PSYCHOTYPICAL DETERMINANTS OF SEMANTIC PERCEPTION OF TEXT: ANALYSIS OF SIGNS OF MESSAGE DISTORTION

Dugarova T.Ts.

Moscow State Pedagogical University
Russia, Moscow
e-mail: dugarovatts@gmail.com

Introduction

Information overload has become a permanent fixture in the modern lives of most Russian society. This has been fueled not only by the dramatic shift in the global geopolitical situation, but also by aggressive media policies, the widespread expansion of the internet into everyday life, the diminishing need for face-to-face communication through the formalization and implementation of remote forms of collaborative activities, and more. The constant increase in information flow requires individuals to increasingly utilize their cognitive, personal, and emotional resources to process it. Under these conditions, it becomes difficult for recipients to verify or falsify perceived information. Indeed, in addition to the limitations of their own internal psychological resources, there are also predispositions for intentional and unconscious distortion of information by communication partners. Therefore, research into the psychological mechanisms of information evaluation, which can improve the optimal semantic perception of true and false verbal messages, is becoming increasingly relevant.

The most accessible, convenient, and mobile way to identify possible distortions of information is to evaluate the communicant's speech. Language and speech are a means of human self-expression in society. Communication reveals the personal content of communicants [7]. Through speech, one person can communicate, request, or clarify something to another that meets his or her current needs. Knowledge of these motives and the needs of a partner makes it possible to plan and implement joint activities with him or her from the perspective of subject-subject relations. If it is impossible to determine the psychological "underpinnings," the object of verbal influence is drawn into subject-object relations that will be far from satisfying his or her needs. The key provisions of the theory of speech activity [4] indicate that speech contains a motive and a purpose. Moreover, they may: a) coincide, which will indicate the truth or unconscious falsity of the speech message; b) mismatch, which will indicate the conscious or unconscious falsity of the speech message. Consequently, it becomes important for the recipient to be able to identify and correlate the motives and goals of the speaker of the verbal message, which will contribute to the formation of a holistic understanding of its psychological content. Thus, the ability to identify the appropriate psychological context of the partner's verbal message allows one to uncover intentions to distort information during its semantic perception.

Approaches to the analysis of speech messages and their psychological correlates

Currently, the most systematic psychological analysis of texts is represented in sociolinguistics, forensic linguistics, psychographology, and linguapersonology. The analysis of written and oral texts identifies linguistic/speech markers that indicate the author's membership in a particular social group, ethnic group, or personality type. The linguistic object of analysis is a set of linguistic units in the fields of phonetics, accentology, morphology, word formation, and stylistics.

The author's affiliation with any social group, most often professional, is defined in terms of the stylistic and genre characteristics of the written text [1]. The social characteristics of the speaker leave an imprint on his speech and thereby distinguish him from the speech of representatives of other social groups.

The choice of language variant (subcode) depends on age, level of education, social status, place of childhood, place of longest residence, etc.

Studying official correspondence, documentation, etc., allows one to gain an understanding of the official style of language (speech), as well as the author's profession. Official style includes various "bureaucratic jargons." A distinctive characteristic of such texts is the abundance of "vague" and "nebulous" formulations. Diplomatic texts contain political and ideological positions, expressed through specific turns of phrase, linguistic formulas, and syntactic constructions. Media language also exhibits stylistic and genre features: the use of colloquial, colloquial, and slang words and expressions. Media texts aimed at a youth audience often employ language games (wordplays), including occasional neologisms, tongue-in-cheek humor, and the like. Oppositional texts deserve special mention. Their authors employ specific linguistic devices (vocabulary, phrases, syntax), which are related to so-called "linguistic defense." There is archaic vocabulary and parodies that distort the values of the accepted ideology, etc.

An author of a text who belongs to a social environment in which freedom from normative requirements and restrictions prevails is more likely to demonstrate the so-called «naive writing» style – «writes as he hears, with a lot of mistakes, without suspecting how it should be» [3].

Thus, the fixation of one or another active fragment of the corpus of linguistic means in written/oral speech indicates the author’s belonging to a certain social (professional) group – they most freely and easily use those fragments that reflect their social status and professional activity [1].

Ethnic The distinctive features of texts are represented by the author's nationally determined use of expressive language. These expressive language tools are formed in native speakers through the assimilation of national forms of material and spiritual culture. Nationally determined speech stereotypes (phrases, expressions) are "rigidly" attached to a particular life situation, and their variation is permitted within strict limits.

An analysis of the author's national and cultural affiliation can be accomplished through a study of word connotations. The speaker (writer) uses associations with keywords that are standard and generally accepted in a particular ethnic culture or nationality.

An important remark in the presentation of the approach to the analysis of the national-cultural affiliation of the author of the text is the key thesis of A.N. Leontiev [5] that each bearer of a specific ethnic culture can know his own and another’s world only with the help of his own image of the world and cannot see the world through the eyes of a bearer of another culture.

When analyzing written texts, the author's attitudes and beliefs—that is, the content of their consciousness—are of greatest interest to researchers. It is advisable to study these using methods such as content analysis and intent analysis.

Content analysis allows us to determine the extra-linguistic, contextual component of the text, what lies behind it: the personal characteristics of the author, the goals he pursues, intentions, attitudes, interests and values, belief systems, etc. [11].

Intent analysis aims to explore the speaker's (writer's) intentional focus, which constitutes a core component of the psychological content of speech. Moreover, an important applied aspect of intent analysis is the uncovering of the text's influence on the listener (reader). The author uses specific words, grammatical constructions, and rules for constructing the entire text to convey to the audience, for example, approval, criticism, threats, requests, etc.—that is, their intentions. In this case, the way in which intentions are organized in the text to achieve their goal is important.

Personality traits The author of the text. In linguistics, such an applied field as linguapersonology is developing quite actively [2]. Linguistic personology concentrates its efforts on a comprehensive study of a person in language, their gender, professional, mental-psychological linguistic characteristics. Linguistic personology is aimed at studying the essence and mechanisms of creating linguistic portraits, as well as the typology of discourse participants, where special attention is paid to the style of verbal interaction of subjects. The main principle of linguapersonology is the thesis that the principles of the structure of the mental and psychological space of the individual and the principles of the systemic structure of language correlate with each other, and therefore there is reason to speak of their relative isomorphism. In this regard, "orthographic", "morphological", "syntactic", and "genre" linguistic personality are distinguished.

Psychographology [8] studies the characterological traits of the author's personality. Handwriting analysis aims to identify the author's general character traits, including their temperament, willpower, and intellectual abilities. Furthermore, handwriting can be used to form an understanding of the individual's socio-psychological and social qualities, such as a tendency toward contradiction and an antisocial nature. Psychographological analysis allows one to determine a number of objective characteristics of the author, such as height, weight, and age. The most developed applied aspect of psychographology is the determination of the author's psychological and mental deviations.

A study of psychotypical signs of lying in verbal communication

The phenomenon of lying is the subject of study in various sciences: philosophy, sociology, jurisprudence, and psychiatry. However, psychology has made the greatest contribution to the understanding of lying. Psychological research into lying has been actively conducted in Western psychology [9; 10; 13]. Scientists have interpreted the significance of lying for humans in different ways. Some recognized it as an integral part of human nature, while others condemned it. The ambiguity of attitudes toward lying was compensated for by an analysis of the goals of this act, as well as the fatal consequences of false statements [12]. A generalization of existing definitions of lying as a psychological phenomenon allows us to formulate the following: a lie is a deliberate distortion of the truth, uttered with the purpose of misleading the addressee.

A study of the psychotypical characteristics of deception in verbal communication was conducted as part of a research project by V.G. Ovcharenko and A.V. Timoshenko, students in the Master's program "Psycholinguistics of Speech Influence" at Moscow State Pedagogical Univ. The subjects were 58 15- to 16-year-old schoolchildren. The age range chosen for the subjects was determined by the importance of communication for this age group. In accordance with the design of the experiment, students divided into psychotypes were shown a video clip. After viewing it, they were required to provide two descriptions of what they had seen: a false one and a true one. A qualitative comparative analysis of the texts was then conducted.

To determine psychotypical characteristics, the accentuation type determination method according to A.E. Lichko [6] was used. Based on the results of psychodiagnostics, three dominant psychotypes of schoolchildren were identified: hyperthymic (27%), hysteroids (37%), and paranoid (36%). This distribution of subjects can be considered acceptable for conducting subsequent experimental procedures.

In the next stage of the experiment, subjects wrote true and false descriptions of the video they had watched. Examples of the original texts are provided below.

Subject G. Psychotype: hyperthymic.

True. The video talks about anxiety disorder and what it represents. It helps us differentiate between normal anxiety and an anxiety disorder. It then goes on to talk about the five signs, many of which you can easily recognize in yourself: fear of public speaking (in front of a large group of people), fear of meeting new people, fear of being in a very emotional situation that worries you, or worrying about a lot of things. Normal anxiety isn't terrible, but if you have a disorder, it will greatly interfere with your life and needs to be addressed.

False. The video talks about anxiety disorder, it's not a severe anxiety and everything is known about it and it doesn't really interfere with life, and in it we find out if we have it and then they talk about the signs. The first is a reaction to a situation and that normally for a month you have flashbacks, poor sleep and you grieve sometimes swear, but if this is a disorder, then it lasts for several years. The second sign is a reaction to an ordinary situation. Normally, it's when you're very worried, for example, on your first flight on an airplane, and it's not normal when you don't react to the situation at all. The third sign is irrational fears. Normally, it's when you're afraid of something, a certain place, a seat at a bus stop, and it's not normal when you arrive and everyone will pay attention. The fourth sign is social anxiety, because when you greet friends, you're terribly worried, but it's normal when you meet new people and it's good if you're afraid of people in a calm state. The fifth sign is self-presentation. It's good when you go on stage and you feel like you can't do anything because people are looking at you, and it's bad when you can perform in front of people. .

Subject D. Psychotype: hysterical.

True. The first video shows a politician and a reporter interviewing him. The action takes place on the street at an event, with many people behind them. The reporter asks interesting questions, and the politician responds with unfamiliar terms and looks away from the camera.

The second video shows an astronaut talking about life on the space station, including how horses eat, wash themselves, and exercise in zero-gravity conditions.

False. The first video shows a person who studies human behavior. He demonstrates several tricks that help him distract viewers. In the second video, Spiridon Oganesyan talks about anxiety disorder. He discusses its symptoms and why it can occur.

Subject E. Psychotype: paranoid.

 

True. This video is about the art of distraction. The professor talked about a certain Frank residing in our brains, controlling a remote control that controls our brain and vision. Soon, he approaches one of the people sitting in the room. The professor places a poker chip in his hand, then takes it away, and then performs various manipulations with the chip. But the most important thing is that at the beginning of the video, he was wearing a suit, but when he summoned the person, he was in regular clothes.

The video was about the five signs of an anxiety disorder. He discussed these signs and gave examples of normal and abnormal anxiety. The young man talked about how to cope with this disorder and where to turn if it's serious.

False. The first video was about the art of attracting attention. It showed how to attract attention to the people around you, but also to yourself. The professor himself approached He interacted with the audience as if they were regular people or friends, talking about various things they owned. For this experiment, the professor invited two people to play a game with him to attract attention. He talked to them and asked where they got their things. And at the end, he was dressed not in a suit, but in a bright festive outfit.

The video discussed several signs of catatonic disorder. The person speaking about it discussed various symptoms, such as reactions to traumatic situations, negativity (more specifically, active and passive negativity), and much more. He talked about how to live with this condition. And at the end of the video, he wished people good health.

The results of the generalized comparative analysis of the speech characteristics of false texts of various psychotypes are presented in Table 1.

Table 1

A comparative analysis of speech characteristics of false texts of different psychotypes

Psychotype	Speech features of a false text
Hyperthymic	The writing of the text was accompanied by periodic requests to clarify the task. The text is incoherent, contains grammatical errors, and is overly rephrased. The text lacks closure. Contradictions are present. A fixation on insignificant details distracts from the main idea of the text.
Hysterical	Overgeneralization of data into a long and concise sentence. Lack of emphasis in the text. Minimization of punctuation. Lexical "poverty" of presentation. Lack of specificity and clarification.
Paranoid	The texts highlight "evasiveness" in answering questions. Completion is accompanied by a negative verbal assessment of the task's objective—to provide a false description. Maximum detail is combined with the use of simple, monosyllabic sentences. Text length is minimized. Emotionally charged words and evaluations of the actions and deeds of the video characters are avoided.

The data presented in Table 1 demonstrate that there are psychotypical characteristics of verbal distortions in adolescents. This can be interpreted as follows.

Hyperthymia, as an accentuated personality trait, is characterized by a high level of sociability and a clearly expressed nonverbal accompaniment to speech. Energy, initiative, and heightened tone are combined with spontaneity of behavior, frivolity, and superficial judgment. The desire for independence often borders on a refusal to accept obligations. This internal personality structure determines the lexical, grammatical, semantic, and stylistic features of distorted speech. The subject actively and enthusiastically engages in the creation of false ideas. Since there are no instructional restrictions, the process of describing the false result of perception unfolds spontaneously, without reference to grammatical, compositional, or syntactic norms. Superficial judgment manifests itself in a focus on irrelevant details. The main idea of the presentation is neglected, as this requires the use of rules that the subject perceives (possibly unconsciously) as barriers to their independence. Intolerance of monotony and uniformity manifests itself in the inability to distinguish between the main and the secondary, as well as to maintain the main theme of the presentation.

The primary need of the hysterical personality type is to be surrounded by people who admire their talents. The desire to be the center of attention at any cost, the need for respect and admiration, is combined with persistence and initiative, resourcefulness and independence, and a pronounced organizational ability. Moreover, to achieve social admiration, the hysterical personality type may appropriate non-existent successes. This personality type finds it difficult to tolerate attacks on their egocentrism, as well as exposure of their deceptions and fabrications. These psychotypical characteristics contribute to speech distortions. The prevalence of abstractions and generalizations in speech, the paucity of vocabulary, the minimization of punctuation, and the lack of semantic emphasis are explained by a fear of failure, negative external expert assessment, and, in general, an unconscious apprehension of being exposed. At the same time, such a psychotype will not fail to stand out due to the use of complex sentences, the ability to succinctly formulate a thought taking into account all sorts of nuances (a voluminous predicative part).

A key characteristic of paranoia is heightened goal-orientation. In their quest to achieve their goals, representatives of this personality type neglect the interests of not only others but often sacrifice their own well-being and comfort. Their reliability, energy, independence, and creativity are clearly evident in collective interactions. Paranoids are also weakly sensitive to the problems and troubles of others, which only evoke irritation and anger. These individuals tend to think in grandiose terms, with their goals and aspirations, coupled with excessive ambition. They are categorical in their communication. When creating false images, representatives of this personality type exhibit an emotional "dryness" in their speech. At the same time, the author of the text consistently and methodically constructs a chain of lies from beginning to end. Despite their commitment to the correct execution of the task, the paranoid person may unconsciously distance themselves from the main theme of the presentation in the hope of associating the false text with a larger and more significant goal.

Conclusion

Research into the psychological determinacy of verbal distortions has highlighted the relevance of interdisciplinary research in this area. Current conceptual approaches to the field do not focus on the problems of speech distortions and their psychological correlates. The experimental approach described in this article can serve as the basis for developing a methodology for studying the psychological mechanisms of speech distortions.

The results of the experimental study revealed that lying is determined by the subject's psychotypical personality traits. Dominant personality traits are manifested in the following textual features: a lack of semantic organization, the presence or absence of superphrasal unity, a violation of the balance between primary and secondary meanings, grammatical and lexical norms, and excessive abstractness or concreteness of terminology.

Further research into the psychological determinacy of verbal distortions seems promising in the context of expanding scientific knowledge about the psychological and psycholinguistic patterns of the generation and perception of speech messages.

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