EntranceWhat is productive thinking? I
1. General characteristics of types of thinking.
The subject of our research is creative (productive) thinking. Although this concept has long been used in psychological literature, its content is debatable. Turning to the analysis of literature, we set ourselves the task of finding out how the largest representatives psychological theories define the concept of creative thinking, how to resolve the issue of the relationship between the productive and reproductive components of mental activity.
For foreign psychology, a one-sided approach to the characterization of thinking is very typical: it acts as a process that is only reproductive or productive. Representatives of the first approach were associationists (A. Ben, D. Hartley, I. Herbart, T. Ribot, etc.). Characterizing thinking from an idealistic position, they reduced its essence to abstraction from dissimilar elements, to the unification of similar elements into complexes, to their recombination, as a result of which nothing fundamentally new arises.
Currently, the reproductive approach has found its expression in the theory of behaviorism (A. Weiss, E. Ghazri, J. Loeb, B. Skinner, E. Thorndike, etc.). This theory attracted the attention of scientists with its focus on the development of precise methods for studying the psyche, on the objectivity of the approach to analysis psychic phenomena, however, the behaviorists themselves carried out the analysis from the standpoint of mechanistic materialism.
Although behaviorism has been sharply criticized for denying the role of internal, mental factors, its ideas have their supporters.
This is very clearly expressed in the works of B. Skinner. In theoretical terms, he directly denies the existence of such a phenomenon as thinking in humans, reducing it to conditioned behavior associated with the consolidation of reactions leading to success, to the development of a system of intellectual skills that can be formed in fundamentally the same way as skills in animals. On these foundations, he developed a linear system of programmed training, which provides for the presentation of material, so expanded and detailed that even the weakest student makes almost no mistakes when working with it, and, therefore, he does not have false connections between stimuli and reactions, and correct ones are developed. skills based on positive reinforcement.
The exponents of the second approach to thinking as a purely productive process are representatives of Gestalt psychology (M. Wertheimer, W. Köhler, K. Koffka, etc.). They consider productivity as a specific feature of thinking that distinguishes it from other mental processes. Thinking arises in a problem situation that includes unknown links. The transformation of this situation leads to a solution that results in something new that is not contained in the fund of existing knowledge and is not directly deducible from it on the basis of the laws of formal logic. A significant role in solving a problem is played by insight as a direct, direct vision of the path to finding what is being sought, a method of transforming the situation that provides an answer to the question posed in the problem. Gestaltists in the study of thinking widely used tasks in which the subjects had a conflict between their existing knowledge and the requirements of the task, and they were forced to overcome the barrier of past experience, as a result of which the very process of searching for the unknown was especially obvious. Thanks to this, scientists received very valuable material about the characteristics of mental activity (K. Duncker, L. Szekely).
However, giving great importance insight, aha-experience, the Gestaltists did not show the very mechanism of its occurrence, did not reveal that insight was prepared by the active activity of the subject himself, his past experience.
Having identified its productive nature as a specific feature of thinking, the Gestaltists sharply contrasted it with reproductive processes. In their experiments, past experience and knowledge acted as a brake on thinking that was productive in nature, although under the influence of accumulated facts they still had to limit the categoricalness of their conclusions and recognize that knowledge can also play a positive role in mental activity.
Such recognition, in particular, is found in L. Székely, who specifically dwells on the question of the relationship between thinking and knowledge. Characterizing reproductive thinking, the author notes that it involves the reproduction of processes that took place in the past, allowing for some minor modifications in them. He does not deny the role of past experience in creative thinking, considering knowledge as a starting point for understanding and material for solving a problem.
In terms of the problem facing us, we were interested in the question of what are the signs on the basis of which researchers revealed the specifics of thinking, whether and to what extent they reflected its reproductive and productive aspects. An analysis of foreign literature showed that in any case, when it came to thinking, the emergence of a new thing was talked about, but the nature of this new thing and its sources in various theories were not identical.
In reproductive theories of thinking, the new appeared as a result of complication or recombination based mainly on the similarity of existing elements of past experience, the actualization of a direct connection between the requirements of the task and subjectively identical elements of existing knowledge. The solution to the problem itself proceeds on the basis of either mechanical trial and error, followed by the consolidation of a randomly found correct solution, or the updating of a certain system of previously formed operations.
In productive theories of thinking, the new, arising as a result of mental activity, is characterized by its originality (for Gestaltists, this is a new structure, a new Gestalt). It arises in problematic situation, which usually involves overcoming the barrier of past experience that interferes with the search for a new one, requiring an understanding of this situation. The solution is carried out as a transformation of the original problems, but the principle of the solution itself arises suddenly, unexpectedly, in the order of insight, direct consideration of the solution path, depending mainly on the objective conditions of the problem and very little on the activity of the deciding subject himself, on his own experience.
Ideas about the creative nature of human thinking, about its specificity, relationships with other processes, and above all with memory, about the patterns of its development were developed in the studies of many Soviet psychologists (B. G. Ananyev, P. Ya. Galperin, A. V. Zaporozhets , G. S. Kostyuk, A. N. Leontyev, A. A. Lyublinskaya, N. A. Menchinskaya, Yu. A. Samarin, B. M. Teplov, M. N. Shardakov, P. Ya. Shevarev, L I. Uznadze, N. P. Eliava, etc.). A broad generalization of the provisions on the essence and specificity of thinking was carried out by S. L. Rubinstein.
In the works of Soviet psychologists, productivity appears as the most characteristic, specific feature of thinking, distinguishing it from other mental processes, and at the same time, its contradictory connection with reproduction is considered.
Thinking is an active, purposeful activity, during which existing and newly received information is processed, its external, random, secondary elements are separated from the main, internal ones, reflecting the essence of the situations under study, and the natural connections between them are revealed. Thinking cannot be productive without relying on past experience, and at the same time it involves going beyond its limits, discovering new knowledge, thereby expanding its fund and thereby increasing the possibility of solving more and more new, more complex problems.
In thinking as a process of generalized and indirect cognition of reality, its productive and reproductive components are intertwined in a dialectically contradictory unity, and their proportion in specific mental activity can be different. Under the influence of life's ever-increasing demands on its creative component, the need arose to distinguish special types of thinking - productive and reproductive.
It should be noted that in Soviet literature there is an objection to the identification of such types, since any thinking process is productive (A. V. Brushlinsky). However, most psychologists who study thinking consider it appropriate to distinguish these types (P. P. Blonsky, D. N. Zavalishina, N. A. Menchinskaya, Ya. A. Ponomarev, V. N. Pushkin, O. K. Tikhomirov) .
In the literature, these types (sides, components) of mental activity are called differently. The following terms are used as synonyms for the concept of productive thinking: creative thinking, independent, heuristic, creative. Synonyms for reproductive thinking are the following terms: verbal-logical, discursive, rational, receptive, etc. We use the terms productive and reproductive thinking.
Productive thinking is characterized by a high degree of novelty of the product obtained on its basis, its originality. This thinking appears when a person, having tried to solve a problem based on its formal logical analysis with the direct use of methods known to him, he is convinced of the futility of such attempts and he has a need for new knowledge that allows him to solve the problem: this need ensures the high activity of the subject solving the problem. Awareness of the need itself indicates the creation of a problematic situation in a person (A. M. Matyushkin).
Finding what you are looking for involves the discovery of features unknown to the subject that are essential for solving the problem of relationships, natural connections between features, and the methods by which they can be found. A person is forced to act in conditions of uncertainty, to outline and test a number of possible solutions, to choose between them, sometimes without sufficient grounds for doing so. He looks for the key to a solution based on hypotheses and their testing, that is, methods are based on a known prediction of what can be obtained as a result of transformations. Generalizations play a significant role in this, making it possible to reduce the amount of information on the basis of the analysis of which a person comes to the discovery of new knowledge, to reduce the number of operations carried out and steps to achieve the goal.
As L.L. Gurova emphasizes, its meaningful, semantic analysis, aimed at revealing the natural relations of the objects discussed in the problem, turns out to be very fruitful in finding a way to solve a problem. In him significant role play figurative components of thinking that allow you to directly operate with these natural relationships of objects. They represent a special, figurative logic that makes it possible to establish connections not with two, as in verbal reasoning, but with many links in the analyzed situation, to act, according to L.L. Gurova, in a multidimensional space.
In studies conducted under the leadership of S. L. Rubinstein (L. I. Antsyferova, L. V. Brushinsky, A. M. Matyushkin, K. A. Slavskaya, etc.), as an effective technique used in productive thinking, analysis through synthesis. Based on such an analysis, the desired property of an object is revealed when the object is included in the system of connections and relationships in which it more clearly reveals this property. The found property opens up a new circle of connections and relationships of the object with which this property can be correlated. This is the dialectic of creative cognition of reality.
In this process, as many researchers note, there is often an outwardly sudden perception of a solution path - an insight, an aha experience, and it often occurs when the person was not directly involved in solving the problem. In reality, such a decision is prepared by past experience, depends on previous analytical-synthetic activity and, above all, on the decisive level of verbal-logical conceptual generalization achieved (K. A. Slavskaya). However, the process of searching for a solution, to a large extent, is carried out intuitively, under the threshold of consciousness, without finding its adequate reflection in the word, and that is why its result, having broken through into the sphere of consciousness, is recognized as insight, supposedly not related to the activity previously carried out by the subject, aimed at to discover new knowledge.
Including its immanent, unconscious components into productive thinking, some researchers have found experimental techniques that make it possible to identify some of the features of these components.
An interesting methodological technique for the experimental study of the intuitive components of productive thinking was used by V. N. Pushkin. He offered subjects such visual problems (simulating chess games, a game of 5, etc.), the solution of which could be traced with the eyes. These eye movements were recorded using an electrooculographic technique. The path of eye movement was correlated with the features of the task solution and with verbal reports about it. The study showed that a person, when solving a problem, collects much more information based on the analysis of a visual situation than he himself realizes.
A great influence on the solution of the problem, as shown by the results of research by Georgian psychologists belonging to the school of D. N. Uznadze, can be exerted by the presence of an attitude, that is, an internal unconscious state of readiness for action, which determines the specifics of all mental activity being carried out.
Using the method of introducing auxiliary tasks, Ya. A. Ponomarev identified a number of patterns in the influence of auxiliary tasks on problem solving. The greatest effect is achieved when a person, based on logical analysis, has already become convinced that he cannot solve the problem using the methods he has tried, but has not yet lost faith in the possibility of success. In this case, the auxiliary task itself should not be so interesting that it completely absorbs the consciousness of the solver, and not so easy that its solution can be performed automatically. The less automated the solution is, the easier it is to transfer it to the solution of the main task - the problem.
As experiments showed, when using the hint contained in the second problem, the subject usually believed that the later found solution to the main problem was in no way connected with the solution to the auxiliary problem. It seemed to him that the solution to the problem that was bothering him came suddenly, by way of insight. If the auxiliary task was given before the main one, then it did not have any effect on the subsequent actions of the subjects.
Productive or creative thinking is called thinking that is not based on past experience. The significance of studying this particular type of thinking for understanding the general mechanisms of problem solving in the absence of past experience was shown in the works of psychologists who considered themselves to be part of the school of Gestalt psychology. One of the important principles of Gestalt psychology is the principle here and now which involves describing psychological patterns without referring to the description of the role of past experience. It is these principles that were used by the founder of the school of Gestalt psychology, M. Wertheimer, as well as the German psychologist K. Duncker, already mentioned in the previous paragraph, to develop the theory of productive thinking.
According to K. Duncker (1945), thinking is a process that, through insight problem situation leads to adequate response actions. By insight Duncker, like other Gestalt psychologists, understood the process understanding situation, penetration into it, when various and disparate elements of the situation are combined into a single whole.
The solution to the problem lies within itself, argued K. Duncker. Therefore, there is no need for the subject to turn to past experience, which not only does not help the thinking process, but, on the contrary, can hinder the effective course of thinking due to functional fixation. The problem situation must first of all be comprehended by the subject, i.e. be perceived as a whole containing a certain conflict.
Conflict– this is what prevents the decision. Understanding the conflict presupposes penetration into the situation of solving the problem. Let's take, for example, the famous experiments of another founder of the school of Gestalt psychology, W. Köhler, which he conducted during the First World War with great apes - chimpanzees - in the Canary Islands. In these experiments, the monkey tried to reach a bait that was located too far or high from it. Conflict This task obviously consists in the fact that the monkey cannot reach the bait with its forelimbs. Penetration the situation should indicate to the monkey that its limbs are too short. Another example of conflict and penetration involves a problem where it is required to prove that a metal ball bounces off a metal surface due to deformation, which nevertheless recovers very quickly. Conflict of this task is that the subject cannot check it due to the speed of the deformation. Penetration in the situation is expressed in the understanding that the two substances restore their shape too quickly for the effect of deformation to be maintained.
K. Duncker argues that the result of insight, or penetration into the situation of a task, is the finding functional solution tasks. It arises from a given problem situation and is based on internal and obvious connections with the conditions of the problem situation. To understand any solution to a problem as a solution means to understand it as the embodiment of its functional solution. At the same time, Duncker especially insists that if a subject is faced with two different problems that have a common functional solution, successfully obtaining an answer to the first problem does not help him at all when analyzing the next problem, even if he solves these two problems in a row.
In the examples we have considered, the functional solutions would be, respectively, to "lengthen" the monkey's limbs, which turn out to be too short, and to slow down or maintain the effect of the deformation. You can “lengthen” the limbs by using a tool – a stick, with which the monkey is able to reach the bait. You can preserve the deformation of the ball by covering it with a soft shell, such as paint.
Note that the same functional solution may have different implementation methods. For example, a monkey will take a box rather than a stick, place it under the bait and climb onto it. And instead of paint, which preserves the deformation of the ball, you can use a more technologically advanced version of video recording.
Thus, in the theory of K. Duncker and other Gestalt psychologists, productive thinking is described as a two-stage process.
At the first stage, the problem is studied. It provides insight into the conflict conditions of a problem situation. At the second stage, the process of implementing (or executing) the previously found functional solution is carried out, choosing what is really needed to solve the problem if the functional solution does not contain its implementation.
Despite the fact that the theory of productive thinking was developed by K. Duncker back in the 30s. last century, it still remains one of the most authoritative psychological theories of thinking. However, its critics very often point out that intelligence tasks, “Dunker” tasks, are just a small, if not insignificant, part of the tasks that we encounter in thinking processes.
This is why later theories of thinking rely heavily on thinking processes reproductive character.
I have often met people who said that they do not like to think. In any difficult life situation, they tried to fill their time with some activities, meetings, and so on - just so as not to be left alone with their thoughts. Moreover, this applies both to really difficult cases and to simply unpleasant situations. Typically, such people avoid loneliness, need to be listened to and given advice - as if shifting the need to think about the problem onto others. Trying to find out through communication why they don’t like to think, I came to the conclusion that one of the key reasons is that their thinking is unproductive. What they consider thinking is actually not such, because, unlike real thinking, it does not bring any final product. To clarify, here are examples of productive and unproductive thinking.
- Let's say a person is faced with some problem. A person begins to think about this problem - about how big and complex it is, about how much trouble it will bring him, about how bad everything is in his life, and so on. This is an example of unproductive thinking. There is no benefit from such thinking, but the harm is obvious: the more you think about the problem, the more complicated it seems, the more frightening it is, the wider the abyss of despair and hopelessness lies ahead. It is not surprising that people who think this way are afraid and avoid these thoughts. You need to think about the problem correctly so that ultimately, in the course of these thoughts, you can find its solution. That is, when thinking about a problem, you need to think about how you can solve it, what needs to be done to do this, where to find the necessary information that will help in resolving it, etc.
- Another example. Let's say some unpleasant situation happened to a person that does not show him in the best light. An example of unproductive thinking in this case would be fixation on this situation, worrying about it, constant mental “overthinking” of the situation, exaggerating its importance and thus increasing one’s suffering. In this case, it will be productive to think about what this situation teaches, what conclusions should be drawn from it, whether a person can influence it, correct something - in himself or in the situation.
- The feeling of guilt for something is probably familiar to everyone. Here, too, two approaches to thinking about the situation can be distinguished - unproductive and productive. The first assumes that a person engages in self-flagellation, psychologically “punishing” himself for an offense. In the second, a person understands that self-flagellation has no benefit to anyone, and he needs to think about how to atone or at least compensate for his guilt and the damage caused.
- Another example. A man has a dream. If he thinks productively, he will think about how to achieve his dream, how to realize it, what needs to be done for this, what resources he needs, and will think about drawing up a plan to realize his dream. In the case of unproductive thinking, a person will think about his dream, imagine how wonderful it will be if it comes true, he will draw in his thoughts various wonderful pictures of what his life will be like after reaching the limits of his dreams and... that’s all. There will be no thoughts in the direction of what he needs to do to achieve his dream, and no actions in the same direction - and even more so.
Reproductive thinking, characterized by less productivity, nevertheless plays an important role in both cognitive and practical human activity. On the basis of this type of thinking, problems of a structure familiar to the subject are solved.
Reproductive thinking is of great importance in educational activities schoolchildren. It provides an understanding of new material as it is presented, and the application of knowledge in practice. The possibilities of reproductive thinking are primarily determined by a person’s initial minimum knowledge; as research has shown, it is easier to develop than productive thinking, and at the same time plays a significant role in solving problems that are new to the subject. In this case, it appears at the initial stage, when a person tries to solve a new problem using methods known to him and becomes convinced that familiar methods do not provide him with success. Awareness of this leads to the emergence of a “problem situation”, i.e. activates productive thinking, ensuring the discovery of new knowledge, the formation of new systems of connections, which will later provide him with the solution of similar problems.
Awareness of the solution path found by the subject, its verification and logical justification are again carried out on the basis of reproductive thinking. Thus, real productive (and its highest level, creative) activity, the process of independent cognition of the surrounding reality, is the result of a complex interaction between reproductive and productive types of mental activity. The basis for the division into reproductive and productive thinking, as already noted, is the degree of novelty for the subject of the knowledge obtained in the process of thinking. Creative thinking should be considered as " extreme point", the highest degree of manifestation of productive thinking, distinguished by objective novelty and originality of its product.
Results of long-term research, analysis teaching experience and literary data served as the basis for identifying a number of psychological and pedagogical principles, which, we believe, are an important component of the system of developmental education, education that has a significant impact on the intellectual development of students.
1. The principle of problematicity.
2. The principle of harmonious development of various components of thinking.
3. The principle of the formation of algorithmic and heuristic techniques of mental activity,
Let us describe these principles in more detail.
The principle of problematicity, responding to the specifics of productive thinking - its focus on the discovery of new knowledge, is the main, leading principle of developmental learning. Problem-based learning is such learning in which the acquisition of knowledge and First stage the formation of intellectual skills occurs in the process of relatively independent decision system of tasks-problems, proceeding under the general guidance of the teacher. In the process of searching for a solution to a problem, students often encounter contradictions between existing knowledge and the requirements of the task, identify new elements of knowledge, ways of operating it, master methods of cognition, which expands their capabilities in solving even more complex problems. This active independent activity leads to the formation of new connections, personality traits, positive qualities mind and thereby to a microshift in their mental development. (24, p.38)
CAMBODIA, (Kingdom of Cambodia), a state in the Southeast. Asia, in the south of the Indochina Peninsula. 181 thousand km2. Population 9.3 million people (1993); St. 80% Khmer. Urban population 12% (1989). Official language- Khmer. Most believers are Buddhists. Constitutional monarchy, head of state is the king. The Constitution provides for a unicameral National Assembly as the legislative body. Administrative-territorial division: 19 provinces (khets) and 2 cities of central subordination. The capital is Phnom Penh. It is washed by the waters of the Siamese Hall. Most of the surface is lowland in the lower reaches of the river. Mekong; in the west - the Kravan Mountains (height up to 1813 m). The climate is tropical monsoon. Temperatures 26-30 °C. Precipitation is 750-2000 mm per year. The main river is the Mekong; lake Tonle Sap. Tropical forests, savannas. National Park Angkor, several nature reserves. In the 1st-6th centuries. on the territory of Cambodia - the state of Funan, in the 9th-13th centuries. Khmer Empire Kambuja Desha - a large state in the Southeast. Asia. In the 14th-19th centuries. Siamese troops invaded repeatedly. In 1863, France imposed a protectorate treaty on the Kingdom of Cambodia (the country's official name in 1863-1976), which was replaced in 1884 by a treaty that effectively turned it into a French colony. In 1940-45 under Japanese occupation. In 1951, the Cambodian People's Revolutionary Party (CPRP) was formed. The rise of the liberation struggle forced France to withdraw its administration and troops from the country on November 9, 1953. In 1957, a law on neutrality was adopted. In March 1970, right-wing forces carried out a coup d'état and created the so-called. Phnom Penh regime. Popular masses launched a struggle against the regime: in April 1975 Phnom Penh and the entire country were liberated, but power was seized by the leftist Khmer Rouge group. In January 1979, patriotic forces overthrew the anti-people regime. In 1991, an agreement on a comprehensive political settlement in Cambodia. In 1993, a new constitution was adopted, the monarchy was restored and the Kingdom of Cambodia, led by King Norodom Sihanouk, was proclaimed. Cambodia is an agricultural country. IN agriculture 85% of the working population is employed. 16% of the territory is cultivated, of which approx. 1/2 under rice; they cultivate corn, cassava, and legumes; from industrial crops - tobacco, sugar cane, jute, rubber, olives, spices. Animal husbandry. Fishing. Wood harvesting. Industry for processing agricultural raw materials, wood, fish. Automotive and tractor assembly, metalworking, ship repair, cement, chemical, pharmaceutical, textile, timber and paper enterprises. Electricity production 70 million kWh (1990). Handicrafts. Length (1988) railways 649 km, roads 14.8 thousand km. Main ports: Phnom Penh, Sihanoukville. Export: rubber, wood, fruits, black pepper, fish. Main foreign trade partners: Vietnam, Russia and countries of Eastern Europe, Japan, etc. The monetary unit is riel.
TERESA (Mother Teresa) (in the world Agnes Gonja Bojaxhiu, Bojaxhiu) (b. 1910), founder (1950, India) and abbess of the Catholic Order of Charity. In various countries she founded schools, medical centers, and shelters for the poor. Nobel Prize peace (1979).
OPHIOLITES, a complex of ultramafic and mafic intrusive (dunites, peridotites, pyroxenites, gabbro), effusive (ultrabasites) and sedimentary (mainly deep-sea sediments) rocks; presumably considered as relics of the oceanic crust of the geological past, transported to the margins of the continents.
The experience of repeated effective human actions in various specific situations leads to the formation in his central nervous system neural models of these situations. As long as the information entering the brain is in accordance with these neuronal patterns, the person's response can remain standard. Mental activity caused by stimuli of this kind comes down to the reproduction of the same habitual thoughts, cliched thoughts, conditioned reflex thoughts. In this case, we talk about reproductive thinking.
However, a person constantly has to encounter circumstances that are new to him and, at the same time, require active action from him. Such situations in which a person must act, although the method of action is unknown to him, are called problem situations. For example, for a student, a problematic situation in the learning process arises, in particular, whenever he encounters a task, the method of solving which is still unknown to him.
To overcome a problematic situation, reproductive thinking is not enough. A qualitatively different mental activity is needed, which should lead to the emergence of new ideas, to finding, within a limited time, an adequate course of action that is new for a given individual. Thinking, the result of which is the emergence in a person’s mind of an idea that is new to him, is called productive thinking.
– The concept of “productive thinking” can apparently be considered as a synonym for the term “creative thinking”?
It is possible, but the words “creativity” and “creative” are usually used to denote mental activity that “generates something new, something that has never happened before.” Another definition: “Creativity is a spiritual activity, the result of which is the creation of original values, the establishment of new, previously unknown factors, properties and patterns of the material world and spiritual culture.” In the above definitions one can notice social aspect concepts of “creativity”: creativity, creative thinking results in the creation of ideas or material values in which they are embodied, new to humanity, or at least to a significant part of it. Thus, thinking is recognized as creative only when it leads to a result that is new to other people. For productive thinking, the novelty of the product of mental activity is sufficient only for the person carrying out this activity. Did you notice the significant difference?
- Yes, it is quite. But why then are creative and productive thinking often equated?
From the point of view of psychophysiology. Because all the processes occurring in the brain of a given individual during creative and productive thinking are the same.
- Yes, of course, you could guess it yourself. A person, receiving a new result for him, does not know that it is new only for him.
Absolutely right.
Let's go further. Research by Soviet psychologists has established that a necessary attribute of productive thinking is participation emotional sphere. Emotional stress that arises at certain moments of mental activity ensures a sharp increase in its intensity. Functional purpose of emotions associated with cognitive activity(gnostic emotions), widespread activation of the cerebral cortex. When developing new ones for this person ideas, new forms of behavior, new ways of acting, new neural connections must be formed. Which nerve cells will participate in this will be revealed only after these patterns arise, that is, after the completion of productive mental activity, as a result of overcoming a problematic situation. Therefore, in the process of productive thinking, almost the entire brain is involved through emotional activation.
– That is, productive thinking and emotions are “tightly” connected?
Yes, and this is not a hypothesis, but a well-established fact. Convincing evidence of the participation of emotions in creative thinking was obtained by O.K. Tikhomirov and his staff.
– I wonder how you can determine whether emotions are involved in thinking or not? If only visually, then this is not scientific fact, but a subjective point of view.
Exists traditional method registration of occurrence emotional stress in humans – a change in the electrical resistance of the skin. The researchers used it. At the moment of receiving or realizing information that is unexpected for a person, requires immediate active action from him or, in any case, greatly excites him, a sharp decrease in skin resistance and a change in skin potential occurs. This electrical activity of the skin associated with mental activity, was discovered back in 1888-1890 by Feret and Tarkhanov independently and was called galvanic skin reaction (GSR).
OK. Tikhomirov and his colleagues recorded GSR in the process of mental activity associated with solving chess problems. It was found that GSR occurs (with a delay of up to several seconds) at the moment when a person’s train of thought abruptly changes direction, when the subject has the feeling that he has found a promising approach to solving a problem. Numerous experiments have shown that in the process of solving a chess problem unfamiliar to a subject, in all cases when he manages to find a solution, at least one decrease in the electrical resistance of the skin is observed. Often, during the search for a solution, GSR was observed several times. Synchronous recording of oral reasoning accompanying the decision and registration of sequences of points of fixation of gaze on chessboard in the process of analyzing the position, they made it possible to unambiguously associate the moments of the appearance of GSR with sudden changes in the subject’s train of thought, that is, with the moments when the thought begins to work in a new, unexpected direction for him.