needed to construct these mental representations. However, the nature of memory traces reached after this training is a question hotly debated in behavioral literature. While some authors argue that a simple visual training enables the formation of lexical traces for novel words, others argue that a training not only in orthographic but also in other word features (such as phonology or meaning) is required for the acquisition of high quality lexical representations. The use of more suitable measures for exploring the brain response during this process could contribute to solve this question. In this sense, the ERP approach emerges as a powerful tool to study the neurophysiological mechanisms underlying the acquisition of the lexical reading, and particularly the training conditions under which the formation of high quality lexical representations is possible. In this paper, the main contributions from the ERP literature to the understanding of the novel word lexicalization are reviewed.

According to embodied cognition theory, speech is largely based on the body motor and sensory experience. The question that is crucial for our understanding of the origin of language is how our brain transforms sensory-motor experience into word meaning. We have developed an auditory-motor experimental procedure that allowed investigating neural underpinning of word meaning acquisition by way of associative "trial-and-error" learning that mimics important aspects of natural word learning. Participants were presented with eight pseudowords; four of them were assigned to specific body part movements during the course of learning – through commencing actions by one of a participant’s left or right extremities and receiving a feedback. The other pseudowords did not require actions and thus were used as controls. Magnetoencephalogram was recorded during passive listening to the pseudowords before and after the learning. The cortical sources of the magnetic evoked responses were reconstructed using distributed source modeling. The learning of novel word meaning through word-action associations selectively increased neural specificity for these words in the auditory parabelt areas responsible for spectrotemporal analysis, as well as in articulatory areas, both located in the left hemisphere. The extent of neural changes was linked to the degree of language learning, specifically implicating the physiological contribution of the left perisylvian cortex in the speech learning success.

A classification of spectral patterns of EEG underlies several cognitive neurotechnologies including passive and active brain-computer interfaces. Despite arithmetic tasks often being used in studies of cognitive workload, there is a lack of findings describing a possibility to recognize EEG patterns related to different types of math operations. In the present work, we have shown that the power spectral density of EEG can be used to classify types of mental operations including a classification of verbal and different mathematical tasks for simple arithmetic operations or logical tasks with arithmetic progressions. The verbal tasks were separated from arithmetic ones significantly better than arithmetic from logical tasks, and verbal from logical tasks. Better discrimination of verbal tasks from arithmetic but not from logical tasks supports the hypothesis of unique EEG patterns associated with verbal activity that apparently differ from mental operations in arithmetic. Additionally, we compared the behavioral performance in problem solving and accuracy of EEG classification in two groups of subjects with education in math or humanities (N=8+8). We obtained the predicted differences related to better performance of the math group in solving math tasks than the humanitarian group. However, the classification accuracy of tasks based on EEG did not differ significantly between groups and was essentially higher than random. Considered together, our results support the hypothesis that EEG patterns reflect individual cognitive states corresponding to mental operations and can be used in classification of different cognitive activity.

We analyze the theories and concepts of creativity and creative potential. We discuss the personal characteristics that will contribute to malevolent creativity that causes harm to other people. Features of the socially-creative person are given: informal leadership; high values ​​of emotional intelligence, cognitive and affective empathy and the search for novelty; low level of dependence on remuneration; flexible moral boundaries; Machiavellianism, the ability to manipulate others to achieve their own goals; a reasonable combination of selfishness and altruism. Approaches to understanding the creative potential and assessment of its components are considered, as well as personal and situational characteristics that promote the realization of creative potential for harming other people. As for personal characteristics that contribute to the realization of creative potential in deviant behavior, hostility and emotional intelligence are allocated for further research. Based on the theory of creative deviance by C. Mainemelis, we proposed complex model of creativity and deviance. The model combines such parameters as creative potential, characteristics of the performers, purpose, conditions and ways to achieve the goal, the result. The model takes into consideration the modality of the objectives, methods and results of the creative process, and the target of harm. The specifics of the model is that it can be used for analysis and study of antisocial creativity of individuals and groups. Within the model there are 4 kinds of creativity. We defined them "deviant creativity", "anti-social/asocial creativity", "negative creativity" and "creative deviance".

The article analyzes the situation of confrontation between two approaches - the natural and humanitarian and the ways of overcoming this confrontation. Both approaches are characterized and the historical circumstances in which they have appeared are reconstructed. The author singles out and analyzes the three solutions currently being discussed in the scientific literature. The first solution he calls the strategy of convergence of these approaches. The second decision is defined as a strategy to remove the confrontation between the natural-science and humanitarian approaches. It relies on the establishment that science is one. The third strategy is authoring. His studies of science and its origin have shown that when studying it, one should not immediately proceed from the fact that we know what science is, namely, it is natural science. The idea of science is gradually groping, being built as the analysis of different types of science. In addition, it was found that, on the one hand, these different types of Sciences (ancient, medieval, natural, technical, humanitarian, social, etc.) can distinguish the invariant core (a sort of "gene" of science), and on the other - that they as types differ structurally. The first strategy is estimated by the author as formal, not taking into account the opposite methodological settings of these approaches. He sees the disadvantage of the second in the fact that its followers did not reveal real differences in the natural and human sciences and ways of thinking. The third strategy is the most difficult, since it involves analysis of the formation and functioning of different types of sciences. But its implementation will allow us to interpret both approaches as organic and partly interrelated moments of scientific research and thinking. As part of this strategy the distinction of science and humanitarian approaches can be comprehended in the first place, the diversity of forms of conceptualization, which, indeed, were built in opposition to each other, and secondly, the difference in the nature of problems to be solved, researchers’ attitudes, characteristics of scientific thinking, areas of application of the acquired knowledge and schemes.

In the meta-cognitive theory by A. Wells, anxiety disorders and depression are caused by the presence of dysfunctional metacognitive beliefs. In this concept there are five key metacognitive factors that lead to development of affective disorders: Positive beliefs about worry; Negative beliefs about uncontrollability and danger of anxiety; Control of thoughts; Attention to one's own thought processes; Cognitive mistrust. The intensification of metacognitive beliefs leads to the development and maintenance of stereotyped thinking styles, such as worry and rumination, as well as constant threat monitoring and attempts to suppress unwanted thoughts. A short version of the metacognitive belief questionnaire allows one to measure individual differences in the choice of dysfunctional metacognitive beliefs. This article is dedicated to the development and validation of the short version of the questionnaire of metacognitive beliefs in the Russian-speaking population. The study involved 500 people: 200 students studying at the A.I. Evdokimov Moscow State University of Medicine and Dentistry, 100 respondents were examined using Internet technologies (electronic Google forms), also 200 women with oncological diseases of the reproductive system were assessed. The results showed that the short version of the questionnaire of metacognitive beliefs fully corresponds to the English version with respect to reliability-consistency and internal structure of the items, and is also characterized by high test-retest reliability. External validity of the technique is confirmed by significant correspondence of dysfunctional metacognitive factors with the severity of anxiety-depressive experiences and the choice of maladaptive strategies for cognitive regulation of emotions. Regression analysis revealed that such metacognitive factors as negative beliefs related to uncontrollability and danger of anxiety, attentiveness to one's own thinking processes, and positive beliefs about anxiety contribute independently to the development of anxiety. It is shown that such metacognitive factors as negative beliefs related to uncontrollability and danger of anxiety, cognitive insolvency, and attentiveness to one's own thought processes contribute to the development of depressive experiences.

After perestroika Russia became an attractive country for migrants, and many migrants with Russian roots returned to the motherland. They came with schoolchildren, which, according to the Federal Law “On education in the Russian Federation” have a right to general education together with the Russian citizens. But often in practice the educational achievements of these children are hindered by racism, intolerance, bad knowledge of the Russian language and other factors. Nonetheless, the results of empirical studies show that children of migrants demonstrate good academic progress, at least equal to the local students. The immigrant paradox hypothesis states that migrants are optimistic; they think and believe that in the recipient country they can fulfill their dreams and improve their living conditions. This optimism rubs off from parents to children, and as a result they study well in schools and their academic grades are high. But in the literature on academic progress there is no theory about influence of optimism on grades. In the psychological approach on academic progress recent empirical results especially stressed the role of assertiveness “grit”, that is, persistence and passion for long-term goals. Therefore, this article explores the influence of assertiveness on academic progress; mostly  comparing assertiveness of migrant children and native children. Based on  data gathered in the Yaroslavl region, and using descriptive statistics, tests of means and regression analysis the evidence suggests that children of migrants from the Caucasus have a higher level of assertiveness than the native children, which can explain their academic progress.

The issue of multiculturalism gains popularity among scholars, however very little research investigates how the media portrays this phenomenon. Research on depiction of interethnic relations in the media is especially topical in Russia, where more than 160 ethnic groups reside. This study investigates how Russian online media portrays the 46 largest ethnic minorities living in Russia from the perspective of the three hypotheses of intercultural interaction. We designed a system of indicators of multiculturalism for the analysis of the media contents. Using content analysis, we found that online media do not cover different aspects of multiculturalism with the same frequency. In particular, most often the minorities were displayed from the point of view of the integration hypothesis, least of all from the position of the contact hypothesis. However, this observation is not valid for individual groups. The most balanced coverage was observed for the Altais and Georgians. However, when depicting the remaining 44 groups the media focused only on one of the three domains of multiculturalism. For example, the coverage of the Laks and Tajiks was focused on the integration hypothesis; the coverage of the Tuvans, Komi and Chuvash people was focused on the identity hypothesis; the coverage of the Chechens and Avars was focused on the contact hypothesis. We found that although the media tend to depict ethnic diversity positively, this tendency did not hold for certain groups: on some cases the depiction was dominated by positive contents (e.g. the Tuvans, Laks, Mordvinians), in other cases – by negative contents (the Uzbeks, Tajiks, Azerbaijanis). The potential consequences of uneven representation of ethnocultural diversity by the media for the perception of these groups in reality are discussed in this paper.

The article discusses topical for the contemporary psychology concept of multiple births of personality, and the act of personal birth amplifies and unfolds in the scope of the whole life path, transcending the closure of personal formation in pre-adolescent period. Personogenesis is viewed as a system of five qualitatively unique births of personality. “Zero birth” is a formation of personality as an expected social model and corresponding to the definite chronotope social project of micro- and macro-environment of a future child. The “first birth” is linked with the emergence of self-consciousness (“I” and “self”) and the changes in the motivational sphere: acceptance by a child of social norms and values as motives of their behaviors. The “second birth” is dated to the adolescent period and is manifested in development of general subjectivity of personality with the emergence of abilities of self-determination, self-regulation, conscious choice of values. The personality of an adolescent is formed due to the processes of self-knowledge, self-affirmation and self-regulation in individual and group deeds. The “third birth” is extensively unfolds in the period of adulthood and is linked with the maturation of personality, which manifests in acceptance of responsible life position, independent and conscious forming of one’s life path. The driving forces of the third birth are activity, reflexivity and active effort of personality, which are focused on personal growth and creative life. The “forth birth” pertains to the last phase of person’s life or period after their death and is understood as an embodied personal representation in a significant other – personal input into personal space of another person. These stages of personality development are illustrated by a phenomenological material of autobiographical literary-psychological work by M.M. Zoshchenko Before Sunrise.

The experimental results on the ability of three-dimensional perception of planar images are presented. The objective of the research was to study the direction of eye movement when viewing various types of images. It was assumed that the perception of the depth of the planar image would have an effect on the eye movements. The research task consisted in comparing the level of perception of the depth of a planar image with the characteristics of eye movement when perceiving the stereoscopic depth of the stereogram and the depth of perception of a raster 3D-image. It is shown that the plane of the perceived image is located behind it at a distance of 8-58 cm in the conditions of three-dimensional perception. It is also shown that the plane of the perceived image on the 3D-raster is located at a distance of 23–37 cm behind the raster. The histogram of the difference shows that the perception of the depth, volume of the planar image and the depth of the raster image correspond to the same dependencies. A similar shape of the histogram was also registered with a planar perception of a stereogram. It is assumed that the histogram contour of the difference under conditions of its planar perception includes the relief effects. The presented experimental material shows that the effects of perception of the depth, the volume of a planar image, are characterized by at least one level of value with the stereoscopic depth of stereograms and 3D-raster image.