"The Leningrad school of Psychology". B. G. Ananiev: the Impact of Individual Activity on Psycho-Physiological Functions

The ideas of Rubinstein and Vygotsky on the self-determination of human development and on the impact of higher mental processes on psycho-physiological functions, neglected by Leontiev, found their full realization and were creatively advanced by Boris G. Ananiev who founded the Faculty of Psychology of Leningrad State University which was opened in 1966, same year as the MStU faculty.

It has been already mentioned above that there were only three universities in Russia, with psychology faculties: Moscow (MStU), Yaroslavl (an old Russian city near Moscow), where the faculty was developing in close contact with and under the strong influence of Moscow University (YarStU), and Leningrad University (LStU). Before Perestroika, in the "classic" Soviet period, in Moscow University and in Yaroslavl they taught and developed Leontiev theory, while in the Leningrad University Ananiev theory was taught and developed.

The opposition of the so called "Leningrad school" (Ananiev' school" or "Rubinstein-Ananiev' school, as it is sometimes referred to) to the "Moscow school" ("Leontiev' school") in psychology is generally acknowledged in Russia, though hardly mentioned in printed matter. But the fact that the Leningrad school was highly esteemed in the professional community can be illustrated by the following examples. After Leontiev died in 1979, Alexei A. Bodalev (1923–2014) from Leningrad, who was occupying the position of the Dean of the LStU faculty at that time, was taken on to the position of the MStU faculty Dean. Another fact is that when the Institute of Psychology of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IPRAS) was organized in Moscow in 1971, Boris F. Lomov (1927–1989) from the LStU faculty, a close disciple of B. G. Ananiev, was invited to head it.

It should be noted that nowadays IPRAS – in contrast to the MStU and the Psychological Institute RAO in Moscow – is known to continue the "Leningrad tradition", and this tradition, partly opposing the Leontiev tradition, is gaining more and more influence in the Russian professional community. When in 2009 IPRAS held a conference dedicated to the 120th anniversary of S. L. Rubinstein, more than 400 people from all over Russia came to take part, and six volumes of the conference materials were published (fully available on site of IPRAS in pdf: http://www.ipras.ru/cntnt/rus/top_menu_rus/trudy_instl/psihologiy3.html).

The key issue in the works of B. G. Ananiev was the impact of personality aspirations and individual's activities (mostly professional activities) on psycho-physiological functions, which was considered as individual self-determination of psycho-physiological development.

Ananiev formulated a number of theoretical models which were verified in wide-scale experiments:

• the concept of Human Sensory-Perceptive Organization,

• the three-component model of the structure of human cognitive processes,

• the concept of two qualitatively different stages in Human Life-Span Development, and two types of aging,

• a model of Human Life-Span Development, or the "Individuality concept" as it is often referred to.

Ananiev's concept of Human Sensory-Perceptive Organization

In contrast to ideas dominating in the international science in the 1960s, Ananiev rejected the nativist view of sensory processes and sensory development. Ananiev insisted that sensory-perceptive processes belong to the core phenomena of life activity inextricably linked to the holistic structure of human personality development. Developing the ideas of Vygotsky's socio-cultural theory Ananiev argued that in the course of human life all psycho-physiological functions undergo a general reconstruction, so that the adult human brain and human body as a whole becomes an integrated system fit for the typical forms of activity of the individual. This idea was proved in many wide-scale experimental investigations of Ananiev (1960; 1961; 1968a). In his experiments he proved that in adulthood basic physiological functions that are used in typical forms of activity (first of all in professional activity) keep stable and are even in progress for long periods, while the functions that are not used are doomed to degrade quickly with age.

Figure 1. Acoustic discrimination thresholds for three groups of subjects: non-musicians (x), piano players (*), violin players (O)

Most impressive are experimental data concerning effects of professional work on life-span dynamics of perceptual abilities. For example, sensitivity to red and yellow colors in adulthood normally degrades quickly with age. Ananiev and his colleagues showed that workers engaged in steel foundries keep this sensitivity for long periods. Ananiev argued that this is because the workers use their visual color perception to determine the moment when steel is perfectly ready. So the natural regularity of age dynamics is abrogated to promote effective professional activity. Similar effects were shown concerning the stability and even progress of other psychophysical functions used in professional activities: tactile sensitivity taste discrimination, etc.

One example of this experimental research is an experiment performed by Ananiev's colleague K. Kaufman (Ananiev, 1968a), who studied the effects of musical professional work on acoustic discrimination. The aim was to show that being a musician not only requires high perceptual abilities as a starting point, but in itself is a factor promoting specialized development of basic psychophysical functions. Acoustic discrimination was measured for three groups of subjects: non-musicians, piano players, and violin players. In each group the researchers tested adult professionals and children beginning their musical education. Sounds were presented in pairs; the first sound was always the same, at a frequency 435 oscillations per second, and the second sound was the same or a certain interval higher or lower. The task was to say whether the second sound was higher, lower or the same as the first one.

At the beginning of their musical education children who chose violin were as good as those who chose piano. The results for adult musicians are shown in Figure 1. Circles are for violin players, stars are for piano players, and crosses mark the results for non-musicians. As expected, the discrimination thresholds are much higher for non-musicians. Much more interesting is the difference between violin players and piano players. They do similarly well as long as the