Thinking

1. Thinking اد/سلوي صلاح تحت اشراف أد/هاله البرعي

2. Definition Thinking is the mental activity that makes human behavior complex and fascinating. It is some kind of ongoing mental activity with internal representation of the outside world of which the subject is aware.

3. Thinking is mental process of forming a new representation by transforming available information. Thinking involves attention, memory, reasoning, imagination, decision making and judging. • Thinking occurs in the mind but is inferred from observable behavior. • Thinking is a process that manipulates knowledge in a person’s cognitive system. • Thinking is directed toward finding solutions to problems facing the individual.

4. How do we Think? We store information from our experience with people and things; we make mental representation of these experiences in our minds. At times we generalize our experiences like learning is better early in the morning, all students who wear spectacles are studious. Thinking relies on a variety of mental structures to form a thought. These are symbols, concept, schema, imagery, cognitive maps and language

5. Symbols Thinking has also been defined as the manipulation of symbols. Symbol is an object that can represent other objects. For example, a triangle can represent family planning or × in a mathematical equation can stand for multiplication. Thus the red triangle and × are symbols. Though words form important symbols in our thinking

6. Concepts When symbol stands for a class or group of objects with common properties, it refers to a concept, like green, women, injection. Some concepts can easily be formed as they are basic, whereas other concepts are difficult to form. Concept learning is based on principles of generalization and discrimination . A child learning the concept of dog may generalise all small animals as dog. Later with parental correction and with personal experience the child is ableto discriminate dog from other small animals.

7. Schemas Schemas are general conceptual frameworks regarding certain people objects and situations one’s life. You correlate ‘exams’ with studying most of the time, anxiety to finish the course, lots of books and cutting down on social activities. This visual representation provides expectation about the features likely to be found in a particular situation. Whenever incomplete or ambiguous information is available, we make inferences. Schemas are the primary units of meaning in the human information processing systems.

8. Imagery Supposing you have joined a hostel and you have an empty room. You are supposed to arrange the room. What will you do? How will you plan the places for your things like bed, study able, books, music system and other accessories? For this you need an imagery to plan the arrangement and setting of your things. Imagery is the mental picture which is usually not complete. Imagery is an important tool for solving many problems.

9. Cognitive Maps A cognitive representation of a physical space is called a cognitive map. Cognitive maps help people to visualize a situation like one draws a visual route to reach a particular destination.

10. Language Language serves two major functions, it helps us to communicate with one another and it provides system of symbols and rules that facilitate thinking. Language like any other external behavior may be represented internally, and much human thinking involves a kind of internal speech.

11. Types of Thinking • Thinking has been classified in number of ways. • Some of the important types of thinking are • discussed here.

12. Purposive and Fantasy Thinking . Autistic thinkingis a personal, idiosyncratic involving fantasy day dreaming being in your own world. This type of indivisualised thoughts can be important for creative acts. But in extreme cases it can be abnormal as it generates delusions and hallucinations. Realistic thinking is logical, takes account of external reality and, clearly, is involved in reasoning and problem-solving. Autistic thinking in contrast, is primitive, non- logical in its association of ideas and is not subject to correction by reference to reality.

13. Convergent and Divergent Thinking Convergent thinking applies to problem solving which involves focusing on to the one and only correct answer—the sort of problem that has commonly been used in conventional tests of intelligence Divergent thinking requires the production of as many answers as possible (e.g. ‘how many uses can you think of for a flower pot?) and has been considered to be important in relation to creativity

14. Functions of Thinking Thinking has various functions that help us in our day-to-day activities requiring reasoning, problem solving.

15. Reasoning Reasoning is a process of realistic, goal directed thinking in which conclusions are drawn from a set of facts. In reasoning information both stored and collected from the environment are used according to the set rules. Reasoning is classified as deductive and inductive. Deductive reasoning involves drawing a conclusion that follows logically established rules from two or more statements. Examples of this reasoning is that A has high blood sugar, so he has diabetes. Inductivereasoning uses available evidence to generate a conclusion about the likelihood of something. For inductive reasoning one constructs a hypothesis based on available evidence and then test it against other evidence. Inferences are accomplished by integrating past experiences, weighted value of the importance of the evidence and creativity. Examples of this type of thinking are probing into a murder case. Most scientific reasoning is inductive as often a medical diagnosis is made on the inferences drawn from the case history of the patient. Inductive reasoning plays a key role in our lives in solving many problems, like misplacing certain object and then trying to find that.

16. ProblemSolving Problem solving is thinking that is directed towards solving specific problems. This is the important part of our thinking that moves from an initial state to a goal state by means of a set of mental operations. Three theories of proplem solving: are—learning theory, Gestalt theory and information processing theory.

17. Learning theory : The learning theory approach to problem solving is illustrated by work of Pavlov, Watson, Thorndike. According to Thorndike the cats placed in the puzzle boxes learned to pull the string that got them out of the trial and error process. Here the cats were only learning a new habit because of the reward and reinforcement of getting out of the box. The cats did not understand the mechanism of pulling the string led to the escape.

18. Gestalt theory : . The Gestalt approach to solving problem is based on rearranging the situation to gain on insight into its fundamental nature. Here is a problem for you to answer. Problem-solvingoccurs through a process of trial and error. The Gestalt view of problem-solving, is a more holistic one. Instead of a solution proceeding gradually by small steps as proposed by Thorndike, the Gestalt school considered that the problems are solved efficiently when organised into a good structure. This is also called reproductive thinking as it duplicates or reproduces old habits.

19. Information processing : According to this approach problem-solving is a complex activity comprising several processes. These processes include— registering information, retrieving information from memory and using both kinds of knowledge in a purposeful way. The study of information processing has grown along with the use of computers and at times it has been equated to artificial intelligence Stages of problem-solving : Whenever you have to solve a problem try to think what all is required. Supposing you have been asked to make a research proposal, what necessary steps would you take ? Generally, whenever they have to solve a problem, we go through three stages, we prepare, we produce and we evaluate.

20. Preparation : The first step to problem solving is to understand the problem as our interpretation can be affected by the way the problem is presented. At times, there is a problem of fixed or rigid mental set which can interfere in understanding and thereby working on the problem.

21. Production : We need to generate possible solution. Simple problems may be solved just by collecting correct information either from long-term memory or from other sources like books, advice from others, etc. The more complicated problems require complex strategies. The two basic kinds of solution strategies are algorithms and heuristics. An algorithm is a strategy that exhausts every possible answer till it comes up with the correct solution used diligently, it guarantees a correct solution. Algorithms are rarely used because they do not exist for many problems and they are very time-consuming. A heuristic is a “rule of thumb” that can lead to a very quick solution to no solution at all. Heuristics may involve planning that ignores some of the problem information while focussing on other information or it may involve means end analysis that tests for a difference between the state that currently exist and one that desired and doing something to reduce the difference. Heuristics may also involve working backward to review the ideal situations and then determining what steps will lead to the ideal situation.

22. Evaluation: We have to decide how good is our solution. It may be easy for some solutions but many problems have less precise goals and are harder to judge may have many solutions to the problem in which we have to decide which is the best solution. When a problem is solved by insight learning the evaluation is very quick but in information processing and association type of problem-solving one may move up and down and gradually come to the solution of the problem. Hence, the evaluation process is also different than that of insight. Mental blocks can hinder problem-solving ability. Mental blocks are functional fixedness, i.e. one may find it hard to perceive a new function for an object that was previously associated with some other purpose. Some other factors like habitual strategy, past experiences or conditioning, actor-Observer bias and mental set may interfere with finding right solutions. Mental set is a tendency to respond to a new problem in the same manner used to solve previous problem. These factors function as “Black Box” in our thinking. If you want to avoid pitfalls in problem- solving follow these guidelines— • Formulate a plan by making a outline • Work in a organised manner • Begin working with easy options • Mentally rehearse taking the right action • Involve yourself completely in the problem, try to get maximum information on that • Be enthusiastic, think positively • Anticipate the challenge.

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