Mental reflection as a process. Forms and levels of mental reflection, their characteristics. Concept of mental reflection

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There are three functions of the psyche: communicative, cognitive and regulatory.

Communicative– provides the opportunity for people to communicate with each other.
Cognitive– allows a person to understand the outside world around him.

Regulatory the function ensures the regulation of all types of human activity (play, study, work), as well as all forms of his behavior.

In other words, the human psyche allows him to act as a subject of work, communication and cognition.

Speaking about mental reflection, it should be borne in mind that it is addressed not only to the present, but also to the past and to the future. This means that the reflection of the present is influenced not only by the present itself, but also by past experiences stored in memory, as well as by a person’s forecasts for the future.

In general, mental reflection has the following specific features:

This is the most complex and most developed type of reflection;
it allows you to correctly reflect the surrounding reality, which is then confirmed by practice;
it has an active character, i.e. associated with the search and selection of methods of action adequate to environmental conditions;
it constantly deepens and develops in the course of activity;
it is subjective;
it is anticipatory.

In addition, when speaking about mental reflection, it should be borne in mind that it is procedural in nature. This means that it is a continuous process unfolding over time that continues throughout a person’s life.

Mental reflection is ideal in form; it is thoughts, sensations, images, experiences, i.e. something that is inside a person that cannot be touched with hands, recorded using measuring instruments, or photographed. At the same time, it is subjective in content, i.e. belongs to a specific subject and is determined by its characteristics.

The physiological carrier of the human psyche is his nervous system. Ideas about relationships nervous system and the human psyche are based on the theory of functional systems by P.K. Anokhin, according to which mental and physiological activity constitute a single whole, in which individual mechanisms are united by a common task and goal into jointly operating complexes aimed at achieving a useful, adaptive result.

Psyche is a property of the brain. Connection between the brain center and external environment carried out using nerve cells and receptors.
However, mental phenomena cannot be reduced to neurophysiological processes. The mental has its own specifics. Neuro-physiological processes are the substrate, the carrier of the psyche. The relationship between the mental and the neurophysiological is the relationship between the signal as information and the signal as a carrier of information.

Every person is the owner of psychic reality: we all experience emotions, see surrounding objects, feel smells - but few people have thought that all these phenomena belong to our psyche, and not to external reality. Psychic reality is given to us directly. By and large, we can say that each of us is a mental reality and only through it can we judge the world around us. What is the psyche for? It exists in order to combine and interpret information about the world, correlate it with our needs and regulate behavior in the process of adaptation - adaptation to reality. Back at the end of the 19th century. W. James believed that the main function of the psyche is the regulation of goal-directed behavior.

IN Everyday life we do not distinguish subjective reality from objective reality. Only in special situations and when special conditions she makes herself known. When images are inadequate and lead us to errors of perception and incorrect assessment of signals, for example, the distance to an object, we talk about illusions. A typical illusion is the moon above the horizon. The apparent size of the moon at the moment of sunset is much larger than when it is located closer to the zenith. Hallucinations are images that arise in a person without external influences on the senses. They also demonstrate to us that psychic reality is independent and relatively autonomous . home function of the psyche - regulation of individual behavior based on reflection of external reality and its correlation with human needs.

Mental reality is complex, but it can be conditionally divided into exopsyche, endopsyche and intropsyche. Exopsyche is that part of the human psyche that reflects the reality external to his body. For example, we consider the source visual images not our organ of vision, but objects of the external world. Endopsyche is a part of mental reality that reflects the state of our body. The endopsyche includes needs, emotions, feelings of comfort and discomfort. In this case, we consider our body to be the source of sensations. Sometimes exopsychic and endopsychic are difficult to distinguish, for example, the sensation of pain is endopsychic, although its source is a sharp knife or a hot iron, and the sensation of cold is undoubtedly exopsychic, signaling the external temperature, and not the temperature of our body, but it is often “affectively colored” so unpleasant that we attribute it to our own body (“hands are frozen”). But there is a large class of phenomena that differ from both endopsychic and exopsychic. These are intrapsychic phenomena. These include thoughts, volitional efforts, fantasies, dreams. They are difficult to attribute to certain states of the body, and it is impossible to consider external reality as their source. Intropsychic processes and phenomena can be considered “actually mental processes.”

Availability " mental life“- internal dialogues, experiences, reflections leave no doubt about the reality of the psyche. Its role is not limited to the regulation of momentary behavior, as W. James thought, but, obviously, is associated with determining a person’s holistic relationship to the world and finding his place in it. Ya. A. Ponomarev identifies two functions of the psyche in relation to the outside world: creativity (creation of a new reality) and adaptation (adaptation to the existing reality). The antithesis of creativity is destruction - the destruction of reality (culture) created by other people. The antithesis of adaptation is maladaptation in its various forms(neuroses, drug addiction, criminal behavior, etc.).

In relation to the behavior and activity of a person and other people, one should, following B.F. Lomov, distinguish three main functions of the psyche: cognitive (cognitive), regulatory and communicative; adaptation and creativity are possible only through the implementation of these functions.

The psyche serves a person to build an “internal model of the world”, which includes the individual in his interaction with the environment. Cognitive mental processes ensure the construction of an internal model of the world

Second most important function psyche - regulation of behavior and activities. The mental processes that ensure the regulation of behavior are very diverse and heterogeneous. Motivational processes provide the direction of behavior and the level of its activity. The processes of planning and goal setting ensure the creation of methods and strategies of behavior, setting goals based on motives and needs. Decision-making processes determine the choice of activity goals and means of achieving them. Emotions provide a reflection of our relationship to reality, the mechanism “ feedback"and regulation of internal state.

The third function of the human psyche is communication. Communication processes ensure the transfer of information from one person to another, the coordination of joint activities, and the establishment of relationships between people. Speech and nonverbal communication are the main processes that ensure communication. In this case, the main process, undoubtedly, should be considered speech, which is developed only in humans.

The psyche is very complex system, consisting of separate subsystems, its elements are hierarchically organized and very changeable. From the point of view of B.F. Lomov, systematicity, integrity, and indivisibility of the psyche are the main features. The concept of “mental functional system” is the development and application in psychology of the concept of “functional system”, introduced into scientific use by P.K. Anokhin. He used this concept to explain the implementation of integral behavioral acts by the body. From Anokhin’s point of view, any behavioral act is aimed at achieving a certain result, and the achievement of each result is ensured by a functional system - the unification of individual organs and processes of the body according to the principle of interaction to coordinate behavior aimed at achieving the goal.

Etymologically, the word “psyche” (Greek soul) has a dual meaning. One meaning carries the semantic load of the essence of a thing. The psyche is an entity where the externality and diversity of nature gathers into its unity, it is a virtual compression of nature, it is a reflection of the objective world in its connections and relationships.

Mental reflection is not a mirror, mechanically passive copying of the world (like a mirror or a camera), it is associated with a search, a choice; in mental reflection, incoming information is subjected to specific processing, i.e. mental reflection is an active reflection of the world in connection with some necessity, with needs, it is a subjective selective reflection of the objective world, since it always belongs to the subject, does not exist outside the subject, depends on subjective characteristics. Psyche is a “subjective image of the objective world”.

The psyche cannot be reduced simply to the nervous system. Mental properties are the result of neurophysiological activity of the brain, but they contain the characteristics of external objects, not internal ones. physiological processes, with the help of which the psychic arises. Signal transformations taking place in the brain are perceived by a person as events taking place outside him, in external space and the world. The brain secretes psyche, thought, just as the liver secretes bile. The disadvantage of this theory is that they identify the psyche with nervous processes and do not see the qualitative differences between them.

Mental phenomena are correlated not with a separate neurophysiological process, but with organized sets of such processes, i.e. psyche is a systemic quality of the brain, implemented through multi-level functional systems brain, which are formed in a person in the process of life and his mastery of historically established forms of activity and experience of mankind through his own active activity. Thus, specifically human qualities (consciousness, speech, work, etc.), the human psyche are formed in a person only during his lifetime, in the process of assimilating the culture created by previous generations. Thus, the human psyche includes at least three components: external world, nature, its reflection - full-fledged brain activity - interaction with people, active transmission to new generations of human culture, human abilities.

Mental reflection is characterized by a number of features:

• it makes it possible to correctly reflect the surrounding reality, and the correctness of the reflection is confirmed by practice;
• myself mental image formed in the process active work person;
• mental reflection deepens and improves;
• ensures the appropriateness of behavior and activity;
• refracted through a person’s individuality;
• is anticipatory.

Functions feelings and emotions. None psychological the phenomenon cannot be fully studied unless it is clearly defined... Otherwise, we can say that without experiences consciousness is impossible. Experience should be distinguished from the traditional psychological concept of experience, which means the direct presentation of mental contents to consciousness. Experience is presented as a special activity, a special work, carried out by external and internal actions, to reconstruct the psychological world, aimed at establishing a semantic correspondence between consciousness and being, the general goal of which is to increase the meaningfulness of life. The range of possible carriers of experiences includes many forms and levels of behavioral and psychological processes- this includes humor, sarcasm, irony, shame, violation of the constancy of perception, etc.

Any carrier of experience leads to the desired effect because it produces some changes in the psychological world of a person. However, to describe them it is necessary to create a concept of the psychological world, and every researcher who studies the processes of experience, wittingly or unwittingly, relies on an existing concept or creates a new one. Thus, we can identify five main paradigms for analyzing the technology of experience. In order to more clearly highlight the specificity of experience as a special mode of functioning of consciousness, it is necessary to name the two remaining combinatorial possibilities. When consciousness functions as an active Observer, grasping its own activity, i.e. Both the Observer and the Observed have an active, subjective nature; we are dealing with reflection. And finally, the last case - when both the Observer and the Observed are objects and, therefore, observation itself as such disappears - fixes the logical structure of the concept of the unconscious. From this point of view, widespread physicalist ideas about the unconscious as a place of silent interaction between psychological forces and things become clear. Typology of modes of functioning of consciousness

We do not have the opportunity to dwell on a detailed interpretation of this typology; it would take us too far from the main topic, especially since the main thing has already been achieved - a system of co- and oppositions has been formulated that define the basic meaning of the traditional psychological concept of experience.

As part of this general meaning most widespread in modern psychology received a version of this concept that limits experience to the sphere of subjectively significant. Experience is understood in its opposition to objective knowledge: experience is a special, subjective, biased reflection, and a reflection not of the surrounding objective world in itself, but of the world taken in relation to the subject, from the point of view of the opportunities provided by it (the world) to satisfy actual motives and needs of the subject. In this understanding, it is important for us to emphasize not what distinguishes experience from objective knowledge, but what unites them, namely, that experience is thought of here as a reflection, that we're talking about about experience-contemplation, and not about experience-activity, to which our study is devoted.

1. The fundamental property of the psyche is its active nature. The mental is generated in activity; on the other hand, activity itself is controlled by mental reflection. Mental reflection is anticipatory in nature: the mode of action, performing a regulatory function, is ahead of the action itself. Indeed, before doing something, a person does it in his mind, he builds an image of a future action.

2. The main way of existence of the psyche, from the point of view of S.L. Rubinstein, is its existence as a process. Mental phenomena arise and exist only in the process of continuous interaction of the individual with the world around him, the continuous influence of the external world on the individual and his response actions. However, the mental exists not only as a process, but as a result, a product of this process. The result of a mental process is a mental image, which is fixed in a word, that is, signified. Images and concepts are means of understanding the world; they record knowledge about the world. But they reflect not only knowledge about objects and phenomena, but also the subject’s attitude towards them; they also reflect their significance for a person, for his life and activity. Therefore, the image and concept are always emotionally colored. Every act of reflection is the introduction into action of new determinants of behavior, the emergence of new motives. Objects and phenomena, reflected in images and concepts, encourage a person to continuously interact with the world.

It can be argued that the holistic act of reflection of an object by the subject is the unity of such opposite sides as processivity and effectiveness, knowledge and attitude, the intellectual component (images and meanings) and the emotional and motivational.

3. Mental reflection has such a characteristic as partiality; it is always subjective, that is, mediated by the experience of the subject, his motives, knowledge, emotions, etc. All this constitutes internal conditions, which characterize the activity of the subject, his spontaneity mental activity. The mediation of external influences by internal conditions in the process mental reflection received the name of the principle of determinism, formulated by S.L. Rubinstein: external reasons act through internal conditions. This the most important moment was missed by the bnhevnornists, in their stimulus-response formula it is precisely the central link that is missing, that is, human consciousness, which determines the nature of human reactions to external influences.

Today it can hardly be denied that, along with the laws of the material world, there also exists the so-called subtle plane. The mental level is closely related to the energy structure of a person, which is why we have individual feelings, thoughts, desires, and moods. All emotional sphere personality is subject to the laws of the psyche and completely depends on its coordinated work.

A person with a healthy mental organization feels happy and quickly restores internal balance. He strives for self-realization, he has enough strength for new achievements and ideas. Anyone who lacks energy for activities that would bring him pleasure sometimes has a weak psyche, and he is often visited by a feeling of vulnerability, exposure to life, which every now and then throws new challenges at him. Self-confidence largely depends on mental processes and the emotional sphere.

The psyche is an amazing and mysterious system that allows him to interact with the surrounding reality. The inner world of a person is an extremely subtle immaterial substance that cannot be measured by the laws of the material world. Each person is unique, each person thinks and feels individually. This article examines the processes of mental reflection and their connection with the inner world of the individual. The material will be useful to all readers for the formation of general ideas about the human psyche.

Definition

Psychic reflection is special shape active interaction of an individual with the world, as a result of which new needs, views, ideas are formed, as well as choices are made. Each person is capable of modeling his own reality and reflecting it in artistic or any other images.

Process Features

Mental reflection is accompanied by a number of characteristic conditions, which are its specific manifestations.

Activity

The individual perceives the surrounding space not passively, but trying to influence it in a certain way. That is, each of us has our own ideas about how this world should be structured. As a result of mental reflection, a change in the consciousness of the individual occurs, access to new level understanding of reality. We are all constantly changing, improving, and not standing still.

Focus

Each person acts in accordance with the task at hand. No one will spend time doing something for nothing if it does not bring material or moral satisfaction. Mental reflection is characterized by awareness and a deliberate desire to transform existing reality.

Dynamism

The process called mental reflection tends to undergo significant changes over time. The conditions in which an individual operates change, and the approaches to transformation themselves change.

Uniqueness

We should not forget that each person has distinct individual characteristics, your own desires, needs and desire for development. In accordance with this circumstance, each person reflects mental reality in accordance with his individual character qualities. The inner world of a person is so diverse that it is impossible to approach everyone with the same standard.

Anticipatory character

By reflecting objects and phenomena of the surrounding world, an individual creates a kind of foundation for the future: he acts to attract better and more meaningful conditions into his life. That is, each of us always strives for useful and necessary progression.

Objectivity

Mental reflection, although characterized by subjectivity and individuality, still contains a set of certain parameters so that any such process is correct, complete and useful.

Features of mental reflection contribute to the formation of an adequate human perception of these processes.

Forms of mental reflection

It is traditional to distinguish several areas:

1. Sensory form. On at this stage there is a reflection of individual stimuli associated with the senses.

2. Perceptual form. It is reflected in the unconscious desire of the individual to fully reflect the system of stimuli as a whole.

3. Intelligent form. It is expressed in the appearance of a reflection of connections between objects.

Levels of psychic reflection

In modern psychological science there are several significant stages this process. All of them are necessary, none can be rejected or discarded.

Sensory-perceptual level

The first level is closely related to a person’s feelings; it is the basic one, on which others later begin to be built. This stage is characterized by constancy and transformation, that is, it gradually undergoes changes.

Presentation layer

The second level is closely related to imagination and creative abilities personality. Ideas arise in a person’s head when, based on existing images, as a result of certain mental actions, new models of the surrounding world and judgments are formed.

Such a phenomenon as creative activity, of course, in most cases depends on how developed the emotional-imaginative sphere is in a person. If an individual has strong artistic abilities, then he will develop his own ideas in accordance with how often and quickly new images will interact with existing ones.

Verbal-logical level

This level is characterized by the presence of a speech-thought process. It is known that a person’s ability to speak is closely related to thinking, as well as to other cognitive processes. It must be recognized that reflection at the conceptual level contributes to the development of rational cognition. Here, not just ideas about some phenomena or objects are formed, but entire systems arise that make it possible to build substantive connections and relationships. In the process of conceptual thinking, language is the main sign system, which is actively used to establish and maintain contact between people.

The highest form of mental reflection is, of course, human consciousness. It is the degree of its development, as well as motivation, that determines whether a person can independently move through life, take active steps to achieve his desires, and act purposefully.

Features of mental reflection. Reflection is inherent in all matter. The interaction of any material bodies leads to their mutual changes. This phenomenon can be observed in the field of mechanics, in all manifestations of electrical energy, in optics, etc. The fact that the psyche is a kind of reflection once again emphasizes its inextricable connection, unity with matter. However, mental reflection is qualitatively different; it has a number of special properties.

What characterizes the psyche as a reflection? The mental consciousness of a person is considered as a result of the reflective activity of the human brain, as a subjective reflection of the objective world. A comprehensive disclosure of the essence of the psyche as a reflection is given in the works of V. I. Lenin, and above all in his work “Materialism and Empirio-Criticism.” “Our sensations, our consciousness,” according to V.I. Lenin, “are only image the outside world..." 1 .

The psyche is not a dead, mirror image, but an active process. V.I. Lenin wrote: "Reflection nature in human thought must be understood not “deadly”, not “abstractly”, not without movement,not without controversy , and in the eternal process movement, the emergence of contradictions and their resolution" 2 . Lenin's theory of reflection is the philosophical basis of scientific psychology, as it provides a correct materialist understanding of the psyche as a process of subjective reflection of reality. If in inanimate nature an object reflecting influence is passive and only undergoes certain changes, then living beings have "independent reaction force" 3 , i.e. any impact takes on character interactions, which even at the lowest stages of mental development is expressed in adaptation (adaptation) to external influences and in one or another selectivity of responses.

The psyche is a reflection in which any external influence (i.e., the influence of objective reality) is always refracted through the mental state that exists in this moment in a specific living being. Therefore, the same external influence can be reflected differently different people and even by the same person different time and under various conditions. We constantly encounter this phenomenon in life, in particular in the process of teaching and raising children. Thus, all students in the class listen to the same explanation from the teacher, but learn the educational material in different ways; All schoolchildren are subject to the same requirements, but students perceive and fulfill them differently.

The refraction of external influences through the internal characteristics of a person depends on many circumstances: age, the achieved level of knowledge, previously established attitude towards this type of influence, the degree of activity and, most importantly, on the formed worldview.

Thus, the content of the psyche are images of real objects, phenomena, events that exist independently of us and outside of us (i.e., images of the objective world). But these images arise in each person in a unique way, depending on his past experience, interests, feelings, worldview, etc. That is why reflection is subjective. All this gives the right to say that psyche - subjective reflection of the objective world.

This feature of the psyche underlies such an important pedagogical principle as the need to take into account the age and individual characteristics of children in the process of their training and upbringing. Without taking into account these features, it is impossible to know how each child reflects the measures of pedagogical influence.

Psychic reflection - this is a true, true reflection. The emerging images are snapshots, casts, copies of existing objects, phenomena, events. The subjectivity of mental reflection in no way denies the objective possibility of correctly reflecting the real world.

Recognition of the correctness of mental reflection is of fundamental importance. It is this property that makes it possible for a person to understand the world, establish objective laws in it and their subsequent use in the theoretical and practical activities of people.

The correctness of the reflection is verified by socio-historical practice humanity. “For a materialist,” V.I. Lenin pointed out, “the “success” of human practice proves the correspondence of our ideas with the objective nature of the things that we perceive.” 1 . If we can foresee in advance when a solar or lunar eclipse will occur, if we can calculate in advance the flight orbit of an artificial Earth satellite or the carrying capacity of a ship, and subsequent practice will confirm the calculations made; if, having studied the child, we outline certain measures of pedagogical influence and, having applied them, obtain the desired result, then all this means that we have correctly learned the corresponding laws of cosmic mechanics, hydrodynamics, and child development.

An important feature of psychic reflection is that it carries anticipatory character("advanced reflection" - P.K. Anokhin;"anticipatory reaction" - N. A. Bernshtein).

The anticipatory nature of mental reflection is the result of the accumulation and consolidation of experience. It is in the process of repeatedly reflecting certain situations that a model of future reaction gradually develops. As soon as a living creature finds itself in a similar position, the very first impacts trigger the entire response system.

So, mental reflection is an active, multi-act process, during which external influences are refracted through the internal characteristics of the one who reflects, and therefore the psyche is a subjective reflection of the objective world.

The psyche is a correct, true reflection of the world, verified and confirmed by socio-historical practice. Mental reflection is anticipatory in nature.

All these features of mental reflection lead to the fact that the psyche acts as behavior regulator living organisms.

The listed features of mental reflection are, to one degree or another, inherent in all living beings, but the highest level of mental development - consciousness - is characteristic only of humans. In order to understand how human consciousness arose and what its main features are, we should consider the development of the psyche in the process of animal evolution.

Patterns of internal mental activity

2.1. The concept of the psyche

2.1.1. Features of mental reflection

2.1.2. Structure and functions of the psyche

2.1.3. Psyche and features of the brain structure

In order for a manager to successfully influence the psyche of his employees with a view to its development, he needs to rely on individual experience (empirically acquired knowledge about the psyche) and knowledge of psychology. Psychology as a science studies the human psyche.

Psyche- this is a person’s subjective reflection of objects and phenomena of objective reality, which is a function of the brain.

Psychology is guided by the following principles:

· human psyche - superior product development of matter, brain function;

· mental processes are subjective images of objective reality;

· personality and human activity are in unity, the psyche is manifested and formed in activity;

· the most important aspects of the human psyche are socially conditioned;

External influences influence a person through his inner world ( mental states, experience, qualities, etc.).

These provisions follow from the theory of reflection, which forms the core modern theory knowledge.

Mental reflection is not a mirror, mechanical, passive copying of the world; it is associated with search and choice. Incoming information is subjected to specific processing in connection with some necessity or needs. Mental reflection is subjective, since it belongs to the subject and depends on his subjective characteristics.

However, the psyche cannot be reduced simply to the properties of the nervous system. Although the brain is an organ whose activity determines the psyche, the content of this psyche is not produced by the brain itself, its source is the external world.

Mental properties are the result of neurophysiological activity of the brain. The transformation of signals taking place in the brain is perceived by a person as a set of events in external space and the world as a whole. The great Russian physiologist I.M. Sechenov proved that the basis of everything mental is a reflex act.

The great Russian scientist-physiologist I.P. Pavlov created the doctrine of higher nervous activity (HNA), identified four types of HNA and substantiated it experimentally. He developed new principles of physiological research, which ensured knowledge of the activity of the organism as a single whole, located in unity and constant interaction with the environment.

The human psyche is not given in finished form to a person from the moment of birth and does not develop on its own. Only in the process of communication and interaction of a person with other people, in the process of his assimilation of the culture created by previous generations, does he develop a human psyche and specifically human qualities (consciousness, speech, work, etc.). Otherwise, nothing human appears either in behavior or in the psyche (the Mowgli phenomenon).

The psyche includes at least three components:

· the outside world, nature, its reflection;

· full brain activity;

· active transfer of human culture and human abilities to new generations.

Expedited mental development people contributed to three major achievements of humanity:

1) invention of tools;

2) production of objects of material and spiritual culture;

3) the emergence of language and speech.

Mental reflection is characterized by a number of features:

· it makes it possible to correctly reflect the surrounding reality, and the correctness of the reflection is confirmed by practice;

· the mental image itself is formed in the process of active human activity;

· mental reflection deepens and improves;

· ensures the integrity of behavior and activities;

· refracted through a person’s individuality;

· is anticipatory in nature.