Operations of thinking. Types and operations of thinking Classification of mental operations

24.11.202227.05.2017

Location: classroom

Lesson duration: 2 hours.

Target: Study the processes of thinking, imagination, speech. Discuss the main types, types, forms and functions of thinking, imagination and speech. Teach to differentiate normal and pathological thinking, imagination and speech.

The student must know:

Definition of the concepts “thinking”, “imagination”, “speech”.
Types, forms, methods, operations, individual characteristics of thinking.
Development of thinking in ontogeny. Laws of logic and thinking.
Thinking disorders. Pathopsychological and clinical classification of thinking disorders.
Types of imagination. Iatrogenesis.
Pathological forms of imagination.
Types and functions of speech. Correlation of thinking and speech.
Speech disorders.

The student must be able to:

Explore thinking. Be able to differentiate between normal and pathological thinking. Diagnose disorders of thinking and imagination.
Investigate speech disorders.
Carry out the methodology of A. Alekseeva, L. Gromova to determine individual thinking styles.

Topics of projects, abstracts.

Theoretical and experimental approaches to the study of inquiry thinking.
Features of thinking disorders in brain lesions.
The role of clinical reasoning for health professions professionals.
Disturbances in the development of thinking in children.
The influence of doctor-patient communication on the dynamics of treatment.
Using the characteristics of human imagination for the purposes of psychodiagnostics.
Speech. Types of speech. Speech formation disorder.
Imagination. Types of imagination. Pathological forms of imagination.
Iatrogenesis.

Main literature:

Sidorov P.I., Parnyakov A.V. Clinical psychology: textbook. - 3rd ed., revised. and additional - M.: GEOTAR-Media, 2008. - 880 pp.: ill.
Clinical psychology: Textbook / Ed. B.D. Karvasarsky. - St. Petersburg: Peter, 2002.
Mendelevich V.D. Clinical and medical psychology: A practical guide. - M.: MED - press, 2001. - 592 p.
Psychology. Dictionary / General ed. A.V.Petrovsky, M.G.Yaroshevsky. - M., 1990.

Additional literature:

Lakosina N.D. Clinical psychology. Textbook for medical students. - M.: MED press-inform, 2003.
Lakosina N.R., Ushakov G.K. Textbook on medical psychology. - L., 1976.
Medical psychology: the latest reference book for a practical psychologist / compiled by S.L. Solovyova. - M., 2006.
Rubinshtein S.L. Fundamentals of general psychology: in 2 volumes. - T.1. - M., 1989.
Nemov "Psychology". - M., 2002.

Initial control of knowledge level:

Define thinking, imagination and speech.
What types and forms of thinking do you know?
How is thinking related to other mental processes?
How does thinking affect imagination and speech?
What effect do you think emotions have on thinking?
What reasons can lead to disruption of the processes of thinking, imagination and speech?
What dysfunctions of thinking, imagination and speech do you know?
What do you think is the effect of underdevelopment of the visual, auditory and speech apparatus on the formation and development of thinking, imagination and speech?

Main questions of the topic:

Definition of the concept of “thinking”. Basic mental operations: analysis and synthesis, comparison (comparison and distinction), abstraction (distraction), generalization, concretization, systematization (classification).
Types of thinking: concrete-effective, visual-effective (practical), visual-figurative, abstract-logical (sign-symbolic, verbal-logical), creative (creative) thinking.
The main forms of abstract thinking: concept (category, definition of a concept), judgment, inference.
Methods of thinking: deduction, induction and analogy and corresponding inferences. Mechanical-associative and logical-associative types of thinking.
Thinking strategies: random, rational and systematic search. Stages of preparation and incubation in thinking.
Individual characteristics of thinking: breadth and depth, consistency, flexibility, independence, critical thinking.
Development of thinking in ontogenesis, stages and age periodization, classification, works of J. Piaget, L.S. Vygodsky, P.Ya. Galperin and others.
Methods for studying thinking.
The basic laws of logic and their role in the study of the phenomenon of thinking in humans in normal conditions, in borderline conditions and in pathology.
Pathology of thinking. Clinical and pathopsychological classification of thinking disorders.
Imagination, normal and pathological forms, the role of imagination in the development of the psyche, active and passive imagination, fantasies, age-related, gender and social aspects.
Speech and thinking. Facial expressions and pantomimics in speech. Oral and written speech, stages of speech development. Speech pathologies.

Final control of knowledge level:

Define thinking. Types of thinking and forms of thinking?
What integral characteristics describe individual thinking characteristics?
Why do people with neuroses tend to think, which is usually referred to as catathymic?
During a conversation, how can we identify the integrity of the mental operation of generalization or abstraction in a patient with suspected mental retardation?
Why are dreams a form of passive imagination? Can dreams be intentionally caused by a person?
What is the difference between productive imagination and reproductive imagination?
What are iatrogenic diseases? How is iatrogenic prevention carried out?
How are the features of a person’s imagination used for psychodiagnostic purposes?
How do psychotic phantasms differ from non-psychotic phantasms?
Define speech. How are speech and language related?
What is inner speech? How is it formed in ontogenesis, what functions does it perform?
What is the difference between expressive and impressive speech?
How does tracing speech differ from the spoken sign language of deaf and dumb people?
The disappearance of the need to communicate is the main symptom of autism. What is “autism in reverse” and what are the signs?
What is the main feature that distinguishes aphasia from alalia?
What do the concepts of left-hemisphere and right-hemisphere thinking mean?
What are the differences between convergent and divergent thinking?
How does the phenomenon of diversity of thinking manifest itself in the subject version of the classification technique?
What are the main differences between overvalued and obsessive ideas of jealousy and heart disease?
How is the pathological nature of children's deceit assessed?
What individual phenomena of children's fantasy should raise alarm bells regarding the possibility of a child having a mental illness?
What is the name for the lack of pronunciation of the letter "r"? What group of disorders does dyslalia belong to?

Thinking- the mental process of reflecting the most significant properties of objects and phenomena of reality, as well as the most significant connections and relationships between them, which ultimately leads to the acquisition of new knowledge about the world.

Operations of the thinking process

Mental activity arises and proceeds in the form of special mental operations (analysis, synthesis, comparison, abstraction, generalization, concretization and systematization) with a subsequent transition to the formation of concepts.

Analysis- mental division of the whole into parts. It is based on the desire to understand the whole more deeply by studying each of its parts. There are two types of analysis: analysis as the mental decomposition of a whole into parts and analysis as the mental isolation of its individual features or aspects as a whole.

Synthesis- mental connection of parts into a single whole. Just as in analysis, two types of synthesis are distinguished: synthesis as a mental unification of parts of the whole and synthesis as a mental combination of various signs, aspects, properties of objects and phenomena of reality.

Comparison- mental establishment of similarities and differences between objects and phenomena, their properties or qualitative features.

Abstraction (distraction)- mental selection of essential properties or features while simultaneously abstracting from non-essential properties; signs of objects and phenomena. To think abstractly means to be able to extract some moment, side, feature or property of a cognizable object and consider them without connection with other features of the same object.

Generalization- mental unification of objects or phenomena on the basis of common and essential properties and characteristics for them, the process of reducing less general concepts to more general ones.

Specification- mental selection from the general of one or another particular specific property or feature, otherwise - a mental transition from generalized knowledge to a single, specific case.

Systematization (classification)- mental distribution of objects or phenomena into groups or subgroups depending on similarities and differences (dividing categories according to essential characteristics).

All mental operations (actions) do not occur in isolation, but in various combinations.

Types of thinking

There are three main types of thinking that appear sequentially in the process of ontogenesis: visual-effective, visual-figurative and verbal-logical.

Visually effective (practical) thinking- a type of thinking that is based on direct sensory impressions of objects and phenomena of reality, i.e. their primary image (sensations and perceptions). In this case, a real, practical transformation of the situation occurs in the process of specific actions with specific objects. This type of thinking can only exist under conditions of direct perception of the manipulation field.

Visual-figurative thinking- a type of thinking that is characterized by reliance on ideas, i.e. secondary images of objects and phenomena of reality, and also operates with visual images of objects (drawing, diagram, plan). In contrast to visual-effective thinking, here the situation is transformed only in terms of its internal (subjective) image, but at the same time it becomes possible to select the most unusual and even incredible combinations of both the objects themselves and their properties. Visual-figurative thinking is the basis for the formation of verbal and logical thinking.

Abstract-logical (abstract, verbal, theoretical) thinking- a type of thinking that relies on abstract concepts and logical actions with them. With visual-effective and visual-figurative thinking, mental operations are carried out with the information that sensory knowledge gives us in the form of direct perception of specific objects and their images-representations. Abstract-logical thinking, thanks to abstraction, allows you to create an abstract and generalized picture of the situation in the form of thoughts, i.e. concepts, judgments and conclusions that are expressed in words.

These types of thinking develop in the process of ontogenesis sequentially from the objective-active to the conceptual.

The thinking of an adult includes signs of all three types: objective-active, visual-figurative and conceptual. The ratio of these types of thinking is determined not only by age, but also by individual characteristics and is associated with the dominance of one of the hemispheres. The predominance of effective and visual-figurative thinking is characteristic of people with dominant activation of the right hemisphere; such people are more successful in technical activities, geometry and drawing are easier for them, and they are prone to artistic activities. Persons with dominance of the left hemisphere have higher success in theoretical, verbal and logical thinking; they are more successful in mathematics (algebra) and scientific activities. In the practical activity of an adult, there is a constant transition from practical to imaginative and logical thinking and vice versa. Developed practical thinking is characterized by “the ability to quickly understand a complex situation and almost instantly find the right solution,” that is, what is usually called intuition.

Intuitive thinking is characterized by rapidity, the absence of clearly defined stages, low awareness, in contrast to discursive, gradually developed, conscious thinking. The high speed of intuitive problem solving is due to the restructuring of the processes of logical and figurative thinking. It acquires special significance in difficult situations (complexity of the situation, lack of time, the need to take into account opposing forces, high responsibility for every decision). It is these parameters that characterize the activity of a doctor. Therefore, in the practical activity of a doctor, all these types of thinking appear in unity.

Creative and critical thinking. If we consider thinking from the point of view of novelty, originality of the problem being solved, then we can distinguish creative thinking (productive, divergent, creative) and reproducing (reproductive, convergent). Creative thinking is thinking that results in the discovery of a fundamentally new or improved solution to a problem. Guilford, a renowned researcher of creative thinking, identified four main factors of creativity.

1. Originality characterizes the originality of creative thinking, an unusual approach to a problem, and the ability to give non-standard answers.

2. Flexibility - the ability to diversify answers and quickly switch.

3. Integration as the ability to simultaneously take into account several opposing conditions, premises or principles.

4. Sensitivity as the ability to notice subtle details, similarities or differences.

Studying creative thinking, Torrance found that the peak of creativity is observed in childhood (from 3.5 to 4.5 years), then it increases in the first three years of school and in the pre-pubertal period. Subsequently, there is a tendency towards its decrease.

Obstacles to creative thinking, often unconscious, include conformism (the desire to be like everyone else, the fear of standing out. That is why there is internal censorship - a person rejects everything that may not be accepted by other people); rigidity - the desire of thinking to follow well-trodden paths, to solve problems in familiar ways, excessively high motivation, the desire to find an answer immediately also often forces a person to use the first solution that comes to mind, which, as a rule, is not innovative.

Critical thinking- testing the proposed hypotheses in order to determine the area of their possible application. We can say that creative thinking creates new ideas, and critical thinking reveals their shortcomings and defects.

Based on all that has been said, when describing thinking, one can distinguish the following qualities: depth-superficiality; breadth-narrowness; speed-slowness; flexibility-rigidity; originality-triviality.

Basic forms of thinking

Concepts, judgments and inferences are the main forms with which mental operations are performed during abstract thinking. concept- a form of thinking that reflects the most general and essential features, properties of an object or phenomenon of the objective world, expressed in words. Concepts are based on our knowledge about these objects or phenomena. It is customary to distinguish between general and individual concepts.

General concepts are those that cover a whole class of homogeneous objects or phenomena bearing the same name. General concepts reflect the characteristics characteristic of all objects that are united by the corresponding concept.

Any general concepts arise only on the basis of individual objects and phenomena. The path of concept formation is a movement from the particular to the general, i.e. through generalization.

The basis for the formation of concepts is practice. Very often, when we lack practical experience, some of our concepts are distorted. They may be unreasonably narrowed or expanded. It is necessary to distinguish itean concepts, which are formed through personal practical experience. Visual-figurative connections occupy a predominant place in them. Scientific concepts, which are formed with the leading participation of formal logical operations, their definition is formed through generic differences.

In logical relations only comparable concepts can be found. A doctor’s diagnostic errors may be associated with a violation of the logic of thinking in terms of, for example, a specific disease - an overly broad or too narrow understanding of the content and scope of the concept of it, the replacement of the definition of a disease with its description listing individual symptoms.

Mastering a concept means not only being able to name its features, even if very numerous, but also being able to apply the concept in practice, i.e. be able to operate it. One of the most important moments in mastering a concept is its awareness. Sometimes, when using a concept, we do not fully understand its meaning. Therefore, awareness of a concept can be considered as the highest stage in the formation of concepts, as a link connecting the concept and understanding.

Judgment- a form of thinking that reflects connections between concepts, expressed in the form of affirmation or negation. If a concept reflects a set of essential characteristics of objects and lists them, then a judgment reflects their connections and relationships. Usually a judgment (for example: The rose is red) consists of two concepts - two terms of the judgment: the subject (from the Latin subjectum - subject), i.e. that in relation to which something is affirmed or denied in a judgment, and the predicate (from the Latin praedicatum - predicate), i.e. verbal expression of affirmation or denial.

In general propositions, something is affirmed or denied regarding all objects of a given class or group (for example: All fish breathe with gills). In private judgments, this applies to some representatives of a class or group (for example: Some students are excellent students). A singular judgment is a judgment in which something is affirmed or denied about one object (for example: This building is an architectural monument). Any judgment can be either true or false, i.e. correspond or not correspond to reality.

In the process of our operating with various judgments using certain mental operations, another form of thinking arises - inference.

Inference- this is a form of thinking through which a new judgment (conclusion) is derived from one or more judgments (premises). Inference is the highest form of thinking and represents the formation of new judgments based on the transformation of existing ones. Inference as a form of thinking is based on concepts and judgments and is most often used in the processes of theoretical thinking.

Any conclusion consists of premises, conclusion and conclusion. The premises of an inference are the initial judgments from which a new judgment is derived. This new judgment, obtained logically from the premises, is called a conclusion. And the logical transition from premises to conclusion is the conclusion. The relationship of logical consequence between the premises and the conclusion presupposes a connection between the premises in content. If judgments are not related in content, then a conclusion from them is impossible. If there is a meaningful connection between the premises, we can obtain new true knowledge in the process of reasoning if two conditions are met: the premises must be true and certain rules of inference - methods of thinking - must be observed.

Methods of thinking

Inference is the most complex form and product of thinking. It is based on data from a series of judgments and is carried out through reasoning. There are three main methods (methods) for obtaining conclusions in reasoning: deduction, induction and analogy.

Deductive reasoning- the course of reasoning when obtaining a conclusion goes from more general knowledge to the specific (from the general to the individual), here the transition from general knowledge to the specific is logically necessary.

Inductive Inference- reasoning proceeds from specific knowledge to general provisions. Here there is an empirical generalization when, based on the repeatability of a feature, it is concluded that it belongs to all phenomena of this class.

Inference by analogy- makes it possible in reasoning to make a logical transition from known knowledge about a separate subject to new knowledge about another separate subject based on the likening of one phenomenon to another (from an individual case to similar individual cases or from particular to particular, bypassing the general).

Types of thinking

The first attempts to highlight the specifics of thinking go back to the associative direction in psychology, where the main feature of thinking is its purposeful and productive nature. Within this direction there are mechanical-associative And logical-associative types of thinking.

Mechanical-associative type of thinking - associations are formed primarily according to the laws of contiguity, similarity or contrast. There is no clear goal of thinking here, i.e. that special regulator that ensures the selection of the right material and the formation of cause-and-effect associations. Such “free” (chaotic-mechanical) association can be observed in sleep (this often explains the bizarreness of some dream images), as well as when the level of wakefulness decreases (with illness fatigue).

Logical-associative thinking - differs in purposefulness and value. For this, a regulator of associations is always needed - the goal of thinking. X. Lipman (1904) used an abstract concept to denote this goal - “guiding ideas.” They direct associations, which leads to the selection (at a subconscious level) of the necessary material for the formation of semantic associations. Guiding ideas are, in the words of E. Kretschmer (1888-1964), the magnet that holds related ideas in the field of consciousness. This kind of thinking requires apperception with a certain focus on the goal of thinking.

Our ordinary thinking consists of both logical-associative (apperceptive) and mechanical-associative thinking. We have the first with concentrated intellectual activity, the second with fatigue.

Individual characteristics of thinking

All of the above differences in the mental activity of people (type, type and strategies of thinking) determine the individual characteristics of the thinking of each individual person. They develop in the process of life and activity and are largely determined by the conditions of training and upbringing. Typological properties of a person’s higher nervous activity, his affective sphere, and features of functional interhemispheric interaction are also important. Individual characteristics of thinking determine such integral characteristics as breadth and depth of thinking, its consistency, flexibility, independence and criticality. The listed features of thinking are combined and expressed differently in different people, which characterizes the individual features of their thinking as a whole.

Breadth of Mind manifests itself in a person’s horizons and is characterized by versatility of knowledge, the ability to think creatively and consider any issue in the diversity of its connections with other phenomena, and the ability to make broad generalizations.

Depth of mind is expressed in the ability to penetrate into the essence of the issue, the ability to see the problem, highlight the main thing in it and foresee the consequences of the solution. The quality opposite to the depth of thinking is the superficiality of judgments and conclusions, when a person pays attention to the little things and does not see the main thing.

Sequence of thinking is expressed in the ability to establish a logical order in solving various issues. Quick thinking is the ability to quickly assess a situation, quickly think and make decisions, and easily switch to solving different problems.

Flexibility of thinking is expressed in his freedom from the constraining influence of prevailing stereotypes, the ability to find unconventional solutions depending on changes in the situation.

Independence of thinking is expressed in a person’s ability to put forward new questions and tasks, to find new ways to solve them independently, without outside help. Such thinking does not lend itself to suggestive outside influences.

Critical thinking- this is a person’s ability to objectively evaluate his own and other people’s judgments, the ability to abandon his statements that do not correspond to reality, and to subject other people’s proposals and judgments to critical consideration.

Development of thinking in ontogenesis

The Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget (Piaget J., 1966) has been studying the child psychology of thinking for a long time. He viewed the development of thinking as a spontaneous, naturally occurring transition from external actions to internal mental operations. The studies of J. Piaget and his psychological school show the qualitative originality of children's thinking, a special child's logic, different from that of an adult, and trace how thinking gradually changes its character as the child grows up.

At a very early age, the child is forced to motorically implement every action in order to solve the problems facing him. During this period, its actions are still fully developed; they contain many visible components. With age they change under the influence folding: components of action are qualitatively transformed and their number decreases. At a certain stage of age development, it becomes possible to dive and transformation into mental operations (interiorization). Thus, first the child learns the world in actions, then in images, then he develops a symbolic idea of the world through language and abstract thinking.

Piaget identifies four stages of children's cognitive development:

1. Stage of sensorimotor operations (sensorimotor intelligence)- actions with specific, sensory material: objects, their images, lines, figures of different shapes, sizes and colors. This stage continues in children under 2 years of age and is free from language use; no representations. All behavior and intellectual acts of the child are focused on the coordination of perception and movements (hence the name “sensorimotor”), the formation of “sensorimotor schemes” of objects is underway, the first skills are formed, and the constancy of perception is established.

2. Stage of pre-operational intelligence (2-7 years)- characterized by formed speech, ideas, internalization of action into thought (action is replaced by some sign: word, image, symbol). If previously the child performed various external actions in order to achieve a goal, now he can combine action patterns in his mind and suddenly come to the right decision.

This stage of intelligence development is called representative intelligence- thinking with the help of ideas. A strong figurative beginning with insufficient development of verbal thinking leads to a kind of childish logic. At the stage of pre-operational ideas, the child is not capable of evidence or reasoning. Children's mastery of concepts and logic is formed gradually - in the process of handling objects and during training.

J. Piaget explains all the features of the early (pre-conceptual) form of thinking as a phenomenon inherent in young children children's egocentrism- the child’s idea that everything around him is related to him, perceives the world as his continuation, making sense only in terms of satisfying needs. Egocentrism is a special intellectual position of a child. He is not yet able to freely transform the reference system, the beginning of which is rigidly connected with himself, with his “I”. All this does not allow children under 5 years of age to correctly understand situations that require accepting someone else’s position and to coordinate different points of view.

J. Piaget distinguishes three main levels of egocentrism:

lack of distinction between subject and object by a child under 1.5 years old;
insufficient differentiation between one’s own and another’s point of view by a child under 7-8 years of age, which gives rise to such peculiarities of preschooler thinking as syncretism or animism;
a teenager’s faith in the limitless possibilities of his own thinking and the ability to transform the world around him (11-14 years old).

3. Concrete operations stage(8-11 years) - characterized by awareness of the reversibility and symmetry of relationships by overcoming egocentrism. The stage of concrete operations is associated with the ability to reason, prove, and correlate different points of view. Logical operations, however, need to be supported by clarity and cannot be performed hypothetically (that’s why they are called concrete). All logical operations are application specific. In particular, the child can already form both relationships and classes from specific objects. If at 7 years old a child manages to arrange the sticks along their length, then only at 9.5 years old does he perform a similar operation with body weights, and with volumes only at 11-12 years old. Logical operations have not yet become generalized for the child.

4. Stage of formal operations(12-15 years) - a teenager is freed from specific attachment to objects given in the field of perception, which characterizes the completion of the formation of logical thinking. A teenager acquires the ability to think in the same way as an adult, i.e. hypothetically, deductively. This stage is characterized by operating with logical relations, relative concepts, abstractions and generalizations. The entry of a teenager into the stage of formal logical operations causes him to have an exaggerated attraction to general theories, a desire for “theorizing,” which, according to J. Piaget, is an age-related feature of adolescents. For teenagers, the general becomes more important and significant than the particulars; they gravitate toward creating their own theories in politics or philosophy. Syllogisms become the basis of logical thinking operations at this age.

In our country, the theory of the formation and development of intellectual operations, proposed by P.Ya., has become widespread. Galperin. This theory was based on the idea of a genetic dependence between internal intellectual operations and external practical actions. He spoke about the existence of a gradual formation of thinking. In his works, Galperin identified the stages of internalization of external actions and identified the conditions that ensure the successful transfer of external actions into internal ones. Halperin believed that the development of thinking at different stages is directly related to objective activity, to the manipulation of objects. However, the translation of external actions into internal ones with their transformation into certain mental operations does not occur immediately, but gradually.

The first stage is characterized by the formation of an indicative basis for future action. The main function of this stage is to become familiar in practice with the composition of the future action, as well as with the requirements that this action must ultimately meet.
The second stage of the formation of mental action is associated with its practical development, which is carried out using objects.
The third stage is associated with the continuation of mastering a given action, but without relying on real objects. At this stage, the action is transferred from the external, visual-figurative plane to the internal plane. The main feature of this stage is the use of external speech as a substitute for the manipulation of real objects. Halperin believed that the transfer of action to the speech plane means, first of all, the verbal performance of a certain objective action, and not its voicing.
At the fourth stage of mastering mental action, external speech is abandoned. The external speech execution of an action is transferred entirely to internal speech. A specific action is performed “to oneself.”
At the fifth stage, the action is performed entirely internally, with appropriate reductions and transformations. With the subsequent departure of the execution of this action from the sphere of consciousness (i.e. constant control over its implementation) into the sphere of intellectual skills.

Conceptual thinking replaces pre-conceptual thinking gradually, through a number of intermediate stages, noted L.S. Vygodsky (1982) identified five stages in the transition to the formation of concepts:

a child 2-3 years old - vivid syncretism (an operation that replaces analysis and synthesis for a child), which manifests itself in the fact that when asked to put similar objects together, the child puts any of them together, believing that those placed next to each other are suitable;
child 2-6 years old - chains of pairwise similarities appear in the classification of objects, i.e. it shows elements of objective similarity between two objects, but the third object may differ from the previous two;
a child 7-10 years old - can combine a group of objects by similarity, but is not yet able to recognize and name the main features of the entire group;
a child is 11-14 years old - conceptual thinking appears, but it is still imperfect, since primary concepts are formed on the basis of everyday experience and are not supported by scientific knowledge;
adolescence - the use of theoretical principles allows you to go beyond everyday experience and correctly determine the boundaries of the class concept.

According to many psychologists, the formation of logic also usually requires special training.

Thinking Research

Already during a focused conversation, we can assess the characteristics of the patient’s thought process, delve into the essence of individual operations, identify clinically defined disturbances in the flow of associations or pathological ideas (delusional, overvalued, obsessive). You should pay attention to the pace of thinking, the activity of performing mental operations. When thinking accelerates, it is characterized by increased distractibility, superficiality of associations, ease of switching from one topic to another, and a “jump of ideas.” In the case of slow thinking processes, patients slowly move from one judgment to another, conclusions are formed slowly, associations arise with difficulty, switching from one topic to another is difficult.

In addition to questioning and assessing behavior, experimental psychological methods are of great importance in the study of thinking. But without knowledge of the patient’s personal characteristics, a correct assessment of the results of an experimental study of thinking is very difficult. There are a large number of experimental psychological methods with which you can study various aspects of thinking disorders.

The pace and flow of associations. From a physiological point of view, the study of associations is nothing more than a study of temporary connections formed in past life experience. They are reproduced under the influence of stimulus words and are expressed in speech reactions. This technique is suitable for studying the speed of formation of associative connections (pace of thinking), the development of generalization and abstraction processes, as well as other features of thinking and personality as a whole.

In the most common classic version of the associative experiment, the patient is asked to immediately respond to each word proposed by the experimenter with the first word that comes to mind.

Usually a set of 20-60 words is proposed: the answer is recorded, as well as the time between the researcher’s word and the patient’s response (latent period, normally 1.5-2 s).

Classification - an operation of the thinking process that requires the ability to identify the essential features of objects.

The technique is aimed primarily at studying thinking (processes of generalization and abstraction, sequence of conclusions, etc.), but it also makes it possible to analyze the criticality and thoughtfulness of the patient’s actions, the volume and stability of his attention, personal reactions to his achievements and failures.

The technique is applicable to the study of children and adults of any educational level. However, for the study of children up to the 3rd-4th grade of school and illiterate adults, some of the cards should be excluded (measuring instruments, teaching aids). It is proposed to sort (classify) and justify your decision 70 cards with color and black and white images of various objects, people, animals, plants.

The technique allows us to identify reduction in the generalization process, which is typical for patients with oligophrenia and epilepsy. Concrete thinking, which is characteristic of mental retardation, is determined in cases where the subject combines objects into very specific situational groups (for example, a coat with a closet, “because the coat is hanging in the closet”).

Tendency to detailing, characteristic of patients with epilepsy, is determined in cases when the subject identifies groups correctly, but splits them up too much (for example, “housewear and clothes for going out”, “upholstered furniture and kitchen furniture”). What should be distinguished from excessive detail is the performance of a task when there are also many groups, but this is not due to fragmentation, but to the presence groups of the same name. This will already be a manifestation of forgetfulness, absent-mindedness, narrowing the scope of attention, which happens with vascular and other organic diseases of the brain.

The technique is very sensitive to identifying specific thinking disorders characteristic of patients with schizophrenia: distortion of generalization processes, actualization of random associations, diversity of thinking and some others. The main thing that can be noted in these cases is that patients begin to form some groups in extremely general terms, and others in excessive detail. This alone can be regarded as inconsistency of thinking, which most often occurs in schizophrenia. A similar phenomenon can sometimes be found in organic brain diseases, but only during the period of exacerbation of psychopathological disorders.

There are a number of modifications of the classification methodology: classification of geometric shapes, special tasks for eliminating concepts, identifying essential features of objects.

Methodology “Exclusion of objects (concepts)” - the ability to distinguish between heterogeneous concepts is assessed. The test subject must exclude from the group the “extra” of four or five items (for example: “table, mortar, bed, floor, closet"; "decrepit, old, worn out, small, dilapidated"). Sometimes cards with pictures (words) are specifically introduced into the task, where this kind of exclusion and generalization cannot be carried out. Healthy subjects in such cases declare that the task is impossible, and patients with schizophrenia easily combine objects into a group, using a “weak”, latent sign of a particular object.

Methodology “Identification of essential features of objects (concepts)” - allows you to judge the quality of understanding of the main and secondary features of objects and phenomena. Tasks are offered where the test taker must highlight the essential features of a key concept, emphasizing the features without which this concept does not exist (for example, "Garden:plants, gardener, dog, fence, Earth" or "River,shore, fish, fisherman, tina, water»).

Understanding the figurative meaning of proverbs . To study the processes of abstraction, the patient can be offered tasks to understand the figurative meaning of proverbs or understand the content of plot pictures and short stories (including those with absurdities). Here, a significant role in the overall assessment of the results is played by the attitude of the subject to the mistakes made - whether he notices them on his own, or only with the help of the experimenter. It is necessary to know how he motivates erroneous decisions and how accessible they are to correction.

Formation of artificial concepts (double stimulation technique). The subject is offered two rows of stimuli: one row plays the role of an object towards which behavior is directed, the other plays the role of a sign with the help of which behavior is organized. For example, there is a set of volumetric geometric shapes, different in shape, size and color. On the back of the figures are written words unfamiliar to the test subject (“oks”, “nur”, etc.). After several trials, you need to find all the figures with the given words. Pay attention to how many such trials were needed for the subject to form an artificial concept, i.e. the characteristic by which the choice was made. Sometimes, while correctly recognizing figures, the subject cannot correctly name their common features, which may indicate a weakness in the processes of generalization and abstraction at the verbal level. Thus, the subject of study in this experiment is not only the process of comparing and generalizing figures, but also the influence of a word (sign) on this process, denoting the desired combination of features.

Study of logical connections and relationships between concepts - educational methodology is used paired analogies in pictorial and verbal versions, where, in accordance with the sample (a pair of words), a new pair is selected, similar in terms of the feature presented in the sample. For example: school/training; hospital/(doctor, student, institution, treatment, sick).

Understanding syllogisms. A special group of methods consisted of methods for studying logical thinking by studying the subject’s understanding of inferences based on the four figures of a syllogism, as well as their graphic representations in the form of intersecting contours (circles or ellipses) of syllogisms, relationships between the volumes of concepts - Venn diagrams, etc.

A study of constructive thinking. To study constructive thinking, specially colored cubes are used (Scythe cubes, Link cubes), from which it is proposed to lay out patterns (complexities or fold a large cube of a given color).

Classification of thinking disorders in pathopsychology

Based on experimental psychological studies of thinking, three main types of thinking disorders can usually be distinguished (Zeigarnik B.V., 1962): violations of the operational side of thinking; violations of the personal (motivational) component of thinking; disturbances in the dynamics of mental activity. Various combinations of these disorders are also possible.

I. Violations of the operational side of thinking lies in the fact that patients are impaired and lose the ability to use the basic operations of thinking. This usually refers to the operations of generalization and abstraction. Violations of the operational side of thinking usually come down to its two extreme variants: a decrease in the level of generalization and a distortion of the generalization process.

1.Reducing the level of generalization - in the judgments of patients, concrete, immediate ideas about objects and phenomena dominate, and higher levels of generalization, where abstraction is required, are difficult for the patient to access. This type of disorder is most typical for patients with dementia. With a pronounced decrease in the level of generalization, they do not cope with the classification task at all. The mental operation of combining and contrasting (excluding the superfluous from the four presented objects) is also difficult; interpretation and understanding of the figurative meaning of proverbs becomes inaccessible.

2.Distortion of the generalization process - is, as it were, the opposite of reducing the level of generalization, since the essential properties of objects, phenomena, existing connections between them are not taken into account by patients at all during the operation of generalization. In this case, the patient can isolate them by abstraction, i.e. he takes extremely general characteristics and connections as the basis for his generalization, but they are completely random, undirected and inadequate. For example, when classifying, a patient combines a fork, a table and a shovel into one group on the basis of “hardness,” and combines a mushroom, a horse and a pencil into a group on the basis of “the connection between the organic and the inorganic.” All this creates the basis for fruitless speculation - reasoning. The most typical disturbances in thinking are the type of distortion of the generalization process for patients with schizophrenia.

II. Disorders of the personal (motivational) component of thinking manifest themselves in violations of the regulatory, motivational function of thinking, as well as its criticality with the phenomena of actualization of latent properties of concepts, “diversity” and “discontinuity” of thinking.

Thinking is a complex self-regulating form of activity; it is always determined by a goal, i.e. given task. The loss of purposefulness leads not only to superficiality and incompleteness of judgments, but also to the loss of behavior-regulating functions in thinking, since there is no thinking divorced from the needs, motives, aspirations and feelings of a person, his personality as a whole.

The signs of objects on the basis of which classification is carried out are stable for a healthy person. This stability of the objective meaning of things is often violated in patients with schizophrenia, which in an experimental situation leads to updating latent, i.e. hidden, understandable and interesting only to the patient himself, signs and properties of objects that acquired meaning for him only thanks to painfully changed motives and attitudes or were updated from memory on the basis of past life experience. For example, a patient combines the sun, a candle and a kerosene lamp into one group and excludes the electric lamp. At the same time, he says that “the electric lamp smells too much of civilization, which has killed everything that was good in a person...”. In another case, a patient, having correctly completed many experimental tasks, suddenly, in an experiment to “eliminate the superfluous”, when presented with cards depicting glasses, scales, a thermometer and a watch, offers a group of “medical” objects: “The doctor looks at the pulse on the watch through the glasses and determines the body temperature thermometer." Such a thinking disorder is also based on the patient’s use of latent rather than basic signs to classify objects and phenomena.

This kind of isolated deviations from the correct implementation of the classification technique constitutes the essence of thinking disorders according to the type slipping. The patient, correctly solving the problem as a whole, suddenly suddenly gets lost in the correct train of thought due to a false, inadequate association, and then is again able to continue reasoning consistently, without returning to the mistake made and without correcting it. Slips in thinking are usually found in patients with initial forms of schizophrenia.

Violations of the personal-motivational component of thinking are especially pronounced in diversity of thinking. Here, patients also do not maintain a single line of reasoning when considering any phenomenon, but approach it from different positions. In this case, the patient’s judgments proceed as if on different planes. He combines objects during the performance of the same task, either on the basis of the properties of the objects themselves, or on the basis of his personal tastes and attitudes. In these cases, the “latent” properties of objects that exist along with adequate reactions are also updated. For example, a patient unites groups either on the basis of a generalized characteristic (animals, dishes, furniture), or on the basis of a particular characteristic - material (iron, glass), colors (red, blue), or on the basis of his moral or general theoretical ideas - a group of “sweepers” all the bad things in life,” a group that “testifies to the strength of a person’s mind.” Thus, during the implementation of the classification technique, several such inadequate groups of task performance appear.

The actualization of latent properties of concepts, diversity of thinking and reasoning (a tendency to fruitless philosophizing) are expressed in speech, which in a number of patients acquires a “torn-up” character, incomprehensible to others, since it consists of a set of completely unrelated phrases. Sentences with an outwardly grammatically correct form are completely meaningless - the parts of the sentence are not logically connected with each other. This speech is a clinical expression fragmented thinking. Often such patients do not need an interlocutor (a symptom of a monologue), i.e. Speech for them loses its function of communication.

III. Disturbances in the dynamics of mental activity manifest themselves in inertia (viscosity) or lability of thinking as a mental process consisting of a chain of inferences that turn into reasoning.

At inertia of thinking slowness and stiffness of intellectual processes are detected. At the same time, it is difficult for patients to change their chosen way of working, change the course of their reasoning, or switch from one type of activity to another. Specific connections from previous experience dominate, and a tendency toward excessive detail and thoroughness appears. Inertia of thinking occurs most often in epilepsy.

At lability of thinking the opposite relationship occurs - thoughts and ideas replace each other so quickly that patients sometimes do not have time to register them in their speech. They don't have time to finish one thought before they move on to another. Due to increased distractibility, they become unproductive: generalized decisions alternate with specific situational ones, and logical connections are often replaced by random combinations.

Classic classification of thought disorders

Classifications of thinking disorders in pathopsychology make it possible to better understand the psychological structure of most clinical manifestations of thinking, but do not replace clinical classifications. Thinking disorders in patients in psychiatry are most often conventionally divided into two large groups: quantitative (disorders of the associative process) and qualitative (pathology of judgments and inferences).

I. Pathology of the associative process. Most associative thinking disorders occur not in an isolated, “pure” form, but in a wide variety of combinations.

1.Disturbances in the pace of thinking

Accelerated thinking (tachyphrenia)- increase in the number of associations per unit of time. Thinking remains focused, but becomes unproductive, as simple associations begin to predominate (by consonance, similarity, contiguity, contrast), thoughts become superficial and of little evidence. The highest degree of acceleration of thinking is the symptom of “jumping ideas” - extreme distractibility with a continuous change in the topic of statements depending on objects that accidentally come into view. Accelerated thinking is characteristic of manic states.
Slow thinking(bradyphrenia) - a decrease in the number of associations per unit of time. In this case, although thinking retains its focus, it also becomes unproductive - the associative process becomes impoverished and becomes scarcer. Slowing down the associative process is typical for depression.

2.Mobility disorders

A) Detailed Thinking- the goal of reasoning is achieved not along a short path, but through many side, secondary associations, unimportant details and details, which makes thinking uneconomical.

b) Thorough thinking- pronounced detailing, combined with prolonged dwelling on side associations (thoroughness), but still with a subsequent return to the main topic of thought; This is “labyrinthine”, unproductive thinking.

V) Viscous thinking- an extreme degree of thoroughness, in which detail distorts the main direction of thought to such an extent that it makes it practically incomprehensible and thinking unproductive. The patient himself usually cannot maintain the main line of conversation, since he cannot free himself from side associations and gets stuck, “bogged down” in them.

In some cases, “thought stuck” manifests itself in the fact that the patient gives the same answer to any questions or repeats one phrase monotonously. This type of thinking disorder is called perseveration. Perseverations are also observed when Wernicke’s sensory speech center is damaged.

Impairments in the mobility of thinking are characteristic of epileptic dementia and organic diseases of the brain.

3.Disturbances in purposeful thinking

A) Reasonable thinking- the purpose of the reasoning “eludes” the patient, which leads to “reasoning” on an unimportant matter, idle talk, and it is unclear to those around him “why” he is saying this. Contents - banal moral teachings, moralized, famous sayings, etc. The speech is structured grammatically correctly, but is verbose and overloaded with participial and participial phrases and introductory words. Such thinking is unproductive, it is concrete, since it is not based on experience and does not relate to the abstract due to the lack of generalization.

b) Ataxic-associative (“broken”) thinking- characterized by a complete lack of logical connection between associations: what should be united is separated, and heterogeneous things are united. Ataxic thinking usually manifests itself in grammatically correct phrases: “I went to the store riding on a three-story building,” “Flies with wings under water,” etc.

c) Paralogical thinking- the formation of logical connections between associations is also disrupted, but unlike broken thinking, where concepts and ideas are combined with each other on the basis of completely random characteristics, here thinking is characterized by obvious violations of formal logic. The patient comes to completely unfounded, even absurd conclusions, since in the chain of reasoning there is a “slip” from the main line of thinking to a secondary one due to the loss of the logical connection between the elements. More precisely, associations here arise not according to the laws of generally accepted logic, but on the basis of some other logic that is “understandable” only to the patient himself (autistic, “crooked” logic). As a random phenomenon, this kind of paralogism is observed in a state of passion that disrupts the logical flow of thoughts, and as a permanent disorder, it is characteristic of schizophrenia.

A characteristic feature of paralogical thinking is that one object can be considered as an equivalent to any other if similarities are found between them.

d) Symbolic thinking. Symbolism is also characteristic of normal thinking when it reflects generally accepted ideas and views (coat of arms, mathematical signs, fable characters, etc.). With pathological symbolism, it is purely individual and incomprehensible to others. At the same time, there is a logical processing in the patient’s reasoning, but a different meaning is embedded in the generally accepted concepts with which his thinking operates, which is understandable only to him. As a result, many phenomena and objects of the surrounding world acquire a special meaning for the patient, different from the generally accepted one.

In the initial stages, symbolism may appear amorphous thinking, where only the vagueness of the use of concepts is noticeable. At the same time, grammatically correctly constructed speech becomes vague, and the patient’s thoughts are therefore poorly understood by others - it is unclear “what” the patient is talking about (to distinguish from reasoning, where it is unclear “why” the patient is saying this).

II. Pathology of judgments and inferences. This group of disorders includes delusional, overvalued, obsessive and dominant ideas.

1. Delusional ideas - these are incorrect, false thoughts arising on painful grounds that cannot be corrected either through persuasion or in any other way. A set of delusional ideas is called delusion. Delirium always arises on a painful basis and disrupts a person’s adaptation to his environment; it stems not so much from knowledge and experience as from an internal, affective-mental state. The person is captured (emotionally involved) by a false belief, although it is unacceptable to other people of a given culture or subculture (i.e., this belief is not a religious dogma or superstition). Thus, in determining delusional ideas, the most significant are the following four points: the false content of the ideas, the painful basis for their occurrence, the conviction of their correctness, and the inaccessibility of psychological correction. Such delirium is also called primary delusion, and during its formation one can often notice a certain stage-by-stage pattern - first a delusional mood, and then a delusional perception and interpretation of external events, followed by the “crystallization” of the delusional idea itself. With primary delusions, one can even talk about the patient’s peculiar faith in his painful ideas - he “feels” that he is right (similar to religious feelings or superstitions among healthy people). Primary delusion is a true disorder of thinking and is not understandable in terms of the cultural and educational status of the patient, which distinguishes it from other types of beliefs (normal belief, dominant or overvalued idea).

Unlike the primary secondary delusion understandable and explainable in combination with other psychopathological phenomena such as hallucinations or mood changes. For example, a patient who is convinced that he is being “poisoned by his neighbors” may initially receive this information from the “voices” that he “hears.”

2.Overvalued (delusional) ideas. They are judgments or a set of thoughts that one-sidedly reflect real circumstances and dominate in consciousness due to their special personal significance. The main distinguishing feature of an extremely valuable idea is that it is always based on some real fact, albeit a very insignificant, small one. However, judgments and conclusions that arise on the basis of small facts begin to be overestimated in the patient’s mind in their meaning and occupy an undeservedly large place in life. Extremely valuable ideas, unlike delusional ones, are never absurd, and the patient can be dissuaded from them to some extent for a short time. In the practice of a general practitioner, the greatest difficulties in diagnosis and treatment are caused by overvalued ideas of some somatic problem, since they are actually based on some minor disease, the importance of which is disproportionately overestimated by the patient.

3. Obsessions. Obsessive ideas are characterized by the appearance in the mind of persistent and intrusive thoughts, which the patient himself critically evaluates as painful, absurd and untrue, but their repeated occurrence cannot be eliminated. The fact of this irresistible obsession (obsession) is subjectively difficult for a person to experience. Obsessive ideas are quite often combined with obsessive actions (an irresistible need to perform some action or behavior). All types of obsessions can occur with a relatively rare disease (0.05% of the population) - obsessive-compulsive disorder (obsessive-compulsive disorder).

Distracted obsessions- fruitless philosophizing, obsessive counting and obsessive reproductions.

Fruitless philosophizing, or spiritual, mental chewing gum, rumination, is manifested by an obsessive desire to resolve unnecessary or even meaningless questions again and again (for example, the patient is forced to think why the right hand is called right, and the left is called left).

Obsessive counting (arithmomania) is expressed by an obsessive desire to count and retain in memory the number of steps taken, passers-by, poles, cars, and to perform counting operations in the mind.

Obsessive reproductions - annoying recall of forgotten or unnecessary terms, names, definitions, episodes from life. For example, onomania is the obsessive remembering of various names.

Figurative obsessions- These are mainly simple phobias (fears of specific content), obsessive fears, ideas and memories, contrasting ideas and blasphemous thoughts, as well as obsessive desires for action (compulsions).

Phobias - in contrast to obsessive thoughts and actions, with phobias, i.e. obsessive fears of specific situations or objects, the patient does not experience anxiety and discomfort if he does not encounter frightening objects. However, they form restrictive behavior: the patient begins to avoid frightening situations whenever possible.

4 . Dominant ideas. A dominant idea should be called a thought that occupies an undeservedly large place in a person’s consciousness. Dominant ideas often occur in healthy people when they intensely strive for something and are focused on achieving a goal. Patients have different attitudes towards dominant ideas, but sometimes these ideas begin to weigh on them. Without doubting their correctness, the patient understands that they are completely illegal in their possession of him all the time. These ideas are painful not because they incorrectly reflect reality, but because some real fact has attracted persistent attention for too long (attention sticking). Quite often in a psychiatric clinic, dominant ideas precede the emergence of other painful ideas, in particular delusions.

Imagination

Imagination (fantasy) - the cognitive mental process of creating a new image (representation) of an object or situation by restructuring (transforming) a person’s existing ideas.

Imagination, as a unique form of reflection of reality, provides a mental departure beyond the limits of what is directly perceived, helps to anticipate the future, and “revitalizes” what was before.

Imagination is a creative process and many mental processes are involved in it, especially thinking, memory and perception. At the same time, the imagination itself “intervenes” during this or that mental act, as if permeating it and giving it its own corresponding features.

Imagination is an analytical-synthetic activity that is carried out under the guiding influence of a consciously set goal, or feelings and experiences that possess a person at the moment.

Most often, imagination arises in a problem situation when a quick search for a solution is required, ahead of specific practical actions to resolve it. (advanced reflection), which is also characteristic of thinking. However, unlike thinking, where a proactive reflection of reality occurs by operating with concepts, in the imagination this occurs in a concrete figurative form - in the form of vivid ideas. Thus, in problem situations, there are two systems of consciousness anticipating the results of activity - an organized system of images (imagination) and an organized system of concepts (thinking).

The ability to select and reconstruct images (conceptions) or the possibility of a new combination of concepts provides a person with the plasticity of adaptation to life situations. Depending on the circumstances that characterize the problem situation, the same problem can be solved both with the help of imagination and with the help of thinking. The role of imagination is especially great in situations of uncertainty, when there is no necessary completeness of knowledge that is necessary for thinking.

There are individual typological features of the imagination that are closely related to the specifics of memory, thinking and perception. Persons with an artistic type of thinking have a greater variety of imagination in terms of concrete-imaginative perception of the world (dominance of the right hemisphere of the brain), while others have a greater tendency to operate with abstract symbols and concepts (dominance of the left hemisphere of the brain).

Types of imagination

Imagination can be passive and active, and active, in turn, is divided into recreating (reproductive) and creative (productive imagination).

Passive imagination characterized by involuntary occurrence, which manifests itself in dreams and daydreams. A person can cause dreams intentionally, but even in this case, the emergence of the images of the imagination themselves is involuntary.

A distinctive feature of passive imagination is its complete or almost complete separation from human practical activity. Products, images of dreams and daydreams are usually unrealistic and are a kind of replacement for reality, its surrogate. Dreams serve a person as a means of “escape” from various life difficulties, acting in this role as a special mechanism of psychological personal defense. It is common for all people to dream about something joyful, pleasant and tempting, but the predominance of dreams in a person in all the products of his imagination may indicate certain defects in personality development, his passivity.

active imagination characterized by arbitrariness, and a person at the same time, by his own will, by an effort of will, evokes in himself the appropriate images; it is more oriented towards practical activity.

At recreating, reproductive In the imagination, an image of an object or phenomenon is created based on its verbal description. A person needs this when reading books, studying various diagrams and maps. Reproductive imagination is more like perception or memory than creativity.

At creative, productive the imagination is supposed to independently create completely new images without relying on a ready-made description. It requires the selection of appropriate representations from memory reserves and their reconstruction in accordance with the plan.

In creative imagination, a distinction is made between the objective and subjective novelty of its result. If images and ideas are original and do not repeat anything that is already in the experience of other people, then this is objectively new for this person and for all others. If the images of imagination are new only to the creator himself (he did not know about the existence of similar results), then they should be classified as subjectively new.

If the imagination draws to consciousness such pictures that nothing or little corresponds in reality, then it is called fantasy(in a broad sense, the terms “imagination” and “fantasy” are often equated). The concept of “dream” is most applicable to the content of imaginary images that simulate situations and events, especially those that are desirable and significant for a person. Dreams can stimulate active activity, but they can also leave a person passive, as if living in the world of his dreams.

Imagination images are created in various ways:

agglutination - “gluing”, synthesis of various properties and parts of objects that are not combined in everyday life (this is how fairy-tale images are constructed - a mermaid, a centaur);
hyperbolization - increasing or decreasing the size of an object, as well as changing its individual parts (fairytale giants and dwarfs, multi-armed goddesses);
sharpening (emphasis) - emphasizing any individual characteristics (evil caricatures and friendly caricatures);
schematization - individual ideas merge, differences are smoothed out, and similarities appear clearly;
typification - the selection of the essential, repeating in homogeneous phenomena with its embodiment in a single image.

The phenomena of imagination are most clearly visible in the artistic creativity of people (for example, impressionism and cubism in painting, and science fiction in literature). In the products of a person’s imagination and fantasy, his personality always manifests itself, especially unconscious emotional and motivational processes. This fact has found wide application in psychology to create various projective psychodiagnostic personal techniques (Rorschach’s “ink blot” test, Rosenzweig’s drawing frustration test, etc.).

Knowledge of the characteristics of imagination is necessary for a doctor to understand the internal state of his patients. The patient’s imagination, due to existing fears and health concerns, can distort the picture of the existing disease and its consequences, and the progress of the upcoming operation. The doctor, using methods of explanation, persuasion and suggestion, must direct the patient’s imagination along an optimistic path. With the help of imagination we can control many psychophysiological states of the body. It is these possibilities of imagination that underlie some psychotherapeutic methods of self-regulation, in particular auto-training.

Iatrogenesis

Some mental disorders sometimes owe their occurrence to excessive suspiciousness, impressionability and the patient’s vivid imagination. Often the immediate cause of such a disease is a misunderstood doctor’s word. The doctor's word is a powerful means of influencing the patient. Like any other therapeutic agent, a doctor’s word can have not only a beneficial, but also a harmful effect for the patient. The German psychiatrist O. Bumke (O. Bumke, 1925), in his short article “The Doctor as the Cause of Mental Disorders,” drew attention to the harmful consequences of the doctor’s incorrect (in psychological terms) behavior with the patient. The patient here imagines that he has fallen ill with a dangerous disease and even “appears corresponding symptoms. Such diseases that arise under the influence of a careless word from a doctor are usually called iatrogenic diseases. The strength of the doctor’s iatrogenic influences increases with the authoritarian, directive style of his relationship with the patient. A doctor must be able to use words.

With iatrogenics, in the mind of a sick person, through the designation in words, the feeling of the symptom that he imagined under the influence of the doctor’s words is constantly present. The person, as if not wanting to think about the symptom, thinks about it. This myth of his about the disease constantly needs confirmation, so the person listens to himself and “finds” the corresponding sensations. It starts to hurt where it “should” hurt. This category also includes the well-known “3rd year symptom” among doctors, when a student “discovers” all the diseases he has studied.

Iatrogenesis(from lat. iatros - doctor) is a general name denoting psychogenic disorders in a patient as a result of careless, wounding words of a doctor (iatrogeny proper) or his actions (iatropathy), a nurse (sororogeny, from lat. soror - sister), other medical workers. Detrimental self-influences associated with prejudice towards the doctor, fears of medical examination also lead to similar disorders - egogenia. Deterioration in the patient's condition under the influence of undesirable influences of other patients (doubts about the correct diagnosis, treatment, etc.) is designated by the term megrotogenia (from aegrotus - sick).

The myth about the disease plays a special role in the treatment situation. If the patient believes in the treatment, then its effectiveness increases markedly. In some cases, a drug (for example, an analgesic) can be replaced by a placebo (“dummy”), from which the patient subjectively feels the same effect. The healing myth, like the myth about the disease, does not have a clear structure and is subject to outside influence. The fame of a healer can also be a myth that promotes healing. Sometimes the most fantastic and absurd healing techniques find their convinced followers, who exploit this non-specific factor of the patient’s “faith” in the healing effect, due to which certain healing successes are observed, especially in terms of immediate results.

A doctor can find himself in a difficult position if he mistakes myth for reality or vice versa. The doctor must understand both his therapeutic capabilities or his ability to heal by one method or another, and be aware of the real condition of the patient. A seemingly innocent misconception of a doctor in his qualities as a healer can lead to the loss of time, effort and funds for the patient to carry out real pathogenetic treatment.

Pathological forms of imagination and their assessment

In clinical practice, doctors often encounter patients whose psychopathological symptoms may relate to both passive and active imagination disorders. All these disorders are more common in individuals with a special mental make-up, characterized by features of infantilism and signs of excessive excitability of the imagination with a tendency toward invention and fantasizing.

Pathological forms of passive imagination

In psychiatric and general somatic clinics, assessment of the characteristics of passive imagination is most often required in patients with various types of decreased levels of wakefulness and states of stupefaction, as well as sleep disorders due to dreams.

Oneiroid- a dreamlike, dream-like stupefaction observed as a result of skull injuries, acute infectious diseases with fever, intoxication, or in some types of acute schizophrenia. At the same time, the patient’s imagination processes are sharply activated, and the images he creates are “visualized” in the form of kaleidoscopic fantastic visions, reminiscent of pseudo-hallucinations.

Oneirism - the patient ceases to feel the differences between the images of the imagination in dreams and reality. At the same time, what you see in a dream may not be perceived with due critical assessment in the morning. Sometimes during the day the patient experiences vivid dream images as soon as he closes his eyes. Sometimes such “visions” happen even with open eyes - dreams like a daydream or “dream with open eyes.” In mentally healthy individuals, the latter can be observed when the activity of consciousness weakens - in a half-asleep state or in a state of passion.

Hallucinations of the imagination a type of psychogenic hallucination, the plot of which arises from affectively significant and long-term ideas in the imagination. They occur especially easily in children with a painfully heightened imagination.

Delirium of the imagination- is a variant of delusion formation, which arises from a tendency to fantasize in persons with a mythomaniac constitution. It arises sharply, as if by “intuition, inspiration and insight.” Perception is not impaired, the patient is completely oriented to the place and his own personality.

Dreamlike epileptic seizures- dreams with a predominance of red color, accompanying or replacing (equivalents) of a nocturnal epileptic seizure. They are always stereotypical, with visions of threatening images in the form of monsters, chimeras and parts of their own body. In the daytime, such dream-like states can be a harbinger (aura) of a seizure in temporal lobe epilepsy, but the phenomena of derealization, the phenomena of “already seen” and “never seen,” and “violent” (not suppressed by an effort of will) fantastic ideas still prevail.

Pathological forms of active imagination

The main symptom of active imagination disorders is a violation of criticality towards its products and (or) their use. Most often in clinical practice, a doctor has to deal with the phenomenon of pathological deceit - the so-called fantastic pseudology (pseudologia phantastica). It is expressed in the fact that a person begins to sincerely believe in the phantasms he himself creates (fantastic ideas and images). In the modern understanding, pseudology is considered in two main versions.

1.Psychotic phantasms, where the imaginary is subjectively more firmly accepted as the truth (for example, as in confabulations) and it can turn into entire plot pseudologies and even delusional fantasies. Such disorders are more typical for various organic diseases of the brain with severe memory impairment (progressive paralysis, cerebral syphilis, trauma), as well as epilepsy and schizophrenia.

2.Non-psychotic phantasms, where pseudology is a combination of two types of fantasy: “for oneself” (“escape” into a dream world from reality) and “for others” (increasing one’s own attractiveness), i.e. has the properties of both psychological defense mechanisms and the properties of “manipulation mechanisms” by other people.

Non-psychotic phantasms as a type of pseudology are especially common in individuals with hysterical psychopathic tendencies and a “mythomaniac constitution.” At the same time, such a person, like any liar, knows that he is lying. However, this lie is pathological - it differs from the usual one in that most often it is clearly inappropriate, and the patient understands all its futility, but cannot resist his need to lie. Pseudologists, unlike ordinary hysterical psychopathic personalities, are more active in their desire to realize their fantastic constructions, so they more often come into conflict with the law. At the same time, their deceit obscures all other personality traits.

Speech

In its meaning, speech is multifunctional. For a person, it is the main means of communication, a means of thinking, a carrier of consciousness and memory, a carrier of information (written texts), a means of controlling the behavior of other people and regulating one’s own behavior.

Speech- this is the process of verbal communication, the expression of any thought.

Language- this is a system of conventional signs with the help of which combinations of sounds are transmitted that have a certain meaning and significance for people. If speech expresses the psychology of an individual person, then language reflects the psychology of an entire people speaking a given language. The connecting link between language and speech is the meaning of the word, which is expressed both in units of language and in units of speech. The meaning of a word is the same for all people, and its meaning can be of a purely personal nature. Speech arose in the process of historical development along with thinking, and it has primarily a communicative, social significance for people. However, we resort to speech not only when we need to logically argue our attitude to various life problems, but also for everyday communication, interaction regarding work, study, play or other activities. The need for joint activity leads to the need for communication.

Communication is an exchange of information, and language is a system of signs. A person's thoughts and experiences must first be converted (encoded) into oral (sounds) or written (letters, pictures) signs in order to convey them to other people. The meaning (meaning) of thoughts and experiences will be clear to people if they know the language in which they are conveyed. Communication between people is carried out not only through language, but also with the help of many other signs: scientific symbols (in mathematics, physics, etc.), artistic signs (notes in music, symbols of fine art), marine signaling, traffic signs. The science of signs and sign systems (including linguistic sign systems) is called semiotics.

The simplest type of oral speech is dialogue.

Dialogue- this is a speech that is actively supported by the interlocutor and it is “collapsed”, since a lot is implied in it due to the knowledge and understanding of the situation by the partner.

monologue speech- detailed speech of a person addressed to other people. It requires the speaker to be able to coherently and consistently express his thoughts, giving them a complete form. Monologue speech, in addition to the communicative function, also carries a pronounced expressive function. This includes facial expressions and gestures, pauses and intonations that emphasize the speaker’s attitude to the content of the conversation.

Written speech is a type of monologue speech but, unlike a monologue, it is constructed using written signs.

Expressive and impressive speech, which have different psychological structures, are distinguished as independent main types.

Expressive speech(the process of utterance - oral or written speech) begins with an idea (plan of utterance), then goes through the stage of internal speech, which has a “collapsed” character, and finally passes into the stage of an expanded external utterance - oral or written.

Impressive speech(the process of understanding a speech utterance - oral or written) begins with the perception of a message through hearing or vision, then goes through the stage of decoding (selecting units of information) and ends with the formation of a message scheme and its understanding in internal speech.

Inner speech inaccessible to direct observation and characterized by convolution (in particular, many members of the sentence are omitted, vowel sounds “drop out”), it is specially adapted to perform mental operations and actions in the mind.

Formation of speech activity in children

There are three main critical periods in the development of speech function in children.

First critical period(1-2 years of life), when the prerequisites for speech are formed and the foundations of communicative behavior are formed, the driving force of which is the need for communication. There is an intensive development of cortical speech zones, in particular Broca's area, the critical period of its development is the age of 14-18 months. Any unfavorable factors operating during this age period can affect the child’s speech development.

Second critical period(3 years), when connected speech develops intensively. The vulnerability of the psyche during this period (stubbornness, negativism, etc.) can also affect speech development. Stuttering and mutism may occur as a reaction to protest against the excessive demands of adults. Stuttering can also be caused by age-related unevenness in the maturation of individual parts of the speech system (“evolutionary stuttering”).

Third critical period (5-7 years) - the beginning of the development of written speech. The load on the central nervous system increases. When increased demands are made, “disruptions” in nervous activity can also occur with the appearance of stuttering. Critical periods of speech development play the role of predisposing conditions, and in some cases have an independent role in the formation of various dysfunctions of the speech system.

Sign language

In any communication, there are various non-verbal means, in particular gestures, that complement or express the speaker’s attitude to the content of the message. The use of gestures plays a special role in art - pantomime, opera, drama, etc. Sign language is especially important for people with hearing impairments. The system of sign communication for the deaf has a complex structure and includes two types of sign speech - colloquial and tracing.

Conversational sign language of the deaf is a completely independent system. For a long time it was not possible to create a linguistic description of spoken sign language, since traditional linguistics operates with the concepts of “part of speech”, “noun”, “verb”, and in the spoken sign speech of the deaf and mute there is no way to identify these elements. The gesture does not sound, but it has its own configuration, spatial position and movement, conveying all the features and shades of messages to the interlocutor. The composition and number of gestures in spoken sign language is very large; sometimes communication systems are developed that are used only in a given specific family.

Calculating sign language has a different structure. Gestures here are equivalent to words, and their order is the same as in a regular sentence. The child masters it in the process of special education, and it becomes the main means of communication between the deaf and hearing people. In calque sign language, gestures accompany the speaker's oral speech. Deaf people most often pronounce words without a voice. Each word, like individual letters, is accompanied by its gestural equivalent. For example, the Russian dactyl (Greek daktylos - finger) alphabet is made up of one-handed gestures, while English dactylology is two-handed. Special dactylic alphabets are also used for the deaf-blind. They are based on national dactylic alphabets. The hand of the deaf-blind person is placed on the hand of the speaker, and he “reads” the dactyl speech. There is also an international dactylic alphabet for the deaf-blind.

Speech disorders

Speech disorders can arise either as a result of congenital underdevelopment of all or individual parts of the speech system, or as a result of various diseases, especially when the speech areas of the cerebral cortex are damaged.

With a number of mental illnesses, the patient’s initiative in verbal communication disappears - the patient behaves passively, answers briefly, disinterestedly (answers like “yes”, “no”) or with refusal concepts (“I won’t answer”, “I don’t know”), which is sometimes wrong interpreted as memory and intelligence disorders. The decline of the need for communication is one of the main manifestations of autism. Less common is the opposite state - verbosity, but also with a lack of interest in the interlocutor. The main feature here is the monologue of speech, the disappearance of dialogicity. Such impersonal communication is often called “autism backwards, inside out.”

Disorders of phonation of speech

1. Dysphonia(aphonia) - absence or disorder of phonation due to pathological changes in the vocal apparatus. Voice pathology can occur with various diseases: chronic laryngitis, paresis and paralysis of the larynx; disturbances in the tone and mobility of the vocal cords of the larynx can also be of a functional nature (phonasthenia in people of voice-speech professions, psychogenic aphonia in neuroses). Removal (extirpation) of the larynx due to a malignant tumor completely deprives one of the voice.

2. Bradylalia(bradyphrasy) and tachylalia(tachyphrasia) - a pathologically slow or pathologically accelerated rate of speech. These disorders are associated with centrally determined impairments in the implementation of the speech program (organic or functional in nature).

At bradylalia sounds and words follow each other at a slower pace, although they are pronounced correctly (at a normal rate of speech, 10-12 sounds are usually pronounced per second). If the syllables are separated by short pauses, then the speech becomes scanned. With bradyllalia, the voice is usually monotonous and loses its modulation. The face is amicable, all movements are slow and sluggish. Slowness is also noted in the sphere of thinking, in switching attention.

At tachylalia 20-30 sounds can be pronounced without sharp phonetic distortions. When haste, speech attention disorders, hesitations, repetitions, and unclear pronunciation of phrases may appear, but when attention is attracted, the balance between internal and external speech is quickly restored. People with tachylalia are also characterized by general motor hyperactivity. Motor restlessness is observed even during sleep (children toss about in bed).

3. Stuttering- a violation of the tempo-rhythmic organization of speech, caused by the convulsive state of the muscles of the speech apparatus. It is centrally determined, has an organic or functional (logoneurosis) nature, and occurs more often during the child’s speech development. Physiological (biological) symptoms of stuttering include speech spasms, disorders of the central nervous system and physical health, general and speech motor skills. Psychological (social) - speech hesitations and other disorders of expressive speech, the phenomenon of fixation on a defect, logophobia, tricks and other psychological characteristics.

The main external symptom of stuttering is speech spasms. Their duration in average cases ranges from 0.2 to 13 seconds, in severe cases - up to 90 seconds. With tonic convulsions, there is a short jerky or prolonged spasmodic contraction of the muscles - tone: “t-opol” (the line after the letter means a convulsive pause when pronouncing the word). With clonic convulsions, there is a rhythmic repetition of the same convulsive movements - clonus: “this and that and zero.” Not only clonic and tonic, but also mixed (clonic-tonic) forms of stuttering can be observed.

4. Dislalia(tongue-tied) - a violation, deficiencies in the sound pronunciation of phonemes with formally normal hearing and preserved innervation of the speech apparatus.

At the core acoustic-phonemic dyslalia There are shortcomings in the process of recognizing and distinguishing the phonemes that make up a word (phonemic hearing). The child does not recognize one or another acoustic sign of a complex sound (mountain - “bark”, beetle - “pike”, fish - “lyba”). All this interferes with the correct perception of speech by both the speaker and the listener.

At articulatory-phonemic dyslalia The child’s phonemic hearing is fully formed, but there are disturbances in the motor part of speech production. In this case, the articulatory base of some sounds may not be fully formed, which leads to the replacement of the desired sound with another, simpler in articulation. In other cases, which happens most often, the articulatory base is formed, but the wrong decision is made about the use of sound, as a result of which the sound appearance of the word becomes unstable (the child can pronounce words correctly or incorrectly).

At articulatory-phonetic dyslalia sound defects are caused by incorrectly formed articulatory positions. Most often in these cases, the incorrect sound is close in its acoustic effect to the correct one and is recognized by others.

To denote the distorted pronunciation of sounds, international terms are used, derived from the names of the letters of the Greek alphabet using the suffix “ism”: rhotacism - a defect in the pronunciation of “r”, lambdacism - “l”, gammacism - “g”, hitism - “x”, cappacism - “k”, sigmatism - whistling and hissing sounds, etc.

5. Rhinolalia(nasal) - a violation of the timbre of the voice and sound pronunciation due to anatomical and physiological defects of the speech apparatus (cleft palate, violation of the resonant properties of the nasal cavities, etc.).

6. Dysarthria(tongue-tied) - a violation of pronunciation without a disorder in the perception of oral speech, reading and writing, caused by insufficient innervation of the speech apparatus (paralysis or paresis of the speech motor muscles, which is often found in cerebral palsy). Its main signs are defects in sound pronunciation and voice, combined with disturbances in speech, especially articulation, motor skills and speech breathing. The tone of the speech muscles can be either pathologically increased or decreased.

Disorders of structural-semantic (internal) speech formation

1. Alalia(dysphasia, hearing-muteness) - absence or underdevelopment of speech due to organic damage to the speech zones of the cerebral cortex in the prenatal or early period of a child’s development. Occurs in approximately 1% of preschool children (0.1% of the total population), more often in boys.

With motor alalia, the pronunciation of words is impaired; the parents of such children characterize them as understanding, but not wanting to speak. With sensory alalia, speech understanding is impaired - the child hears, but does not understand words. Often, he is quite talkative (increased speech activity) and pronounces audible words several times like an echo (echolalia), but he does not catch their meaning.

2. Aphasia(loss of speech) - complete or partial loss of speech (after it has already been formed), caused by local brain lesions as a result of head injuries, neuroinfections and brain tumors. Until the age of 3, when speech is not yet formed, diagnosing aphasia is impossible. In adults, aphasia occurs in about a third of cases of cerebrovascular accidents, with motor aphasia most often observed here. Aphasia occurs less frequently in children, as a result of head injury, brain tumor, or complications from an infectious disease.

Writing disorders

Modern research shows that reading and writing are a complex, multi-level form of speech activity and various analyzers take part and interact in it. Speech and writing disorders may be based on violations of various parts of this functional system.

The term used to refer to reading disorders is " dyslexia", letters - " dysgraphia", and the complete lack of reading and writing skills is designated respectively as " alexia" And " agraphia».

1. Dyslexia- partial specific violation of the reading process. It manifests itself in difficulties in identifying and recognizing letters, in difficulties in merging letters into syllables and syllables into words, which leads to incorrect reproduction of the sound form of a word and distortion of reading comprehension. Dyslexia occurs in 3% of primary school children, more often in boys.

Based on their manifestations, two types of dyslexia (agraphia) are usually distinguished: verbal and literal. At verbal (agraphic) dyslexia understanding of the meaning of phrases and individual words is impaired, and when literal (agnostic) dyslexia recognition of individual letters, numbers and other characters is impaired.

2. Dysgraphia- partial specific violation of the writing process. Writing is closely related to the process of oral speech and is carried out only on the basis of a sufficiently high level of its development. The writing process of an adult is automatic and differs from the nature of the writing of a child mastering this skill.

At amnestic (pure) dysgraphia The greatest difficulties arise with spontaneous writing and writing from dictation, while copying remains relatively intact. A characteristic feature is the difficulty of finding a grapheme that corresponds to a given phoneme - the graphic image is, as it were, forgotten, alienated from its phonemic meaning. At apraxic agraphia patients cannot grasp a pen or pencil correctly and give the hand the desired position for writing. Because of this, the design of the letter is distorted, mirrored, or its proportions are disrupted. Violations persist for all types of writing, including copying.

Psychological and pedagogical correction of dyslexia and developmental dysgraphia is carried out using techniques aimed at improving visual auditory gnosis, mnesis, spatial concepts and their speech designations. Much attention is paid to comparing the letters being mixed, making maximum use of different parsers.

Practical part

Methodology “Individual thinking styles” (A. Alekseeva, L. Gromovoy)

Target: determining the preferred way of thinking, as well as the manner of asking questions and making decisions.

Instruction: There are no right or wrong answers among the available answers. You will receive the maximum useful information if you report as accurately as possible about the features of your real thinking, and not about how you think you should think.

Each item on this questionnaire consists of a statement followed by five possible endings. Your task is to indicate the extent to which each ending applies to you. On the questionnaire, in the squares to the right of each ending, put numbers - 5,4, 3, 2 or 1, indicating the degree to which this ending applies to you: from 5 (most suitable) to 1 (least suitable). Each number (point) must be used only once. Each of the five endings in the group must be assigned a number.

Example

When I read a book on my specialty, I pay attention mainly to:

quality of presentation, style;
main ideas of the book;
composition and design of the book;
the logic and argumentation of the author;
conclusions that can be drawn from the book.

If you are confident that you have understood the instructions above, proceed further.

A. When there is a conflict between people based on ideas, I give preference to the side that:

establishes, defines conflict and tries to express it openly;
best expresses the values and ideals involved;
best reflects my personal views and experiences;
approaches the situation in the most logical and consistent manner;
presents arguments as concisely and convincingly as possible.

B. When I start working on a project as part of a group, the most important thing for me is:

understand the goals and significance of this project;
reveal the goals and values of the working group participants;
determine how we are going to develop this project;
understand how this project can benefit our group;
so that work on the project is organized and gets moving.

IN. Generally speaking, I learn new ideas best when I can:

relate them to current or future activities;
apply them to specific situations;
focus on them and analyze them carefully;
understand how similar they are to familiar ideas;
contrast them with other ideas.

G. For me, graphs, diagrams, drawings in books or articles usually:

more useful than text if they are accurate;
useful if they clearly show important facts;
useful if they raise questions about the text;
useful if they are supported and explained by text;
no more or less useful than other materials.

D. If I were asked to do some research, I would probably start with...

attempts to place it in a broader context;
Determining if I can do it alone I will need help;
thoughts and suggestions about possible outcomes;
decisions about whether the study should be conducted at all;
attempts to formulate the problem as completely and accurately as possible.

E. If I were to collect information from members of an organization regarding its pressing issues, I would prefer:

meet with them individually and ask each specific questions;
hold a general meeting and ask them to express their opinions;
interview them in small groups, asking general questions;
meet informally with influential people and find out their views;
ask members of the organization to provide me (preferably in writing) with all relevant information they have.

stood up against oppositions, withstood the resistance of opposing approaches;
agrees with other things I believe;
has been confirmed in practice;
amenable to logical and scientific proof;
can be verified personally using observable facts.

Z. When I read a magazine article in my spare time, it will most likely be:

about how someone managed to solve a personal or social problem;
deals with a controversial or social issue;
a report of scientific or historical research;
about an interesting, funny person or event;
an accurate, unimaginative account of someone's interesting life experiences.

AND. When I read a job report, I pay attention to...

the proximity of the conclusions to my personal experience;
the ability to implement these recommendations;
reliability and validity of the results with actual data;
the author’s understanding of the goals and objectives of the work;
interpretation of data.

TO. When I'm given a task, the first thing I want to know is:

what is the best method to solve this problem;
who needs this task to be solved and when;
why this problem is worth solving;
what impact the decision may have on other problems that must be solved;
what is the direct, immediate benefit from solving this problem.

L. I usually learn the most about how to do something new by:

I understand for myself how it is connected with something else that is familiar to me;
I get down to business as early as possible;
I listen to different points of view on how to do this;
there is someone who shows me how to do it;
I carefully analyze how to do this in the best way.

M. If I had to take a test or an exam, I would prefer:

a set of objective, problem-oriented questions on the subject;
discussion with those who are also being tested;
verbal presentation and demonstration of what I know;
a free-form post about how I tried out what I learned.
a written report covering the background, theory, and method.

N. The people whose special qualities I respect the most are probably...

outstanding philosophers and scientists;
writers and teachers;
leaders of political and business circles;
economists and engineers;
farmers and journalists.

ABOUT. Generally speaking, I find a theory useful if it...

seems akin to those other theories and ideas that I have already absorbed;
explains things in a way that is new to me;
is able to systematically explain many related situations;
serves to clarify my personal experiences and observations;
has a specific practical application.

P. When I read a book (article) that is outside the scope of my immediate work, I do it mainly because...

interest in improving their professional knowledge;
indications from a person I respect about its possible usefulness;
desire to expand your general erudition;
desire to go beyond one's own activities for a change;
desire to learn more about a certain subject.

R. When I read an article on a controversial issue, I like it to say:

the advantages for me were shown, depending on the chosen point of view;
all the facts were presented during the discussion;
the controversial issues involved were outlined logically and consistently;
the values used by the author were determined;
both sides of the controversial issue and the essence of the conflict were clearly illuminated.

WITH. When I first approach a technical problem, I will most likely:

try to relate it to a broader problem or theory;
look for ways and means to solve this problem;
think about alternative ways to solve it;
look for ways that others may have already solved the problem;
try to find the best procedure to solve it.

T. Generally speaking, I am most inclined to:

find existing methods that work and use them as best as possible;
puzzle over how disparate methods might work together;
discover new and better methods;
find ways to make existing methods work better and in new ways;
understand how and why existing methods should work.

Now, please transfer your answers to the appropriate boxes on the decoder form and add up the points first by rows and then by columns, following the instructions on this form.

Write your ratings in the five empty squares below.

So, the hardest work is over. Now it is necessary to evaluate the results obtained and give them a meaningful interpretation.

But first, check the quality of your work. Your five scores, written in the lettered squares (C, I, P, A, P) at the bottom of the decoder form, should total 270 points.

Otherwise, you will have to check your “accounting”: first - vertically, and then, if necessary, horizontally. If this does not help you find the error, there is only one thing left to do - check the correctness of your answers (in the sense of following the instructions) to each item in the questionnaire. One way or another, you need to achieve the fulfillment of the condition “C + I + P + A + P = 270”.

As you probably already guessed, the letters are nothing more than the initial letters of the names of thinking styles.

C - synthetic style

I - idealistic style

P - pragmatic style

A - analytical style

R - realistic style

Synthetic style thinking manifests itself in creating something new, original, combining dissimilar, often opposing ideas, views, and carrying out thought experiments. The Synthesizer's motto is “What if...”. Synthesizers strive to create the broadest possible, generalized concept that allows them to combine different approaches, “remove” contradictions, and reconcile opposing positions. This is a theoretical style of thinking, such people like to formulate theories and build their conclusions on the basis of theories, they like to notice contradictions in other people’s reasoning and draw the attention of people around them, they like to sharpen the contradiction and try to find a fundamentally new solution that integrates opposing views, they tend to see the world constantly changing and love change, often for the sake of change itself.

Idealistic style thinking is manifested in a tendency to intuitive, global assessments without carrying out a detailed analysis of problems. The peculiarity of Idealists is an increased interest in goals, needs, human values, moral problems; they take into account subjective and social factors in their decisions, strive to smooth out contradictions and emphasize similarities in different positions, easily, without internal resistance, perceive various ideas and proposals, successfully solve problems where emotions, feelings, assessments and other subjective aspects are important factors, sometimes utopianly striving to reconcile and unite everyone and everything. “Where are we going and why?” - a classic question from Idealists.

Pragmatic style thinking is based on direct personal experience, on the use of those materials and information that are easily accessible, trying to obtain a specific result (albeit limited), a practical gain, as quickly as possible. The motto of the Pragmatists is: “Anything will work”, “Anything that works” will do. The behavior of Pragmatists may seem superficial and disorderly, but they adhere to the attitude: events in this world occur uncoordinatedly, and everything depends on random circumstances, so in an unpredictable world you just need to try: “Today we’ll do this, and then we’ll see...” Pragmatists feel well market conditions, supply and demand, successfully determine tactics of behavior, using the prevailing circumstances to their advantage, showing flexibility and adaptability.

Analytical style thinking is focused on a systematic and comprehensive consideration of an issue or problem in those aspects that are set by objective criteria, and is inclined to a logical, methodical, thorough (with an emphasis on detail) manner of solving problems. Before making a decision, analysts develop a detailed plan and try to collect as much information, objective facts, and deep theories as possible. They perceive the world as logical, rational, orderly and predictable, and therefore tend to look for a formula, method or system that can provide a solution to a particular problem and can be rationally justified.

Realistic style thinking is focused only on the recognition of facts, and “real” is only what can be directly felt, personally seen or heard, touched, etc. Realistic thinking is characterized by specificity and an attitude towards correction, correction of situations in order to achieve a certain result. The problem for Realists arises whenever they see something is wrong and want to fix it.

Thus, it can be noted that the individual style of thinking affects the ways of solving problems, the ways of behavior, and the personal characteristics of a person.

If you score between 60 and 65 on any thinking style, it means you have a moderate preference for that style (or styles). In other words, other things being equal, you will be predisposed to use this style (or styles) more (or more often) than others.

If you scored between 66 and 71, you have a strong preference for this style (or styles) of thinking.

You probably use this style systematically, consistently, and in most situations.

If your score for a particular style was 72 points or more, then you have a very strong preference for that style of thinking. In fact, you are devoted to him.

Now, if you get one or more high marks in some thinking styles, you will certainly have one or even several low marks in other styles. Then, if your score for any style is between 43 and 48 points, you are characterized by moderate neglect of this style of thinking. That is, other things being equal, you will, if possible, avoid it when solving problems that are significant to you.

If you scored from 37 to 42 points, you most likely have a persistent disregard for this style of thinking. Finally, if your score is 36 or less, this style is completely foreign to you, and you probably don't use it anywhere, even if it is the best approach to the problem under the circumstances.

FORM DECODER

Test tasks

1. Thinking includes the following operations, except:

analysis;
abstractions;
divisions;
generalizations.

2. Features that impede creative thinking are the following, except:

tendency to conformism;
the ability to see an object from a new angle;
rigidity of thinking;
internal censorship.

3. Thinking is most closely related to the following mental processes:

emotions
imagination
attention

4. Thinking operations include:

analysis
retention (preservation)
generalization
playback
abstraction
specification

5. The operation of the thinking process, which requires the ability to identify the essential features of objects:

Generalization
Abstraction
Classifications
Inference

6. Impairments in the mobility of thinking include:

Accelerated thinking
Thorough thinking
Viscous thinking
Slow thinking
Detailed Thinking

7. Paralogical thinking is:

Complete lack of logical connection between associations
Violation of the formation of logical connections between associations
The purpose of reasoning “eludes” the patient, which leads to “reasoning” on an unimportant matter, idle talk

8. A type of thinking that is characterized by reliance on ideas, i.e. secondary images of objects and phenomena of reality, and also operates with visual images of objects:

Visual and effective
Visual-figurative
Abstract-logical

9. Reliance in thinking on latent signs, identified during the “pictogram” technique, indicates the presence of:

10. Prolonged and irreversible impairment of any mental function, the general development of mental abilities or the characteristic way of thinking, feeling and behavior that makes up an individual personality is called:

insanity
oligophrenia
defect
dementia
personality degradation

11. Fruitless, aimless philosophizing based on impaired thinking is called:

demagoguery
eloquence
ambivalence
autistic thinking
reasoning

12. With introversion, unlike autism, as a rule, the following is noted:

criticality towards one's own isolation
less expressed isolation
no hallucinations
absence of crazy ideas
uncritical of one's own isolation

13. Inference refers to:

mental operations
thought processes
mental factors
mental types
mental mechanisms

14. A decrease in the level of generalizations and distortion of the generalization process refers to:

disturbances in the dynamics of thought processes
violations of the operational side of thinking
disorders of the personal component of thinking
disturbances in the process of external mediation of cognitive activity
disorders of the process of self-regulation of cognitive activity

15. A thinking disorder in which the formation of new associations is significantly (maximum) difficult due to the long-term dominance of one thought or idea is called:

inertia
reasoning
perseveration
slipping
diversity

16. Logophobia occurs when:

schizophrenia
diabetes mellitus
stuttering
hyperkinetic syndrome
autism

17. Emotional-volitional disorders, violations of the structure and hierarchy of motives, inadequacy of self-esteem and level of aspirations, impaired thinking in the form of “relative affective dementia”, violation of forecasting and reliance on past experience are included in the structure:

schizophrenic symptom complex
neurotic symptom complex
psychopathic symptom complex
organic symptom complex
oligophrenic symptom complex

18. Cancerophobia is:

obsessive fear of getting cancer
obsessive fear of getting any cancer
extremely valuable idea about a person having a cancerous tumor
delusional idea that a person has cancer
the dominant idea that a person has cancer

19. Placebo effect associated with:

parameters of the drug substance
psychological attitude
duration of stimulus presentation
drug addiction
factor of surprise

20. Iatrogenic diseases are diseases:

caused by pathological forms of imagination
arising under the influence of a careless word from a doctor
arising from underdevelopment of the speech system
arising from disturbances in the dynamics of mental activity

Answers

Question number	Question number	Question number	Question number

The mental activity of people is carried out with the help of mental operations: comparison, analysis and synthesis, abstraction, generalization and concretization. All these operations are different aspects of the main activity of thinking - mediation, i.e. disclosure of increasingly significant objective connections and relationships between objects, phenomena, facts.

Comparison- this is a comparison of objects and phenomena in order to find similarities and differences between them. K.D. Ushinsky considered the comparison operation to be the basis of understanding. He wrote: “... comparison is the basis of all understanding and all thinking. We know everything in the world only through comparison... If you want ka-176

If any object of the external environment has been clearly understood, then distinguish it from the objects most similar to it and find in it similarities with the objects most distant from it: then only clarify for yourself all the essential features of the object, and this means understanding the object.”

When comparing objects or phenomena, we can always notice that in some respects they are similar to each other, in others they are different. Recognition of objects as similar or different depends on what parts or properties of objects are essential for us at the moment. It often happens that the same objects are considered similar in some cases, and different in others. For example, when comparatively studying domestic animals from the point of view of their benefits to humans, many similar characteristics are revealed between them, but when studying their structure and origin, many differences are discovered.

By comparing things, phenomena, their properties, comparison reveals identity and difference. Revealing the identity of some and the differences of other things, comparison leads to their classifications. Classification is made according to some characteristic that turns out to be inherent in each item of this group. Thus, in a library, books can be classified by author, by content, by genre, by binding, by format, etc. The characteristic by which the classification is made is called the basis of classification.

When comparing, a person primarily identifies those features that are important for solving a theoretical or practical life problem.

Analysis and synthesis- the most important mental operations that are inextricably linked. In unity they provide complete and comprehensive knowledge of reality.

Analysis- this is the mental division of an object or phenomenon into its constituent parts or the mental isolation of individual properties, features, qualities in it. When we perceive an object, we can mentally isolate one part after another and thus find out what parts it consists of. For example, in a plant we distinguish the stem, root, flowers, leaves, etc. In this case, analysis is the mental decomposition of the whole into its constituent parts.

Analysis can also be a mental selection as a whole of its individual properties, features, and aspects. For example, mental highlighting of the color, shape of an object, individual behavioral characteristics or character traits of a person, etc.

Analysis is possible not only when we perceive an object or any whole in general, but also when we remember it, imagine it. Analysis of concepts is also possible, when we mentally identify their various features, analysis of the train of thought - proof, explanations, etc.

Synthesis - this is a mental connection of individual parts of objects or a mental combination of their individual properties. If analysis provides knowledge of individual elements, then synthesis, based on the results of analysis, combining these elements, provides knowledge of the object as a whole. So, when reading, individual letters, words, phrases are highlighted in the text and at the same time they are continuously connected with each other: letters are combined into words, words into sentences, sentences into certain sections of the text. Or let’s remember the story about any event - individual episodes, their connection, dependence, etc.

So Just like analysis, synthesis can be carried out through direct perception of objects and phenomena or through mental representation of them. There are two types of synthesis: as a mental unification of parts of a whole (for example, thinking through the composition of a literary work) and as a mental combination of various signs, properties, aspects of objects and phenomena of reality (for example, a mental representation of a phenomenon based on a description of its individual signs or properties).

Analysis And synthesis often occurs at the beginning of practical activity. We actually dismember or assemble an object, which is the basis for developing the ability to perform these operations mentally. Developing on the basis of practical activity and visual perception, analysis and synthesis must also be carried out as independent, purely mental operations. Every complex thought process involves analysis and synthesis. For example, by analyzing individual actions, thoughts, feelings of literary heroes or historical figures and as a result of synthesis, a holistic characteristic of these heroes, these figures is mentally created.

Abstraction. Often, when studying a phenomenon, it becomes necessary to isolate some sign, property, or one part of it for more in-depth knowledge, distracting (abstracting) for a while from all the others, without taking them into account. For example, to

To understand the proof of a geometric theorem in general form, you need to abstract from the particular features of the drawing - it was drawn with chalk or a pencil, what letters indicate the vertices, the absolute length of the sides, etc.

Abstraction is the mental selection of essential properties and features of objects or phenomena while simultaneously abstracting from non-essential features and properties.

A sign or property of an object, isolated in the process of abstraction, is thought of independently of other signs or properties and becomes independent objects of thought. Thus, in all metals we can distinguish one property - electrical conductivity. Observing how people, cars, planes, animals, rivers, etc. move, we can identify one common feature in these objects - movement and think about movement in general, study movement. With the help of abstraction, we can obtain abstract concepts - courage, beauty, distance, heaviness, length, width, equality, cost, etc.

Generalization and specification.Generalization closely related to abstraction. A person would not be able to generalize without being distracted from the differences in what he generalizes. It is impossible to mentally unite all the trees if you do not distract from the differences between them. When generalizing, objects and phenomena are combined together on the basis of their common and essential features. The basis is taken from the characteristics that we obtained during abstraction, for example, all metals are electrically conductive. Generalization, like abstraction, occurs with the help of words. Every word refers not to a single object or phenomenon, but to a set of similar individual objects. For example, the concept that we express with the word “fruit” combines similar (essential) features that are found in apples, pears, plums, etc.

In educational activities, generalization usually manifests itself in definitions, conclusions, rules... It is often difficult for children to make a generalization, since they are not always able to identify not only general, but essential common features of objects, phenomena, facts.

Specification - this is a mental representation of something individual that corresponds to a particular concept or general position. We are no longer distracted from various signs or properties of objects and phenomena, but

on the contrary, we strive to imagine these objects or phenomena in a significant richness of their characteristics. Essentially, the specific is always an indication of an example, some illustration of the general. Specificity plays a significant role in the explanations we give to other people. It is especially important in the explanations given by the teacher to children. Careful consideration should be given to the selection of the example. Giving an example can sometimes be difficult. In general, the idea seems clear, but it is not possible to indicate a specific fact.

Schoolchildren and students often find it difficult to give examples to illustrate their answer. This occurs during normal assimilation of knowledge, when the formulation of general provisions is assimilated (or memorized), but the content remains unclear. Therefore, the teacher should not be content with students correctly reproducing general provisions, but should strive to make these provisions more specific: giving an example, an illustration, a specific particular case. This is especially important at school and especially in the primary grades. When a teacher gives an example, he reveals and shows how in this particular case the general thing is revealed, which is illustrated by the example. Only under this condition does the particular provide significant assistance to the understanding of the general.

6.5. Concepts and their formation

The generalizations that a person makes in the process of thinking are fixed in concepts. concept- this is a form of thinking that reflects the general and essential properties of objects and phenomena. In other words, a concept is a set of essential properties of an object. For example, a chair has many characteristics: color, material, size, softness. But only those that make a chair a chair are essential. They are: a piece of furniture designed for sitting, it has back support. These are the most essential features of this concept, its content. The concept of “tree” includes all the characteristics inherent in a tree, and does not include what is characteristic only of birch, or spruce, or oak, etc.

Reflecting the general, essential, natural in objects or phenomena of reality, the concept acts as the highest level of reflection of the world. The concept is denoted by a word, which is a sensual, material object - 180

concept box. To think in concepts means to think in words. The word replaces the object, but in a certain sense. After all, you won’t sit on the word “chair”, and you won’t be satisfied with the word “bread”. In sensory cognition, a person becomes acquainted with the very objects and phenomena of reality, which he then generalizes with this concept. To own a concept means to own the entire body of knowledge about the objects and phenomena to which the concept relates.

Most of the concepts we have are learned ready-made from other people. However, mastery of a concept is not a simple “transfer” of knowledge, for example, from an adult to a child. Mastering concepts and mastering them is a very complex process. It is directly related to the development of thinking both of all humanity and of each individual person. Here, all generations of people receive most of the concepts from previous generations, assimilate these concepts, deepen, clarify, enrich and, based on their experience and knowledge, create new concepts about those objects and phenomena of reality about which previous generations have not yet created concepts.

In children, the acquisition of a concept largely depends on the experience on which they rely. Significant difficulties arise when a new concept denoted by a certain word does not agree with what is already associated with this word in the child, i.e. with the content of a given concept (often incorrect or incomplete) that he already owns. Most often this happens in cases where a strictly scientific concept acquired by children at school diverges from the so-called everyday, pre-scientific concept that they have already acquired outside of special training, in the process of everyday communication with other people and the accumulation of personal sensory experience (for example, a bird - this is an animal that flies, therefore butterflies, beetles, flies are birds, but a chicken, a duck are not, they do not fly. Or: predatory animals are “harmful” or “scary”, for example rats, mice, and a cat is not a predator , she is a pet, affectionate).

In mastering concepts, the correct organization of students’ sensory experience is especially important. The more abstract the concept, the more difficult it is to rely on material that can be shown to children, the more you have to use a story about things that can help master the abstract concept.

Thus, the formation of concepts, the transition to it from sensory forms of cognition, is an established process in which comparison, analysis, synthesis, abstraction, generalization and more or less complex forms of inference take part. An important role in the assimilation of concepts belongs to definition. The definition contains an indication of the most essential features of an object or phenomenon that constitute the essence of this concept, reveals its relationship to other, more general concepts. The definition fixes the most important things that must be learned when mastering the concept. For example, a definition of the concept “proverb” is given. A saying is one of the types of oral folk art: a common figurative expression that aptly defines any life phenomenon. Unlike proverbs, sayings are devoid of direct instructive meaning and are limited to a figurative, allegorical definition of a phenomenon. Examples of sayings: “Neither a candle to God, nor a poker to the devil”, “Behind the ear and into the sun”, “At night all cats are grey”, “Neither give nor take”, “Neither cold nor hot”, “Neither two, nor one and a half” , “Neither light nor dawn.”

Let us remember once again that the essential features of concepts are properties and relationships, with the loss, absence or change of which the object or phenomenon becomes different in nature or in some important respect. Insignificant features entail the appearance of only external, private characteristics and differences without changing the essence of an object or phenomenon.

In the process of mental activity, a person learns about the world around him with the help of special mental operations. These operations constitute various interconnected aspects of thinking that transform into each other. The main mental operations are analysis, synthesis, comparison, abstraction, specification and generalization.

Analysis- this is the mental decomposition of the whole into parts or the mental isolation of its sides, actions and relationships from the whole. In its elementary form, analysis is expressed in the practical decomposition of objects into their component parts.

Synthesis- this is the mental unification of parts, properties, actions into a single whole. The operation of synthesis is the opposite of analysis. In its process, the relationship of individual objects or parts to their complex whole is established. Analysis and synthesis always proceed in unity. What is analyzed is what includes something common, a whole. Synthesis also presupposes analysis: in order to combine some parts or elements into a single whole, these parts and characteristics must be obtained as a result of analysis.

Comparison- this is the establishment of similarities or differences between objects and phenomena or their individual characteristics. In practice, comparison is observed when applying one object to another, for example, one pencil to another.

Abstraction consists in the fact that the subject, isolating any properties, signs of the object being studied, is distracted from the rest. In this process, a feature separated from an object is thought independently of other features of the object and becomes an independent subject of thought. Abstraction is usually done during the analysis process. It was through abstraction that abstract, abstract concepts of length, breadth, quantity, equality, and value were created.

Specification involves the return of thought from the general and abstract to the concrete in order to reveal the content. Concretization is turned to in the event that the expressed thought turns out to be incomprehensible to others or it is necessary to show the manifestation of the general in the individual. When we are asked to give an example, then, in essence, the request is to specify the previous statements.

Generalization– mental association of objects and phenomena according to their common and essential features, for example, identifying similar features found in apples, pears, etc. The simplest generalizations involve combining objects based on individual, random features. More complex is complex generalization, in which objects are combined on different grounds.

All of these operations cannot occur in isolation, without connection with each other. On their basis, more complex thinking operations arise.

In addition to operations, there are also thinking processes: 1) judgment– is a statement containing a certain thought; 2) inference– is a series of logically related statements from which new knowledge is derived; 3) definition of concepts is considered as a system of judgments about a certain class of objects (phenomena), highlighting the most general characteristics; 4) induction and deduction- these are ways of producing inferences that reflect the direction of thought. Induction involves the derivation of a particular judgment from a general one, and deduction presupposes the derivation of a general judgment from a particular one.

Mental activity a person is a solution to various mental problems aimed at revealing the essence of something. Mental operation- this is one of the methods of mental activity through which a person solves mental problems.

Mental operations varied: 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- this is the mental decomposition of the whole into parts or the mental isolation of its sides, actions, and relationships from the whole. Synthesis- the opposite process of thought to analysis, this 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- this 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- this 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- 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 Thus, there is a selection of the general in objects and phenomena, which is expressed in the form of a concept, law, rule, formula, etc.

Stages of formation of mental actions (according to P.Ya. Galperin).

According to Halperin, any new mental action, for example, imagination, understanding, thinking, occurs after corresponding external activity.

This process goes through several stages that determine the transition from external to psychological activity. Effective training must take these steps into account. According to Galperin, any activity can be conventionally called training, since the one who performs it receives new information and skills, and at the same time the information he receives receives a new quality.

The theory of the gradual formation of mental actions P.Ya. Galperina is well known in Russian psychology and has received wide international recognition.

The process of formation of mental actions according to P.Ya. Galperin is done in stages:

1.Identification of the indicative basis of action. At this stage, orientation in the task occurs, initially what catches the eye is highlighted.

2. The action is formed in material form. At this stage, the student learning mental actions receives a complete system of instructions and a system of external signs that he needs to focus on. The action is automated, made expedient, and can be transferred to similar tasks.

3. External speech stage. Here the action undergoes further generalization due to its complete verbalization in oral or written speech. Thus, the action is absorbed in a form divorced from specifics, i.e. generalized. It is important not only to know the conditions, but also to understand them.

4.The stage of forming actions in external speech to oneself. Internal activity stage. Just as at the previous stage, the action appears in a generalized form, but its verbal development occurs without the participation of external speech. After receiving a mental form, the action begins to quickly reduce, acquiring a form identical to the model, and undergoing automation

5.Formation of actions in inner speech. Stage of internalization of action. Action here becomes an internal process, maximally automated, it becomes an act of thought, the course of which is closed, and only the final “product” of this process is known.

The transition from the first of these stages to all subsequent ones represents a consistent internalization of actions. This is a transition from outside to inside.

All activity is not an end in itself, but is caused by a certain motive of this activity, of which it is part. When the goal of a task coincides with the motive, the action becomes an activity.

Those. activity is a process of solving problems caused by the desire to achieve a goal, which can be achieved through this process.

Galperin values the role of motivation so highly that, along with the 5 main stages in the process of mastering new actions, in his latest works he recommends taking into account one more stage - Formation of appropriate motivation in students.

The psychological law of assimilation of knowledge is that it is formed in the mind not before, but in the process of applying it to practice.

A person best remembers the knowledge that he used in some of his own actions and applied to solving some real problems. Knowledge that has not found practical application is usually gradually forgotten.

The acquisition of knowledge is not the goal of learning, but a means. Knowledge is acquired in order to learn how to do something with its help, and not so that it is stored in memory.

Any well-mastered action (motor, perceptual, speech) is an action completely represented in the mind. A person who knows how to act correctly is able to mentally perform this action from beginning to end.

Theories of the development of thinking.

In the formation of the development of thinking, several stages can be distinguished. The boundaries and content of these stages may vary among different authors. This is due to the author’s position on this issue. Currently, there are several well-known classifications of the stages of development of human thinking.

Visual-effective thinking.

Depending on the content of the problem being solved, visual-effective, visual-figurative and verbal-logical thinking (successive stages of intellectual development) are distinguished. Genetically, the earliest form of thinking is visual-effective thinking, the first manifestations of which in a child can be observed at the end of the first - beginning of the second year of life, even before he masters active speech. The peculiarities of visual-effective thinking are manifested in the fact that problems are solved with the help of a real, physical transformation of the situation, testing the properties of objects. The initial stage of human thinking development is associated with generalizations. At the same time, the child’s first generalizations are inseparable from practical activity, which is expressed in the same actions that he performs with objects that are similar to each other. Primitive sensory abstraction, in which the child highlights some aspects and is distracted from others, leads to the first elementary generalization. As a result, the first, unstable groupings of objects into classes and bizarre classifications are created. An important basis for a child’s mental activity is observation. Mental activity is expressed primarily in juxtaposition and comparison. At the same time, the differences between such concepts as a thing and the properties of a thing are learned. The child learns to make inferences. The visual-effective type of thinking is also present in adults, it is found in everyday life (used when rearranging furniture) and when it is impossible to fully foresee the results of some actions in advance (the work of a tester, designer).

Visual-figurative thinking.

Visual-figurative thinking is associated with operating with images. This type of thinking is clearly manifested in preschoolers aged 4-6 years. Although the connection between thinking and practical actions is preserved, it is not as close, direct and immediate as before. During the analysis and synthesis of a cognizable object, a child does not necessarily and does not always have to touch the object that interests him with his hands. In many cases, no practical manipulation of the object is required, but in all cases it is necessary to clearly perceive and visualize the object. In other words, preschoolers think only in visual images and do not yet master concepts (in the strict sense), although they widely use words (but words also play the role of designating objects, and not as a reflection of the essential properties of objects). Children's visual-figurative thinking is still directly and completely subordinate to their perception. Adults also use visual-figurative thinking, it allows you to give the form of an image to such things and their relationships that are not visible in themselves (image of an atomic nucleus, the internal structure of the globe).

Verbal and logical thinking.

Verbal-logical thinking is a type of thinking carried out using logical operations with concepts. Verbal-logical thinking functions on the basis of linguistic means and represents the latest stage in the historical and ontogenetic development of thinking. This type of thinking is characterized by the use of concepts and logical constructions, which sometimes do not have a direct figurative expression (cost, honesty, pride). Thanks to verbal and logical thinking, a person can establish the most general patterns, foresee the development of processes in nature and society, and generalize various visual materials. At the same time, even the most abstract thinking is never completely divorced from visual-sensory experience. Any abstract concept has its own specific sensory support for each person, which cannot reflect the full depth of the concept, but allows it not to be divorced from the real world.

Pre-conceptual and conceptual thinking.

In its development, thinking goes through two stages: pre-conceptual and conceptual. Pre-conceptual thinking is the initial stage of the development of thinking in a child, when his thinking has a different organization than that of adults; Children’s judgments are singular, about this particular subject. When explaining something, they reduce everything to the particular, the familiar. Most judgments are judgments by similarity, since during this period memory plays the main role in thinking. The central feature of pre-conceptual thinking is egocentrism. A child under 5 years old cannot look at himself from the outside, cannot correctly understand situations that require some detachment from his own point of view and acceptance of someone else’s position. Egocentrism determines such features of children's logic as insensitivity to contradictions, syncretism (the tendency to connect everything with everything), transduction (the transition from the particular to the particular, bypassing the general), and the lack of ideas about the conservation of quantity. During normal development, there is a natural replacement of pre-conceptual thinking, where concrete images serve as components, with conceptual (abstract) thinking, where concepts are components and formal operations are used.

Conceptual thinking does not come immediately, but through a series of intermediate stages. Thinking develops from concrete images to perfect concepts designated by words. The concept initially reflects the similar, unchangeable in phenomena and objects. Significant changes in a child’s intellectual development occur at school age. These shifts are expressed in the knowledge of ever deeper properties of objects, in the formation of the mental operations necessary for this. These mental operations are not yet sufficiently generalized; the thinking of children of primary school age is conceptually specific. However, they already master some more complex forms of inference, realize the power of logical necessity, and they develop verbal-logical thinking. At middle and high school ages, more complex cognitive tasks become available to students, mental operations are generalized, formalized, and the range of their transfer and application in various new situations expands. A transition is being made from conceptual-concrete to abstract-conceptual thinking. The intellectual development of a child is characterized by a natural change of stages, where each previous stage prepares the subsequent ones.

Forms of thinking.

Concept. Knowledge obtained as a result of logical knowledge. Conceptual knowledge is the result of an indirect reflection of reality and includes the general and essential about a certain phenomenon, class of phenomena.

The distinctive features of a concept from a representation (a form of sensory knowledge) is that a representation is always an image, and a concept is a thought expressed in a word; the representation includes both essential and non-essential features; only the essential features are retained in the concept. The concept is a generalized reflection also because it is usually the result of the cognitive activity not of an individual person, but of the practical and theoretical activity of many people, and therefore has the character of universality. Indeed, even the general ideas of different people are different, but the concepts of all people are the same. For example, everyone has different ideas about a car (brand, color), but its functional meaning is the same (drives, four wheels, engine).

Judgment. Is the main act or form in which the thought process occurs. To think is first of all to judge. It is the result of mental activity, leading to the establishment of a certain attitude of the thinking subject to the object of his thought and to judgments about this object established in the environment of the individual. Judgment is fundamentally effective and necessarily contains a social character.

Judgment is primarily formed in action.

Judgment is expressed in the relation of the subject to the object and other people and is more or less saturated with emotionality.

Every judgment claims to be true. But no judgment is in itself an unconditional truth. Therefore, there is a need for criticism and verification, for the work of thinking on judgment. Reasoning – this is the work of thought on a judgment, not aimed at establishing and verifying its truth. Judgment is both the starting point and the final point of reasoning.

Conclusion. The transition from reasoning to form, when from the premises, it reveals the system of judgments that follows from them. In inference, in the course of a series of operations, based on existing knowledge, they come to new knowledge. This is the main value of inference.

Operations of thinking.

The operational components of thinking are the system of mental operations: analysis, synthesis, comparison, abstraction, generalization, classification, systematization.

Each of these operations performs a specific function in the process of cognition and is in a complex relationship with other operations.

Analysis. The function of which is to divide the whole into parts, highlighting individual features and aspects of the whole.

Synthesis. Serves as a means of combining individual elements that are highlighted as a result of the analysis.

Comparison. During which, the similarities and differences of individual objects are established.

Abstraction. Provides highlighting of some features and distraction from others.

Generalization. A means of combining objects or phenomena according to their essential features and properties.

Classification. Aimed at separating and subsequently combining objects for any reason.

Systematization. Provides separation and subsequent unification, but not of individual objects, as happens during classification, but of their groups, classes.

Each of the mental operations can be considered as corresponding mental action. In the shape of recognition, conversion and control over transformation.

When recognition analysis, synthesis, comparison, as well as other mental operations, will serve to successfully perform actions to isolate a certain object or class of objects, to establish those characteristics by which phenomena can be distinguished.

At transformation mental operations are directly included in the specific content of the activity and provide a purposeful change in the object.

Mental actions of control presuppose the focus of mental operations on comparing the present state of an object with a sample and control for the execution of the operations themselves.

Question 22.

Thinking and speech.

Since speech is a form of existence of thought, there is unity between speech and thinking. But this is unity, not identity. In those cases where thinking occurs mainly not in the form of speech, but in the form of images, these images essentially perform the function of speech in thinking, since their sensory content functions in thinking as a carrier of its semantic content. This is expressed in the form of ideas and concepts. All thought processes occur with the help of speech. Speech in general has its own structure, which is connected with the logic of thought, but is not identical with it.

The prerequisite for a child’s verbal thinking is increasingly intelligent practical activity. The development of verbal thinking is a transition to a new type of thinking - verbal-logical.

Language - an objectively existing phenomenon in the spiritual life of human society. Language is defined as a system of signs that function as a means of communication and an instrument of thought.

Language includes words with their meanings (the relationship of a word to an object designated in reality, regardless of what image represents it in the mind) and syntax (a set of rules by which sentences are constructed). The means from which a language message is constructed are phonemes (spoken speech) and graphemes (written speech)

Speech - the process of communication through language. It is a subject of psychological study.

In order for a word to communicate anything, it must designate, name an object, an action, a phenomenon. This function of speech is called significative.

Other functions of speech are generalization and communication. In the communicative function of speech, three sides can be distinguished: informational, expressive and expression of will. Expression of will is aimed at direct subordination of the listener’s actions to the speaker’s intention.

Types of speech.

Two types - external and internal. External speech – oral (dialogue and monologue) and written.

Inner speech is formed on the basis of external speech. Its content is in the form of a thought and more condensed.

Operations of the thinking process

Types of thinking

Basic forms of thinking

Methods of thinking

Types of thinking

Development of thinking in ontogenesis

Thinking Research

Classification of thinking disorders in pathopsychology

Classic classification of thought disorders

Imagination

Types of imagination

Iatrogenesis

Pathological forms of imagination and their assessment

Pathological forms of passive imagination

Pathological forms of active imagination

Speech

Formation of speech activity in children

Sign language

Speech disorders

Disorders of phonation of speech

Disorders of structural-semantic (internal) speech formation

Writing disorders

Practical part

Test tasks

Functions of cell organelles

Algorithm for writing an essay in social studies

Chernobyl in the memoirs of eyewitnesses Chernobyl scary stories