CEP

Research and Educational Center of Experimental Psychology

Overview and Mission

The Center of Experimental Psychology (CEP) is designed for conducting experimental research and providing educational and methodological training for students, postgraduate students, and interns.

The CEP was built with the funds of the MGPPU innovative project at the initiative and with the direct participation of the Rector, Academician V.V. Rubtsov. Drawing historical parallels, it can be said that the task of reviving experimental psychology in Russia, set by Vitaly Vladimirovich Rubtsov, is in many ways similar to the mission successfully accomplished by G.I. Chelpanov in his time and under different circumstances. The foundation of the Center is a multi-purpose, high-tech hardware and software complex that has no analogues in Russia.

Technological Capabilities and Infrastructure

The CEP ensures the application of a wide range of methods and technologies for instrumental research, such as oculography (eye-tracking), polygraphy, tachistoscopy, registration of the brain's electrical activity (EEG), video registration, and psychophysical measurements, among others.

The available equipment allows for conducting working video conferences as well as modeling their processes. The CEP is integrated into the unified media space of Russian and foreign partners and has operational access to necessary information.

The work of the Center is supported by highly qualified personnel, including psychologists, programmers, and engineers. A crucial condition for the Center's functioning is its developed infrastructure, which is based on competent engineering and technical maintenance of the complex and multi-level information and technological support for research. Essentially, the Center's activities are supported by the work of all MGPPU services. The CEP maintains its closest working contacts with the Faculty of Information Technologies, whose staff and students are involved not only in educational but also in joint research programs.

International Standards and Innovations

The design and organization of the hardware and software complex utilize the experience of leading foreign and domestic centers (laboratories, institutes), as well as the experience of CEP staff participating in a number of international projects (EU grants: "Cognitive technologies", "Ambiente Agoras", etc.) and national projects (grants from the RFBR, RHSF, the Ministry of Education and Science, etc.). Essentially, the CEP has created the necessary conditions to carry out work that meets world standards—in terms of technical specifications and equipment quality, software level, universality of telecommunication technologies, infrastructure supporting experimental research, close interdisciplinary ties, and active international contacts.

The practical activities of the unit are aimed at developing new technologies and hardware-software complexes for scientific research and innovative developments in the fields of cognitive psychology, psychophysiology, comparative psychology, and zoopsychology.

Strategic Goals and Applications

The main goal is to obtain new experimental data on cognitive functions in human communication and activity for use in military-technical, technological, and socio-economic spheres.

The material and technical base of the unit consists of a multi-purpose, high-tech hardware and software complex—one of the most equipped in Russia. Its functioning ensures the use of a wide range of instrumental research methods, such as oculography, polygraphy, tachistoscopy, EEG, video registration, and psychophysical measurements.

Existing developments and obtained results can already be used to solve a wide range of tasks. For example:

Developed databases of facial expressions and methods for diagnosing affective indicators of non-verbal behavior can be used in computer animation (video game development, creation of "smart robots," machine vision).
In the field of public security (automatic personal identification, forming first impressions of a person, diagnosing emotional states, identifying intentions and readiness to act, etc.).
Developed methods for forming skills to work with positional brain-computer interfaces (BCI) can be used to expand human capabilities (for people with disabilities, android-type robotics, avatar robots, machine vision systems, and sensory-perceptual processes).
Methods of polypositional observation will find application in solving tasks related to knowledge capitalization and experience transfer (adaptation of various types of production, highly complex educational tasks, and the translation of the most significant components of complex activities such as telemedicine, forensics, and spatially distributed joint activities).

The scientific and practical activities of the unit are of interest to state funds and programs that develop priority areas for improving the country's defense capability and state security.

Modular Hardware Practicum

Based on the CEP, a new generation hardware practicum on experimental psychology of a modular type has been developed. Unlike its prototypes, it relies on the use of modern technical (hardware) research tools, software, and mathematical methods of data analysis and processing. The practicum introduces students to research developments on current problems in general psychology, forms skills in operating the latest equipment, and demonstrates the possibilities of progressive forms of telecommunication in educational and scientific spaces (organizing and conducting scientific and educational research, teleconferences, distance learning via the Internet, etc.).

The practicum includes the following modules:

Psychophysical Assessment: The focus of this module is to show the limits of applying psychophysical methods, as well as the possibilities of expanding psychophysical methodology to the field of assessment and measurement in ecologically valid situations of human life and activity. Students participate in research on measuring absolute and differential thresholds and the subjective scaling of sensations.
Biometrics and Chronometry: The implementation of this module demonstrates the capabilities of interdisciplinary methods in psychological research. First, students are introduced to the hardware, procedural, and software features of psychophysiological research. An initial understanding of the contingency of physiological and psychological methods is formed. Next, students learn the procedures for recording EEG, GSR (galvanic skin response), heart rate, respiration rate, etc., as applied to various subject areas of general psychology.
Eye Movement Registration: Within this module, students discover the possibilities of analyzing the motor component of vision as an indicator of the dynamics of mental processes depending on the conditions in which they occur. This module allows the study of cognitive processes such as perception, attention, and thinking.
Sensory Transformation: The experiments in this module demonstrate the possibilities of studying mental processes during their "functional disorganization."
Video Registration: The main goal of the module is for students to master modern observation methods and technologies using various video registration tools, consolidate knowledge about procedures for analyzing video-recorded data, and learn methods for indexing and coding them in accordance with theoretical concepts about the nature of the studied processes (for example, according to concepts about the structure of activity).
Natural Foundations of the Psyche: Within this module, students are introduced to and participate in comparative studies of human and animal psyche, as well as research on modeling mental phenomena based on the regulation of animal behavior. Through this, students develop basic knowledge regarding the genesis and evolution of the psyche, as well as skills in organizing and conducting zoopsychological experiments.

Publishing and Scientific Coordination

The dissemination and development of the experimental method in Russian science are promoted by the publication of the journal "Experimental Psychology" (Founder: MGPPU; Editor-in-Chief: V.A. Barabanshchikov). Founded in 2008, the journal is published quarterly and has an electronic version. Since 2010, it has been included in the list of publications recommended by the Higher Attestation Commission (HAC) for academic degree candidates in psychology.

In terms of coordinating experimental research conducted in the Russian Federation, CEP staff, under the editorship of V.A. Barabanshchikov, have prepared and published monographs and collections of works dedicated to experimental psychology.

The experience of the MGPPU CEP, as well as the analysis of the general situation in science, show that there is a good potential for the development of experimental psychology in Russia.

Chief Researcher: Vladimir Alexandrovich Barabanshchikov