Working paper
Event-related Potentials as Correlates of Attentional Resource Allocation in Dependence on Individual Differences
It is well known, that even in optimal conditions animals and humans make spontaneous errors which are the most prominent manifestations of attention system failures. Our goal was to investigate the causes of attention system failures in normal state of arousal and without distracting objects. We have designed a new task which allows to answer the following question: which stage of sensory processing is compromised during attention lapses?
This article advances the idea of cultural and individual values being connected to each other not directly, but through the consciousness and activity, which presupposes the integral unity of cultural-historic methodological approach and the activity methodological approach in psychological researches. Activity effects mainly on forming of the consciousness and personality: it underlies them. In the cultural-historic approach such basis, in a way, a unit of analysis of consciousness and personality, is a value-oriented experience. The necessity of integration of the activity approach with cultural-historic approach lies in the integral ontology of psyche, behavior, activity, experience, sense, consciousness, personality, culture and its values.
The aim of the study was to investigate the influence of individual temperament traits on selective auditory attention. The subjects performed auditory selective attention task during 3 experimental sessions. Task performance indexes of each session were found to correlate with the dimensions of temperament, subjects' academic achievement and their level of musical education. The results were interpreted from the viewpoint of Kahneman’s Capacity Model of Attention. It was concluded that temperament affects activation and arousal which are viewed as a physiological basis of attention. It was also summarized that during the experiment automation of auditory selection, depending on individual differences, occurred.
The distractive effects on attentional task performance in different paradigms are analyzed in this paper. I demonstrate how distractors may negatively affect (interference effect), positively (redundancy effect) or neutrally (null effect). Distractor effects described in literature are classified in accordance with their hypothetical source. The general rule of the theory is also introduced. It contains the formal prediction of the particular distractor effect, based on entropy and redundancy measures from the mathematical theory of communication (Shannon, 1948). Single- vs dual-process frameworks are considered for hypothetical mechanisms which underpin the distractor effects. Distractor profiles (DPs) are also introduced for the formalization and simple visualization of experimental data concerning the distractor effects. Typical shapes of DPs and their interpretations are discussed with examples from three frequently cited experiments. Finally, the paper introduces hierarchical hypothesis that states the level-fashion modulating interrelations between distractor effects of different classes.
It analyses polysemantic terms the subject, the personality, the selfhood and which form sincrets for example subjectivity of selfhood and etc. It reconstructs interpretation of these terms by G.G. Shpet, S.L. Rubinshtein, B.M. Teplov, A.N. Leontiev, etc. It affirms that the main theme of psychological investigation is the personality. On the ontological plane we have two ways of personality: down - to the subject - to a function or to collection of functions, to subject; and up - to the selfhood - to an ideal, to the limit of self-construction, to spirituality and freedom.
Distractor's effect (stimulus which is irrelevant at a certain moment and ignored) on task solving efficiency is considered. It is revealed that according to problem situation and connection with target stimulus any distractor can produce two opposite effects: negative - interference and positive - redundancy effect. Distractor effects' classification based on one of possible grounds - distractor's source: sensory inputs effects, hierarchical effects and correlational effects is given. Possibility of level-hierarchical relation between the three classes of effects is discussed.
Institutions affect investment decisions, including investments in human capital. Hence institutions are relevant for the allocation of talent. Good market-supporting institutions attract talent to productive value-creating activities, whereas poor ones raise the appeal of rent-seeking. We propose a theoretical model that predicts that more talented individuals are particularly sensitive in their career choices to the quality of institutions, and test these predictions on a sample of around 95 countries of the world. We find a strong positive association between the quality of institutions and graduation of college and university students in science, and an even stronger negative correlation with graduation in law. Our findings are robust to various specifications of empirical models, including smaller samples of former colonies and transition countries. The quality of human capital makes the distinction between educational choices under strong and weak institutions particularly sharp. We show that the allocation of talent is an important link between institutions and growth.