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Visual perception.

In the case of visual perception an obvious choice would be colour photography, but vision and colour photography are very different. Some simple experiments should make the matter plain.

In the first a person is asked to match a pair of black and white discs, which are rotating at such a speed as to make them appear uniformly grey. One disc is standing in shadow, the other in bright illumination. In the first experiment it is proved that a person sees colours as they are in spite of changes in the light.

In the second experiment a person is asked to match with a colour card the colours of two pictures in dim illumination. The second experiment shows that people see colours according to their ideas or how things should look.

In the third experiment hungry, thirsty and satiated people are asked to equalize the brightness of pictures depicting food, water and other objects unrelated to hunger or thirst. The third experiment proves that we see things differently according to our interest in them.

The group of experiments, taken together, prove the human perception is related to our knowledge, experience and needs.

Physiological and psychological responses to noise.

Research has shown that noise affects people in several different ways.

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Noise causes 3 types of physiological responses. First there is a voluntary muscle response in witch the head and eyes turn to the noise source and the body prepares for action. This is exemplified by a startled response to a sudden loud noise.

Second, the involuntary muscles respond to noises over 70 decibels by general reduction in blood flow to the peripheral body parts (fingers, toes, ears) and changes in such functions as heart rate and breathing.

Third, loud noises can cause neuroendocrine responses which, from animal experiments, appear to affect sexual and reproductive functions and which cause overgrowth of the adrenal glands, among other effects.

Adverse physiological responses to noise have been noted in several areas. Task performance is affected by noise that is intermittent, although steady state noise even up to 90 db(A) does not seem to have much effect. Complex tasks are affected more than simple ones, and accuracy is reduced more than quantity. Even when good performance is maintained, excess noise is fatiguig.

Time judgement is another response upset by noise. Certain types of noise can, of course, be helpful, such as rhythmic noises or those which mask distracting sounds. More commonly, however, noise has been shown to produce anxiety symptoms such as headache, nausea and irritability. One study indicated that mental hospital admissions are more numerous in noisy areas than in comparable quiet ones.

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People need to evaluate their opinions and abilities by comparing their reactions with those of other people. The more uncertain people are, the stronger is their need for social comparison.

The more ambiguous the situation is the more likely such a social comparison process is.

Festinger believed people to seek out others who are similar to themselves in order to evaluate their reactions. If another person is similar to you, his reactions will provide an accurate oasis for your own judgments.

According to Festinger, he attempts to reduce any discrepancies that exist between himself and the others. One individuals in a group begin comparing themselves with others, there are strong pressures towards uniformity. Social comparison theory clearly provides one explanation of why. The subjects will tend to refer, to the experience of the others. And once social comparison process begins to operate, there is a tendency toward persuasion and resultant uniformity of reaction.

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Development of emotions.

Since birth to the age of four child’s emotional needs are centered on the mother. Her personality intervenes between the child and his experience of outside reality. Sorting and assimilation of this experience leads a child to recognition of the part of life which is always with him and which is outside him. It helps him to make a division between what is “me” and what is “not me”. The part of experience, which is “not me”, turns into recognition of the mother as another person, accepted as the link between “me” and everything else.

From the age about four the child forms separate relationships with other people yet his mother’s attitude to these relationships is of great importance. The normal child is by nature eager, hopeful and accepting but only if his parents are confident, happy and accepting in their attitudes towards the child. Children are very sensible to emotions of their parents and lose or regain emotional equilibrium together with their parents.

Развитие эмоций.

От рождения до 4-х лет эмоциональные потребности ребенка сосредоточены на матери. Ее личность опосредствует опыт взаимодействия ребенка с окружающим миром. Сортировка (анализ) и присвоение этого опыта приводят ребенка к осознанию того, что есть мир, который всегда с ним, и мир, который находится вовне. Это помогает ему провести грань между «я» и «не я». Та часть опыта, которая связана с «не я», приводит к выделению матери, как другого человека, воспринимаемого в качестве связующего звена между «я» и всем остальным миром.

С 4-х лет у ребенка складываются особые отношения с другими людьми, однако отношение матери к этим взаимоотношениям являются очень важными (определяющими) для ребенка. Нормальный ребенок по природе активен, оптимистичен и общителен, но только при условии, что его родители проецируют подобные чувства по отношению к нему. Дети очень чувствительны к эмоциям своих родителей, они теряют или восстанавливают эмоциональное равновесие вслед за своими родителями.

** Organizational psychology

The difference between the industrial psychology of the past and the organizational psychology of nowadays is twofold. In contrast to industrial psychology with its “time and motion" studies the organizational psychology concerns itself with the system characteristics of organization as a social unit. The traditional questions concerning job analysis and work conditions of individuals arc paid less attention to. Organizational psychology deals mainly with the behavior of groups, subsystems and the total organizations in response to internal and external stimuli. It became possible after the appearance of new theoretical and research tools. They helped to discover that the organization is a specific psychological factor to which the worker reacts faster than to work conditions or incentives.

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THEORIES OF EMOTION We tend to think that bodily changes that occur in response to stress are caused by emotion. But one of the earliest theories of emotion proposed that the perception of the physiological changes is the emotion. William James, a famous psychologist at Harvard during the late 1800s, believed that the important factor in our felt emotion is the feedback from the bodily changes that occur in response to a frightening or upsetting situation. He stated this theory in a form that seems to put the cart before the horse: «We are afraid because we run». «We are angry because we strike». A Danish physiologist, Carl Lange, arrived at a similar proposal about the same time, and the theory is referred to as the James-Lange theory. We can think of instances where the recognition of emotion does follow bodily responses. If you stumble suddenly on the stairs, you automatically grab for the handrail before you have time to recognise a state of fear. Your felt emotion, after the crisis is over, includes the perception of a pounding heart, rapid breathing, and a feeling of weakness or trembling in the arms and legs. Because the feeling of fear follows the bodily responses, this situation gives some plausibility (BepoHT-hoctb) to the James-Lange theory. The major objections to the James-Lange theory came from Walter Cannon, a physiologist at the University of Chicago, who pointed out that «bodily changes do not seem to differ very much from one emotional state to another, despite the fact that we as individuals are usually

pretty clear about which emotion we are experiencing; the internal organs are relatively insensitive structures not well supplied with nerves, and internal changes occur too slowly to be a source of emotional feeling; artificially inducing (BBisbiBaTB) the bodily changes associated with an emotion (for example, injecting a person with adrenalin) does not produce the experience of the true emotion. Cannon (1927) assigned the central role in emotion to the thalamus ['Oaebmas], which is part of the brain's central core. He suggested that the thalamus responded to an emotion - producing stimulus by sending impulses simultaneously to the cerebral cortex and to other parts of the body; emotional feelings were the result of joint arousal to the cortex and the sympathetic nervous system. According to this theory which was extended by Bard (1934) and known as the Cannon-Bard theory, the bodily changes and the experience of emotion occur at the same time. Subsequent investigation has made it clear that the hypothalamus and certain parts of the limbic system, rather than the thalamus, are the brain centers most directly involved in the integration of emotional responses. In view of the complex interaction of neural and hormonal signals, it is difficult to determine whether the physiological responses precede or accompany the emotion. Emotion is not a momentary event, but an experience that takes place over a period of time. An emotional experience may initially be activated by external inputs to the sensory system; we see or hear the emotion-arousing stimuli. But the autonomic nervous system is activated almost immediately so that feedback from bodily changes adds to the emotional experience. Thus, our conscious experience of emotion involves the integration of information about the physiological state of the body and information about the emotion-arousing situation. Both types of information tend to be continuous in time, and their integration determines the intensity and nature of our felt emotional state. In this framework, the time distinctions made by the James-Lange and Cannon-Bard theories are not too meaningful. On some occasions, as in sudden danger, the first signs of emotional experience may be preceded by automatic activity (in which case James and Lange are correct); on others, the awareness of an emotion clearly precedes autonomic activity (in which case Cannon and Bard are correct). The felt emotional state has a third source of information: cognitive factors. How an individual appraises (оценивает) the external situation in terms of memories of past experiences is a cognitive process that will influence emotion.

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Theories of attachment .

There exist several theories of how child 's love for his mother and other people is 01 me The first one is the theory of imprinting. It suggests that human infants form their social attachment immediately after birth to the first object that provides warmth and food to them, that is. to their mother. This theory has support in experiments with higher mammals like chimpanzees bu( i( is not verified with humans.

The learning theory holds that in infants mother’s face is associated with warm and comfortable feelings which through the process of conditioning give rise to love as a learned drive.

Another theory says that it is the need in social contacts that gives rise to the development of attachment. Harlow and his experiments with wire and cloth surrogate mothers showed that infant monkeys spent more time with a cloth mother even if she didn't provide milk to them I before, attachment is not the result of food drive only some other aspects of the mother are VCI у important for the development of child’s attachment relationship.

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Human Functions in Man-Machine Stystem.

People perform three main functions in the man-machine systems of which they are a part. These arc: information receiving, information processing and decision-taking and action. In order to facilitate human functions it is necessary to design the equipment properly. For this purpose we must decide what organs of feelings can be used as preferable avenues of getting information from the outside. Process of receiving information and of making decision can not be reduced to a stimulus-response scheme. It involves perception as a psychological function and human intuition based on knowledge. So the systems are better to be designed to take advantage of man s abiht.es to make complex decisions and to improvise in the case of unexpected situations.