The new issue of the Yearbook is comprised of papers submitted by the participants of the International Multidisciplinary Conference «Homo Percipiens: Perception in Contemporary Humanitarian Knowledge» which was run by the Institute of Scientific Information for Social Sciences in conjunction with the Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Sciences on April 6, 2015.
The main objectives of the conference consisted in defining the role and place of the Humanities in studying perception and in discussing possibilities of cooperation between the Humanities in studying perceptual processes.
The conference embraced a wide range of philosophical, sociological, psychological, cultural and linguistic issues. Among them were embodiment as an object of research in the contemporary Humanities, the structure of the discursive space of perception, methodology and methods of studying perceptual phenomena, types of perception and research into them, cultural and historical specificity of perceptual processes, perception and cognition, verbalization of sensations, perception in Literature and Art and others.
The Yearbook opens with the paper by L. Skvortsov «Perception and Information» which considers the role, value and essence of the Truth in the information era.
The volume contains six sections.
Section 1 entitled «Theoretical issues of perception in the Humanities» presents papers which lay out the methodological foundations for the study of perceptual processes.
The paper contributed by A. Nagornaya contains a review of contemporary humanitarian research into perception. The author argues for the validity of perception as a research field for the Humanities and considers the main lines of research into perceptual processes in the contemporary Humanities. The paper by D. Nikoulitcheva deals with the perception of time and establishes correlations between the subjective perception of time, its metaphorical representation and the language categories of tense and aspect. Time as a phenomenon is analyzed in the paper by N. Kudriavtseva, who approaches it as a sensation and as a philosophical metaphor. The paper by I. Zhuravlev and I. Zhuravleva considers the issue of the methodological basis for the general theory of perceptual activity and looks into the mechanisms and techniques of persuasive communication. S. Kalinin studies the status of perception as a category in H. Maturano’s theory and analyzes the correlation between perception and cognition. I. Guseinova’s paper describes the language means employed in the visualization of the emotional and the rational in German poetry. D. Tregubova addresses the issue of ethnicity and suggests an interpretation for the category «ethnic self-consciousness». G. Khlebnikov carries out research into the role of perception in ancient philosophical theology and analyzes different types of perception of the supernatural.
Section 2 is entitled «Linguacultural analysis of the objects of perception».
It opens with the paper by M. Kiose who considers inferential and bodily-inferential techniques of conceptualizing the referent in the English and Russian languages. M. Yasinskaya’s paper describes the mythological motifs related to the perception of vision in the Slavic culture. M. Rarenko focuses on the ways of conceptualizing pain which are accepted in the English linguaculture. E. Yakovenko researches into ways of verbalizing interoceptive sensations in Biblical texts.
Section 3 of the volume focuses on the experimental analysis of perceptual processes.
M. Khitina’s paper deals with the sense perception of voiced tests. E. Yakovleva describes an auditive experiment which was carried out in order to reveal the cognitive features of perceptual behavior in speakers of different languages. The paper by A. Kuznetsov tackles the issue of presenting the semantics of a word in explanatory dictionaries and describes an experiment aimed at revealing the shortcomings in the existing definitions. R. Potapova and L. Komalova presented the results of an experimental study which dealt with the perception of aggressive behavior based on the auditory image.
Section 4 focuses on the issues of perceptual semantics.
I. Zykova studies the role of perception in the formation of phraseological meanings. L. Molchanova reveals regularities in the organization of the lexico-semantic field of visual perception in German. O. Chaley presents a study of taste perception as reflected in the semantics of the adjective ‘astringent’. The paper contributed by G. Durinova analyzes the semantic structure of the poem «Attempt of Chamber» by M. Tsvetayeva.
Section 5 focuses on the issues of perception and discourse analysis.
E. Oparina analyses ways of metaphorical conceptualization of the psychological and emotional aspects of acting and the techniques of acting in the theatrical discourse of the 20th century. G. Fadeeva carries out linguistic research into the perception of music and art. M. Tomskaya deals with the perception of multimedia presentations by students. N. Troshina studies the concept BERLIN WALL and analyses the role of conceptual landmarks of discourse in the formation of social perception. S. Sergeyev looks into the peculiarities of partner relationship within the general context of family issues.
The final section of the volume contains two reviews: J. Bourke’s «The Story of Pain: From Prayer to Painkillers» and A. Nagornaya’s «Discourse of the Inexplicable: Verbal Representation of Inner-Body Sensations».