Interaction of dominant focus and conditional reflex as a functional unit of behavior organization.

Abstract

The interaction of two fundamental phenomena--the dominant focus and the conditional reflex--discovered and introduced by A. A. Ukhtomsky and I. P. Pavlov lay at the basis of behavior. According to E. A. Asratyan, the backward conditioned connection is a specialized dominant focus in the functional structure of the consolidated conditional reflex. It makes the behavior goal-directed and active. The dominant focus and conditioned reflex play the same role in the adaptive behavior of the individual as does variability and selection in the process of evolutional adaptation. That is why it is impossible to agree with Popper and Eccles that hypothesis theory has to replace Pavlov's theory of the conditional reflex. Imprinting and psychonervous activity by images (I. S. Beritashvili) are two special exemplars of conditional reflexes after one coincidence. The so-called "elementary reasoning activity of animals" (according to L. V. Krushinsky) is a kind of the instinctive inherited behavior.