Psychology today has got far beyond the traditional introspective description of states of consciousness and discovery of the laws governing those states. It is now concerned with the inner mechanisms of action, and therefore with the inner processes regulating the behaviour of both men and animals. The cognitive processes should be regarded as the essential factor in the mechanism of behaviour, and as a subject of importance in psychological research. In research of this kind, however, the cognitive process must be properly defined. The psychological terms used by introspective psychology do not suffice here because 1) they do not cover the sub-conscious phenomena which play a part in the mechanism of behaviour, 2) they treat the psychic processes as non-spatial and therefore do not explain how these may influence the actions of the organism, 3) they cannot be applied to animals without committing the error of anthropomorphism, 4) they separate the mental processes from the natural laws governing the organism, and 5) they are not precise enough. A new terminology is needed for the mechanism of behaviour. There have already been several attempts in psychology to create such a terminology. The present work discusses and analyses 1) the terminology of Freudism, 2) the terms used by classical and operational behaviourism, and 3) Soviet psychological terminology treating the cognitive processes as a reflection or mirroring of the material environment in the consciousness. Each of these conceptions has its own virtues, but none of them is fully satisfactory in itself. A useful conception of the cognitive process should include more than conscious cognition, it should embrace the unconscious phenomena of cognition as well, while at the same time it should treat the cognitive process as a concrete activity on the part of the organism. In seeking a better definition of the cognitive process one might well start off with Pavlov’s theory, which treats the mental processes as complex nervous processes of which consciousness is a characteristic feature. Such a conception of the cognitive process, however, is too narrow, and should be extended to include the unconscious, purely nervous elements of the mechanism of behaviour. For this purpose it must be shown that these processes, too, possess certain psychological features common both to them and to the conscious processes, a fact which enables one to include both one and the other under a uniform psychological terminology. Taking the view that the cognitive processes should be understood as the processes whereby stimuli are received in the central nervous system, the author bases his arguments on psychological experiments on animals. The behaviour of animals is an act of adaptation to the environment, that is, it enables the individual to satisfy its needs and therefore maintain an inner balance (Pavlov). An action that is truly adaptive means that the animal reacting to its environment is guided by the various features of the objects it comes across as indications of what action should be taken in the given situation. Experiments show that animals of different kinds are able successfully to guide their actions according to the characteristics of the objects in their environment, which shows that the processes whereby stimuli are received are differentiated to suit the objective properties of the objects, that is, they constitute the reflection or mirroring of the objects (nervous correlates). This thesis, which is reached on the basis of an analysis of behaviour, is then discussed in detail by the author in the light of the electrophysiological research of Adrian and the experiments of Pavlov. According to this argument the reception processes in animals, quite independently of the fact whether they are conscious or not, possess their own particular „mirroring aspect”, which constitutes their psychological aspect. The cognitive processes therefore can be defined as the mirroring of the environment in the central nervous system. This definition, however, is insufficient. Animals mirror the various features of objects as indications of the objects’ values and as indications of what action is to be taken, that is, they „understand” the meaning which these objects have for them, and it is only this „understanding” that can be termed „cognition”. Instead of the term „understanding the environment”, the author suggests as a more objective definition of the cognitive process another term, „orientation in the environment” (that is, orientation as to the indications of value and indications pointing to action). This definition is then supplemented by discussion on how to treat the acceptance of values in the object and on how one can objectively presume action. This definition is also applicable to the cognitive processes in Man. Human cognition, however, differs from animal cognition in that 1) it is concerned with values that are not only biological, but also cultural and social as well, and 2) it is general and abstract. These differences are due to the fact that Man adapts himself to his own particular social environment in which non-biological values are of equal importance with biological ones; living in a community means that Man must communicate with his fellow-men by means of articulate speech, which develops a new form of mirroring (Pavlov — theory of the two signalling systems). Undoubtedly in Man the cognitive processes must have a different physiological structure than in animals, but they nevertheless fulfil the same function in the mechanism of behaviour, and therefore should also be regarded as coming within the term „orientation in the environment”. The author also shows that such a conception of the cognitive processes in Man is in accordance with the known facts, and that such a conception possesses certain advantages for theoretical work (it forms a connection between diverse and apparently contradictory views of cognition), and is a handy tool in research. In conclusion the author emphasises the great importance of the Pavlovian theory of the mechanism of behaviour in psychological theory.
