Reproductive and productive thinking in the learning process. Reproductive thinking, characterized by less productivity, nevertheless plays an important role in

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 claims 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.

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PRODUCTIVE THINKING

M. Wertheimer

Max Wertheimer - an outstanding German psychologist, one of the founders of Gestalt psychology - was born on April 15, 1880 in Prague, died on October 12, 1943 in New York. In 1904 he defended his dissertation under the guidance of O. Külpe. He worked at the University of Berlin for many years. In 1933, M. Wertheimer, like other creators of Gestalt psychology, was forced to leave Nazi Germany and continued his teaching and research activities in the USA, working at the New School for Social Research (New York). Apparently, the scientist’s reaction to fascism explains M. Wertheimer’s special attention to the problems of human dignity, personality psychology, and problems of the theory of ethics, which he developed in the last years of his life while working at this school.

In our country, M. Wertheimer is known primarily as a theorist of Gestalt psychology and an experimental researcher in the field of psychology of visual perception. Gestalt psychology was formed as an opposition to associative psychology. M. Wertheimer, W. Köhler, K. Koffka, K. Levin and others put forward the principle of integrity as the main principle of perception (and then other mental processes), contrasting it with the associative principle of elements. They proceeded from the position that all processes in nature are initially integral. Therefore, the process of perception is determined not by single elementary sensations and their combinations, but by the entire “field” of stimuli acting on the body, the structure of the perceived situation as a whole. That is why this direction began to be called Gestalt psychology.

The approach to studying the perceived image as an integral structure (Gestalt) is the basic principle of Gestalt psychology.

Introduction

What happens when thinking is productive? What happens when we move forward in our thinking? What actually happens in such a process?

If we turn to books, we often find answers that only seem simple. But in relation to real productive processes - when we, even in connection with the most modest problem, have a creative thought, when we really begin to comprehend its essence, when we experience the joy of the productive process of thinking itself - it turns out that these answers are often instead In order to openly admit real problems, they carefully hide them. These answers lack the flesh and blood of what is happening.

Throughout your life, of course, you have been interested - sometimes even seriously - in many things. Have you ever wondered what this thing called thinking is? There are different things in this world: food, thunderstorms, flowers, crystals. Various sciences deal with them; they make great efforts to truly understand them, to comprehend what they really are. Are we as seriously interested in what productive thinking is?

There are great examples. They can often be found even in everyday life. You have probably at some point experienced yourself or, while watching children, witnessed this amazing event - the birth of a genuine idea, a productive process, a transition from blindness to understanding. If you have not been fortunate enough to experience this yourself, you may have observed it in others; or perhaps you were delighted when something similar flashed before you while reading a good book.

Many believe that people do not like to think and strive to avoid it at all costs; they prefer not to think, but to remember and repeat. But despite many unfavorable factors that suppress genuine thinking, people - even children - strive for it.

What actually happens in such processes? What happens when we actually think, and think productively? What are the essential features and stages of this process? How does it proceed? How does a flash or insight occur? What conditions and attitudes are favorable or unfavorable to such remarkable phenomena? What is the difference between good thinking and bad thinking? And finally, how can you improve your thinking? Your thinking? Thinking in general? Let's say we need to make a list of the basic operations of thinking - what would it look like? What, in essence, should be guided by? Is it possible to increase the number of such operations - improve them and thereby make them more productive?

For more than two thousand years, many of the best minds in philosophy, logic, psychology, and pedagogy have been trying to find answers to these questions. The story of these efforts, the brilliant ideas and the enormous labor expended in research and creative discussion is a vivid, dramatic story. Much has already been done. A solid contribution has been made to the understanding of a large number of particular issues. And at the same time, there is something tragic in the history of these efforts. Comparing ready-made answers with real examples of brilliant thinking, great thinkers again and again experienced anxiety and deep disappointment, they felt that, although what was done had merit, it did not really get to the heart of the problem.

And today the situation has hardly changed. Many books treat these issues as if all the problems have already been solved. The existing opposing views on the nature of thinking have serious consequences for behavior and learning. By observing a teacher, we often realize how serious the consequences of such views on thinking can be.

Although there are good teachers with a taste for genuine thinking, the situation in schools is often unsatisfactory. The actions of teachers, the nature of teaching, and the style of textbooks are largely determined by two traditional views on the nature of thinking: classical logic and associative theory.

Both views have their merits. To some extent, they seem to be adequate to certain types of thinking processes, certain types of its work, but in both cases the question remains open whether this way of understanding thinking is not a serious hindrance, whether it actually harms capable students .

Traditional logic has approached these problems in a very inventive way. How to find the main thing in the huge variety of thinking problems? As follows. Thinking is interested in truth. Truth or falsity are the qualities of statements, judgments, and only them. Elementary judgments affirm or deny some predicate of subjects in the form “all S essence R" , or "none S don't eat R", or "some S essence R" , or "some S not the point R". Judgments contain general concepts - concepts of classes. They are the basis of all thinking. For a judgment to be correct, it is important to correctly handle its content and volume. Based on judgments, conclusions are made. Logic studies the formal conditions under which conclusions turn out to be correct or incorrect. Certain combinations of judgments make it possible to obtain “new” correct judgments. Such syllogisms, with their premises and conclusions, are the crown, the very essence of traditional logic. Logic establishes various forms of syllogism that guarantee the correctness of the conclusion.

Although most of the syllogisms given in textbooks seem completely fruitless, as in the classic example:

All people are mortal;

Socrates is a man;

Socrates is mortal

There are examples of real discoveries that can, to a first approximation, be considered as syllogisms, for example, the discovery of the planet Neptune. But both formally and essentially these syllogisms do not differ from each other. The basic rules and characteristics of both these silly and truly meaningful syllogisms coincide.

Traditional logic formulates criteria that guarantee accuracy, validity, and consistency of general concepts, judgments, conclusions and syllogisms. The main chapters of classical logic relate to these topics. Of course, sometimes the rules of traditional logic remind us of effective traffic rules.

If we leave aside differences in terminology and disagreements on secondary issues, we can name the following characteristic operations of traditional logic:

· definition;

· comparison and distinction;

· analysis;

· abstraction;

· generalization;

· classification;

· formation of judgments;

· inferences;

· drawing up syllogisms, etc.

These operations, isolated, defined and used by logicians, have been and are being studied by psychologists. As a result, many experimental studies have arisen on abstraction, generalization, definition, inference, etc.

Some psychologists believe that a person knows how to think, that he is smart, if he can correctly and easily carry out the operations of traditional logic. The inability to form general concepts, to abstract, to draw conclusions from syllogisms of certain formal types is considered as a mental disability, which is determined and measured in experiments.

No matter how we evaluate classical logic, it had and still has great advantages:

· a clear desire for truth;

· focusing on the crucial difference between a simple statement, belief and an accurate judgment;

· emphasizing the difference between insufficiently clear concepts, vague generalizations and precise formulations;

· development of many formal criteria to detect errors, ambiguities, unlawful generalizations, hasty conclusions, etc.;

· emphasizing the importance of evidence;

· thoroughness of the rules of inference;

· the requirement of persuasiveness and rigor of each individual step of thinking.

The system of traditional logic, the foundations of which were laid in Aristotle's Organon, was considered definitive for many centuries; and although some clarifications were made to it, they did not change its basic character. During the Renaissance, a new field emerged, the development of which had a significant impact on the formation of modern science. Its main advantage was the introduction as a fundamental new procedure, which had not previously been given much importance due to its lack of evidence. This is the method of induction, with its emphasis on experience and experimentation. The description of this method reached its greatest perfection in the famous canon of John Stuart Mill's rules of induction.

The emphasis here is not on rational derivation from generalities, but on the collection of facts, the empirical study of invariant relationships between them, and the observation of the consequences of changes occurring in real situations - that is, on the procedures that lead to the formulation of generalities. Syllogisms are considered as tools with which one can draw consequences from such hypothetical assumptions in order to test them.

· empirical observations;

· careful collection of facts;

· empirical study of problems;

· introduction of experimental methods;

· correlation of facts;

· development of crucial experiments.

The second major theory of thinking is based on the classical theory of associationism. Thinking is a chain of ideas (or in more modern terms, a connection of stimuli and reactions or elements of behavior). The way to interpret thinking is clear: we must study the laws that govern the sequence of ideas (or in modern terms, elements of behavior). An "idea" in classical associative theory is something like a trace of a sensation, in more modern terms - a copy, a trace of stimuli. What is the basic law of succession and connection of these elements? The answer - captivating in its theoretical simplicity - is this: if two objects A And b often occur together, then the subsequent presentation will cause in the subject b. These elements are connected to each other, essentially, in the same way that my friend's phone number is connected to his name, or how nonsense syllables are connected to each other in experiments on learning a series of such syllables, or how a dog's salivation is connected to a certain sound signal.

Habit, past experience, in the sense of repetition of adjacent elements - inertia rather than reason - these are the essential factors. This is exactly what David Hume argued. Compared to classical associationism, this theory is now very complex, but the old idea of repetition, contiguity, still remains its central point. A leading exponent of this approach has recently stated unequivocally that the modern theory of conditioned reflexes has, in essence, the same nature the same as classical associationism.

The list of operations looks like this:

· associations acquired on the basis of repetition of connections;

· the role of frequency of repetition, novelty;

· recalling past experiences;

· trial and error with occasional success;

· learning based on repetition of a successful test;

· actions in accordance with conditioned reactions and habits.

These operations and processes are now widely studied using well-developed methods.

Many psychologists will say: the ability to think is a consequence of the work of associative connections; it can be measured by the number of associations acquired by the subject, the ease and correctness of learning and recalling these connections.

Undoubtedly, this approach also has its merits, which relate to the very subtle features observed in this kind of learning and behavior.

Both approaches have had great difficulty in explaining meaningful productive processes of thought.

Let's look at traditional logic first. Over many centuries, deep dissatisfaction with the way traditional logic treated such processes arose again and again. Compared to genuine, meaningful, productive processes, problems, and even ordinary examples of traditional logic, often look meaningless, flat and boring. The logical interpretation, being quite strict, still often seems very sterile, boring, empty and unproductive. When we try to describe the processes of genuine thinking in terms of traditional formal logic, the result is often unsatisfactory: we have a number of correct operations, but the meaning of the process and everything that was living, convincing, creative in it seems to disappear. You can have a chain of logical operations, each of which is quite correct on its own, but taken together they do not reflect a reasonable train of thought. Indeed, there are logically thinking people who, in certain situations, carry out a number of correct operations, but the latter are very far from the true flight of thoughts. The role of traditional logical training should not be underestimated: it leads to rigor and validity of each step, contributes to the development of a critical mind, but in itself, obviously, does not lead to productive thinking. In short, one can be empty and meaningless, although accurate, and it is always difficult to describe truly productive thinking.

By the way, awareness of the last circumstance - along with others - led some logicians to the following categorical statement: logic, which deals with problems of correctness and validity, has nothing to do with real productive thinking. It has also been stated that the reason for this is that logic is not concerned with time and therefore does not in principle deal with processes of actual thought, which are very real and exist in time. This distinction has apparently been useful for solving certain problems, but from a broader point of view such statements often resemble the fox's complaints about the unripeness of the grapes.

Similar difficulties arise in associative theory: how to distinguish intelligent thinking from meaningless combinations, how to explain creative sides of thinking.

If the solution to a problem is achieved as a result of simple recollection, a mechanical repetition of what was previously learned, thanks to a random discovery in a series of blind trials, then I would hesitate to call such a process rational thinking; and it is doubtful whether the accumulation of such phenomena alone, even in large quantities, can create an adequate picture of mental processes. In order to somehow explain the emergence of new solutions, a number of hypotheses were proposed (for example, Seltz’s constellation theory, or the concept of a systemic hierarchy of skills), which by their very nature turned out to be almost useless.

Area of a parallelogram

Among the problems I worked on was finding the area of a parallelogram.

I don’t know if you will get the same pleasure from the results of my experiments that I experienced. It seems to me that you will get it if you follow me, understand the essence of the problem and feel the difficulties that arose along the way and to overcome which I had to find means and methods in order to psychologically understand the problem put forward.

I come to class. The teacher says: “In the previous lesson we learned how to determine the area of a rectangle. Does everyone know how to do this?”

The students answer: “Everything.” One of them shouts: “The area of a rectangle is equal to the product of its two sides.” The teacher approves the answer and then presents several problems with different side sizes, all of which were immediately solved.

“And now,” says the teacher, “we will move on.” He draws a parallelogram on the board: “This is a parallelogram. A parallelogram is a flat quadrilateral whose opposite sides are equal and parallel.”

Here one student raises his hand: “Please tell me what the sides are equal to?” “Oh, the sides can be of very different lengths,” the teacher answers. “In this case, the size of one of the sides is 11 inches, the other is 5 inches.” "Then the area is 5 x 11 square inches." “No,” says the teacher, “this is incorrect. Now you will learn how the area of a parallelogram is determined.” He denotes the vertices with letters A, b, With, d.

"I drop one perpendicular from the upper left corner and another from the upper right corner. I continue the base to the right. I designate new points with letters e And f".

With the help of this drawing he then proceeds to the usual proof of the theorem that the area of a parallelogram is equal to the product of the base and the height, establishing the equality of certain segments and angles and the equality of two triangles. In each case, he cites previously learned theorems, postulates or axioms, with the help of which he justifies equality. Finally, he concludes that it has now been proven that the area of a parallelogram is equal to the product of the base and the height.

“You will find the proof of the theorem that I showed you in your textbooks on page 62. Learn the lesson at home, repeat it carefully so that you remember it firmly.”

Then the teacher offers several problems in which it is necessary to determine the areas of parallelograms of various sizes, with different sides and angles. Since this class was "good", the problems were solved correctly. At the end of the lesson, the teacher assigns ten more problems of the same type as homework.

A day later, I found myself back in the same class for my next lesson.

The lesson began with the teacher calling a student and asking him to show how the area of a parallelogram is determined. The student demonstrated this brilliantly.

It was clear that he had learned his lesson. The teacher whispered to me: “And this is not the best of my students. Without a doubt, the others also learned their lesson well.” The written test gave good results.

Many will say: "Wonderful class; learning goal achieved." But, watching the class, I felt some kind of anxiety. “What have they learned?” I asked myself. “Do they think at all? Have they understood the solution? Is everything they do just blind repetition?” Of course, the students quickly completed all the teacher’s tasks and, thus, learned something in common They could not only repeat what the teacher said word for word, there was also some transference. But did they even understand what was going on? How can I find out? do?" .

I asked the teacher for permission to ask the class a question. “Please,” the teacher answered readily.

I went to the board and drew such a figure.

Rice. 3 Fig. 4

Some students were clearly confused.

One student raised his hand: “The teacher didn’t explain this to us.”

The rest got busy with the task. They copied the drawing, drew auxiliary lines, as they were taught, dropping perpendiculars from the two upper corners and continuing the base (Fig. 4). They were confused, puzzled.

Others didn't seem unhappy at all. They confidently wrote under the drawing: “The area is equal to the product of the base and the height” - a correct, but, apparently, completely blind statement. When they were asked if they could prove this using this drawing, they were very puzzled.

Still others behaved completely differently. Their faces brightened, they smiled and drew the following lines on the drawing or turned the sheet 45° and then completed the task (Fig. 5A and 5B).

Rice. 5A Fig. 5B

Seeing that only a small number of students completed the task, the teacher said to me with a tinge of displeasure: “You, of course, offered them an unusual drawing. Naturally, they could not cope with it.”

Between us, don’t you also think: “It’s not surprising that, having received such an unfamiliar figure, many could not cope with it.” But is it less familiar than the variations of the original figure that the teacher gave them earlier and which they mastered? The teacher gave problems that varied greatly in terms of side lengths, angles, and areas. These variations were obvious, and the students did not find them difficult at all. You may have noticed that my parallelogram is simply a rotated version of the original figure suggested by the teacher. In all its parts it differs no more from the original figure than the variations suggested by the teacher.

Now I will tell you what happened when I gave the task of determining the area parallelogram subjects - mostly children - after briefly explaining to them how the area of a rectangle is determined, without saying anything more, without helping in any way, just waiting for what they would say or do. Among the subjects were adults of various professions, students whose reactions showed that they had completely forgotten this theorem, and children who had never heard of geometry at all, even five-year-old children.

Various types of reactions have been observed.

First type. No reaction at all.

Or someone would say, "Ugh! Math!" - and refused to solve the problem with the words: “I don’t like mathematics.”

Some subjects simply waited politely or asked, “What’s next?”

Others said: “I don’t know; I wasn’t taught this.” Or: “I took this in school, but I completely forgot,” and that’s it. Some expressed dissatisfaction: “Why do you think I can do this?” And I answered them: “Why not try?”

Second type. Others searched their minds energetically, trying to remember anything that might help them. They blindly searched for any scraps of knowledge they could apply.

Some asked: “Can I ask my older brother? He probably knows.” Or: “Can I look up the answer in the geometry textbook?” Obviously, this is also one of the ways to solve problems.

Third type. Some began to talk at length. They talked around the problem, talking about similar situations. Or they classified it in some way, applied general concepts, assigned the task to some category, or carried out aimless tests.

Fourth type. However, in a number of cases it was possible to observe the real thinking process - judging by the drawings, comments, and thoughts out loud.

“Here is this figure; how can I determine the size of the area? The area of the figure of this particular shape?”

"Something needs to be done. I have to change something, change it in a way that will help me see the area clearly. Something is wrong here." At this stage, some of the children drew the figure shown in Fig. 21.

In such cases, I said: “It would be good to compare the area of a parallelogram with the area of a rectangle.” The child helplessly stopped and then resumed trying.

In other cases the child said: "I must get rid of the difficulty. This figure cannot be divided into small squares."

Here one child suddenly said: “Can you give me a folding yardstick?” I brought him such a meter. The child made a parallelogram out of it and then turned it into a rectangle.

I liked it. "Are you sure this is right?" - I asked. "I'm sure," he replied. Only with great difficulty, with the help of the corresponding drawing (Fig. 24), did I manage to make him doubt the correctness of his method.

Then he immediately said: “The area of the rectangle is much larger - this method is not suitable...”

4) The child took a sheet of paper and cut out two equal parallelograms from it. Then, with a happy look, he connected them as follows.

This step in itself was a wonderful find (cf. the solution with the ring, p. 78). I note that in a number of cases I myself gave the children two sample figures. Sometimes I encountered reactions like this:

Some children even tried to superimpose one figure onto another.

But there were cases when thinking led directly to the goal. Some children, with little or no help, found the correct, reasonable, straightforward solution to the problem. Sometimes, after a period of extreme concentration at a critical moment, their faces would brighten. What a miracle - this transition from blindness to insight, to understanding the essence of the matter!

First, I will tell you what happened to a five-and-a-half-year-old girl for whom I did not provide any help at all in solving a problem with a parallelogram. When, after a short demonstration of how to determine the area of a rectangle, she was given a parallelogram problem, she said: “Of course I don’t know how.” This do." Then, after a minute of silence, she added: " It's not good here- and pointed to the area on the right - and here too,- and pointed to the area on the left. “The difficulty is with this place and with this.”

Hesitantly she said: “Here I can fix it... but...” Suddenly she exclaimed: “Can you give me scissors? What’s in the way there is exactly what’s needed here. It’s suitable.” She took the scissors, cut the figure vertically and moved the left part to the right.

Another child cut off a triangle in the same way.

And she put the left corner in order. Then, looking at the other end, she tried to do the same there, but suddenly began to regard it not as “extra parts”, but as “missing parts”.

Other actions also occurred. The girl to whom I gave a long parallelogram cut out of paper (and in previous examples it is better to start with a long parallelogram), first said: “The whole middle part is fine, but the edges...” She continued to look at the figure, clearly interested in its edges, then suddenly She took it in her hands and with a smile turned it into a ring, connecting the edges. When they asked her why she did this, she, holding the closed edges with her small fingers, replied: “But now I can cut the figure like this,” and pointed to a vertical line located somewhere in the middle, “then everything will be all right.” ".

My wise friend, to whom I told about the scissors solution, exclaimed: “This child is a genius.” But many psychologists will say: “So what? Obviously, it’s a matter of past experience. Why such complex and difficult explanations? Isn’t it simpler, in full accordance with many other mental processes, to consider what these children are doing simply as a recollection of past experience ? By chance or through some association mechanisms, the child remembers a past experience related to scissors. The rest of the children were unable to solve the problem because they did not remember the past experience, or because they did not have enough experience with scissors. They did not learn the connection. , an association that could help them, or they did not remember it. Thus, everything depends on the recall of learned connections. It is memory and recall that underlie this process.

Of course, sometimes one comes to use scissors by accident or as a result of recalling external circumstances. It happens that even in good processes, memory cues are either checked and used, or rejected as useless. There is no doubt that in order for these processes to become possible or probable, considerable past experience is necessary in addition to present experience (whatever that means).

But is it adequate to use only theoretical generalizations to discuss such issues? For example, in our case it is argued that the decisive circumstance is that the child remembers the scissors and the actions associated with them.

Let's say that a child trying to solve a problem is not thinking about scissors. This content and associated associations are missing. Why not take the theoretical bull by the horns? Let's give the kids everything they need and see what happens. If the most important thing is to remember the experience of using scissors, then we can immediately provide the child with scissors and not burden his memory with the need to remember them. Or stimuli can be introduced to facilitate such recall.

At the beginning of the experiment, I put scissors on the table or even ask the child to cut a piece of paper. Sometimes this helps (for example, when I present the scissors after a period of hesitation in the child, after some comments indicating that the child has sensed the structural requirements).

But in some cases this does not help. The child looks at the scissors, then again at the drawing. Seeing them nearby, he clearly begins to feel some kind of anxiety, but does nothing.

I am increasing the "help". "Would you like to take the scissors and cut the shape?" In response, the child sometimes looks at me blankly: he obviously does not understand what I mean. Sometimes children begin to obediently cut the figure in one way or another:

It happens that the child then begins to form another parallelogram from two parts.

In what cases does presenting scissors help, and in what cases does it not help? We see that the presentation of scissors and their usual use do not in themselves provide any help; they can lead to completely ridiculous and blind actions. In short, they seem to help if the child is already becoming aware of the structural requirements of the task or if these are clarified with the help of scissors; the latter are of little help in cases where the subject is not aware of the structural requirements, when he does not consider the scissors in connection with their function, their role in a given context, in connection with the structural requirements of the situation itself. In such cases, scissors are just another item along with others. Indeed, in some positive processes there have been attempts that indicate a certain understanding of structural requirements, which then leads to such use of past experience or to such attempts that are fundamentally different from the blind recall of past experience.

Even if the positive procedure can be explained by the joint action of learned connections, on the one hand, and the goal - the idea of a rectangle - on the other, then in our case, apparently, it is necessary to take into account not just past experience, but its nature and how it is consistent with the structural requirements of the task.

The introduction of “help” puts into the hands of the experimenter a technical tool that helps him come to an understanding of the processes taking place. Sometimes it is more useful to give other tasks, which in some details may be even more complex and unusual, but have a more transparent, clearer structure, such as, for example, some of our A- IN-pairs of tasks. In such cases, subjects sometimes have an insight, they return to the original problem and find its solution. However, they may remain blind despite "help" that actually contains exactly what they need.

The results of such experiments apparently indicate that assistance should be considered in its functional meaning, depending on its place, role and function within the requirements of the situation.

Now it becomes clear why sometimes you can draw one, two or even all three auxiliary lines as a hint, and this nevertheless does not provide any help. A child who does not understand their roles and functions may consider them additional complications, incomprehensible additions. As a result, the situation may become even more complex. The lines themselves may not shed light on the problem.

And wasn't the lesson described at the beginning of this chapter an extreme example of such a procedure? The teacher showed precisely and clearly All necessary elements; he trained his students by imbuing them with knowledge acquired through routine means, but never achieved either real understanding or ability to act in modified situations.

You cannot replace a meaningful process with a series of memorized connections, even if as a result the students will be able to repeat and do what they were taught.

In short, past experience plays a very big role, but it is important What we have learned from experience - blind, incomprehensible connections or understanding of internal structural connections. It is important what and how we reproduce, how we apply the reproduced experience: blindly and mechanically or in accordance with the structural requirements of the situation.

The main question is not is it really past experience plays a role, but Which it is experience - blind connections or structural understanding followed by meaningful transfer, as well as in how we use past experience: through external reproduction or on the basis of structural requirements, its functional correspondence to a given situation. Referring to past experience thus does not solve the problem; the same problem arises with regard to past experience.

It is very interesting to explore how what was acquired in the past is used; but for our problem, to a first approximation, it does not matter whether the material used is extracted from the past or from present experience. What matters is its nature and whether the structure has been understood, as well as how it occurs. Even if everything, including understanding itself, were explained, in essence, by the repetition of past experience - a hope that some psychologists entertain, but which, in my opinion, is false or at least unfounded - or if we approached with from the point of view of the exercise even to meaningful structures, it would still be important to consider and study the described difference, since it is decisive for the existence of structurally meaningful processes. In ordinary language, "to gain experience" means to most people something very different from the mere accumulation of external connections, analogous to those mechanical connections that arose in our last example; it means that something more meaningful is acquired.

Traditional logic has little interest in the process of finding a solution. It focuses rather on the question of the correctness of each step of the proof. From time to time in the history of traditional logic, hints have been given as to how one should proceed to find a solution. It is characteristic that these attempts boiled down to the following: “Find some general propositions known to you, the content of which relates to some of the issues under discussion; select from them such pairs that, due to the fact that they contain a general concept (middle term), allow the construction syllogism" etc.

Teachers strongly recommend the study of geometry as a means of developing mental abilities in an atmosphere of clarity, evidence, consistency, which can facilitate the transfer of formed techniques and mindsets to more complex and less clear areas.

This is one of the reasons why we have chosen to discuss these simple geometric examples in this book; Apparently, it is more useful to first discuss the main theoretical issues on structurally simpler material.

Two boys play badminton.The girl describes her office

The main result of the previous chapters is an understanding of the important role of the factor of reasonable reorganization, reorientation, which allows the subject to see a given situation as new, in a broader perspective. This is what leads to discovery or is discovery in a deeper sense. In such cases, discovery does not simply mean achieving a previously unknown result, an answer to some question, but rather a new and deeper understanding of the situation - as a result of which the field expands and greater opportunities open up. These changes in the situation as a whole imply changes in the structural meaning of the component parts, changes in their place, role and function, which often leads to important consequences.

Before the thinking process begins, or in its early stages, we often have a certain holistic vision of the situation, as well as its parts, which for some reason does not correspond to the problem, is superficial or one-sided. Such an initial inadequate vision often prevents the solution and the correct approach to the problem. If you adhere to this initial vision of the situation, it often turns out to be impossible to solve the problem. When a change in our vision occurs, and thanks to this the problem receives a solution, we are sometimes amazed at how blind we were, how superficially we viewed the situation.

Changing the structure of vision in accordance with the properties of the situation plays an extremely important role in the development of science. These changes play an equally important role in human life, in particular in public life.

Such a change in the image of the situation is necessary, of course, only when there was no correct vision of it from the very beginning. Often the first glance is not deep and clear enough; sometimes some property of a particular situation may not be fully realized. In such cases, finding a solution requires further clarification or crystallization of the situation, awareness of those aspects or factors that were only vaguely present at the beginning.

To study such transformations and their consequences regarding the role and function of the parts, I used special experimental techniques that lead to a radical change in the vision of the situation. Often subjects react emotionally to the changes that occur. These techniques also make it possible to study what happens to different parts of a structure when it changes: how parts are organized and grouped; how the location of the “caesuras” and the center changes, which elements become structurally relevant; how gaps and violations appear; to what extent local conditions can change; in what direction the subject’s expectations, the properties of the whole, and the requirements of the situation change.

When such transformations occur in the process of thinking, it is not the ease of arbitrary change as such that characterizes rational behavior; It is also not a matter of the ability in a given situation to see it at will, one way or another. Something else is more important here - intellectual processes are characterized rather by a decisive transition from a less adequate, less perfect structural vision to a more meaningful one. And indeed, experience seems to indicate that intelligent people, genuine thinkers (as well as children), often quite capable of making reasonable transformations, cannot and do not even want to carry out senseless changes in these situations.

Sometimes a transition from an unstructured sum of parts to an appropriate structure is necessary. But even more important is the transition from one-sided vision, superficial or incorrect structuring, from miscentered, distorted or insufficient vision to an adequate and correctly centered structure.

The main reason for irrational, blind behavior seems to be that, through perseveration or habit, a person adheres to the old view and ignores or even actively rejects the more reasonable demands of the situation.

To show more clearly how such transitions occur, I will now give some simple examples from everyday life that I have studied in various experiments.

Two boys were playing badminton in the garden. I could hear and see them from the window, although they could not see me. One boy was 12 years old, the other was 10. They played several sets. The younger one was much weaker; he lost all the games. productive thinking problematic creative

I partially heard their conversation. Loser - let's call him IN- became more and more sad. He had no chance. A often served so skillfully that IN I couldn’t even hit the shuttlecock. The situation was getting worse and worse. Finally IN threw the racket, sat down on a fallen tree and said: “I won’t play anymore.” A tried to convince him to continue playing. IN didn't answer. A sat down next to him. Both looked sad.

Here I interrupt the story to ask the reader a question: “What would you suggest? What would you do if you were the older boy? Can you suggest anything reasonable?”

Typically the advice boils down to the following:

“We need to promise the younger boy a bar of chocolate.”

“You need to start another game, say a game of chess, in which the younger boy is as strong or even stronger than the older one, or offer to play badminton, then another game in which he is much stronger.” “Yes, bring him to his senses, soap his head. You need to be a man, not a sissy. You can’t lose heart like that! He must learn to maintain his presence of mind. Use your authority to bring the younger boy to reason,”

"Don't worry about him, he's a sissy. This will teach him a lesson."

"Offer him a head start."

“Promise the younger boy that the older one will not play at his best.”

Now I will continue the story. In addition, I will try to describe how I think the boys thought.

1. “What happened? Why don’t you play anymore?” said the older boy in a sharp, angry voice. “Why did you stop playing? Do you think it’s beautiful to stop it so stupidly?” He wanted to continue playing. Refusal IN made it impossible. A I liked to play, I liked to win; It was so nice to deceive the opponent with your serve. IN prevented him, he did not allow A do what he really wanted.

2. But everything was not so simple. A he felt awkward and unpleasant. After some time, during which the expression on his face changed - it was a pity that you could not see how he often glanced sideways at IN, and then to the side,” he said, but in a completely different tone: “Forgive me.” Obviously something has changed fundamentally - A He clearly felt guilty that the other boy was so upset. He understood what was happening to IN, how the other boy perceived this situation.

Perhaps this was helped by a sad, calm look IN.IN turned his head once A, And A I understood - not immediately, it took some time - why the younger boy was so depressed, why, not being able to stand up for himself, he felt like a victim. For the first time A felt that his style of play, his cunning delivery looked in the eyes IN nasty trick that IN it seemed like they were treating him dishonestly, A treats him unfriendly. AND A felt that IN he was right about something...

Now he saw himself in a different light. His serve, which did not leave IN not the slightest chance of success, was not just dexterity.

3. “Listen,” he suddenly said, “this kind of game is pointless.” It has become meaningless not only for IN, but also for A, meaningless from the point of view of the game itself. So the problem became more serious.

He seemed to think - he, of course, did not think so, but only felt: “It is pointless for both of us to play in this way. The game requires some kind of reciprocity. Such inequality does not correspond to the game. The game becomes a real game only if "There is hope for success for both. If there is no such reciprocity, then the game loses its meaning, becomes disgusting for one or the other, and without reciprocity it is no longer a game - just one tyrant chases his victim around the playground."

4. Then the expression on his face changed. It seemed that he was struggling to understand something, began to slowly realize something and then said: “Our game is somehow strange. I’m quite friendly towards you...” He had a vague idea of what , what an adult would call “the ambivalence of play”: on the one hand, it’s so nice to play a good game together, to be good friends; on the other hand, it is the desire to win against the enemy, to defeat him, to make his victory impossible, which in some circumstances may seem or actually become overt hostility.

5. Then a bold, free and deeply consistent step was taken. He muttered something like: “Really?..” He clearly wanted to address the problem directly, to discuss it honestly and directly. I interpret this as "Really?" as in "Is hostility really necessary if it ruins everything good about the game?" Here comes a practical problem: "How can I change this? Can't we play not against each other, but..." His face lit up and he said: "I have an idea, let's play like this: let's see how long we can keep the shuttle in the air, and count how many times it will pass from me to you without falling. What do you think the score will be, 10 or 20? We will start with easy serves, and then we will make them more and more difficult."

He spoke cheerfully, like a man who has made some discovery. For him, as well as for B, it was new.

IN happily agreed: “Great idea. Go ahead.” And they started playing. The nature of the game has completely changed; they helped each other, acted together, persistently and cheerfully. A no longer showed the slightest desire to deceive IN; Of course, his blows became more and more difficult, but he deliberately shouted in a friendly manner: “Will you take a stronger blow?”

A few days later I saw them playing again. IN played much better. It was a real game. Judging by his subsequent behavior, A I really gained some life experience. He discovered, comprehended something that went beyond solving a small problem that arose in the game of badminton.

From the outside, this decision in itself may not seem very significant. I don't know if badminton or tennis experts would approve.

It doesn't matter. For this boy, such a decision was not an easy one. It involved moving from a superficial attempt to get rid of a difficulty to a productive consideration of the fundamental structural problem.

What steps led to this decision? Of course, when you consider a single case, there is still very little factual basis for conclusions. However, let’s try to formulate the main points.

At first A considered his “I” to be the center of the structure of the situation (Fig. 105). In his thinking and actions the meaning, role, function B, games, difficulties and other elements of the situation were determined in relation to this center. In this case IN was just some face that was needed A, to play; therefore, refusing to play, IN turned out to be a "violator".

The game was “something where I show my abilities, where I win.” IN represents a barrier standing in the way of egocentric motives, vectors, actions A.

A did not insist on this one-sided, superficial point of view. He began to understand how he imagined this situation IN(Fig. 106). In this differently centered structure, he perceived himself as a part, as a player who does not treat another player in the best way.

Rice. 106 Fig. 107

Later the center itself becomes game, its holistic properties and requirements (Fig. 107). Neither A, neither IN are no longer the center, both are considered from the point of view of the game.

Logically A(his self-awareness) changes with a change in position, other elements, dynamic requirements, vectors of the real situation also become different. Clearly, the original game is different from a "good game".

But what is it about the structure of the game itself that is causing the difficulty? In a good game, there is a delicate functional balance: on the one hand, a pleasant pastime, friendly relations, on the other, the desire to win. It is deeper attitudes than the simple external rules of fair play that make this delicate balance possible, that determines the difference between good play and brutal struggle or competition, in short, fragile, it can easily disappear - as it did in this situation.

The moments of “against”, “the desire to win”, which take place in a good game, acquire ugly features that no longer correspond to the game situation. Therefore, a vector arose: “What can be done? And done immediately?” This is the reason for the difficulty. "Is it possible to get to the bottom of the situation?" This leads to a consideration of structure 11.

Structure Ia >

Structure Ib - >

Structure II from competition to cooperation;

from "I" versus "you" to "we".

A And IN as parts of the overall structure here are no longer the same as in structure I, they are not opponents, each of whom plays only for himself, but two people cooperating for a common goal.

All elements of the situation radically change their meaning. For example, serving no longer means a means of winning against B, making a return pass impossible. In situation I, the player is satisfied if he wins and the other loses; but now (ii) players rejoice at every good hit.

The subsequent steps indicate a transition to considering the problem situation from the point of view her merits, not in terms of one side or the other or the simple sum of both sides. A solution arises when a structural disturbance is recognized; then it takes on a deeper meaning. The tension is not overcome by purely external means, rather the new direction of the vectors is due to the underlying structural requirements leading to a truly good situation. Perhaps you think I read too much into the boys' minds. I don't think so. Perhaps you know too little about what may be going on in boys' heads.

Let us briefly highlight the following:

recentering operations: the transition from one-sided vision to centering dictated by the objective structure of the situation;

changing the meaning of frequent - and vectors - in accordance with their place, role and function in a given structure;

viewing the situation in terms of "good structure" in which everything corresponds to structural requirements;

the desire to get straight to the point, honestly consider the problem and draw appropriate conclusions.

...

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 of psychological theories define the concept of creative thinking, how they 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 the analysis of mental phenomena, but behaviorists carried out the analysis itself 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.). Productivity is considered by them as a specific feature of thinking, distinguishing 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, while attaching great importance to insight, the aha-experience, 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, 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 a 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 on the basis of its formal logical analysis with the direct use of methods known to him, becomes 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 high activity 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 it, a significant role is played by figurative components of thinking, which allow one 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 characteristics of the problem 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 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, on the basis of 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.

Productivity of thinking is characterized by the ability to create a product with a high degree of novelty, the originality of the process of obtaining it and a significant influence on mental development. It ensures independent problem solving and deep assimilation of knowledge; connects theory with practice and is driven by practical tasks. The main sign of productive mental actions is the ability to acquire new knowledge in the process itself, spontaneously, and not borrowed from the outside.

It is important to create something of your own, unlike anything else, without blindly obeying authorities, to move on, to strive for a constructive way to solve the problem you see. “How” is creativity. It is important to want to go beyond the grid, the scheme. For example, “I can’t” is also a kind of lattice. Productivity depends on the degree of formation of the ability “I want to work well” and on disobedience to the opinion “I can’t work well.” Thanks to this, the negative impact of evaluation on creativity is overcome. By working for himself, a person purifies himself and brings benefit to society. N. Berdyaev, considering the dilemma “peace or creativity,” emphasized the value of the ability to feel oneself. Why pretend to agree if you don't agree? Creativity does not forgive stops. The worst stop is apathy.

Despite his doubts, A. Einstein not only sympathized, but also assisted M. Wertheimer in the knowledge of productive thinking and, starting in 1916, spent hours telling him about the dramatic events that culminated in the creation of the theory of relativity. The psychologist presented the “titanic process of thinking” as a drama in 10 acts. Its “participants” were: the origin of the problem; persistent focus on solving it; understanding and misunderstanding, which caused a depressed state, even to despair; findings, hypotheses, their mental playback; identifying contradictions and searching for ways to overcome them. All this happened against the background of comprehension, rethinking and transformation of the original problem situation and its elements and continued until a picture of a new physics was built. The thinking process took seven years. The main thing during this period was “a feeling of direction, of direct movement towards something specific. Of course, it is very difficult to express this feeling in words; but it was certainly present and must be distinguished from later reflections on the rational form of decision. Undoubtedly, there is always something logical behind this direction; but for me it is present in the form of a certain visual image” (A. Einstein). The representative of the Würzburg school, psychologist N. Ach, called the direction emanating from the task that organizes the thinking process a determining tendency, and O. Seltz studied the role of intellectualized (non-sensory) visual representations - images that play the role of plastic tools of productive thinking.

In the course of reasoning, thinking produces more and more new data that goes beyond the initial conditions and, using them, comes to more and more new conclusions due to the fact that by including the objects of the initial provisions in all new connections, it, as if turning them each time with a new side, opens and draws from them all new properties and relationships. This is the source of “productivity” of thinking (S.L. Rubinstein). Productivity of thinking is the mastery of techniques for constructing new ways of solving problems. (E.N. Kabanova-Meller, E.K. Osipova, Z.A. Reshetova). An important feature of such techniques is the ease of emergence of new trains of thought.

Productivity is determined by the quantity and quality of ideas generated in response to a particular question. The developed practical thinking of a professional is distinguished by high productivity. It is typical for him to invent new ideas, plans, methods and techniques, and solve new creative problems. The variety of tasks to be solved leads to the creation of various products of mental activity. Continuous improvement is a violation of norms, since a norm has not yet been created for the new. A productive method of solution leads to the generation of new knowledge about the content of the problem, as well as an adequate way to transform it into the required result.

Quests

1. The group is divided into pairs. The goal of one student from a pair: to meet his partner and find out the intended name. The other's goal is to avoid dating.
2. Model the pose (facial expressions, gait...) of a group member in such a way that this pose shows the person’s character.
3. The group is divided into pairs. The participants of each pair sit at the table opposite each other so that the first cannot see what the second is writing (drawing). The second draws a simple geometric figure on paper and gives the first only verbal instructions, telling him how to reproduce the drawing. The second one can use words like left, right, round, straight, up, down, etc., but gestures cannot be used.

Techniques

1. Formation of experience in productive, successful problem solving. “To make a productive decision it is necessary...”
2. Five Whys Method: After the fifth question “why?” the subordinate begins to more consciously take responsibility for what is happening.

Reproductive and productive thinking in the learning process. Reproductive thinking, characterized by less productivity, nevertheless plays an important role in - PedagogyStudy Reproductive thinking

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1. General characteristics of types of thinking.