"I think, therefore, I exist." This famous expression, which was expressed by the French thinker of the 16th century, fully reflects the features of the flow of mental processes of a person, aimed at solving various problems and revealing, revealing the essence of something. To this end, mental operations are used. We consider their essence and types in more detail.
Mental operations are one of the ways of intellectual activity, with the help of which a person will solve certain problems. They are diverse: synthesis and analysis, abstraction, comparison, concretization, classification, generalization. Mental operations depend on the tasks and nature of the data that are being processed. But the choice will also be determined by the individual characteristics of the person.
Basic mental operations
Analysis is the intellectual decomposition of unity into parts, or the separation from it of the main parties, relations and actions.
Synthesis is the reverse process. This is a combination of properties, parts, relationships and actions into a whole.
But these thought processes are two interconnected logical operations. Analysis, like synthesis, can be both mental and practical. They were formed in the process of practical human activity, since people interact constantly with phenomena and objects. Therefore, thanks to their practical development, this led to the emergence of thought processes of synthesis and analysis.
Comparison involves the establishment of differences and similarities of phenomena and objects. Such mental operations are based on analysis. Since before the comparison process it will be necessary to highlight a number of features by which it is carried out.
It may be incomplete, one-sided, multilateral or complete. Comparisons are often made at different levels - superficial or deeper. In such cases , a person’s mental activity will go from signs of difference and similarity to internal characteristics, from the visible aspect to the hidden, from the phenomenon itself to its essence.
Abstraction is a mental distraction from a number of sides and signs of a particular in order to better know it. In this case, a person begins to mentally distinguish some sign of any object, considering it completely isolated from all other signs and temporarily distracting from them. Thanks to a separate study of specific signs under the condition of simultaneous distraction from the others, this will help a person to understand more deeply the essence of phenomena and things. Abstractions help a person break away from a particular, individual and rise to the highest level of knowledge. We are talking about scientific and theoretical thinking.
Concretization is a process that is the reverse of abstraction and which is inextricably linked with it. This mental operation is the return of thought from the abstract and the general to the concrete in order to reveal the content.
One of the most necessary and important mental operations is generalization. The fact is that a person’s thoughts will always be aimed at obtaining any result. The individual will always analyze objects, comparing them and abstracting individual qualities and properties in order to reveal the general in them and to reveal the patterns that govern their development. It is necessary to master them. Consequently, the generalization is engaged in the selection in phenomena and objects of the general, which is expressed in the form of a law, concept, formula, rule, and the like.
Therefore, mental operations must be developed from childhood.