Thinking is the mental manipulation of information. Our mental representations simplify and summarize information from the environment.
A concept is a mental category that groups objects, relations, activities, abstractions, or qualities that share certain properties. Basic concepts have a moderate number of instances and are easier to acquire than concepts with few or many instances. Prototypical instances of a concept are more representative than others. The language we use to express concepts may influence how we perceive and think about the world -- a notion first proposed years ago by Benjamin Lee Whorf that is now getting renewed attention.
Propositions are made up of concepts and express a unitary idea. They may be linked together to form cognitive schemas, which serve as mental models of aspects of the world. Mental images also play a role in thinking.
Not all mental processing is conscious. Subconscious processes lie outside of awareness but can be brought into consciousness when necessary. They allow us to perform two or more actions at once, although when one of more these actions is complex, multitasking is inefficient, can introduce errors, and can even be dangerous. Non-conscious processes remain outside of awareness but nonetheless affect behavior; they are involved in what we call intuition and insight, and in implicit learning. Conscious processing may be carried out in a mindless fashion if we overlook changes in context that call for a change in behavior.
Reasoning rationally
Reasoning is purposeful mental activity that involves drawing inferences and conclusions from observations, facts, or assumptions (premises).
Formal reasoning problems can often be solved by applying an algorithm, a set of procedures guaranteed to produce a solution, or by using logical processes, such as deductive and inductive reasoning.
Informal reasoning problems often have no clearly correct solution. This agreement may exist about basic premises, information may be incomplete, and many viewpoints may compete. Such problems may call for the application of heuristics, rules of thumb that suggest a course of action without guaranteeing an optimal solution. They may also require dialectical thinking about opposing points of view.
Studies of reflective judgment should many people have trouble thinking dialectically. People in the prereflective stages do not distinguish between knowledge and belief, or between belief and evidence. Those in the quasi-reflective stages think that because knowledge is sometimes on certain, any judgment about the evidence is purely subjective. Those who think reflective Lee understand that although some things cannot be known with certainty, some judgments are more valid than others, depending on their coherence, fit with the evidence, and so on. Higher education moves people gradually closer to reflective judgment.
Barriers to reasoning rationally
The ability to reason clearly and rationally is affected by many cognitive biases. People tend to exaggerate the likelihood of improbable events, in part because of the availability heuristic sober: to be swayed and they are twice as by the desire to avoid loss; to overestimate their ability to have made accurate predictions (hindsight bias); to which had mostly to evidence that confirms what they want to believe (the confirmation bias); and to be mentally frigid, forming mental sets and seeing patterns where none exists.
The theory of cognitive dissonance holds that people are motivated to reduce the tension that exists when two cognitions, or a cognition in a behavior, conflict -- by rejecting or changing a belief, changing their behavior, or rationalizing. People are especially likely to do so with the need to justify decision (i.e. reduce postdision dissonance), when their actions violate their concepts of themselves as honest and kind, and when they have put hard work into the activity (the justification of effort).
Measuring intelligence: the psychometric approach
Intelligence is hard to define. Most theorists believe that a general ability (a g factor) underlies the many specific abilities tapped by intelligence test, whereas others do not.
The traditional approach to intelligence, the psychometric approach, focuses on how well people perform on standardized aptitude test. The intelligence quotient, or IQ, represents how a person has done on an intelligence test, compared to other people. Alfred Binet designed the first widely used intelligence test for the purpose of identifying children who could benefit from remedial work. But in the United States, people assume that intelligence tests revealed "natural ability," and they used the tests to categorize people in school and in the armed services.
IQ tests have been criticized for being biased in favor of white, middle-class people. However, efforts to construct tests that are free of cultural influence have been disappointing. Culture affects nearly everything to do with taking a test, from attitudes to problem-solving strategies. Negative stereotypes about a person's ethnicity, gender, or age may cause a person to suffer stereotype threat, a burden of doubt about his or her own abilities, which can lead to anxiety or "disidentification" with the test.
Dissecting intelligence: the cognitive approach
In contrast to the psychometric approach, caught at approaches to intelligence emphasized several kinds of intelligence and the strategies people used to solve problems rather than merely whether they get the right answers.
Sternberg's triarchic theory of intelligence proposes three aspects of intelligence:
- componential (including metacognition)
- experiential or creative
- contextual or practical.
Contextual intelligence allows you to acquire tacit knowledge, practical strategies that are important for success but are not explicitly taught.
Intelligence in one domain does not necessarily implied intelligence and another. Howard Gardner proposes that there are actually several "intelligences" besides that is usually considered, including musical and kinesthetic intelligence, and the capacity to understand the natural world, yourself, or others. The latter two intelligences overlap with psychologists call emotional intelligence, which is associated with personal, academic, and occupational success.
Intellectual achievement also depends on motivation and attitudes. Cross-cultural work shows that beliefs about the origins of mental abilities, parental standards, and attitudes toward education can help account for differences in academic performance.
Animal minds
Some researchers, especially those in cognitive ethology, argue that nonhuman animals have greater cognitive abilities than is usually thought. Some animals can use objects as rudimentary tools. Chimpanzees has showed evidence of a rudimentary understanding of number. Some researchers believe that the great apes, and possibly other animals, have some aspects of theory of mind, but understanding of how their own minds in the minds of others work, although not all researchers agree.
In several projects using visual symbol systems or American sign language (ASL), primates have acquired linguistic skills. Some animals (even some nonprimates) seem able to use simple grammatical ordering rules to convey or comprehend meaning. However, scientists are still divided about how to interpret these findings and the research on animal cognition, with some worrying about anthropomorphism and others worrying about anthropodenial.
