Sensornye sistemy

The paper presents a review of modern research on the role of volatile organic compounds in the diagnosis of oncological diseases. The possibilities of canine olfaction, the use of detection dogs to identify diseased organisms among healthy organisms, the difficulties of this method, its comparison with instrumental methods of research are considered. The review includes the results of the authors’ own research and literature data on the specific features of the use of trained animals in the study of volatile organic compounds associated with the development of cancer. Possible ways of this research field development are suggested.

The work continues a series of psychophysical experiments on studying the features of visual recognition of target stimuli of different colors or different sizes by early preschool children. For measurements, a previously developed game technique was used with a touch screen monitor to present images of geometric figures in silence and under an acoustic background corresponding to noise of “children’s polyphony”. The noise was fed through headphones with an intensity of 45 dB (the volume level of spoken speech). The experiments involved children with normal vision and hearing aged 3–4 years (n = 60) attending a city kindergarten. The data obtained on the extended sample confirmed the previously identified patterns: children of this age make a significantly worse choice based on the “color” feature than on the “size” feature (p <0.01); the introduction of the background noise of “children’s polyphony” increases the search time for a visual target, especially in the tasks of choosing the target “color”. A comparative analysis of the results in subgroups of children demonstrating different levels of activity and anxiety showed the manifestation of reliable differences, which is in good agreement with the preliminary data of the previous study. The results are of practical importance for the organization of preschool education, taking into account the characteristics of the psychophysiological profile of children and their level of anxiety, as well as special education for children with developmental delays.