What is the difference between thinking and intelligence? Thinking. Thinking as a cognitive process Thinking as an integrator of intelligence

Thinking and intelligence are terms that are similar in content. Both terms express different aspects of the same phenomenon. A person endowed with intelligence is capable of carrying out thinking processes. Thinking and intelligence have always been the hallmarks of man, because we call man Homo sapiens - reasonable man. However, the concept of intelligence is broader than the concept of thinking. Scientists cannot give a single definition of intelligence. Everyone puts their own nuance into this concept. Some researchers focus on the fact that intelligence is the ability to acquire new knowledge and skills, while others study social aspects intelligence. Today in science there are two most common definitions of intelligence:

intelligence - the ability to adapt to the environment; intelligence - the ability to solve mental problems.

Many psychologists note that intelligence has a complex structure. What is included in the structure of intelligence - there are many answers to this question.

At the beginning of the 20th century. Spearman came to the conclusion that each person is characterized by a certain level of general intelligence (he called it the G factor). General intelligence determines how a person adapts to his environment. In addition, all people have developed specific abilities to varying degrees, which manifest themselves in solving specific problems of adaptation to the social environment. Subsequently, G. Eysenck interpreted the concept of general intelligence as the speed of information processing by the central nervous system (mental pace). However, the hypothesis of the “speed of information processing by the brain” does not yet have serious neurophysiological arguments.

Today, the most famous is D. Guilford’s “cubic” model of intelligence. He believed that intelligence can be described in three main categories:

• 1) operations;
• 2) content;
• 3) results.

Cattell distinguishes potential and crystalline intelligence. He believes that each of us already has a potential intelligence from birth, which underlies our ability to think, abstract and reason. Around the age of 20, this intelligence reaches its greatest flowering. On the other hand, crystalline intelligence is formed,

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consisting of various skills and knowledge that we acquire as we accumulate life experience. Crystal intelligence is formed precisely when solving problems of adaptation to the environment and requires the development of some abilities at the expense of others, as well as the acquisition of specific skills. Thus, crystalline intelligence is determined by the measure of mastery of the culture of the society to which a person belongs. Potential intelligence determines the primary accumulation of knowledge. From Cattell's point of view, potential intelligence is independent of upbringing and environment. It depends on the level of development of the tertiary zones of the cerebral cortex.

Hebb views intelligence from a slightly different perspective. He highlights intelligence A - this is the potential that is created at the moment of conception and serves as the basis for the development of an individual’s intellectual abilities. As for intelligence B, it is formed as a result of a person’s interaction with environment. To date, only intelligence B has been learned to be assessed by observing how a person performs mental operations. So far, scientists have not found a way to assess A.'s intelligence.

Disputes about the structure of intelligence are not accidental. They are not only of scientific interest, but also help answer the question that worries everyone - what factors determine the development of intelligence.

Today, scientists agree that the development of intelligence depends both on congenital factors and on upbringing and the child’s environment. Hereditary factors, chromosomal abnormalities, poor nutrition and maternal illness during pregnancy, abuse of antibiotics, tranquilizers or even aspirin in the first months of pregnancy, alcohol consumption and smoking can lead to a significant delay mental development child. But no matter what potential a child is born with, it is obvious that the forms of intellectual behavior necessary for his survival can develop and improve only through contact with the environment with which he will interact throughout his life. The richer and more varied the child’s communication with the people around him, the more successful the development of his intellect will be. In this regard, the role of the family’s social status becomes clear. Wealthy families have greater opportunities to create favorable conditions for the development of the child, the development of his abilities, his education and, ultimately, to increase the intellectual level of the child. The teaching methods used to develop the child’s abilities also have an impact. Unfortunately, traditional teaching methods are more focused on transferring knowledge to the child and pay relatively little attention to the development of a person’s abilities, intelligence, and creativity.

Intelligence is the “mind”, that is, a human property, the ability to pose and solve problems.

Thinking – “thinking” – is a process, that is, going beyond the immediate given.

Intelligence is the ability to think. Thinking is the process of realizing intelligence.

Thinking is a type of cognition, but unlike perception, indirect, that is, going beyond the immediate given. From one fact we draw a conclusion about another.

Not just creating a mental model of external conditions (perception), but establishing unobservable relationships of objects and deducing another model - this is the task of thinking.

Each of the mental processes in its own way removes the restrictions of environmental conditions on the formation of an adequate internal picture of the external world. The formation of secondary images (representations) and memory allows a person to imagine not only the “faces” of things, but also their backs. The past and the future become possible - that is, free movement along the timeline. Thinking allows you to remove all restrictions in time and space.

21. Types of thinking: visual-effective, pre-conceptual. Another type - conceptual thinking - is discussed in the next lecture.

Visually effective – characteristic of animals as well. The monkeys in Köhler's experiments were unable to reach a banana suspended from the ceiling until Sultan thought of using a box that was in the room, but it had to be turned over and used as a stand to reach the banana.

Piaget's children are at the level of sensorimotor intelligence - they develop visually effective thinking.

In the 1980s, American psychologists the Gardner couple managed to teach chimpanzees the language of the deaf and mute (they cannot speak due to limitations in the articulatory apparatus and phonemic hearing). The monkeys constructed phrases from several words, some even used words in a figurative sense, for example, the word “dirty” - for a person who does not fulfill their wishes. But in terms of development, chimpanzees do not exceed a 3-5 year old child.

Pre-conceptual thinking.

Children's judgments are isolated, about a given specific subject, and relate to visual reality. These are often judgments based on similarity or difference. The earliest form of proof is an example. Features of pre-conceptual thinking - egocentrism , that is, there is no ability to freely transfer the origin of coordinates, decentration in relation to one’s own “I”. Other properties – syncretism (the tendency to connect everything with everything, to operate with isolated cases), transduction (transition from particular to particular, bypassing the general, confusion of essential and non-essential properties), inconsistency of volume and content. Example. The cards contain the following items: 2 stones, 3 buckets, 7 dogs and 2 horses. Question: What are more living beings or physical bodies? Answer: living beings.

Insensitivity to contradictions.

Living sun? – yes. Why? - It's moving.

Confusing the relationship of natural causation with the relationship of human intention and its implementation.

The children interviewed by Piaget believed that rivers were dug by people, and mountains arose from the resulting earth.

Lack of ideas about conservation of quantity: they judge the amount of a substance by one parameter, the height of the liquid in the vessel, and do not take into account the volume. Before the child's eyes, a ball of dough is turned into a flat cake and placed on the table. Question: where is more dough? - In a flatbread. Awareness of the identity of the changing object is acquired gradually.

Visible, easily perceived properties seem to be more important than essential ones.

Big things are always heavy, small things are always light. Hence the inaccessibility of such a fundamental physical concept as mass.

Thinking and intelligence are similar terms. Their relationship becomes even clearer when translated into words from ordinary Russian. In this case, the word “mind” will correspond to intelligence. We say " smart man”, denoting individual differences in intelligence. We can also say that the child’s mind develops with age - this conveys the problem of intellectual development.

With the term “thinking” we can associate in our ordinary language the word “deliberation” or (less normatively, but perhaps more accurately) “thinking.” The word “mind” expresses a property, an ability; thinking is a process. When solving a problem, we think, and do not “get smart” - this is the sphere of the psychology of thinking, not intelligence. Thus, both terms express different aspects of the same phenomenon. An intelligent person is one who is capable of carrying out thinking processes. Intelligence is the ability to think. Thinking is a process in which intelligence is realized. Ushakov D.V. Thinking and intelligence // Psychology of the 21st century / Ed. V.N. Druzhinina. M.: Per Se, 2003, p. 291..

Thinking and intelligence have long been considered the most important and distinctive features of a person. It is not without reason that the term “homo sapiens” is used to define the species of modern man. A person who has lost his sight, hearing or the ability to move, of course, suffers a serious loss, but does not cease to be a person. After all, deaf Beethoven or blind Homer are considered by us as great personalities. The one who has lost his mind seems to us to be struck at the very essence of humanity.

Description various types and types of thinking is built on the premise that there is no thinking at all: thinking is heterogeneous and subject to detail. Different types thinking are divided according to their functional purpose, development, structure, means used, cognitive capabilities.

In psychology, the most common classification of types of thinking is: visual-actional, visual-figurative, verbal-logical. This classification is based on a genetic principle and reflects three successive levels of development of thinking. Each of these types of thinking is determined by two criteria. One of them (the first part of the names) is the specific form in which it is necessary to present the subject with a cognizable object or situation in order for them to be able to be successfully operated:

The object as such in its materiality and concreteness;

An object depicted in a picture, diagram, drawing;

An object described in one or another sign system.

Another criterion (the second part of the names) is the main ways in which a person experiences the world around him:

Through practical action with an object;

Using figurative representations;

Based on logical concepts and other sign formations.

The main characteristic of visual-effective thinking is determined by the ability to observe real objects and learn the relationships between them in a real transformation of the situation. Practical cognitive objective actions are the basis of all later forms of thinking. With visual-figurative thinking, the situation is transformed in terms of image or representation. The subject operates with visual images of objects through their figurative representations. At the same time, the image of an object makes it possible to combine a set of heterogeneous practical operations into complete picture. Mastery of visual and figurative representations expands the scope of practical thinking.

At the level of verbal-logical thinking, a subject can, using logical concepts, cognize essential patterns and unobservable relationships of the reality under study. The development of verbal-logical thinking rebuilds and organizes the world of figurative ideas and practical actions.

The described types of thinking form the stages of development of thinking in phylogenesis and ontogenesis. They coexist in an adult and function in solving various problems. Therefore, they cannot be assessed in terms of greater or lesser value. Verbal-logical thinking cannot be the “ideal” of thinking in general, the end point of intellectual development.

Intelligence (from the Latin intellectus - understanding, comprehension, comprehension) in psychology is defined as the general ability to cognition and problem solving, which determines the success of any activity and underlies other abilities. Intelligence is not limited to thinking, although thinking abilities form the basis of intelligence. In general, intelligence is a system of all human cognitive abilities: sensation, perception, memory, representation, imagination and thinking. The concept of intelligence as a general mental ability is used as a generalization of behavioral characteristics associated with successful adaptation to new life challenges.

In 1937, the first version of his test for measuring intelligence was proposed by D. Wexler. He created a scale to measure intelligence not only for children, but also for adults. The Wechsler intellectual scale for children has been translated into Russian, adapted and widely used in our country. The Wechsler scale differed significantly from the Stanford-Binet test. The tasks that were offered to the subjects according to L. Theremin’s method were the same for all ages. The basis for the assessment was the number of correct answers given by the subject. This number was then compared with the average number of responses for subjects of a given age group. This procedure greatly simplified the calculation of IQ. D. Wexler proposed a qualitative classification of levels of intelligence development, based on the frequency of occurrence of a certain IQ:

69 and below - mental defect (dementia);

70-79 - borderline level of development;

80-89 - reduced level of intelligence;

90-109 - average level of intelligence;

110 - 119 is a good norm;

120-129 - high intelligence;

130 and above - very high intelligence.

Currently, interest in intelligence tests has weakened significantly, primarily due to the low predictive value of these methods: subjects with high scores on intelligence tests do not always achieve high achievements in life, and vice versa. In this regard, the term “good intelligence” even appeared in psychology, which is understood as intellectual abilities that are effectively implemented in a person’s real life and contribute to his high social achievements.

Today, despite attempts to identify new “elementary intellectual abilities,” researchers are generally inclined to believe that general intelligence exists as a universal mental ability. In connection with the successes in the development of cybernetics, systems theory, information theory, etc., there has been a tendency to understand intelligence as cognitive activity any complex systems capable of learning, purposeful processing of information and self-regulation. The results of psychogenetic studies indicate high level genetic determination of intelligence. Nonverbal intelligence is more trainable. The individual level of intellectual development is also determined by a number of environmental influences: the “intellectual climate” of the family, the order of birth of the child in the family, the profession of the parents, the breadth of social contacts in early childhood, etc.

Topic: “Thinking. Intelligence. Imagination. Speech".

Thinking - the mental process of reflecting the most significant 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.

The source of people's mental activity is real life, practice. Work, study, play - any type of activity requires solving mental problems.

Mental operations:

1. Analysis – mental division of the whole into parts or properties;
2. Synthesis – mental unification of parts and properties of an object or phenomenon into a single whole;
3. Comparison – mental comparison of objects or phenomena and finding similarities and differences between them;
4. Generalization – mental association of objects and phenomena according to their common and essential characteristics;
5. Abstraction – mental selection of essential properties or features while simultaneously abstracting from non-essential properties or features of objects and phenomena.

To think abstractly means to be able to recognize some moment, side, feature or property of a recognized object and consider them without connection with other features of the same object.

Types of thinking:

1. Subject-effective thinking - a type of thinking that is carried out only in the presence of objects and direct action with them.
2. Visual-figurative thinking – characterized by reliance on representation (images of previously perceived objects and phenomena), and also operates with visual images of objects (drawing, diagram, plan).
3. Abstract logical thinking – relies on abstract concepts and logical actions with them.

Basic forms of abstract thinking:

1. 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.
2. Judgment – a form of thinking that reflects connections between concepts, expressed in the form of affirmation or negation.
3. Inference - a form of thinking through which a new judgment (conclusion) is derived from one or more judgments (premises).

Inference is indirect, inferential knowledge.

Intelligence

« Intelligence “is the global ability to act intelligently, think rationally and cope well with life’s circumstances” (Wechsler), i.e. intelligence is considered as a person’s ability to adapt to the environment.

Imagination

Imagination is the mental process of creating something new in the form of an image, idea or idea.

The process of imagination is peculiar only to man and is a necessary condition his work activity.

Speech

Human speech is the main means of communication, a means of thinking, a carrier of consciousness and memory, a carrier of information (written texts).

Speech, like all higher mental functions of a person, is the product of a long cultural and historical process.

Speech is language in action. Language is a system of signs that includes words with their meanings and syntax - a set of rules by which sentences are constructed.

Speech has three functions:

1. Significative (designation);
2. Generalization;
3. Communication (transfer of knowledge, relationships, feelings);

Significative function – distinguishes human speech from animal communication. A person has an idea of ​​an object or phenomenon associated with a word. Mutual understanding in the process of communication is thus connected to the unity of designation of objects or phenomena by the perceiver and the speaker.

Generalization function related to, that a word denotes not only a single, given object, but a whole group of similar objects, and is always the bearer of their essential characteristics.

Communication function , i.e. transmission of information.

If the first two functions of speech can be considered as internal mental activity, then the communicative function acts as an external speech behavior aimed at contacts with other people. In communicative speech functions highlight three sides:

1. Information;
2. Expressive;
3. Willful;

Phylogenetic aspect (or phylogeny of thinking) involves the study of how human thinking developed and improved in human history. IN phylogenythinking and speech, a pre-speech phase in the development of intelligence and a pre-intellectual phase in the development of speech clearly emerges.

Sociogenesis V psychology- origin and development consciousness, personalities, interpersonal relationships, due to the features socialization in different cultures and socio-economic formations.

In psychology ontogenesis- formation of the basic structures of the individual’s psyche during his childhood; the study of ontogenesis is the main task of child psychology.

By stage of development in ontogenesis:

Visual-effective thinking(the first genetic stage of development of mental activity. The child directly perceives an object and performs practical actions with it);

Visual-figurative thinking(the second genetic stage of thinking. The search for the unknown is carried out through the identification of hidden connections, properties and possible transformations of the elements of the image of an object);

Verbal and logical thinking(A person operates with concepts and logical constructs that function on the basis of language).

44. Thinking and intelligence

Intelligence - with the totality of human mental abilities ensuring the success of his cognitive activity. In a broad sense, this term refers to the totality of all cognitive functions of the individual(perception, memory, imagination, thinking), and in a narrow sense - his mental abilities1. In psychology there is a concept of the structure of intelligence, however, the understanding of this structure varies widely depending on

Thinking and intelligence are terms that are similar in content. Their relationship becomes even clearer if we switch to everyday speech. In this case, the word “mind” will correspond to intelligence. We say “smart person”, denoting individual characteristics of intelligence. We can also say that “the child’s mind develops with age” - this conveys the problem of intellectual development. We can associate the term “thinking” with the word “deliberation.” The word “mind” expresses a property, an ability, and “deliberation” expresses a process. Thus, both terms express different aspects of the same phenomenon. A person endowed with intelligence is capable of carrying out thinking processes. Intelligence is the ability to think, and thinking is the process of realizing intelligence.

In psychology there is a concept structures of intelligence , however, the understanding of this structure varies widely depending on the views of a particular psychologist. For example, a famous scientist R. Cattell distinguished two sides in the structure of intelligence: dynamic - “fluid” (fluid) and static - “crystallized” (crystallized). According to his concept, “fluid intelligence” manifests itself in tasks whose solution requires quick and flexible adaptation to a new situation. It depends more on the person's genotype. "Crystallized intelligence" depends more on social environment and manifests itself when solving problems that require appropriate skills and experience.

You can use other models of the structure of intelligence, for example, highlighting the following components in it:

ability to learn (quickly master new knowledge, skills and abilities);

the ability to successfully operate with abstract symbols and concepts;

ability to solve practical problems and problematic situations;

the amount of available long-term and working memory.

Accordingly, intelligence tests include several groups of tasks. These are tests that reveal the amount of knowledge in a certain area; tests that evaluate a person’s intellectual development in connection with his biological age; tests that determine a person’s ability to solve problem situations and intellectual tasks. In addition, there are special tests. For example, on abstract-logical or spatial thinking, on verbal intelligence, etc.

The most well-known tests of this type include:

Stanford-Binet test- assesses the child’s intellectual development;

Wechsler test- assesses the verbal and non-verbal components of intelligence;

Raven's test- non-verbal intelligence;

Eysenck test (IQ)- determines the general level of intelligence development.