Olga Ivanovna Nikiforova is a researcher in the psychology of artistic perception

Abstract

Olga Ivanovna Nikiforova (1903–1978) was a prominent Soviet psychologist specializing in the psychology of art, as well as in general and developmental psychology. From 1948 to 1978, she worked first at the Department of Psychology of the Faculty of Philosophy and later at the Faculty of Psychology of Lomonosov Moscow State University. The main focus of O. I. Nikiforova’s research was the psychology of the perception of works of artistic creativity, including cinema, painting, sculpture, and literature. This line of research was reflected in her major works such as Perception of Fiction by Schoolchildren, Studies in the Psychology of Artistic Creativity, and The Psychology of Fiction Perception, among others. In 1969, she defended her doctoral dissertation (Doctor of Psychological Sciences) entitled Psychological Issues in the Perception of Fiction. The empirical findings obtained by O. I. Nikiforova were subsequently used in the development of educational curricula for the training of literature teachers and librarians.