Contents
The book «Introduction to Psychology». Authors — R.L. Atkinson, R.S. Atkinson, E.E. Smith, D.J. Boehm, S. Nolen-Hoeksema. Under the general editorship of V.P. Zinchenko. 15th international edition, St. Petersburg, Prime Eurosign, 2007.
The human race owes its greatest accomplishments to the ability to generate, communicate, and act upon complex thoughts. Thinking includes a wide range of mental activities. We think when we try to solve a problem given in a class; we think when we dream in anticipation of these activities in the classroom. We think when we decide what to buy at the grocery store, when we plan a vacation, when we write a letter, or when we worry about:about difficult relationships.
Concepts and categorization: the building blocks of thinking
Thought can be seen as the «language of the mind». In fact, more than one such language is possible. One of the modes of thought corresponds to the flow of phrases that we «hear in our minds»; it is called propositional thinking because it expresses propositions or statements. Another mode — figurative thinking — corresponds to images, especially visual ones, that we «see» in our minds. Finally, there is probably a third mode — motor thinking, corresponding to a sequence of «mental movements» (Bruner, Olver, Greenfield et al, 1966). Although some attention has been paid to motor thinking in children in the study of stages of cognitive development, research on thinking in adults has focused mainly on the other two modes, most notably propositional thinking. See →
Reasoning
When we think in propositions, the sequence of thoughts is organized. Sometimes the organization of our thoughts is determined by the structure of long-term memory. The thought of calling your father, for example, leads to a memory of a recent conversation with him at your house, which in turn leads to the thought of repairing the attic in your house. But memory associations are not the only means of organizing thought. Of interest is also the organization characteristic of those cases when we try to reason. Here the sequence of thoughts often takes the form of a justification, in which one statement represents the statement or conclusion that we want to draw. The remaining statements are the grounds for this assertion, or the premises of this conclusion. See →
Creative thinking
In addition to thinking in the form of statements, a person can also think in the form of images, especially visual images.
Many of us feel that part of our thinking is done visually. It often seems that we reproduce past perceptions or fragments of them and then operate on them as if they were real percepts. To appreciate this moment, try to answer the following three questions:
- What shape are the ears of a German Shepherd?
- What letter will you get if you rotate the capital N 90 degrees?
- How many windows do your parents have in their living room?
In answer to the first question, most people say they form a visual image of a German Shepherd’s head and «look» at the ears to determine their shape. When answering the second question, people report that they first form an image of a capital N, then mentally «rotate» it 90 degrees and «look» at it to determine what happened. And when answering the third question, people say that they imagine a room and then «scan» this image by counting the windows (Kosslyn, 1983; Shepard & Cooper, 1982).
The above examples are based on subjective impressions, but they and other evidence indicate that the same representations and processes are involved in images as in perception (Finke, 1985). The images of objects and spatial areas contain visual details: we see a German shepherd, capital N or the living room of our parents «in our mind’s eye». In addition, the mental operations that we perform with these images are apparently similar to the operations performed with real visual objects: we scan the image of the parents’ room in much the same way as we would scan a real room, and we rotate the image of the capital N in the same way as we rotated would be a real object. See →
Thinking in Action: Problem Solving
For many people, problem solving represents thinking itself. When solving problems, we strive for the goal, not having a ready means to achieve it. We have to break down the goal into sub-goals, and perhaps divide these sub-goals further into even smaller sub-goals until we reach a level where we have the necessary means (Anderson, 1990).
These points can be illustrated by the example of a simple problem. Suppose you need to solve an unfamiliar combination of a digital lock. You only know that there are 4 numbers in this combination and that as soon as you dial the correct number, you hear a click. The overall goal is to find a combination. Instead of trying 4 digits randomly, most people divide the overall goal into 4 sub-goals, each corresponding to finding one of the 4 digits in the combination. The first sub-objective is to find the first digit, and you have a way to achieve it, which is to turn the lock slowly until you hear a click. The second subgoal is to find the second digit, and the same procedure can be used for this, and so on with all the remaining subgoals.
Strategies for dividing a goal into subgoals is a central issue in the study of problem solving. Another question is how people mentally imagine the problem, since the ease of solving the problem also depends on this. Both of these issues are considered further. See →
Influence of thinking on language
Does language put us in the framework of some special worldview? According to the most spectacular formulation of the linguistic determinism hypothesis (Whorf, 1956), the grammar of every language is the embodiment of metaphysics. For example, while English has nouns and verbs, Nootka only uses verbs, while Hopi divides reality into two parts: the manifest world and the implicit world. Whorf argues that such linguistic differences form a way of thinking in native speakers that is incomprehensible to others. See →
How language can determine thought: linguistic relativity and linguistic determinism
No one argues with the thesis that language and thinking have a significant influence on each other. However, there is controversy over the assertion that each language has its own effect on the thinking and actions of the people who speak it. On the one hand, everyone who has learned two or more languages is amazed at the many features that distinguish one language from another. On the other hand, we assume that the ways of perceiving the world around us are similar in all people. See →
Chapter 10
You’re driving down the freeway, trying to make it to an important job interview. You got up late this morning, so you had to skip breakfast, and now you’re hungry. It seems like every billboard you pass advertises food — delicious scrambled eggs, juicy burgers, cool fruit juice. Your stomach growls, you try to ignore it, but you fail. With every kilometer, the feeling of hunger intensifies. You almost crash into the car in front of you while looking at a pizza ad. In short, you are in the grip of a motivational state known as hunger.
Motivation is a state that activates and directs our behavior. See →