Glossary entry

Russian term or phrase:

помехоустойчивость

English translation:

resistance to interference, distraction tolerance

Added to glossary by Susan Welsh
Mar 17, 2018 23:57
6 yrs ago
1 viewer *
Russian term

помехоустойчивость

Russian to English Social Sciences Psychology psychological stability of medical personnel
"Одним из важнейших качеств специалистов, выполняющих с и ответственную работу, в том числе врачей скорой помощи, и важнейшим условием надежности их профессиональной деятельности является психологическая устойчивость их личности как способность сохранять оптимальные рабочие параметры: работоспособность, бдительность, **помехоустойчивость** и др."

Everything I find in online dictionaries about this term has to do with electromagnetism, noise, electronics, radio waves, etc., which are obviously not relevant, although the author of the English article I am editing (I have the Russian original) translates it as "noise immunity" once and "interference" the second time.

Here is the definition from the Национальная психологическая энциклопедия: "помехоустойчивость личности: способность личности эффективно заниматься ведущей деятельностью (обычно операторского типа) при влиянии неблагоприятных факторов, по идее могущих дезорганизовать ее."
https://vocabulary.ru/termin/pomehoustoichivost-lichnosti.ht...

The idea is clear enough, but is there an English term for it?

The same encyclopedia thinks there is, as in this entry: "ПАМЯТИ ПОМЕХОУСТОЙЧИВОСТЬ
(англ. interference immunity of memory) - способность противостоять действию внешних и внутренних помех." But if you google for "interference immunity of memory," the only thing that comes up is this exact encyclopedia entry, which is copied on half a dozen other sites!

I think these people are borrowing from the usage having to do with radio waves (see Multitran), and applying the translations found there to psychology, where it makes no sense.

In layman's English, I would just say the emergency medical worker is able to concentrate despite distractions (such as fire, flood, dead bodies, badly wounded people). But is there a technical term in English as there is in Russian?

Discussion

Dylan Edwards Mar 18, 2018:
For помехоустойчивость спортсменов, see here:
http://ours-nature.ru/lib/b/book/3725343265/369
Dylan Edwards Mar 18, 2018:
If you try searching for помехоустойчивость in conjunction with баскетбол or гимнастика, you'll see that the term is used quite a lot in sports psychology.
Susan Welsh (asker) Mar 18, 2018:
Turdimurod Rakhmanov Mar 18, 2018:
it is about RESISTANCE TO INTERFERENCE, the second translation by the translator is close \"interference\".
Susan Welsh (asker) Mar 18, 2018:
Dear Misha, It has nothing to do with Wikipedia. It's from the Национальная психологическая энциклопедия, as I said. And neither you nor I know enough about psych terminology in either Russian or English to say definitely whether this is a technical term or just gibberish.
We keep having this argument, but if the Russian phrase about the history of China is "Большой скачок," you simply cannot translate it into English as "the Big Jump," as I once did long ago (rather than "the Great Leap Forward").
You're a financial expert. If somebody translated "derivatives" as "варианты," you would say they're a damn fool, not a good old layman! N'est-ce pas?
The Misha Mar 18, 2018:
Susan, you said it yourself It is nothing more than resilience to distractions and it's not a technical term even in Russian, let alone in English. It's but another attempt at pseudo-scientific self-aggrandizement - and I will spare you the rest because you have heard it all before from this particular horse's mouth. I say use good old layman's English:)

As to the general quality of Wikipedia's English writing... oh boy, don't even get me started.

Proposed translations

13 hrs
Selected

resistance to interference

resistance to interference
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4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "Thanks! And also to Igor: your solution is also a reasonable alternative, although this one seems to be used more commonly."
2 hrs

"noise resistance"

Susan, I believe that you have a very reliable lifeline - quotation marks, which, in my view, emphasizes that the authors are intentionally borrowing this alien term from the different field because they feel that this is the best way to present their point. I think you are in your full right to do the same.

Again, I won't be able to proceed with the discussion - another plane at 5 am:-). Smoke break is over... Good luck!
Note from asker:
There are no quotation marks within the quote. The asterisks are just my way of drawing attention to the term, since we cannot use boldface or italic in this forum.
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14 hrs

distraction tolerance

*
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5 hrs

noise tolerance

Because different people's ears differ in their degree of vulnerability to noise, noise exposure levels that are well tolerated by some people may cause harm in others.

See refs.

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Note added at 7 hrs (2018-03-18 07:33:29 GMT)
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Reference from I.P.Pavlov Institute of Physiology Russian Academy of Sciences, St.Petersburg, Russia:

Эффект предшествования относится к феноменам, характеризующим ***помехоустойчивость слуховой системы при локализации источника звука.
"The precedence effect refers to the phenomenon which characterizes ***noise tolerance of the auditory system during sound source localization."

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Note added at 14 hrs (2018-03-18 14:39:08 GMT)
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Susan,
May be the term "Помехоустойчивость" simply refers to "tolerance for difficulty", quite common term in Psychology.
Note from asker:
Помехоустойчивость слуховой системы is not the same as помехоустойчивость. It could be about sound, but not necessarily.
Peer comment(s):

neutral The Misha : Do you realize this is not about hearing? Did you even bother reading the original post?
6 hrs
If you realize, that noise tolerance is all about hearing and has not connected to work psychology environment, then don't waste my time!
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Reference comments

4 hrs
Reference:

RESISTANCE TO INTERFERENCE

RESISTANCE TO INTERFERENCE
Note from asker:
I think you've got it, Turdimurod! That's a good reference, which I've never seen before. It googles well (https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C47&q=%22resistance+to+interference%22+%22personality%22&btnG=&oq=%22resistance) and the APA Dictionary of Psychology lists it: "the ability to ignore irrelevant info so that it does not impede task performance." Please post it as an answer. (Also called "attentional resistance to interference".)
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