Relations of Sensorimotor Integration and Inhibitory Processes with Internal Position of Patient’s Personality

• Main Authors: Oksana E Elnikova, Vera S Merenkova
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia (RUDN University) 2019-12-01
• Series: RUDN Journal of Psychology and Pedagogics
• Subjects: health; disease; types of attitudes to the disease; sensorimotor integration; inhibitory control; task go/go; task go/no-go; internal position of the patient’s personality
• Online Access: http://journals.rudn.ru/psychology-pedagogics/article/viewFile/20826/16796

The article discusses the relations of the sensorimotor integration and inhibitory processes with the features of the internal position of the patient’s personality. Sensorimotor integration is considered as a characteristic of the mental processes, allowing us to estimate the peculiarities of the flexible rearrangements in the brain in the course of the formation of the new connections. Inhibitory control is considered as a psychophysiological characteristic responsible for cognitive inhibition and suppression of a certain type of behavior. The respondents were voluntary participants (a total of 98 people, 60 women and 38 men) with different levels of health, namely: (1) chronically ill (health group 3) - the total number of 50 people (average age 37 ± 11.1 years); (2) healthy people with certain functional abnormalities - 48 people (average age 34 ± 10.6 years). The types of attitudes to the disease were measured with the TOBOL inventory by L. Vasserman et al. The ReBOS technique by E. Vergunov was used to diagnose the orderliness of the sensory flow and the inhibitory processes level. It is shown that the representatives of the second and third health groups are diagnosed with an identical set of types of attitude to the disease, which is not constructive. That allowed us to divide them into groups according to the degree of adaptation. The respondents, whose mental and social adaptation is not impaired, are more difficult to adapt to the changing conditions, they have recorded rigidity and insufficient development of the inhibitory processes, they are capable of purposefully following the chosen model of behavior, but the underdevelopment of the inhibitory processes does not allow them to stop the implementation of the non-constructive attitude to health. In the respondents, whose type of response to the disease is characterized by the presence of mental maladaptation, the nervous system is more flexible and the inhibitory processes are better developed, they are able to purposefully follow the selected attitude to the disease, and are able to “slow down” the implementation of the chosen strategy. At the same time, the respondents are focused on their own condition, which prevents them from exercising conscious inhibitory control. The results suggest that the perception of the sensory flow and the level of inhibitory processes are related to the internal position of the individual, but the nature of the connections is determined by the degree of the constructive attitude to the disease.