Scientists turned to the study of higher mental functions even at the initial stages of the formation of science. But for the first time this concept was used in scientific terminology by the prominent Soviet psychiatrist L.S. Vygotsky during a scientific debate with the Frenchman J. Piaget on the priority of the spheres of human development.
The concept of higher mental functions reflects a complex of complex mental phenomena and processes that are determined by psychophysical and social factors, and manifest themselves exclusively as social. It is this asymmetry of the manifestation of these phenomena that determines their possible arbitrary course. According to the statements of L. Vygotsky, human mental processes have 2 main sources of their genesis. Some of them are determined by genetic factors that form and manifest over generations. The genesis of others occurs solely under the influence of social factors. Moreover, the formation of social functions goes through their "layering" on the genetic, and therefore the whole complex, which are the highest mental functions, is the result of a long process of socio-historical development.
One of the most important mental functions is human speech. This function not only provides communication between people, but also gives the whole society, as a system, its main property - sociality. On the other hand, it is sociality that mediates the implementation of these functions in activities. Among the most important mental functions include perception, memory and thinking.
The process of deploying a function is a rather complex phenomenon, which includes a number of successive stages. They are relatively autonomous, and each of them is a separate mental and activity process.
At the first stage, interpsychologization takes place, i.e. simple interaction between people. Then, intrapsychologization takes place - a phenomenon that characterizes a person’s awareness of his activity directed to the external environment. And then comes the internalization - external factors that mediate human activity and are transformed into internal ones. Interiorization turns some human activities into a set of automatic motor actions, skills, which for the most part, are performed unknowingly, being, nevertheless, quite significant social practice. An example of such a process can be, for example, the process of learning something when a person, owning certain knowledge, gradually repeating them in practice, gradually transforming them into skills.
The most important problem is how higher mental functions manifest themselves in people's daily lives. Everyday mental self-regulation has as its goal not only social correction of human behavior, but itself acts as a mental function, which, in fact, determines the difference between a person and other biological species. Considering it in this context, it should be understood that self-regulation functions at the level of the psyche, providing a harmonious adaptation of the entire human body to dynamic changes in the external natural and social environment. It is a process of correction of a psychoemotional state, which is realized by means of a person acting on himself in various ways. Such may be words (speech), appeal to any images, memory, control of the physical condition of the body. Such methods as sleep, laughter, memories of pleasant things, observation of nature, relaxation, sipping, and others that are quite widely used and well known to everyone.
Specialists who study higher mental functions and the nature of their implementation argue that it is the active participation of the person in the regulation of emotional states that gives the greatest effect to the process of socialization, harmoniously adapting it to the changing conditions of the social environment.
The roles of these functions can hardly be overestimated in human life. They bring us knowledge, skills, provide a normal inclusion in the complex processes of social interactions, which are filled with modern society.