From the publishing house: The work of A. N. Leontyev is an interesting attempt to approach the study of the highest psychological functions of a person from the point of view of their historical development. According to the author's plan, his research was to revise all the accumulated both theoretical and experimental material in the field of memory psychology based on the dialectical method. However, it must be said that the author has not yet managed to solve this extremely difficult and responsible task in this work. However, despite all these significant shortcomings and the present work makes a significant step forward and is of some interest both in the richness of experimental material, experimental methods, and in a new approach and study of memory.