Psychology of thinking, intellect

Thought generally refers to any mental or intellectual activity involving an individual's subjective consciousness. It can refer either to the act of thinking or the resulting ideas or arrangements of ideas. Similar concepts include cognition, sentience, consciousness, and imagination. Because thought underlies almost all human actions and interactions, understanding its physical and metaphysical origins, processes, and effects has been a longstanding goal of many academic disciplines including, among others, biology, philosophy, psychology, and sociology.

Thinking allows beings to make sense of or model the world in different ways, and to represent or interpret it in ways that are significant to them, or which accord with their needs, attachments, objectives, plans, commitments, ends and desires.

Origin and usage

The word comes from Old English þoht, or geþoht, from stem of þencan "to conceive of in the mind, consider".

In common language, the word to think covers numerous and diverse psychological activities. It often refers merely to the act of being conscious of something, especially if that thing is outside the immediate environment ("It made me think of my grandmother"). It is sometimes a synonym for "tending to believe," especially with less than full confidence ("I think that it will rain, but I am not sure"). At other times it denotes the degree of attentiveness ("I did it without thinking"). Many other mental activities--many of which may shade into each other--can be covered by the word, such as interpreting, evaluating, imagining, planning, and remembering.

In common usage, "thought" is often attributed to animals, machines, other non-human objects, and phenomena. The exact meaning of such usage varies as well. The attribution of thought or thought processes to non-human objects and phenomena (especially computers) could be considered anthropomorphism, though such categorizations have been contested by such computer scientists as Alan Turing (see Computing Machinery and Intelligence). As regards animals, to what extent different animals think depends on the exact definition of the word that is given, so it may be taken literally or regarded as anthropomorphic.

Philosophy

The phenomenology movement in philosophy saw a radical change in the way in which we understand thought. Martin Heidegger's phenomenological analyses of the existential structure of man in Being and Time throw new light on the issue of thinking, unsettling traditional cognitive or rational interpretations of man which affect the way we understand thought. The notion of the fundamental role of non-cognitive understanding in rendering possible thematic consciousness informed the discussion surrounding Artifical Intelligence during the 1970's and 1980's.

Phenomenology, however, is not the only approach to thinking in modern Western philosophy. Philosophy of mind is a branch of modern analytic philosophy that studies the nature of the mind, mental events, mental functions, mental properties, consciousness and their relationship to the physical body, particularly the brain. The mind-body problem, i.e. the relationship of the mind to the body, is commonly seen as the central issue in philosophy of mind, although there are other issues concerning the nature of the mind that do not involve its relation to the physical body.

Biology

A neuron (also known as a neurone or nerve cell) is an excitable cell in the nervous system that processes and transmits information by electrochemical signaling. Neurons are the core components of the brain, the vertebrate spinal cord, the invertebrate ventral nerve cord, and the peripheral nerves. A number of specialized types of neurons exist: sensory neurons respond to touch, sound, light and numerous other stimuli affecting cells of the sensory organs that then send signals to the spinal cord and brain. Motor neurons receive signals from the brain and spinal cord and cause muscle contractions and affect glands. Interneurons connect neurons to other neurons within the brain and spinal cord. Neurons respond to stimuli, and communicate the presence of stimuli to the central nervous system, which processes that information and sends responses to other parts of the body for action. Neurons do not go through mitosis, and usually cannot be replaced after being destroyed,although astrocytes have been observed to turn into neurons as they are sometimes pluripotent.

Psychology

Psychologists have concentrated on thinking as an intellectual exertion aimed at finding an answer to a question or the solution of a practical problem. Cognitive psychology is a branch of psychology that investigates internal mental processes such as problem solving, memory, and language. The school of thought arising from this approach is known as cognitivism which is interested in how people mentally represent information processing. It had its foundations in the Gestalt psychology of Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Köhler, and Kurt Koffka, and in the work of Jean Piaget, who provided a theory of stages/phases that describe children's cognitive development.

Cognitive psychologists use psychophysical and experimental approaches to understand, diagnose, and solve problems, concerning themselves with the mental processes which mediate between stimulus and response. They study various aspects of thinking, including the psychology of reasoning, and how people make decisions and choices, solve problems, as well as engage in creative discovery and imaginative thought. Cognitive theory contends that solutions to problems take the form of algorithms—rules that are not necessarily understood but promise a solution, or heuristics—rules that are understood but that do not always guarantee solutions. Cognitive science differs from cognitive psychology in that algorithms that are intended to simulate human behavior are implemented or implementable on a computer. In other instances, solutions may be found through insight, a sudden awareness of relationships.

In developmental psychology, Jean Piaget was a pioneer in the study of the development of thought from birth to maturity. In his theory of cognitive development, thought is based on actions on the environment. That is, Piaget suggests that the environment is understood through assimilations of objects in the available schemes of action and these accommodate to the objects to the extent that the available schemes fall short of the demands. As a result of this interplay between assimilation and accommodation, thought develops through a sequence of stages that differ qualititatively from each other in mode of representation and complexity of inference and understanding. That is, thought evolves from being based on perceptions and actions at the sensorimotor stage in the first two years of life to internal representations in early childhood. Subsequently, representations are gradually organized into logical structures which first operate on the concrete properties of the reality, in the stage of concrete operations, and then operate on abstract principles that organize concrete properties, in the stage of formal operations. In recent years, the Piagetian conception of thought was integrated with information processing conceptions. Thus, thought is considered as the result of mechanisms that are responsible for the representation and processing of information. In this conception, speed of processing, cognitive control, and working memory are the main functions underlying thought. In the neo-Piagetian theories of cognitive development, the development of thought is considered to come from increasing speed of processing, enhanced cognitive control, and increasing working memory.

Psychoanalysis

"Id", "ego", and "super-ego" are the three parts of the "psychic apparatus" defined in Sigmund Freud's structural model of the psyche; they are the three theoretical constructs in terms of whose activity and interaction mental life is described. According to this model, the uncoordinated instinctual trends are the "id"; the organized realistic part of the psyche is the "ego," and the critical and moralizing function the "super-ego."

The unconscious was considered by Freud throughout the evolution of his psychoanalytic theory a sentient force of will influenced by human desire and yet operating well below the perceptual conscious mind. For Freud, the unconscious is the storehouse of instinctual desires, needs, and psychic drives. While past thoughts and reminiscences may be concealed from immediate consciousness, they direct the thoughts and feelings of the individual from the realm of the unconscious.

For psychoanalysis, the unconscious does not include all that is not conscious, rather only what is actively repressed from conscious thought or what the person is averse to knowing consciously. In a sense this view places the self in relationship to their unconscious as an adversary, warring with itself to keep what is unconscious hidden. If a person feels pain, all he can think of is alleviating the pain. Any of his desires, to get rid of pain or enjoy something, command the mind what to do. For Freud, the unconscious was a repository for socially unacceptable ideas, wishes or desires, traumatic memories, and painful emotions put out of mind by the mechanism of psychological repression. However, the contents did not necessarily have to be solely negative. In the psychoanalytic view, the unconscious is a force that can only be recognized by its effects—it expresses itself in the symptom.

Sociology

This is a "thought bubble". It is an illustration depicting thought.

Graffiti on the wall: "'to think for myself' became less favorable".

Main article: Social psychology

Social psychology is the study of how people and groups interact. Scholars in this interdisciplinary area are typically either psychologists or sociologists, though all social psychologists employ both the individual and the group as their units of analysis.

Despite their similarity, psychological and sociological researchers tend to differ in their goals, approaches, methods, and terminology. They also favor separate academic journals and professional societies. The greatest period of collaboration between sociologists and psychologists was during the years immediately following World War II. Although there has been increasing isolation and specialization in recent years, some degree of overlap and influence remains between the two disciplines.

The collective unconscious, sometimes known as collective subconscious, is a term of analytical psychology, coined by Carl Jung. It is a part of the unconscious mind, shared by a society, a people, or all humanity, in an interconnected system that is the product of all common experiences and contains such concepts as science, religion, and morality. While Freud did not distinguish between an "individual psychology" and a "collective psychology," Jung distinguished the collective unconscious from the personal subconscious particular to each human being. The collective unconscious is also known as "a reservoir of the experiences of our species."

In the "Definitions" chapter of Jung's seminal work Psychological Types, under the definition of "collective" Jung references representations collectives, a term coined by Lucien Lévy-Bruhl in his 1910 book How Natives Think. Jung says this is what he describes as the collective unconscious. Freud, on the other hand, did not accept the idea of a collective unconscious.

Emotion and feeling

The emotions, are initial, primary, more simple (elementary) mental phenomena, and the feelings are outgoing, secondary, complex, structural concepts, available only at the man. The feelings grow from emotions and include at it emotions with the other components. It is impossible to separate feeling from emotions. We are talking about sphere of feelings or sphere of emotions depending on prevalence of this or that component.

The emotions basically display the form of subjective experience, and feeling display the contents. The essence of emotions consists in display of the relation to object on "the unconscious organism language ", and feeling " – on the conscious language of the person ".

Concept about emotions and feeling.

Learning the environmental world and changing it, the man does not concern to the disorder indifferently. The subjects and phenomena of the world, event of own life of the man, relation with other people, public events, facts from the international life are experienced by the man, causing at him satisfaction, displeasure, pleasure, mountain, indignation, enthusiasm, sympathy, anger, hatred, reliance of themselves, shame etc. The emotions and feelings are various experiences of the man, in which his subjective relation is found out that to other people and to himself.

The emotions and feelings arise during active mutual relation of the man with the external world. The man differently experiences different events and relations. So, the emotions and feelings are various experiences of the man, in which the course of his vital mutual relation with the external world and other people is displayed.

In life of the man the emotion and feelings always are in indissoluble unity with cognitive processes. There are no "pure” emotions. Our feelings, perceiving, and imaginations, thinking, always cause the emotions. It is the difference between emotions and cognitive processes. The same objects derivate different emotions at the different people, and in the same man at the different moments of his life, or remain for him indifferent.

Emotions and the feelings have the large importance in life of the man. They enrich the displays of the objective validity and become the important promptings to activity of the man, regulators of its activity. The feelings are the important display of essence of the man, his consciousness. From concerning to objects, to other people, to the business, depends the success of man activity, his real relations to other people. These kinds of feelings are the means of influence of one man for other people. They play the important role in work of the representatives of many trades, and in particular of actor, teacher, psychologist, manager and medical worker. As a medical worker can be the person, which has the deep professional knowledge and skills and has the emotional influence on mentality of the patient and his relatives, which includes harmony of qualities of the medical worker-expert, psychologist, actor and teacher. That is why understanding of emotions essence, their importance for daily life and skill to bring up them is the important component of the medical worker future.

The basic features of emotions and feelings.

The characteristics of emotional experiences are their polarity. Each of them has the expressed positive or negative shade produced by the attitude of its object to needs, desires of the man (pleasant - unpleasant, satisfaction - displeasure, pleasure - mountain, sympathy - antipathy, love - hatred, etc.). The opposite experiences are incompatible in the same moment of life of the man. Nevertheless in complex feelings they can form inconsistent unity (for example, laughter through tears, association of opposite experiences in jealousy, etc.).

We characterize them as active, or sthenic (that lift ability to live of the man, strengthen his energy, induce to activity), and passive or asthenic ( that depress the man, weaken his activity)

Aesthetic emotion can cause diseases and always worsen courses of illness, prevent successful health becoming. It is very dangerous, if the patient is afraid of the disease, it does not give an opportunity to mobilize organism on struggle with illness. It is necessary by all possible means to try to distract the patient from hard thinking and experiences about illness, to encourage him, to install of optimism. In this case adequate cult therapy and ergo therapy is effective. The emotions, feeling are characterized by the certain force or intensity. Trouble, satisfaction, displeasure, pleasure, grief and other feelings are weaker or stronger. The emotions can depend on those impressions, which will cause them, but mostly it is predetermined by connection of these impressions with needs, interests of the person, its estimation of the certain objects, subjective condition of the man at the given moment, his individual features. Depending on these conditions the same objects can derivate emotions of different force.

The characteristics of experience is grasping of the person as a whole. It testifies about the connection of experiences of the person with a course of satisfaction of its needs, with changes of its vital mutual relation with environment. Any experience is involuntarily found out in changes of expression of the person, pose, intonations of a vote, and also activity of internal bodies (heart, stomach, etc.). Grasping all organisms, the emotions will give the special quality to its condition: they integrate (unite) functions of organism for the fast answer to harmful or useful influence on it; help to estimate the character of this influence quickly.

Classification of emotions and feelings.

Experience of the man is very various. To understand them better, we divide them on kinds with the help of their contents, the relation character of the man and the objective validity, degree of their development, force and features of their display.

There are such emotions as simple, that display the mutual relation of the man with objects, and complex, in which this display has specific character. Among emotions we allocate: affects, arrangements of spirit, passion.

On sense we allocate first of all moral, intellectual and aesthetic feelings. Some of them can have the character of passions.

Simple emotions. The simple emotions are caused directly by action on organism of objects connected with satisfaction of its primary needs.

They arise in connection with sensation of their properties, (colour, smell, taste etc.) and can be pleasant or unpleasant to us, can cause satisfaction or displeasure. These experiences are derivate also by course of satisfaction of organic needs in food, in water etc. The emotions directly connected to sensations, refer to emotional tone of sensations. It takes place also in perception of objects connected with satisfaction of primary needs of the man.

Complex emotions. During life and activity of the man his elementary experiences turn to complex emotions connected with comprehension of their vital importance. So, the satisfaction from tasty food is the simple emotion, satisfaction from the successful solving of any task, the perception of a beautiful landscape or pictures are the complex experience. There are such complex emotions, such experiences of the man, as pleasure, sadness fear, anger, shame etc.

Arrangement of spirit. The arrangement of spirit is a general emotional condition of the man, which characterizes his vital tonus during the certain time. It is derivative form of his prevail emotions. The arrangement of spirit frequently arises as a result of strong energy that was adventure by the man. The arrangement of spirit can be joyful, sad, vigorous, suppressed, boring, quiet, restless, etc. As well as all emotions, arrangement of spirit is characterized by polarity.

The arrangement of spirit is the caused phenomenon. Its character and stability depend on vital circumstances, which derivate it and on individual features of the man. The temporary arrangements of spirit are predetermined those by impressions, which the man receives in that moment, by mentions of events of the past. The proof arrangements of spirit are derivates by comprehension by the man of a course of his activity, his results, and successes in activity of the collective.

The passion has a dual meaning. Being in passion the man, suffers, acts as a passive essence, and, he is also an active essence, which persistently aspires to mastering the subject of passion. The passion is always found out in concentration, concentration of forces of the man, in their orientation. The passion is shown differently depending on presence or absence of obstacles to satisfaction. If there are many obstacles the passion is stronger, and if the man is in favourable conditions, the passions keeping the force, lose disorder greed and ruinousness.

It is valuable property of the man necessary for industrial, scientific, art or other activity. I.P.Pavlov asked the youth, which have devoted themselves to a science, to love it passionately . " Remember, - he wrote, - that the science requires all life of the man. And if you had two life, it would not suffice you. A science is demanded by the large pressure and large passion. You must be biased in your work and in your searches ".

Except passions of the high ideological contents, there are the passions of the low order, which play a negative role in life of the man. For example: passion to alcohol, drugs, vanity, lust for power and others. As marked G.Belinski, vanity, like the chameleon, can get a different masking, by phrases about high feelings. From all human passions in his opinion, the greatest is passion – lust for power . " It is possible to tell, that any passion did not cost to mankind so much sufferings and blood, as lust for power »:he considered.

Moral feelings. The moral feelings are feelings, in which the proof relation of the man to public events, to other people and to himself is found out. They are indissolubly connected to the certain norms of behaviour accepted in the society, with an estimation of conformity or disagreement of actions, acts, intentions of the man to these norms. The source of these feelings is general life of the people, their mutual relation, their general struggle for achievement of the public purposes.

Conscience is the estimation of the own good and bad acts, activity, relation to other people. This estimation is intellectual, and emotional. The man experiences it. The comprehension by the man of correctness of the acts derivates rest of his conscience, pleasure, moral satisfaction by himself. On the contrary, he as the feeling of repentance, shame discontent experiences the comprehension by the man that his act misses from recognized by moral principles, by himself, pangs of conscience. The person experiences need to be understood in the bad act, to correct it, to apologies, etc. and by that to restore rest of the conscience. The conscience is the important form of display of moral consciousness of the man. The conscience is a maximum regulator of his relation to other people, his relation to the business.

Intellectual feelings. As the intellectual feelings considered the experiences of the man which are found out in his intellectual and cognitive activity. For example: love to knowledge, surprise, doubt, reliance, uncertainty etc.. These feelings are connected to moral feelings of the man, but at the same time they and specific. Their source is educational activity, independent work with the book, research work in different areas, constructive, creative, industrial work of the man.

The feeling of love to knowledge is the proof emotional property of the person, which is found out in its. Tireless aspiration to distribute and to enrich the knowledge, to do not stop on achieved, and to go forward, using for this purpose rich objective opportunities, which are created in our society. Intellectual, as well as the moral feelings are specific human feelings.

The absence of intellectual and other activity, derivates emotion of boredom. It arises in particular in educational work of the schoolchildren, if they are not engaged in thinking activity, and is playing a negative role.

The aesthetic feelings are: feeling of beauty, perfect, and feeling ridiculous, comical.

The comical feeling is very complex experience, which can be found out in the different forms. Connected with feeling of sympathy, benevolent relation, it turns at sense of humour. Penetrated by hatred, anger to other people, this feeling becomes satirical.

Somato- vegetative display of emotions.

You can see the changing of pressure fluctuation, muscles tonus, spasm or relaxation of smooth muscles,, the pose of a trunk and coordination of movements, while emotions. The ekstrapiramidal system influences on the tonus of mimic muscles, rate of their activity, intensity of theirinervation, and also automatic and expressive movements. The direct mimic executor is muscle of the person. Mimic muscle, which is innervate by an obverse nerve, carry out different functions, which are caused the riches of mimic. I.M.Sechenov considered, that all indefinitely various external displays of brain activity, are reduced to one phenomenon of muscles movement. Whether " the child Laughs if sees a toy, whether the girl shivers at the first idea on love, whether Newton creates the world laws and writes them on a paper - everywhere the final factor is muscles movement ". The mimic expression is very variable and with the help of mimic changes it is possible to find out changes of an arrangement of spirit and emotional condition of the man. It is considered, that the circuit of emotions is based usually on expression of the face. Nevertheless psychologists were not limited only to quantitative analysis and description of expressions. They have made attempt of quantitative definition. For example, the linear Wudvorts scale was created by results of the analysis of the characteristics 100 persons in 86 poses. As satisfactory the following scale has recommended itself:

1. Love, happiness, pleasure.

2. Surprise.

3. Fear, suffering.

4. Anger, resoluteness.

5. Disgust.

6. Neglect (contempt).

O.Frua-Vittman and Shlosberg have added and have developed the idea of Vudvords, they have added the category "difference", and concept " pleasant - unpleasant " and " favour - unfavourably ".

The attempt of creation of the circuits of emotions has shown one important result: by the expressiveness the general emotions are less differ than was considered before. The expressive expression of emotions in dynamics is best for perceiving directly. To describe expression of emotion in details can the ingenious or talented people which have the large dictionary stock of words and expressions. For example, the sight of the man can be sharp-sighted, attentive, concentrated, cold, thoughtful, asking, severe, gentle, proud, tender etc. In a picture of Velaskes " Innokentii X" is displayed the sight, which expresses cunning, ambition, and reserve. The expressive movements, strengthening pulses of the emotion. If the man shivers or runs – being in fear, it strengthens emotion of fear. On the other hand, the strong feelings find "expression" at external displays . One of the control facilities of emotions is management of expressive movements. Constraining expressive movements being in angers, we reduce the anger. With the help of strong-willed efforts we can constrain the feelings, break their external displays.

By the large variety of means is characterized vocal mimic, in which through change of intensity of a vote, its height, the speed, timbre, accents are found out various emotions of the man (pleasure, satisfaction, surprise, fear, uncertainty, indecision, fear, anger, tenderness etc.). The human voice device has many opportunities. The different connections of a vote features give emotional variations, which we mean, speaking about shivering, dry, broken, gentle, heart-felt, joyful, sad, vigorous and other votes. The necessary condition of mimic voice development is its acoustical perception and dialogue of the people. The set of intonations of a human vote was developed during language dialogue of the people, and their musical activity. The emotional expressions change depending on a timbre, intonation, force, and expressiveness of language. The vote can be mild, tender and on the contrary, severe unfriendly. The same word changes the emotional meaning depending on expressiveness. At uncertainty the vote of the man sounds irresolutely. When the man is sure in correctness, he speaks loudly, precisely. A.S.Makarenko wrote, that he has become foreman of pedagogic then, when has learned to speak " come here " with 15-20 shades, has developed nuances in statement of the face, figure, vote. Bernard Show has counted up, that there are 50 ways to tell words "yes" and 500 shades of a word " not ", and to write these words it is possible only by one way. The human language is imperfect. The concrete word cannot express all emotions and experiences. The psychologist with a world name Rubinshtein considered, that " the idea is expressed in a word ceases to be a mind ".

The different emotional condition is displayed not only in mimic and language, but also in handwriting. Melancholic write finely with stops, the persons of hypomaniocal structure write negligent, largely, widely. The punctual and petty persons write precisely.