Thinking
Higher mental processes
They include thinking, learning, perceiving & remembering.
*The processes are collectively referred to as ‘higher’ forms of behavior because:
1-the man’s supremacy over animals in such forms of behavior.
2- They are held to be associated with ‘higher’ nervous system.
* HMP: are ways in which man adjusts effectively to the more complex events in his
environment in a consistent & integrated fashion, & they provide man with a
continuity of his experiences where they link his past experiences with those of the
present & with those which are projected into the future, so in the same way as vision
& smell are described as distance receptors, we can say that HMP are ‘time’
receptors.
In every day speech when we said we are thinking we may mean that we are
trying to reason something out, are reflecting on some past experience, or are merely daydreaming. Here the term thinking will be used in a more restricted sense to apply
particularly to situations in which problem-solving behavior is demanded.
Thinking
The characteristics of thinking process:
1-Using symbols:
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The essence of thinking is that we can organize our environment by using
symbols rather than actual objects.
-
Symbols may be words, images or gestures which involve subjective
representations of some object or situation.
- Symbols may be:
a-highly conventional in that their meaning is shared by a large number of people, e.g.
mathematical symbols or traffic signs.
b-highly personal representing a unique experience of an individual which can not be
shared by other person.
Because Man has greater powers of using symbols, we recognize his superiority in
thinking over that of animals.
The superiority derives particularly from his use of language (verbal symbols) in
contrast to the animal’s capacity to communicate with signals which operate only in
the immediate situation, for e.g. the bee can communicate quite complicated
information about the distance & direction of a source of a nectar by the sequence of
signals described as a dance. The humans by using map for e.g. can communicate
this information so that it persist beyond the point in time at which the information is
passed on.
2-Using concepts: which is organizing the acquired information into patterns, for e.g.
a child on his 1st visit to a zoo may call all the animals ‘doggies’ but as he learn (i.e.
as his experience of dogs & other animals increases) he develops a concept of dogs
which allows him to distinguish dogs from all other animals.
3-Using abstract & concrete mode of thinking:
-Abstract ability involves attending to the characteristics of the stimuli & generalizing
from these characteristics to form concepts. It represents a form of figurative thinking
which goes beyond the actual stimuli.
-Concrete or literal thinking is limited to & bound by the actual stimuli &
generalization to a concept is not involved.
-The normal thinker can use both abstract & concrete modes & can shift readily from
one to other.
-In some conditions as chronic schizophrenia the patient’s thinking is affected in such
a way that he loses his capacity for abstract thinking.
-Goldstein -Scheerer test of concept formation: the patient is presented with about 30
different articles in every day use & is asked to sort these objects into categories. The
person is encouraged to give as many classification as possible & to explain the
reason for each, for e.g. in term of the shape of the objects, their color, the material
form which they are made, or the context in which they are used. The patient with
thinking disorder is unable to group the objects in categories other than those
determined by their concrete characteristics & can’t shift from one category to another
which reflects the patient’s failure of concept formation & so affect his ability to
adapt readily.
4-Involving problem-solving mechanism: It is found that when any problem
presented to us, the problem will be reorganized & reformulated in our mind by
offering & rejecting various possibilities, & so the shape of the problem changes until
ultimately it takes on a new look which allows the final insight when ‘things click into
place’. Thus the 1st essential point about problem-solving is that the process of one of
active reorganization, or trial & error.
Trial & error activity: The knowledge about it comes from an experiment of
Thorndike (American psychologist) in which a problem set for a cat to get out from a
cage which could be opened from inside by pulling a loop. The hungry cat (placed
inside the cage with food on the outside) initially clawed & scratched in a random
fashion & it tried to squeeze through any opening, until sooner or later it operated the
lever which opened the door, when it was able to feed.
The activity was random & not directed towards the solution.
The cat in this ‘puzzle box’ was indulging in the exploratory behavior which
characterizes trial & error activity.
Thorndike then investigated the process of learning by replacing the cat in the box on
a no. of successive occasions when the no. of random movements decreased until the
cat was able to go straight to the loop & open the cage.
5-Previous experience has an important effect: In some situations insight into the
situation may be achieved immediately with no apparent trial & error behavior
involved, the speed with which insight is achieved & the problem is solved depends
upon the amount of previous relevant experience which might help in the solution.
In an exp. to construct a piece of apparatus from various components we found that
subjects who had relevant experience about the apparatus were much better able to
solve the problem.
This demonstrate the common experience of failing to find the solution because we
have tended to formulate complex hypotheses where a simple answer was required.
6-General experience has an important effect; which occur through learning how
to think to reach a solution, for e.g. Maier in an exp. gave some subjects a series of
hints & found that their performance in problem-solving was better than the others
who had no such general hints, which are:
a- Locate a difficulty & try to overcome it. If you fail, get it completely out from
your mind & seek an entirely different difficulty.
b- Do not sty in rut but keep your mind open for new meanings.
c- The solution appears suddenly, you can’t force it, so keep your mind open for
new combinations & do not waste your time on unsuccessful attempts.
We all have an innate capacity for random behavior to reach a solution where put
in any situation we could potentially go through the whole repertoire of responses of
which we are capable, until we reach a solution. But from our education we gain
experience of problems in general & of problems similar to the one we face. This
experience narrows the range of possible ways of behaving & we get the solution
more quickly i.e. to think more effectively.
The difference between trial & error and insight (problem-solving dependent on
concepts) is due mainly to experience derived from a long process of learning.
* Reasoning: Refer to combining previous relevant experiences in order to reach a
solution.
The common assertion that reasoning is specifically human characteristic is not
confirmed. Maier carried out several exp. to demonstrate reasoning in rats, in one of
these he arranged that a rat could explore a table, one corner of which was screened
off & behind which food was placed, a runway was led from the table to the floor, the
rat was allowed to explore this situation & to climb from the floor to the table but was
unable to reach the food because of the screen. Then the rat was taken to a second
table from which an elevated pathway led to the corner of the first table on which the
food was placed, the rat allowed to explore this & to get from the floor to table-B by
means of a runway & from table-B to the food by the elevated pathway, & this form
a 2nd experience for the rat. It was argued that if the rat could put these 2 experiences
together, reasoning must have occurred.
Then when a hungry rat placed on table-A, it is found that it would move down the
runway to the floor, then cross to the other runway up to B & thence via the elevated
pathway to the food behind the screen on table-A. By this exp. it is shown that rats
displayed the necessary reasoning to gain the food successfully, by taking the
roundabout way involving the route C-D
 Thinking-out problems: involve a period of inactivity, concentration,
pondering & reflection.
 Acting-out problems: involve an exploratory activity.
-Trial & error activity occurs whether the problem is thought out or acted out.
-Compared with animals, humans think out rather than act out their problems, but the
problem can be so difficult that its solution can’t be achieved by thinking out in
abstraction but requires concrete acting out of the problem, e.g. the scientist when
tackles a problem by setting up experiments, is acting out exploratory activity in a
way similar to the cat in the puzzle box.
* Bodily processes in thinking: Certain bodily processes accompany all thinking
even when we think out problems, which shown through;
1- Using gestures in expressing out ideas, particularly when they are difficult or
abstract.
2- An electromyography (EMG) gives an amplified recording of changes in
electrical potential in muscle groups & can detect very small muscle movement. The
EMG recording is reduced during relaxation & it shows increased electrical activity in
the involved muscles during movement. Similar increase will occur also if we just
think of or to imagine the movement. Also EMG recordings in the speech apparatus
region show definite minute muscle activity during thinking ( similar thing occur in
deaf-mutes but in forearm muscles).
3- The normal adult electroencephalogram (EEG) record shows alpha rhythm (8-13
cycles/sec. frequency) mainly from the occipital regions when the eyes are closed but
if the subject open his eyes (receiving visual stimulation) the alpha rhythm
is inhibited & disappears. Similar thing occur during solving an arithmetical
problem even if the subject close his eyes.
So there are widespread autonomic & muscle changes accompany thinking, & this
goes with what Watson (the founder of the Behaviorist school) said that “we think
with our whole bodies”
* Unconscious thinking: It seems that part of the active process of thinking is
carried out without our awareness, where we can often solve a problem by shelving it
for some time or putting it out of our minds & subsequently we find that the solution
appears to come ‘out of the blue’. Such period of incubation occur more in the
thinking of scientists, artists, poets & inventers. The preparatory period involves
getting to grips with the problem, collecting all the necessary data & beginning to
play with ideas, rejecting some suggestions & examining others more carefully, & at
some point no further progress is made & the problem is given up, but at some later
time the solution occur to thinker while he is relaxing or daydreaming, just before
going to sleep or getting up, or during other activity,
e.g. when Kekule dreamed of a snake catching it’s own tail, he said to have solved the
problem of the arrangement of the bonds in benzene molecule.
Psychoanalytic theory differentiate unconscious thinking to:
1-Primary processes thinking: are dominate in infancy & childhood, characterized by
the immature tendency of immediate gratification of basic instinctual drives or needs.
2-Secondary processes thinking: are the more mature & directed ways of thinking,
involve controlling instinctual impulses by delaying them or by substituting another
form of gratification.
Investigating unconscious processes in phantasies, wishes & dreams shows that
the primitive primary thinking persist into adult life, also many of the disordered ideas
in the severe mental illnesses are expression of this primary thinking released by the
disrupting effects of the patient’s illness.
Some elements of our thinking are initiated & maintained at unconscious levels,
where we operate by guesses & hunches rather than by reasoning. Although thinking
reorganizes & reformulates problems but the processes are not always represented by
formal rules or strict logic & the creative thinking is especially dependent on no
rational elements.
*Scientific & clinical thinking:
The scientist learns a formal set of rules during his training which is referred to as
Scientific method, which involve:
1- collecting the data.
2- analyzing the data.
3-using inductive reasoning to generate an hypothesis
4-using deductive reasoning to refute or verify the hypothesis
5-during it sh. keep the thinking open to new abstractions, avoiding the premature
conclusions, assumes an attitude which goes beyond conventional explanations, &
always seeks new relationships between the data.
The medical students in his training in basic sciences learned this scientific attitude,
but the clinical method is differ & characterized by:
1-making decisions on the basis of what to the scientists would be inadequate data.
2-tolerate a great degree of uncertainty in comparison to the scientific method.
3-depend on integrating the result of immediate observations with the previous
knowledge & experience in the best possible interests of the patient.
4- Nevertheless clinical method is rigorous & not simply intuition, & the diagnostic
formulation is equivalent to the scientist’s hypothesis.
5-Each further examination or laboratory investigation is a mean of testing the
formulation, & the final test being the patient’s response to the treatment.
6-A capacity for evaluation is required, & the clinical training is important to
recognize the extremes of harming the patient by hasty conclusions or by delaying
action until every possibility is excluded.