From an epistemological viewpoint, most recent advances in Psychology and related disciplines draw upon a small set of recognized, though sometimes conflicting, approaches, such as information processing, connectionism, or ecological psychology. A novel alternative approach, called Transcendental Psychology Methodology (TPM), is developed by A.I. Mirakyan (1929-1995) and his group, mainly in the Laboratory for Modeling of Psychic processes at the Psychological Institute of the Russian Academy of Education. Mirakyan began with theoretical and experimental studies of the Perceptual Constancy Problem, which had remained almost unchanged in form since Descartes’ (1637) suggestion that perceived size depends upon object distance as well as image size. The development of physical and physiological optics and acoustics has subsequently revealed many new constancies in, for example, the perception of colour, brightness, position and loudness. Mirakyan recognized that contemporary accounts of these phenomena included both theoretical contradictions and empirical discrepancies, and concluded that the reconciliation of these differences required a broader approach, including a more general study of the circumstances under which conscious perceptions change or remain constant with variations in the stimulus. This more general study of perceptual processes in turn highlighted further contradictions and led him to challenge the very foundations and methods of existing approaches. Mirakyan’s alternative Transcendental Psychology Methodology (TPM) proposes a radical change in focus away from the perceptual phenomena themselves and onto the processes that create them. Rather than concentrating upon the direct products of individual sensory processes, as in the traditional Product

Basis Paradigm, TPM is interested in discovering the principles which give these processes the flexibility to create complex, coherent representations under different stimulus conditions. Thus, in general, perception is viewed as a unified process of form creation, requiring the dynamic formation of internal anisotropic relations within an explicitly generative system. The resulting Principles of Generative Processes provide new theoretical foundations by not only seeking to explain the processes by which perceptual representations are created, but by making these processes the primary object of investigation. TPM-inspired studies of a wide range of visual, tactile and auditory phenomena have so far suggested basic principles that can be applied to all perceptual processes, regardless of their modality. Some of its more interesting results concern the functional range of sensory systems, its applications to the perception of object stability and movement, and Mirakyan’s radically new conception of spatial perception, in which time is regarded as the main factor in the perception of spatial extent and sensory awareness. Because TPM focuses essentially upon universal, generative processes, the approach may also be usefully applied in other disciplines. For example, some of the aspects of qualitative modeling suggest new technological solutions and provide a link between neurophysiological and psychological levels of investigation.