ASU scientists create the most effective model of social interaction

The project is called "Formation of Mechanisms for Voluntary Regulation of the Orientative Part of Joint Activity in the Early Stages of Ontogenesis" and it won the competition for the right to receive a grant from the President of the Russian Federation for state support of young Russian scientists in 2018–2019.

"One of the most important moments in the activity of a person who accomplishes a certain task is the search for information, certain signs and moments that help him achieve his goal. Psychologists are especially interested in the process of solving a problem in a team that is still poorly studied, the process when a person searches for the signs, distributes and coordinates them with other people,” explained Yana Smirnova.”Psychologists have a special interest in the process of interaction between preschoolers, when there are still difficulties in controlling speech and there is no concurrence of actions. This is a matter of communication between people, how they make arrangements with each other, how they convey their opinion to another person and, finally, how they deal with a joint task together."

One of the main points of the young scientist’s project is the development of preschool children’s behavior pattern in a team. According to the researcher, they study how preschool children develop the control of joint actions and how to help them in its formation so that in the future they could adapt to the team more quickly.

"There is such a thing as action control, due to which a person can see their mistakes and timely adjust their behavior, if something goes wrong while solving the problem. If this mechanism is not developed, the child has problems with adaptation, which will affect his further adult life. If we can diagnose this at an early stage, we can help a person become more successful in the future life. By the way, all these signs are reflected, among other things, in the person’s leadership abilities, their ability to build their view of life independently,” Yana Smirnova specified.

The scientist’s work will result in construction of a specific model for solving this problem, the establishment of specific corrective and diagnostic procedures for the effective work of preschool institutions. In particular, it is planned to create a certain methodical, corrective, test material that will help educators and psychologists in communicating with the child, identifying the presence of the problem and finding ways to solve it.

"We will teach the children to control their own activities through communication, interaction and solvation of common problems," Yana Smirnova summed up.