Space and Time in Neuropsychological Studies: History and Modernity

Abstract

The content of the category of chronotope in biology, philology and psychology is revealed. The connection of approaches to the analysis of the interrelation of space and time in the concepts of V. Vernadsky, A. Ukhtomsky, N. Bernstein and M. Bakhtin is shown. It is state that common for all this concepts is the aim to analyze the integral response of the organism to the effects of the external environment. It is shown that Ukhtomsky’s complex approach to heterochrony of chronotope is correlated with the complex structure of the psychological chronotope, in which three parameters of space as well as three parameters of time are distinguished in the objective and subjective reality. Heterochrony is especially important for neuropsychology. Considering the chronotope in the context of brain work, scientists discovered the facts of heterochrony, heterotopy and hetero-dynamicity of development. It is connected with the fact that mental functions begin to develop at different times and are formed at different speeds and in different areas of the brain. Spatial-temporal determination of ontogeny is important for the differentiation of normal and abnormal development, for determining the type and nature of mental dysontogenesis, for psychosomatic studies. This makes it possible to talk about the cerebral substratum of the chronotope as a spatial-temporal factor of the psyche, which, undoubtedly, requires further research. In the psychology of personality the chronotope gives the possibility of a holistic approach to the analysis of person in the changing reality of space-time. It is extremely important for investigating the processes of socialization and the identity formation in transitive reality. In conclusion it is states the possibility to understand the concept of ”psychological chronotope” as a construct that connects different approaches and paradigms to the development of person in a modern changing society.