1. Psyche and Forms of Psychic Reflection
The psyche represents a special aspect of the vital activity of animals and humans, as well as their interaction with the surrounding environment. It is the ability of active reflection of reality or a set of mental processes and phenomena, such as perception of information, emotions, memory, and others.
“Thus, the psyche can be defined as a systemic property of highly organized living matter, which consists in the active reflection of the objective world by the subject (in this case, understood not only as a human, but also as another living being) and the regulation of their own activity and behavior.”
The psyche also interacts with somatic processes and manifests at a certain stage of biological evolution. Consciousness is the highest form of the psyche in humans, and such sciences as psychology, neurophysiology, and psychiatry are involved in the study of the psyche.
In psychology, various forms of psychic reflection can be distinguished:
- Sensory form of reflection is associated with a reaction to individual stimuli that have biological significance for the subject, connected with their further existence.
- Perceptual form is the ability to perceive objects of the surrounding environment in their integrity, as a set of features organized according to a certain system. With this type of psychic reflection, the subject reacts not only to biologically significant stimuli but also to neutral ones.
- Intellectual reflection is associated with the understanding of functional relations and connections between objects. A subject possessing intellectual reflection also possesses consciousness.