What is thinking
Thinking is a cognitive process that allows a person to perceive, realize reality and express this in his own activities. It endows surrounding objects with properties and relationships with each other. Thanks to mental activity, each person’s picture of the world is formed.
There are the following main signs of thinking:
- Mediation – cognitive activity is based on data from the senses and does not interact directly with reality;
- Generalization is the ability to find common properties in objects of the same type.
These characteristics are inherent in every person. In mental illness, a disorder in the basic features of thought processes may occur - for example, the search for similarities in dissimilar objects.
Right-brain and left-brain thinking
Each hemisphere is characterized by the predominance of certain processes. Based on this feature, the main types of thinking were identified:
- Left hemisphere - the process is dominated by analytical and synthetic processes, logical constructions;
- Right-hemisphere - relies on images and intuition;
- Mixed is the alternate work of each hemisphere;
- Integrated – simultaneous work of both hemispheres.
It is wrong to say that one type of mental activity is preferable to another. Each of them is capable of coming to both correct and incorrect conclusions. Left-hemisphere thinking gives leadership qualities, right-hemisphere thinking gives a strong emotional response. Mixed, thanks to its ability to “switch,” can use the strengths of both hemispheres. But this process does not always happen on time. The same goes for the integrated type.
What refers to the main types of thinking depending on personal characteristics
Certain personality characteristics can also influence the way you think.
Male
As a rule, it is based on logical analysis and is aimed at creating a plan of specific actions. It is characterized by purposefulness, rationality and alienation of the mind from sensations. Men strive to move from thinking to action and achieving a certain result, and emotions only interfere with the process of comprehension.
Women's
Most often it has an intuitive basis, which is almost always accompanied by sensory experience. Specification and detail of information play an important role. A woman’s way of thinking can change under the influence of her mood, although many girls have logic, rationalism, and the ability to plan and analyze. However, the trend shows that their emotionality still has a strong influence on the perception of the world around them: sometimes it helps, and sometimes it interferes with thinking.
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Positive
People with this type of thinking are more likely to see opportunities around them rather than obstacles. No matter what happens, they strive to maintain an optimistic attitude, while being realistic and constructive in assessing the situation and finding in it what contributes to success.
Negative
Accompanied by emotions associated with dissatisfaction with life and pessimism. People of this mindset tend to passively criticize what is happening, express their unpleasant feelings and thoughts, but do not always take responsibility for solving the problem that has arisen.
Strategic
It is possessed by individuals who prefer to plan their activities far ahead and know how to set long-term goals. They stick to their plan and see the most effective ways to achieve their plans. As a rule, these are good managers and businessmen.
Idealistic
Instead of understanding the world, idealists create a model of it in their heads, which they try to impose on reality. Most often, these pictures do not match, which causes negative emotions and experiences in a person. An individual with such a mentality may not notice the obvious due to this desire for illusions.
Irrational
An irrational person does not always manage to see and understand the reasons for his actions. He does not analyze, does not criticize, but simply believes in what he does. For him, the most important thing is the effectiveness of actions, and not the logic or objectivity of the assessment.
Rational
Unlike the previous one, the rational refers only to facts, knowledge and skills. He pushes sensations and emotions into the background, preferring to think soberly, constructively, quickly and logically solving assigned tasks.
Analytical
A person with this way of thinking relies solely on logic. He is sure that everything has a cause-and-effect relationship, so to solve a problem you need to analyze for a long time, study the situation and get to the bottom of the root cause.
Synthesizing
Well developed among those who are able to recreate a complete and understandable picture of reality from individual pieces of information. Such people are not afraid of routine work and prefer stability rather than change. They perceive the world around them with caution. Personalities of this type often make outstanding scientists. They successfully cope with office tasks, know how to competently collect and structure data, as well as present it correctly, and resort to drawing up diagrams and tables for clarity.
Classification
In psychology, types of thinking are distinguished depending on the way a person comes to conclusions:
- Visual-effective - cognitive activity based on the perception of specific objects and manipulations with them;
- Visual-figurative – relies on images and judgments, allows the use of specific images to illustrate conclusions;
- Verbal-logical – based on logical constructions and inferences. Able to reason about abstract concepts;
- Subject-effective – close to visual-effective. Used to solve applied problems;
- Empirical - using lived experience to make inferences.
Each person has all types to one degree or another. The verbal-logical or abstract type develops later than the others. Characteristic only for humans. Other types appear to varying degrees in some animals. In essence, abstract thinking allows a person to use a wide conceptual apparatus and transfer knowledge through indirect sources - a book, an educational film, etc.
What exercises help?
In children
Methods and exercises vary depending on the age of the child.
It is useful to use the pyramid game with preschoolers. Gradually complicating the task, rings of different sizes and objects of different shapes are used. If, before starting an exercise, the child is able to tell what he will do now, then the development process has begun. Creative tasks asking you to draw an object are great for developing imaginative thinking. Exercises with various cards are useful. For example, using cards that depict a figure, children must tell what it looks like, or the “find the odd one out” exercise.
Visually effective type
This is the earliest form of mental activity that develops in humans. It is typical for children under 3 years of age. Mental operations are based on manipulations with really existing tangible objects. Each problem is solved immediately at the practical stage, during manipulations with objects. Thinking disorders of this type are rare. Mainly with severe mental retardation. They lead to the fact that the process of development of brain activity as a whole slows down or stops.
How and when does developmental disorder develop?
This is the first stage in the development of mental activity. The time frame for its development to begin varies. Some experts indicate that a child is capable of simple mental operations from birth. Others say that the development of mental processes is closely related to the ability to move and appears simultaneously with a decrease in muscle hypertonicity. Estimated time frame: 6 months – 1 year.
Vivid and uncontrolled manifestations of visual-effective thinking in children over 3 years of age, adolescents and adults indicate serious mental disorders - mental retardation, regression in psychosis. The patient exhibits a pronounced desire to grab, break and hide surrounding objects.
Manual or visual-effective thinking of children and ways of its development
This type of solving life problems got its name due to the fact that the child constantly performs some kind of manipulation with surrounding objects. The most striking manifestations are the baby grabbing toys, knocking them, testing them, licking them, trying to take them apart and put them back together.
It makes no sense to wean a child from these manipulations; a much more important task for parents is to provide the child with toys that he can disassemble and assemble without damaging them. An excellent option is sorters. This educational toy has many functions and modifications. The principle of operation is usually similar - assemble, disassemble, correlate colors, edges, shapes. This is both a puzzle and a construction set in one toy. Check out the selection of smart toys in different prices and variations.
Visually effective type of thinking in adults
In adults, such mental operations are involved in cases where the result of actions cannot be predicted on the basis of existing inferences. A striking example is mastering an unfamiliar technique. Arrangement of furniture in the room or objects on the table, selection of necessary materials according to shape, texture, subjective sensations.
Concretely actionable thinking
Language. Thinking.
Language is closely related to the thinking and consciousness of a person as a whole. Language is impossible in irrational creatures. On the other hand, thinking, which, although it can occur in a figurative or intuitive form, has a verbal, linguistic form as its highest and universal form.
Intellectual activity and language are a single whole. By necessity, thinking is always associated with units of language; without them, thought cannot achieve distinctness and clarity, and an idea cannot become a concept.
The word arises on the basis of a person’s subjective perception of objects in the external world; it is an imprint not of the object itself, but of its image created by this object in our consciousness.
A thought perceived by language becomes an object for our soul and therefore produces an influence on it from the outside. Thought, becoming a word, comes into contact with the outside world. Thus, language connects the external world of a person with the internal one in both directions.
Language is one of those phenomena that stimulates human spiritual power to constant activity.
The need of thinking for a concept and the resulting desire to understand it must precede the word, which is an expression of complete clarity of the concept.
Therefore, the rules of speech communication recommend that a person first clearly understand his thoughts, make sure the words he chooses are accurate, and only then speak out loud. You should not take part in the discussion of topics about which a person does not have sufficient knowledge. Also, one should not use words in one’s speech whose exact meaning one is not sure of.
Thinking develops and is updated much faster than language, but without language thinking is only a “thing for itself,” and a thought not expressed in language is not that clear, distinct thought that helps a person comprehend the phenomena of reality; it is rather a foresight, but not actual knowledge.
If thinking cannot do without language, then language without thinking is impossible. We speak and write while thinking, and we try to express our thoughts more accurately and clearly in speech. Even a reciter reading someone's work, or an announcer reading the latest news, does not just make sounds like parrots, but speaks. The same applies to quotes, the use of proverbs and aphorisms in ordinary speech; they are not invented by the speaker, but their choice, the meaning embedded in them is a trace and consequence of the speaker’s thoughts.
Language is associated with all mental activity of a person, i.e. not only with thought, but also with feeling and will and is a means of their expression.
Language and consciousness mutually influence each other.
The thinking of a person (both an individual and the entire human race) is in constant development, opening up more and more new aspects of the surrounding world. The increasing complexity of knowledge about the world requires language to be increasingly flexible in denoting new concepts about objects, properties of objects, phenomena and relationships.
In order to provide thinking with the proper linguistic means, the language has to improve its vocabulary and grammar. Therefore, new meanings of words are formed in the language, new words are created, words that are similar in sound are differentiated in meaning, and the stylistic differentiation of vocabulary is consolidated. In grammar, a language can give new meanings to syntactic constructions, fix some phrases as stable phrases, turning them into phraseological units or analytical forms of expressing morphological meanings.
The success of all verbal and mental activity depends on how quickly, flexibly and successfully the language responds to new needs of thinking.
The success of a person’s verbal thinking depends on how well that person speaks his native language and how well he understands the meaning of words and grammatical structures. An individual always has a good opportunity to develop his linguistic ability by turning to the collective experience of the nation through penetration into the depth of the meanings of words, into the riches of his native language.
The success of a nation's speech thinking depends on the level of culture in a given society, on the degree of processing of the literary language and the degree of prevalence of the literary language in the speech of individual members of the linguistic community, on the level of mutual understanding of the intelligentsia and other social groups.
A language that quickly responds to the needs of thinking contributes to an even greater flowering of thought, makes it possible to make major intellectual discoveries and spread high culture in wide public circles.
If a language fails to find convenient and generally understandable ways to express more complex thoughts, it becomes a brake on the path of understanding the world and the dissemination of knowledge in this society. In this case, people’s thinking turns into wandering between words that do not express meaning or words, although they express meaning, but do not convey it to the listener. The fault for this, of course, is not the language, but the attitude of the speakers towards it, disrespect for the classical literary tradition, philological science and the humanities in general, indifference to issues of speech culture, the cultivation of idle, aimless chatter, a frivolous, thoughtless attitude towards the word. Under these conditions, language can turn from a means of expressing thought into a means of destroying thought, into a source of myths, misunderstandings, and false interpretations.
Thus, thinking is the source of the development of language, and language, in turn, influences the course of development of thinking. This is the thought-forming role of language.
Language expresses our thoughts. Language puts the product of our thinking into words.
Language and thinking form a unity: without thinking there can be no language, and thinking without language is impossible. There are two main aspects of this unity:
. genetic, which is expressed in the fact that the emergence of language was closely related to the emergence of thinking, and vice versa;
. functional - languages of thought in today's developed state represent such a unity, the sides of which mutually presuppose each other.
However, this does not mean that language and thinking are identical.
to a friend. There are certain differences between them.
Inner speech
- 1) speech addressed to oneself, etc. internal program of statements that are not realized in spoken speech; 2) articulatory movements not accompanied by sound (“internal pronunciation”). The study of inner speech contributes to understanding the patterns of thinking and its relationship with speech; 3) various types of language use (more precisely, linguistic meanings) outside the process of real communication. There are three main types of Inner speech: a) internal pronunciation - “speech to oneself”, preserving the structure of external speech, but devoid of phonation, i.e. pronunciation of sounds, and typical for solving mental problems in difficult conditions; b) Inner speech itself, when it acts as a means of thinking, uses specific units (code of images and diagrams, subject code, subject meanings) and has a specific structure, different from the structure of external speech ; c) internal programming, i.e. formation and consolidation in specific units of the concept (type, program) of a speech utterance, the whole text and its meaningful parts (A.N. Sokolov, N.I. Zhinkin, etc.). In ontogenesis, inner speech is formed in the process of internalization of external speech.
Information received by a person from the surrounding world allows a person to imagine not only the external, but also the internal side of an object, to imagine objects in their absence, to foresee their changes over time, to rush with thought into the vast distances and the microworld. All this is possible thanks to the thinking process. In psychology, thinking is understood as the process of an individual’s cognitive activity, characterized by a generalized and indirect reflection of reality. Objects and phenomena of reality have properties and relationships that can be cognized directly, with the help of sensations and perceptions (colors, sounds, shapes, placement and movement of bodies in visible space).
The first feature of thinking is its indirect nature. What a person cannot know directly, directly, he knows indirectly, indirectly: some properties through others, the unknown through the known. Thinking is always based on the data of sensory experience - sensations, perceptions, ideas - and on previously acquired theoretical knowledge. Indirect knowledge is mediated knowledge.
The second feature of thinking is its generality. Generalization as knowledge of the general and essential in the objects of reality is possible because all the properties of these objects are connected with each other. The general exists and manifests itself only in the individual, in the concrete.
People express generalizations through speech and language. A verbal designation refers not only to a single object, but also to a whole group of similar objects. Generalization is also inherent in images (ideas and even perceptions). But there it is always limited by clarity. The word allows one to generalize limitlessly. Philosophical concepts of matter, motion, law, essence, phenomenon, quality, quantity, etc. - the broadest generalizations expressed in words.
The results of people's cognitive activity are recorded in the form of concepts. A concept is a reflection of the essential features of an object. The concept of an object arises on the basis of many judgments and conclusions about it. The concept, as a result of generalizing the experience of people, is the highest product of the brain, the highest level of knowledge of the world.
Human thinking occurs in the form of judgments and inferences . Judgment is a form of thinking that reflects the objects of reality in their connections and relationships. Each judgment is a separate thought about something. The sequential logical connection of several judgments, necessary in order to solve any mental problem, understand something, find an answer to a question, is called reasoning. Reasoning has practical meaning only when it leads to a certain conclusion, a conclusion. The conclusion will be the answer to the question, the result of the search for thought.
Inference is a conclusion from several judgments that gives us new knowledge about objects and phenomena of the objective world. Inferences can be inductive, deductive, or by analogy.
Thinking is the highest level of human knowledge of reality. The sensory basis of thinking is sensations, perceptions and ideas. Through the senses - these are the only channels of communication between the body and the outside world - information enters the brain. The content of information is processed by the brain. The most complex (logical) form of information processing is the activity of thinking. Solving the mental problems that life poses to a person, he reflects, draws conclusions and thereby learns the essence of things and phenomena, discovers the laws of their connection, and then, on this basis, transforms the world.
Thinking is not only closely connected with sensations and perceptions, but it is formed on the basis of them. The transition from sensation to thought is a complex process, which consists, first of all, in isolating and isolating an object or its sign, in abstracting from the concrete, individual and establishing the essential, common to many objects.
Thinking acts mainly as a solution to tasks, questions, problems that are constantly put forward to people by life. Solving problems should always give a person something new, new knowledge. Finding solutions can sometimes be very difficult, so mental activity, as a rule, is an active activity that requires concentrated attention and patience. The real process of thought is always a process not only cognitive, but also emotional and volitional.
For human thinking, the relationship is more important not with sensory knowledge, but with speech and language. In a more strict sense, speech is a process of communication mediated by language. If language is an objective, historically established system of codes and the subject of a special science - linguistics, then speech is a psychological process of formulating and transmitting thoughts through the means of language.
Modern psychology does not believe that internal speech has the same structure and the same functions as expanded external speech. By internal speech, psychology means a significant transitional stage between the plan and developed external speech. A mechanism that allows you to recode the general meaning into a speech utterance, i.e. inner speech is, first of all, not a detailed speech utterance, but only a preparatory stage .
However, the inextricable connection between thinking and speech does not mean that thinking can be reduced to speech. Thinking and speech are not the same thing. Thinking does not mean talking to yourself. Evidence of this can be the possibility of expressing the same thought in different words, as well as the fact that we do not always find the right words to express our thoughts.
The objective material form of thinking is language. A thought becomes a thought both for oneself and for others only through the word - oral and written. Thanks to language, people's thoughts are not lost, but are passed on as a system of knowledge from generation to generation. However, there are additional means of transmitting the results of thinking: light and sound signals, electrical impulses, gestures, etc. Modern science and technology widely use conventional signs as a universal and economical means of transmitting information.
Thinking is also inextricably linked with the practical activities of people. Every type of activity involves thinking, taking into account the conditions of action, planning, and observation. By acting, a person solves some problems. Practical activity is the main condition for the emergence and development of thinking, as well as a criterion for the truth of thinking.
Thought processes
Human mental activity is the solution of various mental problems aimed at revealing the essence of something. A mental operation is one of the methods of mental activity through which a person solves mental problems.
Mental operations are varied. This is analysis and synthesis, comparison, abstraction, specification, generalization, classification . Which logical operations a person will use will depend on the task and on the nature of the information that he is subjected to mental processing.
Analysis and synthesis
Analysis is the mental decomposition of a whole into parts or the mental isolation of its sides, actions, and relationships from the whole.
Synthesis is the opposite process of thought to analysis; it is the unification of parts, properties, actions, relationships into one whole.
Analysis and synthesis are two interrelated logical operations. Synthesis, like analysis, can be both practical and mental.
Analysis and synthesis were formed in the practical activities of man. In their work, people constantly interact with objects and phenomena. Their practical mastery led to the formation of mental operations of analysis and synthesis.
Comparison
Comparison is the establishment of similarities and differences between objects and phenomena.
The comparison is based on analysis. Before comparing objects, it is necessary to identify one or more of their characteristics by which the comparison will be made.
The comparison can be one-sided, or incomplete, and multilateral, or more complete. Comparison, like analysis and synthesis, can be at different levels - superficial and deeper. In this case, a person’s thought goes from external signs of similarity and difference to internal ones, from visible to hidden, from appearance to essence.
Abstraction
Abstraction is the process of mental abstraction from certain features, aspects of a particular thing in order to better understand it.
A person mentally identifies some feature of an object and examines it in isolation from all other features, temporarily distracting from them. Isolated study of individual features of an object while simultaneously abstracting from all others helps a person to better understand the essence of things and phenomena. Thanks to abstraction, man was able to break away from the individual, concrete and rise to the highest level of knowledge - scientific theoretical thinking.
Specification
Concretization is a process that is the opposite of abstraction and is inextricably linked with it.
Concretization is the return of thought from the general and abstract to the concrete in order to reveal the content.
Mental activity is always aimed at obtaining some result. A person analyzes objects, compares them, abstracts individual properties in order to identify what they have in common, in order to reveal the patterns that govern their development, in order to master them.
Generalization, therefore, is the identification of the general in objects and phenomena, which is expressed in the form of a concept, law, rule, formula, etc.
Types of thinking
Depending on what place the word, image and action occupy in the thought process, how they relate to each other, three types of thinking are distinguished : concrete-effective, or practical, concrete-figurative and abstract. These types of thinking are also distinguished on the basis of the characteristics of the tasks - practical and theoretical .
Concrete-imaginative thinking
Visual-figurative is a type of thinking characterized by reliance on ideas and images.
Concrete-figurative (visual-figurative), or artistic thinking is characterized by the fact that a person embodies abstract thoughts and generalizations into concrete images.
Abstract thinking
Verbal-logical is a type of thinking carried out using logical operations with concepts.
Abstract, or verbal-logical, thinking is aimed mainly at finding general patterns in nature and human society. Abstract, theoretical thinking reflects general connections and relationships. It operates mainly with concepts, broad categories, and images and ideas play a supporting role in it.
All three types of thinking are closely related to each other. Many people have equally developed concrete-actional, concrete-imaginative and theoretical thinking, but depending on the nature of the problems that a person solves, first one, then another, then a third type of thinking comes to the fore.
Types and types of thinking
Practical-effective, visual-figurative and theoretical-abstract - these are interconnected types of thinking. In the process of historical development of mankind, human intellect was initially formed in the course of practical activity. Thus, people learned to measure plots of land experimentally, and then, on this basis, a special theoretical science gradually emerged - geometry.
Genetically, the earliest type of thinking is practical-effective thinking ; actions with objects are of decisive importance in it (in its rudimentary form it is also observed in animals).
, visual-figurative thinking arises . It is characterized by operating with visual images in the mind.
The highest level of thinking is abstract, abstract thinking . However, here too thinking remains connected with practice. As they say, there is nothing more practical than a correct theory.
The thinking of individual people is also divided into practical, imaginative and abstract (theoretical).
But in the process of life, for the same person, first one or another type of thinking comes to the fore. Thus, everyday affairs require practical thinking, and a report on a scientific topic requires theoretical thinking, etc.
According to content, mental activity is divided into practical, artistic and scientific .
The structural unit of practical (operational) thinking is action ; artistic - image ; scientific thinking - concept .
Depending on the depth of generalization, empirical and theoretical thinking are distinguished.
Empirical thinking (from the Greek empeiria - experience) gives primary generalizations based on experience. These generalizations are made at a low level of abstraction. Empirical knowledge is the lowest, elementary stage of knowledge. Empirical thinking should not be confused with practical thinking .
As noted by the famous psychologist V. M. Teplov (“The Mind of a Commander”), many psychologists take the work of a scientist and theorist as the only example of mental activity. Meanwhile, practical activity requires no less intellectual effort.
The mental activity of the theorist is concentrated primarily on the first part of the path of knowledge - a temporary withdrawal, a retreat from practice. The mental activity of a practitioner is focused mainly on the second part - on the transition from abstract thinking to practice, that is, on that “getting into” practice, for the sake of which a theoretical retreat is made.
A feature of practical thinking is subtle observation, the ability to concentrate attention on individual details of an event, the ability to use to solve a particular problem something special and individual that was not fully included in the theoretical generalization, the ability to quickly move from reflection to action.
In the practical thinking of a person, the optimal ratio of his mind and will, cognitive, regulatory and energetic capabilities of the individual is essential. Practical thinking is associated with the prompt setting of priority goals, the development of flexible plans and programs, and greater self-control in stressful operating conditions.
Theoretical thinking reveals universal relations and explores the object of knowledge in the system of its necessary connections. Its result is the construction of conceptual models, the creation of theories, the generalization of experience, the disclosure of patterns of development of various phenomena, the knowledge of which ensures transformative human activity. Theoretical thinking is inextricably linked with practice, but in its final results it has relative independence; it is based on previous knowledge and, in turn, serves as the basis for subsequent knowledge.
Depending on the standard/non-standard nature of the tasks being solved and operational procedures, algorithmic, discursive, heuristic and creative thinking are distinguished.
Algorithmic thinking is focused on pre-established rules, a generally accepted sequence of actions necessary to solve typical problems.
Discursive (from the Latin discursus - reasoning) thinking is based on a system of interconnected conclusions.
Heuristic thinking (from the Greek heuresko - I find) is productive thinking, consisting of solving non-standard problems.
Creative thinking is thinking that leads to new discoveries and fundamentally new results.
There is also a distinction between reproductive and productive thinking.
Reproductive thinking is the reproduction of previously obtained results. In this case, thinking merges with memory.
Productive thinking is thinking that leads to new cognitive results.
Memory is the mental process of capturing, storing and reproducing what a person has reflected, done or experienced. Memory is very important in human life and activity. Thanks to memory, he forms ideas about previously perceived objects or phenomena, as a result of which the content of his consciousness is not limited to existing sensations and perceptions, but includes experience and knowledge acquired in the past. We remember our thoughts, retain in our memory the concepts that arise about objects and the laws of their existence. Memory allows you to use these concepts in future actions and behavior. If a person did not have memory, his thinking would become very limited, since it would be carried out only on material obtained in the process of direct perception.
The physiological basis of memory are traces of former neural processes that are preserved in the cerebral cortex as a result of plasticity
nervous system. Any nervous process caused by external irritation, be it excitation or inhibition, does not pass without a trace for the nervous tissue, but leaves a “trace” in it in the form of certain functional changes that facilitate the course of the corresponding nervous processes when they are repeated, as well as their re-occurrence in the absence of the cause their irritant.
The physiological processes in the cerebral cortex that take place during reproduction are the same in content as during perception: memory requires the work of the same central nervous apparatus as perception caused by the direct influence of an external stimulus on the sense organs. The only difference is that during perception, central physiological processes are continuously supported by irritation of receptors, and during memory they are only “traces” of previously former nervous processes.
The following processes
memory:
· memorization, which is the imprinting of received information in a person’s mind, which is a necessary condition for enriching a person’s experience with new knowledge and forms of behavior;
· preservation, i.e. retention of acquired knowledge in memory for a relatively long period of time;
· reproduction, i.e. activation of previously fixed mental content;
· recognition, which is a mental phenomenon that accompanies memory processes, allowing them to function more effectively.
There are also the following types
memory:
· visual-figurative memory,
which represents memory for visual, sound, tactile, olfactory, etc. images;
· verbal-logical memory,
those. memory for the meaning of the presentation, its logic, for the relationship between the elements of information received in dictionary form;
· motor memory,
those. memory for movements;
· emotional memory
- memory for experiences.
In addition, depending on the methods of memorization, mechanical and semantic memory are distinguished. Mechanical memory
is the memorization of information in the form in which it is perceived.
Alogical
(semantic)
memory
is the memorization not of the external form, but of the meaning of the information being studied.
Memory in general and a specific person in particular has its own characteristics:
· volume,
representing the most important integral characteristic of memory as a whole and its individual processes, reflecting the quantitative indicators and capabilities of information imprinted, stored and reproduced by a person;
· speed,
those. the ability of a person in the process of capturing, storing and reproducing information to achieve a certain speed of its processing and use;
· accuracy,
those. a characteristic of memory, which shows a person’s ability in the process of imprinting, storing and reproducing information to qualitatively and productively reflect its main content;
· readiness,
which is the most important characteristic of memory, indicating the predisposition of a person and his consciousness to always actively use all imprinted information;
· duration,
indicating her ability to retain the necessary information in her consciousness for a certain time (in this regard, short-term, long-term and operational memory are distinguished: short-term memory is the memorization and retention of information for a short period after a single and very short perception; long-term memory is memory in the interests of long-term retention of information that is often remembered after repeated repetition; working memory is the retention of material after it has been imprinted for the time necessary to complete a task).
The volume, speed, accuracy, duration and readiness of memory, together with the manifestations of their characteristics, characterize the effectiveness of memory in general and a specific person in particular.
General characteristics of thinking
The unconscious is a set of mental processes and phenomena that are not included in the sphere of consciousness of the subject (person), that is, in relation to which there is no control of consciousness.
Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767-1835), "one of the greatest men of Germany", is considered the founder of general linguistics and the philosophy of language. However, the range of interests of this outstanding German thinker and humanist, in addition to language and linguistics, covered philosophy, literary criticism, classical philology, art theory, and state law.
Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767-1835), "one of the greatest men of Germany", is considered the founder of general linguistics and the philosophy of language. However, the range of interests of this outstanding German thinker and humanist, in addition to language and linguistics, covered philosophy, literary criticism, classical philology, art theory, and state law. He owns translations of Aeschylus' Agamemnon and the odes of Pindar. He was a diplomat who took part in European congresses and a major statesman.
Brilliant education, origin and material security gave him the opportunity to communicate not only with monarchs and prominent political figures, but also with scientists, writers and poets, including Goethe and Schiller, with whom he was in close friendship.
Humboldt's humanistic ideal is the comprehensive and harmonious development of both the individual and the entire human race; He remained faithful to this ideal in his practical activities. The University of Berlin that he founded now bears the name of the Humboldt brothers. His assessment as a scientist and citizen is given in the general description of the famous 19th century linguist B. Delbrück: “His high and selfless love for truth, his gaze, always directed towards the highest ideal goals, his desire not to miss the whole because of details and because as a whole, individual facts, his comprehensively educated mind and noble humanity - all these properties have a strengthening and enlightening effect on every other scientific personality who comes into contact with Wilhelm von Humboldt, and such an influence of Humboldt, in my opinion, will remain for a long time and will produce even those who stop helplessly before his theories” Delbrück B. Introduction to the study of language. St. Petersburg, 1904. P. 321..
W. Humboldt was the first among linguists who consciously based his concept on the linguistic principle of activity: “Language should not be considered as a dead product. But as a creative process.”
Humboldt was one of the first in the history of linguistics to substantiate the systematic nature of language. Humboldt comes to the conclusion that “there is nothing singular in language; each of its elements manifests itself only as a part of the whole.”
Humboldt was convinced that through language one can “survey the highest and deepest spheres and all the diversity of the world.” He was thinking about a completely new form of comparison of languages. Humboldt formulated the task facing comparative linguistics as follows: “The main thing here is... a true and worthy look at language, at the depth of its origins and the vastness of its scope.” Quote. by: Potebnya A. A. Thought and language. M., 1993. P. 35.
Dissociating himself from the traditional approach and philosophically comprehending (following Herder) the problem of the genesis of language, Humboldt transfers it to a plane where the time factor is, as it were, irrelevant. His consideration is focused not on external factors of origin, but on internal genesis, which sees in the language ability not only a unique gift of a person, but also his essential characteristic.
The way the scientist considers the most diverse aspects of language and related issues, the depth and strength of his argument convinces that Humboldt is gradually developing a method by which one can approach the original unity of language and thinking, as well as the unity of cultural phenomena, thereby laying the linguistic foundation for unification of cultural sciences.
The problem of man has always attracted the deep attention of such a scientist as Humboldt, and if we bring together all the philosophical interests of V. Humboldt, then they can be designated by one term - philosophical anthropology.
Most researchers of the teachings of V. Humboldt, in particular A. V. Gulyga, R. Gaim, G. V. Ramishvili, G. Shpet, V. I. Postovalova, note the influence of the ideas of German classical philosophy on the philosophical concept of language of V. Humboldt. First of all, the names of Herder, Hegel, and Kant are mentioned. For the late Kant, the main task of philosophy was to answer the question: “What is man?” Humboldt here adjoins directly to Kant. A people is an organism just like a human individual. This idea, which originated in Humboldt's aesthetic works, then permeates his works on philosophy and the history of language.
Thus, the theoretical and methodological basis of Humboldt’s teaching on language is the anthropological approach, according to which an adequate study of language should be carried out in close connection with the consciousness and thinking of a person, his cultural and spiritual life.
With all his analysis of language, Humboldt shows that “language shares the nature of everything organic, where one thing is manifested through the other, the general in the particular, and the whole has an all-pervasive force” Humboldt V. Selected works on linguistics. M.: Progress, 1984. P. 67..
The main thing in Humboldt’s linguistic concept is the doctrine of the identity of the “spirit of the people” and its language (“the language of the people is its spirit and the spirit of the people is its language - it is difficult to imagine anything more identical”) As F. M. Berezin notes, in this In this situation, Humboldt's ideas echo the ideas of Schelling and Hegel.
Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
(hypothesis of linguistic relativity) is a concept developed in the 30s of the twentieth century, according to which the structure of language determines thinking and the way of understanding reality. It arose in US ethnolinguistics under the influence of the works of E. Sapir and B. L. Whorf. In accordance with their ideas, the language and way of thinking of the people are interconnected. By mastering a language, its speaker also acquires a certain attitude towards the world and sees it from the point of view imposed by the structures of the language, accepts the picture of the world reflected in his native language. Since languages classify the surrounding reality differently, their speakers also differ in the way they relate to them: “We dismember nature in the direction suggested by our native language. We distinguish certain categories and types in the world of phenomena not at all because they (these categories and types) are self-evident; on the contrary, the world appears to us as a kaleidoscopic stream of impressions, which must be organized by our consciousness, and this means mainly by the language system, stored in our consciousness” (Whorf. P. 213). The consequence of recognizing the hypothesis of linguistic relativity is the recognition that a language contains a certain system of values, the meanings expressed in it are evaluative and form a collective philosophy characteristic of all speakers of a given language.
The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis has both supporters and opponents. Feminist criticism of language bases on this concept the demand for language reform to overcome the gender asymmetry contained in it, believing that language - due to its androcentrism - imposes on speakers
Visual-figurative type
This form of thinking manifests itself in the fact that the child is able to imagine the final result of his actions. With the visually effective method, the baby has no idea about the result of his actions, but remembers the relationships as a result of repetition. With visual-figurative learning, the preschooler guesses what the result will be.
How and when it develops, what developmental disorders exist
Visual-figurative thinking is formed on the basis of visual-effective thinking. Formation begins at the age of about 3 years. This is the main type of mental activity of preschoolers. Reaches a peak at 5-6 years.
Signs that the baby has the beginnings of imaginative thinking:
- he is able to recognize objects without touching them,
- is able to select several similar objects,
- break simple tasks into several interconnected components.
Tools for developing an imaginative way of thinking - prefabricated toys (pyramids, cubes, puzzles -), then - observing nature, retelling what you heard, drawing from memory. The criterion that imaginative thinking is actively developing is that the baby can describe his actions before starting them.
Visual-figurative thinking disorders in childhood are a lack of skills characteristic of this stage, loss of interest in complex toys. In adults, such disorders look like this:
- Aimless manipulation of objects. Example – a patient may strike a lighter for a long time and aimlessly;
- Ridiculous actions with objects that create the feeling of a child's game;
- Imitative actions;
- Mimo actions - similar to correct ones, but deliberately ineffective (lighting a match with the other end);
- Destructive actions - aggressive or auto-aggressive.
This behavior is typical for patients with psychosis, catatonic disorders, and schizophrenia.
How do images help in mental activity?
An image is a holistic idea of the result of one’s activities. It becomes the basis for the formation of more complex abstract thinking and supports the ability to perceive holistically. In adults, the main function of images is setting goals for their actions, emotional involvement in activities, and the formation of a creative approach.
Important
Imaginative thinking can only work with those phenomena that it has already encountered, so observation is extremely important at this stage of development. Emotions are always included in the perception of an image - this is important for both children and adults engaged in creative work. At the same time, this type of brain work is not characterized by special attention to detail - it notices the important and essential qualities of an object, while the rest can be distorted or discarded.
Why is it important to develop?
Attention. Increasing the level of any type of thinking in a child is an important process that needs to be given special attention. The child must be able to imagine a situation in order to apply this knowledge to solve problems in the future.
Developed imaginative thinking allows you to learn to perceive the world in all its emotional coloring. This will help you interact more easily with your surroundings and see the beauty around you. The skill of imaginative thinking greatly simplifies a child’s interaction with the outside world.
How does skill formation occur?
There are many accessible and effective ways for children:
- Observation of nature.
- Studying art.
- Collecting puzzles.
- Creating drawings from memory.
- Depiction of abstract concepts: music, emotions, sounds.
- Modeling from plasticine.
- Working with colored cardboard and paper.
- Solving riddles.
An excellent method for developing visual and figurative thinking is origami.
What is hindering the process?
It is necessary to work with children in a calm, favorable environment, motivating them for positive results and not scolding them for failures.
You cannot prevent your child from taking toys apart. The baby thus gets to know the world and learns to look for connections between different objects.
Attention. The child's passivity, a small number of games and late development of speech can interfere with the formation of visual-figurative thinking.
Abstract boolean type
Abstract thinking operates not only with images, but also with abstract concepts. A person who has developed this type of mental activity is able to systematize information and purposefully search for it, and plan his activities. It is considered the highest degree of development of brain activity, characteristic only of humans.
How and when it develops, possible developmental disorders
The formation of abstract thinking begins at 5-7 years of age. Late preschool and early school period. The full ability to operate with abstract concepts is formed in adolescents and remains throughout life.
Signs that a preschooler has begun to develop logical thinking:
- meaningful use of abstract concepts in speech,
- the emergence of the skill of detailed planning of one’s activities,
- understanding cause-and-effect relationships in the actions of others.
All these operations occur without direct contact with objects.
Impaired brain activity manifests itself in the inability to generalize, highlight the main thing, and understand the figurative meaning of words and expressions. To identify such disorders, tests are used in which you need to interpret a proverb or saying and identify fundamental similarities between different objects.
Peculiarities
This type of thinking uses complex logical operations. In adolescents and adults it is the main one. Thanks to it, a person is able to plan, set goals and evaluate their feasibility, evaluate his own actions and the actions of others, draw conclusions and learn from his own and others’ experiences. Characterized by deep attention to detail, understanding of context, low emotional involvement.
Birth of a thought
Everyone knows that this process occurs in the brain. However, few people know exactly how a thought is born. And this is far from simple.
The leading role in thinking, as well as in all mental activity, is assigned to nerve cells - neurons. And a person has more than a trillion of them. Moreover, each of the neurons is a kind of factory that processes incoming data. Numerous connections extend from each nerve cell. They are connected to other neurons. It is thanks to this that nerve cells exchange electrochemical impulses with each other, which carry certain information. The data transfer speed is 100 meters per second. This is where the specific operations of thinking lie.
You can imagine a similar process in the form of bright fireworks. First, one bright star appears. This is a signal received from an external stimulus. Further, such an impulse seems to scatter along the chain of nerve cells in depth and breadth. All this is accompanied by new outbreaks that cover increasingly large areas of the brain.
The most interesting thing is that the impulse, when passing through the neural chains of the brain, overcomes certain obstacles that are located in the places where the nerve fibers connect. And this, of course, somewhat reduces their speed. However, each subsequent impulse moves along this path much easier. In other words, a person who forces his brain to work finds it much easier to think.
Of course, knowledge has high value for people. However, we need them primarily as material for thinking. That is why a person does not become smarter when he gains new knowledge. This happens as a result of their comprehension and inclusion in activities.
Specific subject type
A selection of construction kits that perfectly develop subject-specific thinking
Like visual-effective thinking, the concrete-object type is associated with direct interaction with objects, but is its more developed type. A person with concrete-subject thinking, unlike a small child, has a goal and imagines the result of his actions. This type of mental activity accompanies applied operations, most often in the technical field. It allows you to “adjust” certain devices to a specific situation.
How and when does developmental disorder develop?
Practical thinking begins to develop around 4-7 years, the start time is quite flexible. What is needed is a developed visual-figurative method and the presence of at least the rudiments of the abstract-logical. This type of mental activity is formed on the basis of constant work with hands, requiring a creative approach. He is well developed by construction sets and other complex toys - a good selection.
Developmental disorders manifest themselves in the form of an inability to follow instructions, difficulty in moving from theory to practice.
What is thinking like: main types and their characteristics
Neural connections play the main role in the generation of thoughts. Neurons exchange various electrochemical impulses to process information in specific ways.
The knowledge we acquire in the process of life is necessary only as a basis for the flow of mental activity. A person becomes truly smart when he comprehends new information, analyzes and synthesizes it.
The brain works with the received data in two directions:
- The right hemisphere pays attention to sensory and emotional images. That is, for him the external world is a set of sounds, images, sensations, smells, tastes. These are bright and sensual fragments.
- The left one processes abstract signs: numbers, words, texts, formulas.
Visually effective
By processing information in this way, a person connects not only concepts about objects, but also performs a number of actions with them based on his existing knowledge and experience. For example, children often break toys, wanting to know what is inside them.
Visual-figurative
Mental activity is carried out through specific images. It is based on concepts, actions, sensations and emotions. Example: stylists come up with a new image, and fashion designers design clothes based on a specific person.
This type of thinking begins to develop in preschool age. Then objects and phenomena of the world acquire special properties, often quite non-standard, which is achieved through imagination. It is this type of mental activity that prevails among creative individuals: writers, musicians, artists, designers.
Psychologist Daria Milai
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Abstract (verbal-logical)
It is based on existing, logically proven theories. In other words, this can be called the manipulation of existing concepts through their classification and ordering. This way of thinking is characteristic of philosophers and scientists. For example, the electron is studied without practical experiments.
The listed varieties develop sequentially in humans. In the early stages (in infancy), the child begins to explore objects, forming a visually effective way of thinking. Later, in preschool age, when he already knows how to look at pictures, perceive the lyrics of songs and fairy tales, watch cartoons, the foundation arises for the formation of a visual-figurative way of carrying out mental activity. Already arriving at school or starting serious training in reading, calculations and writing, children effectively work with abstractions.
Forms (criteria) of thinking
Thinking operates with several basic categories, which are characteristic mainly of the abstract-logical type.
- A concept is the simplest act of mental activity. It reflects the very fact of understanding objects or phenomena. The external manifestation of the concept is the ability to name an object using its main features (black cat, cold rain, bad mood, etc.).
- Judgment is the ability to establish relationships between concepts and combine them into groups. External expression is the ability to describe one concept using others in a sentence. Examples of judgments: a cat and a dog are animals; rain is precipitation in the form of water.
- Inference - allows you to derive new judgments from existing ones that are interconnected. An example of a conclusion: rain is precipitation in the form of water, in winter the water freezes, which means rain is possible only in summer. Inferences can be true or false. An example of an incorrect inference is that a cat is an animal, the cat meows, which means all animals meow.
A separate type of inference is a hypothesis. It is based partly or entirely on assumptions and requires verification and evidence. In everyday life, a person makes several hundred inferences a day. For example, from the readings of the thermometer outside the window, he makes a conclusion about what clothes to wear.
Examples from life of some types of thinking
Example. The surgeon tells the nurse to sew. One word, but she already knows which tool to use, how to process it, and can even give advice if she sees something dangerous. In such a tandem, professional thinking is developed - she does not have a higher education, but she has experience, knowledge, intuition, and logic.
Several types are included here: in addition to professional, verbal-logical, practical, analytical, logical or intuitive, arbitrary.
Example. A guy wants to meet a girl, but right in front of her nose the waiter accidentally stains his coffee. The guy was taken aback and couldn’t do anything else but mumble: “It wasn’t necessary...”
But the acquaintance did not take place not because of coffee stains on the shirt. And because of the irrational thinking that entered the battle: “She will think that I am a mattress,” “She definitely thought that there was something wrong with me...”, “She will not want to communicate with someone like me.” A person gets bogged down in logically unfounded beliefs, plunges into excitement and panic. Next time it will be more difficult for him to approach and speak first.
Operations of thinking
- Operations are unique units of measurement for thinking. At their expense, mental activity is carried out. They are present at any stage of development of intellectual abilities, but manifest themselves in different forms.
- Comparison is the search for differences and similarities between objects. Based on comparison, objects can be grouped based on similarity.
- Analysis is the division of an object into its components. At the simplest stage, it is accompanied by physical separation of the object (the child breaks toys).
- Synthesis is an operation opposite to analysis - recreating the appearance of a whole object from its parts.
- Abstraction is the selection of essential features of an object, ignoring non-essential ones.
- Concretization is an operation opposite to abstraction - identifying the specific characteristics of an object, perceiving its diversity.
- Induction is the derivation of conclusions from the particular to the general, the distribution of knowledge about a specific object to the entire group of similar objects.
- Deduction is an operation opposite to induction - drawing conclusions from the general to the particular, distributing knowledge about a group of objects to each object of this group.
Read more in the article Deductive Reasoning
- Classification is the division of objects according to their differences. Performed on a comparison basis.
- Generalization - identifying common features for different objects. This operation is performed on a comparison basis.
Concept of thinking
Every day and constantly a person receives a wide variety of information from the outside world. As a result of the work of our senses and organs, smells and sounds, visual images, tactile and taste sensations become available to us. A person also receives certain data about the state of his body. This process occurs due to direct sensory perception. This is the primary building material with which thinking will have to work in the future. What is it? Thinking is the process of processing received sensory data, their analysis, comparison, generalization and inference. It represents the highest activity of the brain, as a result of which unique, new knowledge is created. That is, information that until this moment was not yet in the sensory experience of the individual.
Types of thinking
Types of thinking are features associated with which of the operations predominates during the formation of inferences. This does not mean that the others are not fulfilled. The brain cannot limit itself to one type of operation, otherwise all conclusions will be incorrect.
Deductive
It is based on initial statements that are valid for most cases (axioms, less often hypotheses). From them, through a chain of logical conclusions, a conclusion is drawn that is fair in a certain situation. An important condition is that the original statement must be true.
Critical
This type of thinking is based on knowledge, information analysis and individual personality traits. In psychiatry, critical thinking refers to the ability to evaluate the appropriateness of one's behavior.
Inductive
This is the ability to form conclusions based on private knowledge and personal experience, to draw conclusions that should be valid for the entire group of objects. Judgments will be correct if the feature that unites objects into a group is chosen correctly.
Analytical
Based on the operation of analysis, it is highly structured, orderly, and has a deep understanding of the essence of processes. Weakness: low ability to organize activities.
Investigative
A combination of analysis and setting new tasks. Allows you to study objects in more detail, identify relationships and formulate tasks for the future.
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Systematic
Based on identifying the relationships between objects and their deep understanding. Perception of the surrounding world in interaction.
Creative
The main feature is flexibility, the search for new goals or new ways to achieve known goals.
Synthetic
It's about putting together different "pieces of the puzzle." Allows you to plan tasks, set important goals, and highlight the most significant details.
Interrogative
This type combines all operations equally. The main way of knowledge is to ask questions, find answers to them, from which new questions follow.
Divergent
This type of thinking finds a number of alternatives for any action, from which it consistently chooses the optimal path.
Peculiarities
- Reflection through generalization. Participants in the thought process are always a person’s general ideas about phenomena, objects and events. People build a cause-and-effect relationship by generalizing from a huge number of facts that they have encountered in the past.
- Mediation of cognition. In their thoughts, each individual relies on his own feelings, emotions and experiences.
- Solving various situations. Finding a way to resolve a particular problem always has approximately one scenario: first, an analysis of what is happening, then a selection of the most suitable options for action. The quest may proceed through trial and error, in a rational or irrational manner.
- Direct connection with speech. Thinking is directly related to the speech functions of the individual. Any idea, plan, idea is formulated verbally and expressed verbally.
The main characteristics of objects and phenomena, as well as their interconnections and relationships, define concepts. They are applicable and the more important features served as the foundation for them, the more effective human activity will be.
A judgment is a reflection of the connection between objects in the form of affirmative or negative statements. It is based not only on knowledge about something, but also on subjective assessments based on the attitude towards its truth.
An inference is a combination of several considerations that can ultimately be transformed into a logical conclusion. Mental activity is based on deduction, induction and the use of analogies.
Signs
What does visual-figurative thinking imply from the point of view of the peculiarities of perception of the surrounding world? Its main features:
- is based solely on images in the head;
- images are structured as a result of ideas formed in the process of life experience and based on the perception of surrounding reality;
- designed not only to solve pressing problems in reality - it often takes you away from it into the world of fantasy, allowing you to dream;
- perfectly developed among creative people: artists, poets, musicians, architects, fashion designers, perfumers;
- allows you to examine the image presented in your head from all sides, analyze it, compare it with other similar ones and draw general conclusions.
It begins to take shape in a primitive form even in a three-year-old child. He grabs the cat's tail because he associates it in his head with his favorite soft and fluffy toy. If an animal scratches him at such a moment, in the future he will avoid cats, since this evil image that caused pain will appear in his head. Scientists believe that the rudiments of NOM are inherent in certain animals, which, for example, keep the image of the owner in their heads and recognize him from thousands of other people.
Abstract thinking
How is it preferable for a person to think - concretely or abstractly? There is no clear answer to this question. Of course, in the real world there are no abstractions. What we see around us contains only concrete phenomena and objects. Abstractions take place only in the sphere of human thinking. For example, a specific birch tree grows under the window. It exists in reality. However, it is quite possible to abstract this birch with all the trees, calling it the abstract word “tree”. After this, the chain is not difficult to continue. Birch can well be called a plant, a living being, a material object, and simply an object. Each of the subsequent concepts is an even greater abstraction, that is, a generalization of a specific phenomenon.
There is nothing wrong with this type of thinking. Without it, it is impossible for a person to solve complex problems. It is in such cases that both abstract and concrete thinking are used.
However, sometimes certain problems may arise. If the volume of abstract and concrete thinking outweighs in favor of the first, it is considered that the person has mentally left the real world, moving into the imaginary one. And the latter, strictly speaking, exists only in his fantasies.
Concrete thinking is activated by people when they have clear information, knowledge and understanding of what is happening. What if all this is missing? Then abstract thinking turns on. At the same time, a person guesses, assumes and draws accurate conclusions.
Using abstract thinking, we do not take into account concrete details. Our discussions concern general concepts. In this case, a person considers the picture as a whole, without affecting the accuracy and specifics. Thanks to this, he manages to move away from dogmas and rules, considering the situation from different angles.
Abstract thinking is very useful when a person is at an intellectual impasse. In the absence of knowledge or information, he has to guess and reason. And if we abstract from specific details, then we can consider in the current situation something that was not visible before.
What it is
In psychology, the following definition is given: visual or object-figurative thinking is a visual representation of a situation in the mind and the ability to perform the necessary operations with it to solve a certain problem, without performing any practical actions in reality. Abbreviated as NOM. Leads to instant results. The right hemisphere of the brain is responsible for it. Plays an important role in human life:
- this is the first stage of ontogenetic development, without which further formation of visual-effective and verbal-logical thinking is impossible;
- it serves as the basis for the formation of basic mental operations: synthesis, analysis, comparison and generalization;
- the stronger it is, the faster new material is absorbed and various problem situations are solved;
- reveals the multifaceted aspects of life;
- promotes the development of creativity.
Examples will help you understand the essence of this phenomenon.
You peer into the face of a person who seems familiar to you. At the same time, you scroll through images of former classmates, colleagues, and relatives in your head. Finally, you remember a classmate whom you haven’t seen for 15 years. In your mind, you artificially “age” him and get exactly the face that is now in front of you.
Or another everyday example. You need to rearrange the furniture in the room. You can start moving it right away, trying out different ideas. However, after a couple of hours, if not earlier, you will become exhausted or you will simply get tired of doing it, and the result will still be far from ideal. Or decide to draw different interior options. However, even here you can spend tons of paper, but still not come up with anything worthwhile. Imaginative thinking will allow you to scroll through all possible modifications in your head and within a minute it will give you what needs to be put where.
The connection between figurative and verbal thinking is quite close. The brighter and more clearly a person imagines the picture in his mind, the better and more clearly he will be able to explain the solution to a problem or problem situation.
Levels of Thinking
Human brain activity, aimed at solving problems and understanding the world around us, has its own indicators of development. This includes the specific level of thinking used by a person, namely:
- Reason. It is the initial level of thinking. In this case, the operation of abstractions is carried out within a given template, an unchanging scheme and a rigid standard. Reason is the ability to reason clearly and consistently, to carry out the correct construction of one’s thoughts, to strictly systematize and clearly classify facts. Its main functions are division and calculation. The logic of reason is formal. She studies the structure of evidence and statements, while paying attention to the form of already “ready-made” knowledge, and not at all to its development and content.
- Intelligence. It is also considered dialectical thinking. Reason represents the highest level of cognition of the rational type, the characteristic features of which are the creative operation of created abstractions and the study of their nature (self-reflection). The main task of this level of thinking is the unification of various components, including the synthesis of opposites, with the identification of the driving forces and root causes of the phenomena being studied. The logic of reason is a dialectic presented in the form of a doctrine of the development and formation of knowledge in the form of the unity of its form and content.