Representation

Representation, a mental image reproduced from memory of former stimuli. Former psychology drew a sharp line between sensation (see) and Representation. Sensation is obtained from the direct impact of an object upon us, for example, we sense the red color of a rose, its scent, its weight, when we hold it in our hands. But we can imagine a red rose without seeing it, and then we speak of the Representation of the red color, the scent, and the weight of the rose. We imagine it from memory. Representations may relate to objects, processes, relations between them, etc. Sensations arise upon excitation of the peripheral endings of the nerves leading to them, whereas Representations arise from the excitation of the nervous system without the impact of the external environment upon these peripheral endings at that moment; therefore, they have a central character. Usually, Representations are considered less bright, precise, and stable than sensations, although in some exceptional cases (obsessive images, hallucinations) Representation can reach the brightness and strength of a sensation. In former psychology, Representation was often accorded very great, even almost exclusive, importance. Thus, Herbart (1776–1871) attempted to build all psychology based on the 'mechanics of representations.' He considered every psychological experience to be a Representation. Representations constitute the primary elements from which everything else is composed. Every newly appearing Representation acquires a certain strength depending on previously existing Representations, since all of them influence it, modifying, strengthening, or weakening it. Herbart even derives a mathematical formula for this interaction of Representations. However, this entire 'mechanics of Representations' is contrived and unreal. Not to mention that we cannot regard psychological life as some sum or mechanism of elements, the very attempt to reduce all psychics to Representations is incorrect. This means depriving psychophysiology of all efficacy and detaching the psyche from the life of the organism. This striving to detach psychological life from the body and depict it in the form of a game of Representations imposed a rationalist, verbally-scholastic character upon all empirical psychology. Representation is based on the occurrence of former or similar excitations in the central nervous system, and this specific state of nervous activity is still far from explained by modern physiology. Representations are not independent but are linked to our perceptions, feelings, thoughts, and the entire life of our organism. They are determined and directed by our entire activity. They depend both on the external environment and on our attitude toward it. And this attitude ultimately depends on our orientation, on our class ideology. Therefore, Representations of the same thing are diametrically opposite for a proletarian and a bourgeois. We can isolate Representations by special analysis, but usually they enter the composition of our perceptions (see) and serve as one of the tools of our cognition of the world. They help us understand the present thanks to our former practical activity and thereby facilitate our cognition and alteration of the surrounding environment. They are therefore one of the necessary elements of our conscious labor. Usually, one distinguishes single Representations, i.e., Representations of individual objects, phenomena, and relations (e.g., Representation of a given person), from general Representations, i.e., Representations of a whole series of objects, phenomena, relations which we unite into one based on something common in all of them (such as, for example, Representation of a person in general, of means of transport, etc.). The more objects a Representation covers, the more general character it bears, and the more vague it appears to us. It was assumed that a general Representation is obtained by merging all similar traits of a series of objects and destroying everything dissimilar to them. However, such an attempt to depict a general Representation as a composite portrait is incorrect, since usually our Representations, when uniting objects, have as their content the most familiar and typical of similar single images. This image is created and verified, correspondingly modifying, in the practice of our labor activity. The variety of Representations is usually denoted as the 'circle of representations,' the accounting of which has great significance for pedagogy. There is a series of methods for studying the circle of Representations, but all of them reveal only verbally expressed Representations and do not attempt to discover effective, though unexpressed in words, images. The methods for uncovering the latter are an urgent task of our time, since socialist construction proves at every step that verbal intellect is not the only and most important. In former psychology, a division into types of Representations was widespread. By a type was meant the character of the predominant Representations for a given person. Basically, types were divided into visual, auditory, motor, and various combinations of them: visual-motor, auditory-motor, mixed. The fact is that some people remember visual stimuli most easily, others auditory, others motor. Accordingly, some need only to read the material to themselves, others to hear it, others to pronounce it. On this division arose the so-called differential psychology, or psychology of types. It seemed that the entire pedagogy had to be rebuilt and students grouped according to these types, conducting classes with each group separately—visual, auditory, etc. methods. Further research, however, showed that types in pure form are almost never encountered and that we remember one thing so, another otherwise, but almost always by a mixed path. Moreover, it turned out that these types are educable and can be re-educated. All this forces us to accept only one: it is necessary to conduct classes so that all receptors (sense organs) are used as much as possible; such a multifaceted study of the object gives the possibility to best assimilate it for all types and to cultivate the richest Representations of the object. A completely different character can have the division into types of Representations from the point of view of their content. Here, first of all, class peculiarities of people will be reflected, and within classes—professional-labor. A special kind of Representations also constitute ideomotor Representations. This concept was especially thoroughly developed by the American psychologist James (W. James, 1842–1910) and means extremely vivid Representations of actions or movements. In the absence of opposing Representations, they immediately pass into action. According to James, this explains a significant part of our actions. Every thought of movement is accompanied by this movement, even if in a weakened, imperceptible form. Thus, it is enough to place a finger on an apparatus registering in greatly magnified form the slightest movements and think of moving to the right, and the finger moves to the right, although we do not notice it and will even try not to move it. This is the basis of the so-called 'guessing thoughts,' when the guesser holds the thinker by the hand and by negligible resistance of his hand prevents the execution of the wrong one. The doctrine of ideomotor Representations received development in recent times in the reactivist school of our Soviet psychology in the form of an attempt to eliminate the concept of 'will.' We perform this or that action not because of a rational decision adopted thanks to the impact of the organized class environment upon us and our participation in labor activity, but only because there are no opposing Representations at the moment or they are mechanically defeated by the given ones. This is certainly incorrect, since it denies all activity of the personality, all significance of class consciousness. Ideomotor Representations cannot in any way explain our conscious actions. Marx recognized the necessity of 'purposeful will' in labor ('Capital', Vol. I, Ch. V) and we cannot deny consciously set and executed decisions created by labor activity in these concrete-historical conditions.