Thinking as a mental process is conditionedsocially, connected with speech, consists in the search and discovery of a fundamentally new one. Thinking and speaking are related to each other and there is practically no one without the other.
Thinking is an active process thatinvolves processing, restructuring, changing information. The main role in the process of thinking is given to analytic-synthetic activity, which represents the dialectical unity of two mental actions: the mental division of the whole into parts (analysis) and their connection to new compounds (synthesis).
Comparison is another important mental operation.Making comparisons of objects or phenomena of reality, we first divide them into their component parts, highlighting individual attributes and properties, and then we compare them. The following operations of the thinking process are abstraction and generalization. The first (abstraction) is the mental operation of mental abstraction from the nonessential in order to determine the essential quality, attribute or property. The second (generalization) is the operation of thinking, which consists in determining the most common properties of the objects under study. Concepts are formed on the basis of generalization, comparison and abstraction, as well as analysis and synthesis.
The concept is one of the forms of thinking thatexpresses the general and main, significant qualities of objects. In the process of scientific knowledge, concepts play a very important role. The concept is defined by words, which once again emphasizes how related thinking and speech.Language performs in the process of thinking a mediated role. Language is a sign system, which is endowed with certain meanings and meanings. Thinking and speech are interconnected and this is one of the essential differences between a person and an animal. The thought does not disappear because it is formed and fixed in the word, in written or oral speech.
The connection between thinking and speaking clearly shows the socio-historical essence of thinking. The knowledge and achievements of culture are transmitted from generation to generation only because it is possible to fix them in the word.
Scientists have established that in their development of thinkingpasses pre-conceptual and conceptual stages. Pre-conceptual thinking is divided into visual-effective thinking and visual-figurative. The first kind of thinking is based on real physical action with the object. This species dominates in children up to two to three years. In the presence of another - visually-figurative - a person works not only with objects, but also with their images, representing the object and everything related to it.
But the main view is conceptual, abstract,verbal-logical thinking, which develops on the basis of the means of language, which once again shows the interrelation of thinking and speech. In children, it begins to form at about 7 years, which is associated with schooling. Thinking and speaking, developing, have mutual influence on each other. The basis of conceptual, abstract thinking is a concept that reflects the general, main and significant properties of objects.
Classification of thinking can and for othersfeatured. For example, in terms of the degree of participation of conscious or subconscious regulation of thought, one can divide thought into logical and intuitive. Logical is built on conscious, precisely formalized conceptual structures, and the intuitive is based on unconscious representations and images.
In a situation where standard, conventional methodsthe tasks are no longer working, productive, creative thinking comes into play, which gives new ideas and solutions. This novelty can be objective (discovery or invention) or subjective, if a person in the process of thinking discovers something that has already been discovered before him, but he was not aware of it.
