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p For scientific psychology the point of departure in studying the nature and development of the mind is the proposition that the mental is a reflection and that it emerged in the process of development of the organic world as a property of highly organised matter. Any organic body, whether of a simple or complex structure, is characterised by an ability to react in a certain manner to external influences. The ability of organic bodies to respond by certain reactions to influences, i.e., irritability, emerged as a necessary condition for carrying out the main process of life—metabolism. Physiologic regularities distinguish this type of reactions from the simpler physicochemical reactions observed in inanimate nature. Irritability manifests an ability to react independently and in a certain sense actively.

p At the lowest stages of development of the animal world, under conditions of a homogeneous environment, adaptational reactions arise in response to external influences of direct biological significance, and it is irritability that reflects these external stimuli.

p Complication of the conditions of existence and the presence of such properties of things and phenomena in the surrounding world, which of themselves neither help nor hinder the vital activities of organisms, have rendered the existence of reflection only in this form insufficient. Since the influences, which are of themselves indifferent, are actually stably connected with the vitally important influences there arises an objective necessity to distinguish that which is important for the organism from that which is unimportant and correspondingly to react to the indifferent external influences. A new form of reflecting reality, 202 which differs from simple irritability, i.e., mental reflection, arises.

p The elaboration of the problems of emergence and development of the mind is connected with the elucidation of the criterion, the main characteristic, which distinguishes the mind from the other forms of reflection.

p The point of departure in the solution of this problem is the recognition of the fact that the organism is always bound to the conditions of existence and that the existence of all bonds with the external world is justified by the fact that these bonds serve the purpose of “equilibrating the organism with its environment" (I. P. Pavlov). This is the biological purport of these bonds and their role in the vital activities of the animals.

p Pavlov made, as is well known, a fundamental distinction between unconditioned and conditioned reflexes. This naturally gave rise to the question of the relations of the unconditioned and conditioned reflex connections of the organism to the environment and the mental reflection.

p There is no single opinion of whether or not an unconditioned reflex is a form of mental reflection of reality.

p From the point of view of Pavlovian physiology the criterion of the mental, in other words, the mechanism of emergence of a mental reflection in all its forms is the conditioned reflex. Pavlov stated openly that precisely the conditioned reflex is simultaneously a physiological and mental phenomenon.

p In the conditioned reflex it is necessary to see primarily only a fundamental mechanism of the mind precisely because it is a specific mechanism of signalling relations.

p A. N. Leontyev’s works contain a psychological characterisation of the signalling significance of the mind. He defines sensitivity—the elementary mental phenomenon— as follows: “Sensitivity (ability for sensation) is genetically nothing but irritability with regard to such influences of the environment which correlate the organism with other influences, namely, orient the organism in the environment by performing a signalling function. The necessity for emergence of this form of irritability consists in the fact that it mediates the main vital processes of the organism now operating under more complex environmental conditions (1).

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p The signalling function of the mental was also noted by other investigators.

p The definition of the mental conditioned-reflex mechanism and its signalling function provides the right direction for concrete experimental studies of the question as to the stage of development of the animal world at which this new form of reflection arises. Wherever it is possible to establish emergence of signalling connections with the environment there are reasons to speak of emergence of mental reflection. Precise determination of the rung in the evolutionary ladder on which the ability of the organism to establish signalling connections with the environment arises is a matter of further studies, and the present controversies concerning this question may be settled only experimentally, whereas the fundamental aspect of this question has been very clearly given in Pavlov’s theory which offers a key to understanding the mental—both in its emergence in the process of evolution of the organic world and in the process of its further development as the conditions of existence and structure of animal organisms grew more complex.

p The question of correlation between the principle of temporariness and conditioned reflex activity, on the one hand, and the question of the nature of the conditioned reflex itself and its correlation with the unconditioned reflex, on the other hand, have a direct bearing on the questions under consideration. Thus in stating the proposition that the principle of temporary connection is a broader concept than its highest expression in the form of a conditioned reflex K. M. Bykov arrives at the conclusion that temporary connections as a general principle of the organism’s interaction with the environment are widespread in the animal and even the vegetable world. According to Bykov, only the highest form of temporary connection, which is the conditioned reflex, combines with the mental act of sensation (2). Attaching extensive importance to the concept of temporary connection Bykov severs this principle from the principle of signalling which is indissolubly connected with it. From Bykov’s point of view the principle of temporary connection is universal, and all reflexes, including unconditioned reflexes, form according to its laws. On the basis of such a concept of correlation of temporary connections, conditioned and unconditioned 204 reflexes, it is impossible to indicate a criterion of emergence of mental reflection.

p It is well known that conditioned reflexes arise in animals which do not have a cerebral cortex. The coupling function in this case is performed by less complexly organised parts of the central nervous system. If we agree with Bykov that the mechanism of temporary connection has reached the stage of development where its formation began to be accompanied by subjective manifestations only in the higher animals, it is necessary to show the difference between conditioned reflexes possessing the property of having subjective manifestations and conditioned reflexes which do not possess this property. What is in this case the specific physiologic regularity of forming conditioned reflexes which accounts for the emergence of a specific form of reflection? On the basis of what principles is it possible to distinguish in the external influences the stimuli which are reflected in the form of mental phenomena and the stimuli with which the organism enters into temporary relations, but the action of which is not accompanied by emergence of the mental? On the basis of this point of view these questions are difficult to answer.

p Of considerable interest for characterisation of the relations of reflex activity to mental reflection is E. A. Asratyan’s conception of the conditioned-reflex arc. According to Asratyan “the conditioned-reflex connection is coupled between the nerve cells of the cortical branches of the unconditioned-reflex arc and the arc of the so-called orienting reflex, i.e., between the cortical branches of the arcs of two unconditioned reflexes. A conditioned reflex of the first order is a synthesis of two or more different unconditioned reflexes ...” (3).

p Asratyan proceeds from the fact that the orienting reflex is also but an unconditoned reflex. Other investigators indicate that the orienting reflex resembles both an unconditioned and conditioned reflexes. It may arise in response to non-signalling, as well as to signalling stimuli. The orienting reflex in response to a non-signalling stimulus also possesses certain features of the conditioned reflex. For example, when not reinforced it is inhibited.

p The following objection concerning the role of the orienting reflex in the emergence of the conditioned reflex has been made to Asratyan’s propositions: if we assume 205 that the orienting reflex is a component of the conditioned reflex, how should we explain the emergence and strengthening of the conditioned reflex during complete inhibition or considerable weakening of the orienting reflex? The correlation between conditioned and orienting reflexes is apparently more complex.

p An interesting attempt at characterising the correlations was made by Y. N. Sokolov. According to Sokolov, both the conditioned stimulus and the response reactions have special, as well as orienting, mechanisms. He suggests that in the elaboration of the temporary connection we should separate the emergence of the orienting reaction from that of the special conditioned reflex. The latter arises in response to special properties of the conditioned stimulus. The role of the orienting reflex is appropriately to tune the analysers for better perception of stimuli and generally to excite the cortex in order to form conditioned reflex connections. Sokolov writes: “If each stimulus is conceived as a complex of specific and non-specific components, the specific components being the agent of the orienting reflex, it is clear that in the formation of the conditioned reflex the action of each stimulus is made up of a special component which stimulates the conditioned reflex and a nonspecific component which evokes the orienting reaction" (4). This proposition is of fundamental importance.

p The emergence of mental reflection is apparently connected with the characteristics of the stimuli which take upon themselves the performance of the signalling function. The unconditioned-reflex mechanisms of the reactions to external influences play an exceptionally important role in tuning the analysers for better perception of the stimuli. This role is played by the orienting, adaptational and defence unconditioned reflexes. In the case of the defence reflex this influence affects the regulation of the strength and duration of the action of the stimuli on the organism. The general biological function of the defence reflex is to safeguard the organism against destructive, unfavourable action of external stimuli. An active or passive elimination of an unfavourable stimulus or a reduction in the strength of its influence contributes to the best realisation of the organism’s temporary connections with the environment. Moreover, the defence reflex may itself be elaborated in a conditioned reflex way. Thus the defence activity of the 206 organism is organically incorporated into the realisation of conditioned-reflex connections.

p In addition to the general tuning of the organism for the best perception of external influences in the form of orienting and defence reflexes various organs possess the ability to regulate the connection of the organism with certain stimuli. This ability manifests itself in formation of adaptational reflexes which help to tune the analysers for a corresponding quality and strength of the stimuli.

p In carrying out defensive activity and in the emergence of the adaptational and orienting reflexes it is very important what function the stimulus performs, i.e., whether it plays the role of an unconditioned stimulus or is a signalling conditioned-reflex influence. Thus Sokolov’s studies show that signalling stimuli strengthen the orienting reaction. Orientation by means of mental reflection is apparently carried out precisely during establishment of the organism’s connections with signalling stimuli, whereas special unconditioned reflex activities connected with excitation of receptors contribute to the best perception of these conditioned-reflex influences.

p In appraising the functional significance of the stimulus for the purpose of concluding whether there is any mental reflection in a particular case it should be remembered that this significance cannot be unqualifiedly attached to certain objects and phenomena because, on the one hand, any unconditioned stimulus may under certain conditions become a conditioned stimulus for other activity and, on the other hand, with a change in intensity a signalling stimulus may also evoke unconditioned reflexes (adaptational reflexes, defence reflexes, etc.).

p Moreover, for every species of animal there are certain phenomena which more easily than other phenomena cause conditioned-reflex activity. Pavlov called these phenomena natural conditioned stimuli and the reflexes formed in response to them—natural conditioned reflexes. As the experiments conducted by D. A. Biryukov and his associates have shown, a splash of water, a snapping of twigs, and a rustle of leaves are for the duck, beaver and rabbit, respectively, adequate stimuli which more easily than other stimuli cause formation of conditioned reflexes (5). In animals of corresponding species these adequate stimuli form stable orienting reflexes. The vital importance of these stimuli 207 accounts for the ease with which reflexes are formed in response to them. These influences are of a signalling significance for the organisms, although they often resemble unconditioned-reflex stimuli, while the behaviour resembles conditioned-reflex behaviour. Mental processes are the form of reflection also of these adequate stimuli; the complexity of these mental processes depends both on the character of the external influences themselves and on the rung of the phylogenetic ladder which the particular species of animal occupies.

p Hence, the emergence of mental reflection is connected with the activity of the organism carried out in response to the stimuli which assume a signalling significance. The mind as a specific form of reflection appears on the basis of biological reflection in the form of irritability. Special organs emerged in the process of development of animal organisms; these organs acquired an ability to become excited only under the action of peculiar external stimuli— specific irritability of the sense organs made its appearance.

p A certain specialisation of irritability evoked by altered conditions of existence arose as a condition and result of the reaction to indifferent external influences. Specific irritability which qualitatively does not differ from irritability in response to biologically important influences gave rise to the signalling function of reflection. The qualitative similarity of the two forms of irritability is attested by the scientifically established fact of emergence of distant sensitivity, which mainly perceives the signalling stimuli from contact sensitivity which serves primarily to effect the constant connections with the vitally important external influences. The specific irritability of the sense organs, which emerged from the general irritability of the entire organism, is the mechanism of perception of signalling stimuli. The signalling role of this irritability, connected with reflection not only of the influence of a stimulus, which is in itself indifferent, but also of its connection with a biologically important influence, distinguishes the new form of reflection from irritability. The very reflection of an indifferent stimulus is possible only inasmuch as it is included in the process of the organism’s vital activities through signalling biologically important influences.

p Further elaboration of the psychological aspect of the 208 reflex theory of cerebral activity has become one of the most important problems of psychological science. The theoretical and experimental studies conducted by B. G. Ananyev, Y. I. Boiko, L. M. Wekker, A. N. Leontyev, B. F. Lomov, A. R. Luriya, S. L. Rubinstein, Y. N. Sokolov, A. A. Smirnov, B. M. Teplov and many other psychologists are developing the reflex conception of the mental. At the same time these studies have given rise to theoretical problems which are still awaiting their solution. Since it is impossible to touch in one article upon all problems connected with the development of the psychological aspect of the reflex theory of the mental, we shall dwell mainly on problems of sensuous cognition and the regulatory role of the mind.

p The choice of these problems is in large measure dictated by the fact that precisely as a result of their elaboration a considerable part of new experimental data has been received in recent years. Many of the new facts deal with the activity of the analysers, perception of external stimuli and formation of sensory images. In the first place they make it possible to ascertain the conceptions of the mechanisms and nature of sensory reflection.

p A new conception of the activity of analysers is being formed. According to this conception the action of a stimulus on an analyser is a complex process involving a series of interacting reflex acts.

p The newly-elaborated concept of two ways of conduction of excitation—specific and non-specific—is very essential. The former is connected with transmission of special information (visual, auditory, etc.) to the cortex along pathways specific for each receptor; this information ensures fine discrimination of the properties of objects. The latter runs through the reticular system and serves to transmit tonic, activating influences to the cortex. Unlike the impulses transmitted along a specific way of conduction of excitation, the impulses coming to the reticular system do not transmit special information, but regulate the excitability of cortical cells.

p It follows that by participating in the acts of perception an analyser acts as a single whole only in case of interaction of the specific and non-specific systems of excitation.

p The conception of the analyser as an afferent-efferent system whose activity clearly exhibits the reflex principle 209 is also new. The reception of the stimulus is in itself a reflex process in which the receptors also perform the functions of effectors. Efferent fibres running from the centres to the receptors have been discovered in all sense organs. The action of an external stimulus on a receptor leads to inclusion of the central cortical apparatus, and its impulses alter the excitation of the receptors. The data furnished by many modern investigators (Y. G. ShkolnikYarros, A. M. Greenstein, Davis, Tasaki, Goldstein, Granit, D. G. Kvasov, Y. N. Sokolov and others) have been added to the facts discovered by R. Kajal and V. M. Bekhterev. The influence of the central nervous system on the receptors is exerted, first, through the effector fibres which form part of sensory nerves, secondly, through the muscular apparatus of the receptors, and, lastly, through the vegetative nervous system.

p The reflex regulation of a receptor by the central parts of the nervous system takes place as a function of continuously acting feedback. Feedback acts both in the specific and non-specific ways of conduction of excitation. The activating influence on a receptor of the reticular system leads to a lowering of the threshold of excitation and an increase in lability. The feedback between the reticular system and the cortex maintains a certain level of excitation on which the dynamics of the special information reaching the cortex come into play.

p Thus we do not have to oppose the reflex activity of the cortex to the activity of the reticular system. Each of them doing its part, they unite in perceiving and processing the external influences which reach the analysers.

p Perception, as reflex activity, is a most complex system of unconditioned and conditioned reflexes specific for each receptor with complex dynamic relations arising within this system. The analysers may be regarded as selfregulating systems which act reflexly and which, by transforming and transmitting signals from the periphery to the centre, so tune themselves as to be able better to select the information coming from the external world. The action of a stimulus on a receptor gives rise to reflex reorganisation of the entire analyser, and the subsequent perception of the stimulus changes in virtue of the change in the activity of the analyser (6).

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p Systems of analysers, whose natural connections were established in the course of the individual’s life and arcin certain measure prepared for it phylogenctically, take part in perception.

p A suggestion has been made (A. N. Leontyev [7]) that the cerebral mechanisms of the mental faculties and functions historically formed in man are the physiologic organs of the brain—stable reflex structures or systems which perform new functions—forming in the process of ontogenesis. Their formation becomes one of the most important principles of the ontogenesis. They function as a single organ and their functions assume the character of acts which express a special ability, like the ability of analytical perception of spatial relations and logical synthesis. These functional systems form by making conditioned reflex connections, but entering into special functional structures these connections exhibit special dynamics. The system of pitch hearing may serve as an example of such integral systems which underlie the functions that appear as elementary mental faculties.

p An attempt to trace the formation of sensory images was made in the experimental studies conducted by B. G. Ananyev, L. M. Wekker, B. F. Lomov, Y. N. Sokolov and others.

p The decisive role in forming an integral image of an object is played by the stable interaction of various analysers established in the process of man’s cognitive activity through formation of systems of conditioned reflex connections.

p The materials of the above studies show that an integral image of an object is a product of a complex system of reflex acts and that only the aggregate of the reflex acts following each other, caused by the action of the object on the receptors and effecting the analysis and synthesis, differentiation and generalisation of the stimuli form a sensation. An image is an aggregate of successively performed reflex acts associated with each other and locking into a single whole with the result that the thing appears to us simultaneously in the multiformity of its aspects and properties.

p The construction, for example, of a visual or tactile image may be compared not with fixing an image on a photographic plate, but with construction of an image in a 211 TV set where the cathode ray, scanning the image, successively sends electric impulses.

p Studies of the actual course of reflex activity of the brain show how mental phenomena—sensations, sensory images—arise in the process of this activity. It is mental activity because objects are reflected in its course; it is at the same time nervous activity of a material organ— the brain—governed by all the laws of the dynamics of nervous processes. The external influence cannot be considered only an impetus which starts off the reflex mechanism. A general characteristic of the studies of the work of the analysers comes to the fore; these studies reveal continuous interaction of the analyser and the stimulus, the uninterrupted connection between the mental reflection and the reflected object, the connection which is effected in the systems of multiple reflexes.

p Facts attest that the scheme of one reflex arc does not hold both the construction of the object’s image and man’s objective action. At the same time there arises the question of the correlation of these systems of reflexes in the perceiving part of the reflex process, i.e., construction of sensory images, and further in the executive part of the reflex process—in the regulation of actions.

p Attempts to gain an understanding of these systems of reflexes lead to a confusion in their designation: for the correlation of various reflexes concepts of big and small arcs, reflex arcs and circles, and specific reflex acts are used, a new, fourth link is added to the well-known concept of trinomial reflex, imperfect reflexes are mentioned, etc. But the thing is not only that the correlation of systems of reflexes is differently conceived, but also that in connection with this the correlation between the perceiving and executive parts of the reflex process is interpreted differently, and this alters the conception of determination of the mental and determination of man’s actions.

p If response activity is conceived as an act of behaviour, a more or less complex human action, its connection with the initial influence is a most complex system of numerous interacting and coordinative reflex acts, both conditioned and unconditioned. Reflex activity is directed by the object of reflection which determines the course of the reflex process. The activity of the analysers cannot therefore be reduced to activity according to an internal circle which 212 couples the periphery and the centre. The concept of the circle may be used to characterise the processes operating in the nervous system during perception of external influences only providing the circular movement of excitation begins with the influence exerted by the object on man and locks on the object, the object sending ever new influences to the receptor. The result of this continuous interaction with the object is the construction of the image which performs the regulatory function with respect to the executive part of the reflex process. The process ends in action directed toward the object, the action changing the relation between the subject and the object.

p According to certain opinion, the sensory image, the tactile in particular, must be regarded as an effect of reflex activity of the analyser apparatus. In this case the regulatory role of the image with regard to the executive reflex effects which carry out the action is not denied, but this regulation is reduced to interaction of two reflex effects. The regulatory influence of the image is conceived as a specific case of general principles in interaction of reflex effects similar to the transfer and interference of skills, transfer of motor effects from one motor organ to another. The interaction of the image, as a reflex effect, and the action, as an executive effect, rests, according to the advocates of this view, on the community of the motor components of these effects. Thus a new interpretation of the reflex links is given since the effector link usually implied the movement of the working organ, whereas in this case it is a question of mental phenomena.

p The proposition that the image is a reflex effect rests on data that the analyser is a system functioning according to the feedback principle, i.e., a system in which its own reflex arcs lock. Modern studies attest that the receptor is itself an effector, in which case the proposition that the sensory image is a reflex effect of analyser arcs makes the receptor acting as an effector the direct substrate of the image, i.e, ascribes the image to the periphery. With such conception of the image of the object the connection of this image with man’s objective activity, his practical activity, is lost. Yet the proposition that the correctness of an object’s reflection is tested in the practice of man’s actions with this object is of paramount methodological importance. Sechenov’s characterisation of an image 213 included the muscle sense which reflects the terminal link of the reflex process—man’s action with the object. Such an inclusion by Sechenov was possible only because he conceived the formation of the object’s image in “series of successive reflexes" and did not consider it possible to isolate the central link of the reflex from its beginning and its end. This thesis is still valid. The view that the image is a reflex effect of the analyser apparatus also ignores the central link—the analytical and synthetic activity of the brain. At the same time the likening of the image interaction, as a reflex effect, to such interaction of the executive effects as the transfer of skills erases the qualitative peculiarity of the regulatory role of the image as a reflection of the objective world.

p Like sensation and perception, thinking is effected in the process of reflex activity of the brain. Its specificity consists in the fact that it is a result of interaction of a thinking person not only with directly sensuously perceived reality, but also with the socially elaborated system of knowledge objectivised in the word. The knowledge acquired by an individual is incorporated into his thinking process and continuously functions in him. The entire thinking process is thus socially conditioned. The neurological bases of the thinking process have been less fully disclosed than the physiological regularities of sensory cognition. But what has been revealed attests the reflex character of the activity of the brain which engenders thought.

p In addition to the objective character of reflection revealed by the reflex theory, very important for understanding mental phenomena are the characteristics of their regulatory function which they perform in virtue of the fact that they reflect the objective world.

p A large group of new facts pertains to afferentation of movements. In the scheme, which was outlined by Sechenov’s daring thought aimed into the future, one of the essential propositions was the “principle of coordination of movements with sensation" (10). In connection with this Sechenov specially distinguished the role of muscular sensations as signals of man’s own movements and actions, labour actions in particular. Muscular sensations, representing the end of the reflex in the consciousness, reflecting the motor part of the reflex, connect in the series of reflexes the end of one reflex with the beginning of another.

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p The capital fact of afferentation of movement by sensation was experimentally substantiated by Pavlov who suggested the idea that the construction of a movement, a response reaction of the organism, is effected in the cortex as “the afferent part of the nervous system, as the organ of sensitivity”. He noted that the effected movements send impulses to the kinaesthetic cells of the cortex, the stimulation of these cells actively producing these movements (9).

p Further elaboration of this idea resulted in the conception of return afferentation which continuously, in the course of movement, comes from the periphery to the centre where the information thus received is analysed. Much more is now known about the role of the perception of reinforcement and the organism’s own reactions in the conditioned reflexes. An afferent signal arising as a result of reflex action, sent back to the centre, influences the subsequent course of reflex acts. P. K. Anokhin deems it justified to speak of the existence of a cortical apparatus which performs the function of appraising the results of any reflex act—an acceptor of action forming under the influence of past actions.

p The idea of continuous sensory corrections, owing to which movement becomes controlled, underlies the “ physiology of the activity" trend (11). The fact that the physiology 6f movement develops into the physiology of activity signifies the transition from the studies of the biomechanics of the motor apparatus to the problem of the organism’s active interaction with the surrounding world. The first question is that of the regulation and central control of the movements effected by means of feedback, of the dynamic relations arising in the motor act and its structural connectedness and integrity. All these questions connecting the physiology of higher nervous activity and psychology with cybernetics have been raised because of the numerous experimental data attesting the corrective role of “sensory syntheses" in the course of the motor act (12).

p Movements are defined as purposive acts in which the organism not merely interacts with the environment, but actively influences it in the direction it needs. The movements become controlled and answering the purpose because the sensory apparatus of the motor organs 215 continuously signal about the course of the motor act, watch it and control it.

p In its search of the determinant of the structure of the motor act “physiology of activity" arrives at the fact that the only standard—determinant of the programme of motor activity, of its realisation and correction, according to feedback, may be a motor task formed and in some manner reflected in the brain. It creates an image of that which is not, but which must become, since only an elucidated image of the required future may serve as the basis for putting into shape and programming an action.

p Investigation of voluntary motor acts conducted from the standpoint of “physiology of activity" leads to the conclusion that their realisation is connected, first, with the necessity of perceiving the conditions of the action and its appraisal in correlation with the individual himself included in it, which leads to the emergence of a motor task that contains the determination of what is to be done. Secondly, realisation of motor acts is connected with a continuous sensory reflection of the correlation between the action and the object at which this action is aimed.

p Like the studies of sensory reflective activity, the studies of motor acts lead to the conclusion that the individual continuously and actively interacts with the object. The regulatory function of the mental is a necessary condition of the adequacy of objective action and the quality of the object at which it is aimed.

p The facts at the disposal of the investigators of physiology of movements confirm the correctness of the conception of the essence of the mental as a reflection of reality, and of its role as a regulator of actions, and we consider this the main proposition of the reflex conception of the mental.

p The problem of using the psychological concept of image to characterise the leading factor of the motor act and of directing the efforts towards revealing the physiological aspect of this leading factor and examining them in the unity of the processes of programming and coordinating movements coincides with the problem raised by the reflex theory of the mental, which rests on the Leninist theory of reflection, namely, of disclosing the forms of regulation of behaviour by different forms of reflection of reality.

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p And yet the representatives of “physiology of activity" themselves sharply oppose their trend to the reflex theory. They object to the reflex theory as presumably an “ atomistic" theory which fails to consider the integrity of the organism. Arranging the actions accessible to the organism of animals and man in the order of growing complexity they ascribe all reflexes to the end where are the least complex of these actions. Moreover, using the term “reflex” they limit it only to physiology and put a content into it that differs from the content of the Pavlovian concept of the conditioned reflex as a phenomenon at once physiological and mental. The concept of reflex in “physiology of activity" retains the significance which it had in pre- Sechenov’s physiology and which is still used by modern WestEuropean physiology.

p One of the immediate problems of studying both the physiological and mental aspects of higher nervous activity is to investigate the mechanisms and processes that ensure different levels of regulation of human activity.

p One of the problems of psychological research is concretely to link the study of various forms of reflection of the world with man’s actions differing as to the level of regulation. For example, such actions of different levels as locomotion, making something in accordance with a certain model, an act of behaviour which not only produces some objective effect, but also has certain social content expressing the relation of a person to other people—all these actions of different levels, including the second-signal speech level, also presuppose different mental processes for their regulation. Afferentation, first of movements, then of actions, and, lastly, of acts of behaviour, incorporates, beginning with the sensory properties of the given object, the whole series of generalisations resulting from human knowledge all the way to socially important ideas which mobilise people in their social activity.

p REFERENCES

p 1. Anokhin P. K. Basic Problems in the Study of Higher Nervous Activity. Sbornik: Problemy vysshei nervnoi deyatelnosti, Moscow, 1955; Characteristics of the Afferent Apparatus of the Conditioned Reflex and Its Importance to Psychology, Voprosy psikhologii No. 6, 1955.

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p 2. Asratyan E. A. Concerning the Problem of the Physiology of Temporary Connections, “Pavlov”s Theory and Philosophical Problems of Psychology”, Sbornik statei. Izd. Akadcmii Nauk SSSR, Moscow, 1952, p. 151.

p 3. Bernstein N. A. Trends and Problems of Physiological Activity. Voprosy filosofli, No. 6, 1961; Urgent Problems of Physiological Activity, Problemy kibernetiki, No. 6, 1961.

p 4. Bernstein N. A. Some Urgent Problems of Regulation of Motor Acts, Voprosy psikholoyii, No. 6, 1958.

p 5. Biryukou D. A. Comparing the Physiology and Pathology of Conditioned Reflexes. “Transactions of 15th Conference on Problems of Higher Nervous Activity, Dedicated to the 50th Anniversary of Pavlov’s Theory of Conditioned Reflexes”. Izd. Akademii Nauk SSSR, Moscow-Leningrad, 1952.

p 6. Bykou K. M. Theory of Conditioned Reflexes and the Reflex Theory. Fiziologichesky Zhurnal SSSR, torn XXXVI, No. 4, Izd. Akademii Nauk SSSR, 1950.

p 7. Leontyev A. N. Problems of Mental Development, Izd. Akademii Pedagogicheskikh Nauk RSFSR, Moscow, 1959.

p 8. Leontyev A. N. Concerning the Historical Approach to the Study of the Psychology of Man, Psikhologicheskaya Nauka v SSSR, Moscow, 1959.

p 9. Pavlov I. P. Complete Works, Vol. Ill, book 2, pp. 104-05.

p 10. Sechenov I. M. Physiology of the Nervous Centres, Moscow, 1952, p. 27.

p 11. Sokolov Y. N. Perception and the Conditioned Reflex, Moscow, 1958, p. 291.

12. Sokolov Y. N. Perception and the Conditioned Reflex, Moscow, 1959.