Think Tanker

It's time for another post on this blog. Guess what, it's already the fourth week though our summer semester. Test, quizzes, not to mention assignments, we are already more than half-way through this semester. This also means we are also half-way through our studies of psychology this semester. Throughout the week, the amazing Sir Wafiy taught us more about intelligence. This part is so interesting because we got to discover more about intelligence. Now we got the change to know why some of our roommates basically eat, sleep, and play and then get high marks. Isn't it frustrating to see them study less but then got higher marks. But woe no more, our lesson this week taught us a hell of a lot of our thinking, intelligence and cognition.

Thinking, Cognition, Intelligence

people sometimes say, we aren't thinking properly, or we aren't thinking at all. But what does that mean really? To start off, thinking is a mental activity that goes on in the brain when a person is organizing, understanding and communicating information. So, when we are listening to instructions, solving maths problems or explaining them, we are in fact, thinking! Have you ever heard the word Cognition? Well, it's kind of like the same meaning as thinking.

Ever thought of how we think? Come on, there must be that one moment that we suddenly pondered about how do we do those magical, fantastical, out of this world task...Thinking. Let me ask you this, ever had some kind of picture in your head, some sort of image that keeps coming in your head? Maybe that girl you saw across the street the other day. Hah...Gotcha. Well, the images of pictures you see are really called mental images. Mental Images is mental representations that stand for objects or events and have a picture-like quality. So if you are thinking about an ice cream, maybe you would have this image in your head. Yum-yum....

But then, are we just seeing images in our brains? But what if we are thinking about a hexagon, or the famous equation "Energy equals to mass time the square of speed of light". Do we see images? I don't think so. This is what our lecturer calls Concepts. He said that Concept is ideas that represents a class or category of object, events and activities.

This is how our minds think using concepts

Concepts are further broken down to other subdivisions. Firstly, we have Subordinate concept. It is the most specific of all the other concepts. An example of a subordinate concept is Spongebob's house.

We all know this is Spongebob's house

Next we have Formal concept. A formal concept is like the shape of a circle. The concept is defined by specific rules or features.

A circle does not have any edges

Apart from that, there is also a term Natural concept. It is a concept that people form as a result of experience in the real world. An example is the platypus. We consider it a mammal although it has bird-like features.

A Prototype, on the other hand is a concept that closely matches the defining characteristics of a concept. For example, for the typical European, an apple would be the strongest prototype of a fruit because has striking color and it is sweet. For tropical countries, a coconut would be the strogest prototype of a fruit.

Problem Solving

Okay. we have a rough idea on how our mind works, now let's see what are the methods our brain uses when we want to solve a problem. The brain uses three methods:

Trial And Error (Mechanical)
Trying one solution after another until one works

Algorithms
This is like a building manual. It has a step-by-step procedure to achieve the objective. It is very specific and the answer is specific and always correct. If you did not mess up that is. Haha..

Heuristic
It is basically an educated guess. It is sometimes known as rule of thumb.

Insight
It is a sudden perception to a solution of a problem

But then, there are some problems when we think or try to solve something. This is because there are barriers to problem solving. They are:

1. Functional Fixedness: This happens when we think about an object's function only
2. Mental Set: This is happens when we persist in using the same "old-fashioned" way because it worked before
3. Confirmation Bias: This happens when people favor evidences that are in conform with thier beliefs

Intelligence

Next, we also learned about intelligence. It is the ability to learn from one's experiences, aquire knowledge and use resources effectively. It can be tested by IQ tests. IQ test measures IQ. IQ is a number we get when we divide a persons mental age by his or her chronological age. It is first used by German psychologist William Stern. There are three main types of IQ test:

1. Binet's Mental Ability Test
2. Stanford-Binet Test
3. Wechsler Test

Sample IQ Test

Creativity

But then, what about creativity? People say that it is different from intelligence. Truth is, creativity the ability to combine ideas or behavior in new ways.

In creativity, there is Convergent thinking and Divergent thinking. Convergent thinking is like when we think of how to solve an equation. We used what we have learnt to get to a definite answer. Divergent thinking is like thinking out of the box. We are using our imagination and are not limited to reality.

Intelligence Theories

Now we look at some theories of intelligence that psychologists proposed

Spearman's Theory
He proposed that intelligence is two different abilities. G Factor is general factor, which is like the ability to solve problems and have reasoning. S Factor is specific factor, which are specific abilities like playing a guitar.

Gardener's Multiple Intelligence

Triarchic Theory of Intelligence
This theory was proposed by Robert J Sternberg. He said that intelligence can be divided into three divisions

Emotional Intelligence
Then there is also a theory about our intelligence about emotions