Thinking- this is a socially conditioned, inextricably linked with speech mental process of searching and discovering something essentially new, a process of mediated and generalized reflection of reality in the course of its analysis and synthesis. Thinking arises on the basis of practical activity from sensory knowledge and goes far beyond its limits.
Physiological basis of thinking are temporary nerve connections (conditioned reflexes) that form in the cortex large hemispheres... These conditioned reflexes arise under the influence of second signals (words, thoughts) that reflect real reality, but they necessarily arise on the basis of the first signal system (sensations, perceptions, representations).
In psychology, the classification of types of thinking is widespread: 1) visual-effective, 2) visual-figurative, and 3) abstract (theoretical) thinking.
Visual-Action Thinking ... In the course of historical development, people solved the tasks facing them, first in terms of practical activity, only then did theoretical activity stand out from it. For example, at first our distant ancestor learned practically (in steps, etc.) to measure land, and only then, on the basis of the knowledge formed in the course of this practical activity, geometry gradually emerged and developed as a special theoretical science.
Visual-figurative thinking. V simplest form visual-figurative thinking occurs mainly in preschoolers, that is, at the age of four to seven years. Although the connection between thinking and practical action is preserved, it is not as close, direct and immediate as before. In the course of analyzing and synthesizing a cognizable object, the child does not necessarily and does not always have to touch the object that interests him with his hands. In many cases, systematic practical manipulation (action) with an object is not required, but in all cases it is necessary to clearly perceive and visualize this object.
Abstract thinking. On the basis of practical and visual-sensory experience, children at school age develop - first in the simplest forms - abstract thinking, that is, thinking in the form abstract concepts.
Verbal-logical thinking - one of the types of thinking, characterized by the use of concepts, logical constructions. Verbal-logical thinking functions on the basis of linguistic means and represents the latest stage in the historical and ontogenetic development of thinking. In the structure of verbal-logical thinking, they form and function different kinds generalizations.
Thinking is a mentally cognitive process that allows you to reflect in the mind of a person inaccessible direct perception. Thinking is a process associated with consciousness and speech. Properties of thinking: 1. Mediated thinking- a way of transferring knowledge from generation to generation. 2. Thinking is socially conditioned- develops in society (society). 3. Generalization of thinking- generalization of the essential properties of the surrounding world. 4. Purposefulness and arbitrariness- thinking is always associated with the solution of a problem and is accompanied by volitional efforts. 5. Thinking is characterized by a connection with consciousness and unconsciousness.
Thinking operations: (Functions)
1. Concept - one of the logical forms of thinking, reflecting the essential properties, connections and relationships of objects and phenomena, expressed by a word or a group of words.
2. Judgment is one of the logical forms of thinking in which the connection between two concepts is expressed.
3. Inference - a form of thinking in which a certain conclusion is made on the basis of several judgments.
4. Analogy - an inference in which a conclusion is made on the basis of a partial similarity between phenomena, without sufficient research of all conditions.
5. Analysis - a mental operation in which a complex object is divided into its constituent parts.
6. Synthesis is a mental operation consisting in combining various parts, elements, sides of an object into a single whole.
7. Generalization - the process of highlighting the similarity between objects, highlighting the common in these objects. For example, you can find something similar between the most dissimilar objects and combine them into one class of common color: cherries, peony, blood, raw meat, boiled crawfish.
8.comparison(establishing the similarities and differences between objects),
9.abstraction(highlighting important in this moment properties of the object and ignoring those qualities of the object that seem insignificant to us at the moment)
10.generalization(highlighting common features of a class of objects).
The physiological basis of thinking is temporary neural connections (conditioned reflexes), which are formed in the cerebral cortex. These conditioned reflexes arise under the influence of second signals (words, thoughts) that reflect real reality, but they necessarily arise on the basis of the first signal system (sensations, perceptions, representations).
In psychology, the classification of types of thinking is widespread: 1) visual-effective, 2) visual-figurative, and 3) abstract (theoretical) thinking.
36 Approaches to the study of thinking. Associative psychology of thinking. Psychology of thinking in the framework of the Würzburg school and Gestalt psychology.
Thinking as an association of representations
The psychology of thinking began to be specially developed only in the XX century. Until that time, the main one was associative psychology- all mental processes proceed according to the laws of association and all formations of consciousness consist of elementary sensory representations, united by means of associations into more or less complex complexes. (Gartley, Ebbinghaus, W. Wundt). Understanding cognition as contemplation, the principle of sensationalism: "There is nothing in the mind that was not previously in sensation." The ultimate subject of thinking is subjective sensations, images of perception and representation. Therefore, representatives of associative psychology did not consider it necessary to specifically investigate thinking. The concept was identified with the representation and interpreted as an associative set of attributes: judgment - as an association of representations; inference - as an association of two judgments, serving as its premises, with the third, which is derived from it.
The associative theory reduces the content of thought to the sensory elements of sensations, and the laws of its course - to associative laws. Thinking is reduced to the process of association of connections between traces of past and present sensory experience.
Criticism: Thinking has its own qualitatively specific content and its own qualitative specific patterns of flow. The specific content of thinking is expressed in concepts; the concept can in no way be reduced to a simple set of associatively related sensations or representations. Representatives of the associative theory could not solve the problem of thinking activity; in their opinion, creative abilities existed a priori.
Würzburg School of Thinking
Representatives: A. Binet, Külpe, Marbe The Würzburg School made the development of the psychology of thinking its main task; laid the foundation for the systematic study of thinking.
The main point: thinking has its own specific content, not reducible to the content of sensations and perception. But they have too far removed thinking from perception, they are not connected at all. As a result, the Würzburg school came to a wrong understanding of the relationship between thinking and sensory contemplation. The provision on the objective orientation of thought (intention). Since (from idealism) thinking was outwardly opposed to the entire sensible content of reality, the direction of thinking towards an object (intention) turned into a pure act (into mystical activity outside of any content).
Representatives of the Würzburg school emphasized the orderly, directed nature of thinking and revealed the importance of the task in the thought process. During its existence, the Würzburg School has undergone significant evolution. At the beginning there were statements about the ugly nature of thinking (O. Kulpe, H. J. Watt, K. Buhler in their early works), then representatives of the Würzburg school identified and emphasized the role of visual components in the process of thinking. Also, the views on the relationship between thinking and speech have changed. In the beginning (in O. Külpe, for example), thinking was considered outside, being ready-made, independent of speech. Then thinking and the formation of concepts (N. Akh) was transformed as a result of the introduction of a formally understood speech sign into the solution of the problem. This last position, where a meaningless sign is the ruler of thinking, was essentially just the flip side of the same initial position that was breaking thinking and speech.
Thinking from the standpoint of gestalt psychology
Representatives: Verheimert, Koehler, Koffka. Criticism of the Würzburg School.
The basis of thinking is the ability to form and transform structures in reality. Thinking takes place in vicious circle(the sphere of consciousness). As a result, thinking is reduced to the movement of thoughts in a closed structure of consciousness.
The initial situation in which the problem arises is, in its visual content, an unbalanced phenomenal field, in which there are, as it were, empty spaces. As a result, tension is created in a problem situation, which causes the transition of this unstable visual situation to another. Through a successive series of such transitions, a transformation occurs, that is, a change in the structure of the original visual content, which leads to the solution of the problem. The problem turns out to be solved simply as a result of the fact that, in the end, in a different way than at the beginning, we directly see the content of the initial situation.
In contrast to the psychology of thinking of the Würzburg school, which divorced thinking from sensory contemplation, Koffka thus tried to implement, on the basis of the principle of structure, the same reduction of thinking to visual content, which associative psychology defended on the basis of the doctrine of associations. This attempt ignores the specifics of thinking.
37 Development of the problem of thinking in the framework of behaviorism and psychoanalysis. Information theory of thought.
Behaviorism about thinking as behavior
Behaviorism emerged in America in the early 20th century. They discarded the concept of psyche and consciousness, the object - behavior. Against introspection, for observation. Sensation, perception, thinking and other concepts of mental processes or functions were considered from the point of view of behavioral experience, the main function being adaptation to the environment.
The problem of thinking in early behaviorism.
Watson: thinking is identified with behavior, it is not a cognitive process. He divided behavior into external (directly observed from the outside) and internal (thinking in the broad sense of the word, or mental D). Mental D is caused by external stimuli, mediates visible behavior. Mental D is not associated with the brain. In comparison with directly observed behavior, mental activity, according to Watson, differs only in a very large convolution, contraction. Thinking is not socially conditioned, the main function is to ensure the adaptation of the organism to the environment (thinking = a set of reactions caused by the environment).
Watson reduces the patterns of thinking to the patterns of skills formation. The body acquires skill through trial and error, just like any other activity.
The problem of thinking in modern behaviorism.
Foundations of Thought Theory - Clark Hull. He was the first (1930) to apply the general non-behavioristic theory of behavior to the analysis of knowledge, the process of solving problems, and the formation of concepts. Skinner, Tolman, and other non-behaviourists are concerned with the problem of thinking.
Thinking is a form of adaptation of the body to new conditions. These new conditions represent a problem situation for the organism, or a task situation, therefore, the process of adaptation to a problem situation is described by behaviorists as a solution to a problem.
Criticism: they do not consider thinking as a mental process of cognition of natural relationships between things, the process of reflecting those complex (cause-and-effect, functional, etc.) relationships between objects in which the essence of objects is revealed. Both early and later behaviorists: the thinking of humans and animals is not different. It is only very recently that behaviorists have begun sometimes to talk about certain qualitative features of human thinking. But they continue to reduce problem solving to a process of trial and error or selection of adaptive responses.
Psychoanalysis
Thinking is considered in psychoanalysis as a motivational process 3 Freud belongs to the work on the psychology of thinking \ "Wit and its relation to the unconscious \" In it \ "wit \" is explained as a manifestation of creative thinking It is based on unconscious primary motives Wit arises and its results in bypassing dissatisfaction with primary needs, i.e. creativity is a sublimated pleasure of these needs. Thinking acting can occur under the influence of an unconscious motive or its substitute - the desired motivator - a motive.
Psychoanalysis partially touched upon the problem of the connection between thinking and motives. Questions of how motivation affects the organization, the structure of mental activity were not studied
Associated with psychoanalysis theory of autistic thinking (E Bleuler) Autism is explained as the dominance of the inner life, withdrawal from the outside world, manifestations of autistic thinking are dreams, mythology, folk beliefs, schizophrenic thinking, etc. E Bleuler in his concept shows the regulating influence of the motivational-emotional sphere on thinking.
Information theory of thinking. According to research data, creative thinking reveals itself already during the formulation of the problem and has a peculiar course (G. Wertheimer, G. Woodworth, K. Dunker, O. Zeltz, S. Kalmykova, G. Lindsay, A. Luk, J. Ponomarev) ... Like the process of thinking in general, it goes through the following stages: creating an image that corresponds to the conditions of the problem; operations of analysis, synthesis and, above all, generalization; finding a solution principle; getting the result. However, in this case, the content of each stage is particularly complex. Moreover, this kind of thinking is based on high intellectual activity and respect To creativity how to values.
Thinking- The highest cognitive and regulatory process. It is a form of a person's creative reflection of reality, generating a result that does not exist in reality or the subject at a given moment. Human thinking (in its lower forms it is found in animals) can also be understood as a creative transformation of the representations and images in memory.
From the physiological side the process of thinking is a complex analytical and synthetic activity of the cerebral cortex. The entire cortex takes part in the implementation of the thinking processes. For the process of thinking, first of all, those complex temporary connections that form between the brain ends of the analyzers. The previously existing idea of the exact boundaries of the central parts of the analyzers in the cerebral cortex is refuted recent advances physiological science: "The limits of the analyzers are much larger, and they are not so sharply demarcated from each other, but they go behind each other, interlock with each other" (IP Pavlov). special design The cortex facilitates the establishment of connections in the activities of a variety of analyzers. “The cerebral cortex must be viewed as a grandiose mosaic of an innumerable mass of nerve points with a specific physiological role in each of them. At the same time, the crust is the most complex dynamic system constantly striving for unification, for the establishment of a single, common connection ”(IP Pavlov). Since the activity of individual sections of the cortex is always determined by external stimuli, the neural connections formed with the simultaneous excitation of these sections of the cortex reflect actual connections in things. These connections, naturally caused by external stimuli, constitute the physiological basis of the thinking process. “Thinking,” said IP Pavlov, “... represents nothing else but associations, at first elementary, standing in connection with external objects, and then chains of associations. This means that every small, first association is the moment of the birth of a thought. " Initially, these associations have a generalized nature, reflecting real connections in their most general and undifferentiated form, and sometimes even incorrectly, according to random, insignificant signs. Only in the process of repeated stimuli does the differentiation of temporary connections take place, they are refined, fixed and become the physiological basis of more or less accurate and correct knowledge about the external world. These associations arise primarily under the influence of the first-signal stimuli that cause the corresponding sensations, perceptions and ideas about the environment. external environment... Real interactions and interconnections of these stimuli determine the appearance of the corresponding temporary neural connections of the first signaling system. They take part in the implementation of the thinking process nervous processes in the speech centers of the cortex ... Thinking is based not only on first-signal connections. It necessarily presupposes the activity of the second signaling system in its inextricable link with the first signaling system. The irritants here are no longer specific objects of the surrounding world and their properties, but words. Speech, being directly related to thinking, allows you to reflect in words the interconnection and interdependence of phenomena, because words are not just substitutes, signals of objects, but generalized stimuli. The second signaling system is specially human. It occurs in a person in connection with his labor activity and the necessity of communicating with other people caused by it, but nevertheless arises on the basis of the first signaling system and is in organic connection with it. In this interaction, the main role belongs to the second signaling system. Due to the generalized nature of the second-signal stimuli - words that make it possible to reflect objective connections in their general form, the second signaling system acquires a leading role in complex nervous processes, subordinating to itself the activity of the first signaling system. The interaction of the first and second signaling systems in the processes of thinking consists in the fact that the second signaling system in this unity occupies a dominant position and directs the processes of the first signaling system. The word transforms the first-signal neural connections into generalized images of reality, which allows a person in the processes of thinking to break away from the specific features of perceived phenomena and think existing connections in their generalized form, in the form of concepts, and not in the form of perceptions and ideas.
Types and forms of thinking... Our knowledge of the surrounding reality begins with sensations and perception and goes on to thinking. The function of thinking is to expand the boundaries of knowledge by going beyond the limits of sensory perception. The task of thinking is to reveal the relationships between objects, to identify connections and separate them from random coincidences. Thinking operates with concepts and takes on the functions of generalization and planning. Thinking is the most generalized and mediated form of mental reflection, establishing connections and relationships between cognized objects. These different levels of thinking are visual thinking in its elementary forms and abstract, theoretical thinking. With visual-figurative thinking, the transformation of visual conditions of mental actions consists primarily in the translation of their perceptual content into the "language" of semantic features, into the language of meanings. Figurative thinking is a form of a person's creative reflection of reality, generating a result that does not exist in reality itself or the subject at a given time. Theoretical conceptual thinking is such thinking, using which a person in the process of solving a problem does not directly turn to the experimental study of reality, does not receive the empirical facts necessary for thinking, does not take practical actions aimed at real transformation of reality. Thought operations. Analysis is a mental operation of dismembering a complex object into its constituent parts. Analysis - this is the selection in an object of one or another of its sides, elements, properties, connections, relations, etc. Synthesis- This is a mental operation that allows you to move from parts to the whole in a single analytical-synthetic process of thinking. Generalization is a mental operation, which consists in combining many objects or phenomena for some common feature. Abstraction- a mental operation based on abstraction from the insignificant signs of objects, phenomena and highlighting the main, the main thing in them. Abstraction- an abstract concept formed as a result of mental abstraction from the insignificant sides, properties of objects and the relationship between them in order to identify essential features. Selection (abstraction) general properties different levels allows a person to establish generic relations in a certain variety of objects and phenomena, systematize them and thereby build a certain classification Categorization- the operation of referring a single object, event, experience to a certain class, which can be verbal and non-verbal meanings, symbols, etc. –Systematization of subordinate concepts of any area of knowledge or human activity, used to establish links between these concepts or classes of objects. Concretization- this is the movement of thought from the general to the particular. One of the tasks of theoretical thinking is to determine the way of deriving particular manifestations of a systemic object from its universal (essential) foundation, from a certain initial relation in the system.
The ratio of thinking and speech. Many modern scientists adhere to a compromise point of view, believing that, although thinking and speech are inextricably linked, they are relatively independent realities both in genesis and in functioning. The main question that is now being discussed in connection with this problem is the question of the nature of the real connection between thinking and speech, about their genetic roots and the transformations that they undergo in the process of their separate and joint development. Vygotsky made a significant contribution to the solution of this problem. The word, he wrote, applies as much to speech as it does to thinking. It is a living cell containing in itself simple form the basic properties inherent in verbal thinking in general. A word is not a label attached as an individual name to a single item. It always characterizes the object or phenomenon designated by it, in a generalized way and, therefore, acts as an act of thinking. But the word is also a means of communication, therefore it is part of speech. Being devoid of meaning, the word no longer refers to thought or speech; acquiring its meaning, it immediately becomes an organic part of both. It is in the meaning of the word, says Vygotsky, that the knot of that unity is tied, which is called verbal thinking. However, thinking and speech have different genetic roots. Initially, they performed different functions and developed separately. The original function of speech was the communicative function. Speech itself as a means of communication arose due to the need to separate and coordinate people's actions in the process of joint labor. At the same time, in verbal communication, the content conveyed by speech belongs to a certain class of phenomena and, therefore, already thereby presupposes their generalized reflection, i.e. fact of thinking. At the same time, such, for example, a method of communication as a pointing gesture, does not carry any generalization in itself and therefore does not apply to thought. In turn, there are types of thinking that are not associated with speech, for example, visual-effective, or practical, thinking in animals. In young children and in higher animals, unique means of communication are found that are not associated with thinking. These are expressive movements, gestures, facial expressions, reflecting internal states living creature, but not a sign or generalization. In the phylogeny of thinking and speech, the pre-verbal phase in the development of intelligence and the pre-intellectual phase in the development of speech are clearly visible. L.S. Vygotsky believed that at the age of about 2 years, i.e. in the one that Piaget designated as the beginning of the stage of preoperative thinking following the sensorimotor intelligence, in the relationship between thinking and speech, a critical crucial moment: speech begins to become intellectualized, and thinking - verbal. Signs of the onset of this turning point in the development of both functions are the child's rapid and active expansion of his vocabulary(he often begins to ask adults the question: what is it called?) and an equally rapid, leaps and bounds increase in the communicative vocabulary. The child, as it were, for the first time discovers the symbolic function of speech and discovers an understanding that generalization actually lies behind the word as a means of communication, and uses it both for communication and for solving problems. He begins to name different objects with the same word, and this is direct evidence that the child learns concepts. Solving any intellectual tasks, he begins to reason aloud, and this, in turn, is a sign that he is using speech already as a means of thinking, and not just communication. The meaning of the word as such becomes practically accessible to the child.
PHYSIOLOGICAL BASIS OF THINKING
Work on the study of the neurophysiological mechanisms of mental activity also made a significant contribution to the teaching of thinking. So, we move on to the next question - " Physiological foundations thinking ".
For the first time, the natural scientific substantiation of the materialist theory of the psyche as a reflective process was given by I.M. Sechenov, expressing "the idea of the possibility of bringing all the main forms of mental activity under the type of reflex processes." According to Sechenov, thinking is the result of reflex brain processes that compare objects with each other in some way.
Central to the human theory of thinking is the view on the role of the word in the reflex process. The word is "a means of mental communication" and a condition for the development of thinking. “When a person's thought moves from a sensitive area to an extrasensitive one, the role as a system of conventional signs, developed in parallel and adaptive to thinking, becomes a necessity. Without it, the elements of extrasensory thinking, devoid of image and form, would not have the opportunity to be fixed in consciousness, therefore speech is the main condition for thinking with extrasensory objects. "
How did Sechenov understand the reflex process of thought?
The beginning of thought, the first link of the reflex process, can be any sensory irritation, including audible speech or "writing" (in Sechenov's terminology).
The central link in the reflex process is, according to Sechenov's theory, the analetic-synthetic activity of the brain. Thought according to Sechenov is "continued analysis", "continued synthesis", "continued generalization" of external influences. This means that analysis and synthesis continues not over "sensory products", but over "abstracts."
The spoken or written thought is the final, third link of the reflexes of the brain.
So, thinking according to Sechenov is a speech reflex process. This idea is confirmed by the research of I.P. Pavlov and his school. I.P. Pavlov introduced the concept of the 2nd signal system and characterized it as the highest physiological apparatus control of speech, speech thinking and practical activities mediated by this thinking. According to Pavloi, the second signaling system provides a qualitative difference between human thinking and animal thinking. "The irritation going to the cortex from the speech organs is a distraction from reality and allows generalization, which is especially human higher thinking."
Of great importance for understanding the physiological basis of thinking are also those discovered by I.P. Pavlov, the mechanisms of orientation-research activity, namely the conditioned orientation (research) reflex, and the conditioned reflex to the relationship between stimuli. According to Pavlov, a person's research reflex goes extremely far, finally manifesting itself in the form of that curiosity that creates a science that gives and promises us the highest, boundless orientation in the world around us.
Further neurophysiological studies have brought in new data on the mechanisms of cerebral regulation of complex activity. In the 30s P.K. Anokhin and N.A. Bernstein introduced the concept of feedback as basic for understanding the mechanism of self-regulation of animal and human activity. In modern neurophysiology, the term "feedback" denotes a mechanism for regulating activity by signaling the effects of the working organs of current reactions, due to which they are corrected. The development of the problem of regulation through feedback is important from the point of view of the development of scientific ideas about the mechanisms of mental activity, since it also makes it possible to understand the physiological necessity of the subject's activity in the process of cognition.
Let's summarize briefly:
- Thinking is the result of reflex brain processes (I.M.Sechenov)
- Important for understanding the physiological basis of thinking are:
- Conditioned orienting reflex;
- Conditioned reflex on the relationship between stimuli;
- The second signaling system (I.P. Pavlov);
- Feedback principle (P.K. Anokhin, N.L. Bernstein).
Now let's move on to the neural mechanisms of mental activity and consider the theory of A.N. Luke. The physiological basis of human thinking, according to A.N. Luke, is the spatial and temporal summation of impulses, the associated mosaic of excitation and inhibition.
However, the processing and summation of impulses is not yet thinking. It is necessary to form spatial and temporal configurations of impulses, in which the structural invariant is distinguished and noise is eliminated. This invariant underlies the images. Thinking begins from this level of interaction.
The physiological basis of the image is the neural model, or a set of nerve cells and their synoptic connections, which form a group that is relatively stable over time.
Any event that occurs in the external environment and is perceived by a person is modeled in the cortex of his brain in the form of a certain structure. In this case, it is assumed that a one-to-one correspondence between real objects and their models in nervous system, i.e. code. This is one of the conditions for the objectivity of knowledge. However, a person recognizes objects, even if he sees them in an unusual angle, upside down, etc. The resulting neural "patterns" of excitation are not identical; does not match all of its elements.
But in them a structural invariant can be distinguished, which makes it possible to identify an object by a probabilistic rather than an identical coincidence of excited neurons.
A neural model is a code for an object or event. The structure of the model is similar to the structure of the reflected object. The structure refers to the elements that make up an object, the ways in which these elements enter into a relationship - static or dynamic.
For example, a letter and its phonetic sound are informationally identical, therefore they have a structural similarity. It is in this sense that we can talk about the similarity of the structure of the neural model with the structure of the reflected object. At the level individual elements a one-to-one correspondence is quite enough. But at the level of the model, there is certainly a structural similarity, or isomorphism between the model and the object.
Another example of structural similarity is the water molecule and its formula H 2 O.
A model in the brain is essentially information processed in a certain way. Absolutely identical nerve impulses, grouping in time and space, form models of increasing complexity, reflecting reality more and more fully, approaching it, but never exhausting it.
The creation of a neural model can be considered a correlate of what is commonly called representation formation. The movement of excitement and inhibition, their transition from one model to another is the material basis of the thinking process. In order for a thought to arise, at least two models must be activated. Comparison of these models is the real content of thought.
Thinkingis called the process of reflection in the mind of a person of connections and relationships between objects or phenomena of reality.
In the process of thinking, a person reflects the objective world differently than in the processes of perception and imagination. In perceptions and representations, external phenomena are reflected in the way they affect the sense organs - in colors, shapes, movement of objects, etc. When a person thinks about any objects or phenomena, he reflects in his consciousness not these external features, but the very essence of objects, their interconnections and relationships.
From the physiological point of view, the process of thinking is a complex analytical and synthetic activity of the cerebral cortex. The entire cortex takes part in the implementation of the thinking processes.
For the process of thinking, first of all, those complex temporary connections that form between the brain ends of the analyzers.
The previously existing idea of the exact boundaries of the central parts of the analyzers in the cerebral cortex is refuted by the latest achievements of physiological science: "The limits of the analyzers are much larger, and they are not so sharply delimited from each other, but go behind each other, interlock with each other" (I.P. Pavlov) .This "special construction" of the cortex facilitates the establishment of connections in the activities of a variety of analyzers. “The cerebral cortex must be viewed as a grandiose mosaic of an innumerable mass of nerve points with a specific physiological role in each of them. At the same time, the crust is a very complex dynamic system, constantly striving for unification, for the establishment of a single, common connection ”(IP Pavlov).
Since the activity of individual sections of the cortex is always determined by external stimuli, the neural connections formed with the simultaneous excitation of these sections of the cortex reflect actual connections in things. These connections, naturally caused by external stimuli, constitute the physiological basis of the thinking process. “Thinking,” said IP Pavlov, “... represents nothing else but associations, at first elementary, standing in connection with external objects, and then chains of associations. This means that every small, first association is the moment of the birth of a thought. "
Initially, these associations have a generalized nature, reflecting real connections in their most general and undifferentiated form, and sometimes even incorrectly, according to random, insignificant signs. Only in the process of repeated stimuli does the differentiation of temporary connections take place, they are refined, fixed and become the physiological basis of more or less accurate and correct knowledge about the external world.
These associations arise primarily under the influence of the first-signal stimuli that cause the corresponding sensations, perceptions and ideas about the environment. Real interactions and interconnections of these stimuli determine the appearance of the corresponding temporary neural connections of the first signaling system.
They take part in the implementation of the thinking process nervous processes in the speech centers of the cortex ... Thinking is based not only on first-signal connections. It necessarily presupposes the activity of the second signaling system in its inextricable connection with the first signaling system. The irritants here are no longer specific objects of the surrounding world and their properties, but words. Speech, being directly related to thinking, allows you to reflect in words the interconnection and interdependence of phenomena, because words are not just substitutes, signals of objects, but generalized stimuli.
The second signaling system is specially human. It arises in a person in connection with his work activity and the necessity of communicating with other people caused by it, but nevertheless arises on the basis of the first signal system and is in organic connection with it. In this interaction, the main role belongs to the second signaling system.
In view of the generalized nature of the second-signal stimuli - words that make it possible to reflect objective connections in their general form, the second signal system takes on a leading role in complex nervous processes, subordinating the activity of the first signal system to itself. The interaction of the first and second signaling systems in the processes of thinking consists in the fact that the second signaling system in this unity occupies a dominant position and directs the processes of the first signaling system.
The word transforms the first-signal neural connections into generalized images of reality, which allows a person in the processes of thinking to break away from the specific features of perceived phenomena and think existing connections in their generalized form, in the form of concepts, and not in the form of perceptions and representations.
Types of thinking
The variety of types of mental tasks determines the variety of not only mechanisms, methods, but also types of thinking. In psychology, it is customary to distinguish between types of thinking in terms of content: visual-effective, visual-figurative and abstract thinking; by the nature of the tasks: practical and theoretical thinking; by the degree of novelty and originality: reproductive and creative (productive) thinking.
Visual-Action Thinking lies in the fact that the solution of tasks is carried out by real transformation of the situation and the fulfillment of a motor act. So, in early age children show the ability to analyze and synthesize when they perceive objects at a certain moment and have the ability to operate with them.
Visual-figurative thinking is based on images of representations, transformation of the situation into a plan of images. Typical for poets, artists, architects, perfumers, fashion designers. The meaning of this thinking lies in the fact that with its help the variety of characteristics of an object is more fully reproduced, and unusual combinations of objects and their properties are set. In a simple form, this thinking occurs in preschool age, when children think in images. By encouraging the creation of images on the basis of what has been read, the perception of objects, to a schematic and symbolic depiction of objects of knowledge, the teacher develops figurative thinking in students.
Feature abstract (verbal-logical) thinking is that it occurs on the basis of a concept, judgment, without using empirical data. R. Descartes expressed the following thought: "I think, so I exist." With these words, the scientist emphasizes the leading role in the mental activity of thinking, and precisely the verbal-logical one.
Visual-effective, visual-figurative and verbal-logical thinking are considered as stages in the development of thinking in phylogeny and ontogenesis.
Theoretical thinking consists in the knowledge of laws, rules. It reflects the essential in phenomena, objects, connections between them at the level of patterns and trends. The products of theoretical thinking are, for example, the discovery Periodic table Mendeleev, mathematical (philosophical) laws. B. M. Teplov wrote about people theoretical view thinking they carry out an excellent "intellectual economy" by "summarizing facts to laws, and laws to theories."
Theoretical thinking is sometimes compared to empirical thinking. They differ in the nature of their generalizations. So, in theoretical thinking there is a generalization of abstract concepts, and in empirical - sensually given characteristics, highlighted by comparison.
The main task practical thinking is a physical transformation of reality. It can sometimes be more complicated than theoretical, because it often unfolds under extreme circumstances and in the absence of conditions for testing a hypothesis.
Some scientists, on the basis of three features - the time of the process, structure (clear division into stages) and the level of flow (awareness or ignorance) - distinguish intuitive and analytical thinking.
Analytical thinking- this is a kind of thinking, unfolded in time, has clearly expressed stages, sufficiently realized by the subject.
Intuitive thinking on the contrary, it is curtailed in time, there is no division into stages, it was presented in consciousness.
In psychology, they also distinguish realistic thinking directed at the outside world and regulated by logical laws, as well as autistic thinking implementation related own desires, intentions. For children preschool age peculiar self-centered thinking, its characteristic feature is the inability to put oneself in the position of others.
3.I. Kalmykova singles out productive (creative) and reproductive thinking according to the degree of novelty of the product that the subject of knowledge receives. The researcher believes that thinking as a process of generalized and indirect cognition of reality is always productive, i.e. aimed at acquiring new knowledge. However, in it, in a dialectical unity, the productive and reproductive components are intertwined.
Reproductive thinking is a type of thinking that provides a solution to a problem, relying on the reproduction of already known to man ways. The new task corresponds to the already known solution scheme. Despite this, reproductive thinking always requires the identification of a certain level of independence.
In productive thinking, the intellectual abilities of a person, his creative potential are fully manifested. Creative opportunities are expressed in the rapid rate of assimilation of knowledge, in the breadth of their transfer to new conditions, in the independent operation of them.
Domestic and foreign psychologists (G.S.Kostyuk, J.Gilford) came to the conclusion that creative thinking is a set of those features of the psyche that provide productive transformations in the activity of the individual.
Creative thinking is dominated by four features, in particular, the originality of the problem solution, semantic flexibility, which allows you to see the object from a new angle of view, figurative adaptive flexibility, which makes it possible to change the object with the development of the need for its cognition, semantically spontaneous production flexibility different ideas regarding uncertain situations.
Every person, regardless of ethnicity, has a creativity. So, analyzing the origins national character Ukrainians, MI Piren notes that Ukrainian emotionality, sensitivity, lyricism, which are manifested in songs, folk rituals, humor, customs, is the basis of creativity. The positive aspects of Ukrainian emotionality were embodied in the spiritual creativity of the best representatives of the nation: G. Skovoroda, N. Gogol, P. Yurkevich, P. Kulish, T. Shevchenko.