The biography of Luria is briefly

Biography Alexander Romanovich Luria was born in Kazan in a Jewish family. He entered Kazan University in the year, where he studied social sciences. After graduating from the university in the year, his father forced him to enter the medical faculty, but Luria's own desire was a psychologist. He compromised, studying both sciences at the same time - at that time it was possible to enter two faculties.

He began to study medicine, and received psychological training at the Pedagogical Institute and the Kazan Psychiatric Hospital.

Two years later, he interrupted his medical classes in order to take the position of assistant in the laboratory of the scientific organization of labor of the Kazan Institute, where he began to study the impact of hard physical work on mental activity. This later brought him to Moscow, where in the year he received the place of a junior researcher at the Moscow Institute of Psychology, working under the leadership of N.

Here he continued the research program dedicated to the study of the impact of emotional stress to human motor reactions. This work had something in common with I. Pavlov’s research of experimental neurosis in dogs, although Luria never held Pavlov’s views on the possibility of a satisfactory explanation of all the complexity of human behavior in terms of conditional reflexes.

In the year, Luria met L. Vygotsky, whose interest in studying the effects of nervous diseases on the functioning of intelligence, possibly influenced the return of Luria to medicine and an appeal to neuropsychology. Joint work with Vygotsky on the study of the evolution of psychological processes led to the writing of a study of the study of the year of behavior of the year.

After passing exams in the year, he met with N. Burdenko, the head of the Institute of Neuropsychology Moscow, and entered the boarding school. In his autobiography, he describes the subsequent two years as “the most productive in my life. I did not have personnel and scientific duties, except for routine medical work ... I began to develop my own approach in neuropsychology of local brain lesions.

” In the year, he moved to the clinic of neurology of the Institute of Experimental Medicine Moscow, where he headed the laboratory of experimental psychology. When the war broke out in the year, Luria became a military doctor and was engaged in the rehabilitation of patients with traumatic brain injuries. Then he moved to the Institute of Neurosurgery in Moscow, where he continued to work up to a year.

In the year, he was fired, obviously, for ideological reasons, since he did not show enough enthusiasm for Pavlov’s ideas, and was forced to transfer his activities to the Institute of Defectology, founded by Vygotsky many years ago. He was later restored in his post in Moscow, where he continued to work until his death. During his training and after graduation, Luria was a hot adherent of psychoanalysis and was under the influence of the ideas of Freud, Adler and Jung.

He founded a psychoanalytic circle in Kazan, whose activity Freud informed. He later moved away from psychoanalysis and preferred more accurate experimental methods. Luria was the first to take up a serious scientific study of conflicts. Based on his early interest in psychoanalysis, he used the method of verbal associations of Jung, inviting the subjects to answer an association to a particular word for example, a house - a room and including “impossible” incentives for example, the moon -?

By changing the reaction time, a conclusion was made on the degree of mental conflict. In more detail, he developed the method of Luria, in which arbitrary and involuntary motor reactions of the subjects, as well as verbal reactions, were simultaneously measured. He distinguished three types of conflicts arising from: interruptions of spreading excitement, a lack of readiness for a response, suppress the activity of central processes.

New methods for restoring brain functions were developed mainly during its work by a military doctor and were based on his understanding of the brain rather as a comprehensive functional system than as a single essence. Its position is summarized in three “basic laws” of the functioning of the highest cortical functions: the hierarchical structure of cortical zones, their decreasing specificity and progressive lateralization.

Luria also made a significant contribution to the development and clarification of clinical tests to determine brain lesions, the data of these tests correlated with the data of surgical and patho-logo -anatomical reports. The force of the approach of Luria is determined by three main characteristics: it is based on a clearly formulated theory of the cerebral organization, although it should be noted that some empirical data partially contradict its theoretical model; Luria draws attention mainly to the qualitative aspect of functioning, he is interested in how the action is performed, and not just the results achieved; The flexibility of the diagnosis of disorders, the exact and thorough description of the patient's problems.Of course, the effectiveness of any system to a large extent depends on the medical insight of each neuropsychologist.

Such a gifted clinician as Luria could use his method with great efficiency, which, however, does not guarantee the effectiveness of its use by other specialists. Perhaps, as a result, the psychometric characteristics of his “clinical and analytical” approach are often perceived with suspicion and are poorly known outside Europe. Although Luria was intensively published for 45 years, many of these publications in Russia are not available.

The main publications are the highest cortical functions of a person and their disorders with local brain lesions.