Comparison of the process and result of thinking according to the degree of novelty in psychology, pedagogy and in everyday consciousness is used very widely. In our opinion, in this comparison, even in scientific publications Often there are myths that are more typical of everyday ideas. The main one of these myths is about the exceptional value of productive (creative) thinking and the “worthlessness” or even harmfulness (at least for personal development) of reproductive (reproducing) thinking. Is this really true?

1. Not all specialists in cognitive psychology contrast these 2 types of thinking. A.V. Brushlinsky was a categorical opponent of such a division. Among his arguments: not a single discovery, not a single creative result arose out of nowhere. Both the artist, the poet, and the scientist use and reproduce the sociocultural experience that is already in their arsenal, even in the process of creating a completely original creation. Could Einstein create the theory of relativity and tensor geometry without knowing classical physics and Euclidean geometry? Could Picasso create his creations without going through a solid art school? Thus, any new product contains elements of an existing one. On the other hand, there is not a single absolute act of reproduction, reproduction. Even in the process of daily washing, there is always something new (water pressure and temperature, quantity and availability of detergents, lighting, availability of time, etc. - all this changes, i.e. our actions are never absolutely repeated - yet The ancients noticed this - “you cannot enter the same river twice!”

I.Sh. Ilyasov, exploring heuristic thinking, also notes that to separate completely productive and reproductive thinking impossible because it is impossible to completely separate reproductive and creative tasks. Each of them has a certain measure of productivity; there are more productive and less productive tasks, during the solution of which the corresponding thinking is activated.

2. Each of these types of thinking has its own functions that are exceptionally important for society:
Reproductive thinking has the function of preserving and systematizing accumulated experience.
The productive one has the function of modifying experience, activities and creating new products and knowledge.

3. It is believed that the creative process contributes to the development of a person’s personality and individuality. Of course it is! But in what activities do strong-willed character traits, for example, develop? Such as endurance, perseverance, discipline, responsibility, dedication? Is it only when performing creative tasks? Rather, on the contrary, the corresponding qualities develop during the performance of sometimes routine work, accompanied by reproductive thinking.

Thus, in the learning process, not only productive, but also reproductive thinking has the right to exist. They should not be opposed, understanding the importance and socially valuable functions of each of them. At the same time, the progress of social development is largely associated with productive, creative thinking. This sets certain guidelines for both the school and the state, the prosperity of which increasingly depends on whether its citizens are able to create truly new ones, i.e. competitive products (in production, science, culture, etc.). This landmark has come to the fore in the era of globalization. It is those countries that create conditions for concentration and implementation creative people, are leading the world today. Another thing is that we are talking about a very small group of creatively gifted people, actually geniuses.

But even the ordinary person today is faced with a rapidly changing world. One of the key conditions for its success, professionally important quality, is the ability and habit to respond flexibly to all these changes. I would not say that this leads to an increase in the “creativity” of the entire population. The Spanish philosopher Jose Ortega I Gasset rightly notes that not everything is so optimistic - a colossal contradiction is developing between the “pathetic” handful of creators and developers who know “how everything works”, “how everything works”, and the rest of the “world of users”, users who are not at all interested in this internal device. However, the corresponding qualities of thinking can more often lead to success than reproduction alone. And on a national scale this is one of key elements today's politics. It is no coincidence that the levels of development of states are often determined by this criterion. Most often the following is said: 1) states that develop new technologies; 2) user states; 3) states-raw materials appendages; 4) “failed states” (they have neither developers nor enough resources to use modern technologies education, nor human and natural resources...” So it turns out that “we are all in the same boat, but some are used as provisions...”

Thus, both reproductive and productive thinking perform important functions in their own way. social functions, but the development of history is gradually increasingly emphasizing the value of creative thought in terms of a key condition for long-term development.

If creative, productive thinking is so valuable, what makes it special? This is necessary to know in creating conditions for its development.

According to D. Guilford and P. Torrance (USA), the main characteristics of creative thinking are the following:

1. G (flexibility of thinking; synonyms - variability, plasticity, divergence)

2. O (originality as the degree of uniqueness of a product of thinking);

3. C (speed, but not the speed of solution, but the speed of generating original options, i.e. the speed of divergence);

4. T. (thoroughness of work; unlike the first three cognitive h-k this one is personal)

The term divergent thinking perhaps requires some explanation. According to the level of flexibility, Guilford divided thinking into 2 more types: convergent and divergent. Convergent thinking reduces all possible solutions to a problem to one. Thus, a mathematics teacher often reacts to a student’s decision: “This is not rational, even though the answer has been received.” In this case, only reproductive thinking is supported. A person who thinks divergently reacts to a problem differently - it is as if he “opens the fan of everyone possible options"(Guilford's metaphor). Each ray of the fan is a new, often completely non-standard option.

We see in these “classical” signs creative thinking(creativity) a fusion of cognitive and personal characteristics. Indeed, outstanding creators or creatively gifted children themselves differ greatly both in cognitive and personal development from the usual statistical norm.

stages) (English: productive thinking) - a synonym for “creative thinking” associated with solving problems: new, non-standard intellectual tasks for the subject. The most difficult task facing human thought is the task of knowing oneself. “I am not sure,” said A. Einstein to the outstanding psychologist M. Wertheimer, “whether it is possible to really understand the miracle of thinking. You are undoubtedly right in trying to achieve a deeper understanding of what happens in the process of thinking...” (Productive thinking. - M., 1987, p. 262). Thinking is akin to art, the miracle of which also resists understanding and knowledge. N. Bohr expressed something similar in a paradoxical form. To the question “is it possible to understand the atom?” Bohr replied that perhaps we could, but first we must know what the word “understanding” means. Great scientists, to a greater extent than mere mortals, are characterized by wonder at the Great and an awareness of the modesty of their powers. M. Mamardashvili also bowed before the miracle of thinking: “Thinking requires almost superhuman effort, it is not given to man by nature; it can only take place - as a kind of awakening or remembrance - in the force field between man and symbol.” Despite his doubts, Einstein not only sympathized, but also assisted Wertheimer in understanding the magnetic field 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 the picture was built new physics. The thinking process took 7 years. The main thing throughout this period was “the feeling of direction, of direct movement towards something specific. Of course, it is very difficult to express this feeling in words; but it was definitely present and it should be distinguished from later reflections on the rational form of decision. Undoubtedly, behind this direction there is always there is something logical; but for me it is present in the form of a certain visual image" (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 mental production.

Let's consider the collective image of the mental creative process, i.e. an idea of ​​its main stages.

1. The emergence of a topic. At this stage there is a feeling of urgency to begin work, a sense of directed tension that mobilizes creative forces.

2. Perception of the topic, analysis of the situation, awareness of the problem. At this stage, an integral holistic image of the problem situation is created, an image of what is and a premonition of the future of the whole. Speaking modern language, a figurative-conceptual or sign-symbolic model is created that is adequate to the situation that arose in connection with the choice of topic. The model serves as material (“intelligible matter”) in which the leading contradiction, conflict is found, i.e., the crystallization of the problem to be solved occurs.

3. At the 3rd stage, (often painful) work is carried out to solve the problem. It is a bizarre mixture of conscious and unconscious efforts: the problem does not go away. There is a feeling that I am not the problem, but I am the problem. She captured me. The result of such pre-decision work could be not only the creation, testing and rejection of hypotheses, but also the creation of special means to solve a problem. An example would be efforts to visualize the problem, creating new versions of the figurative-conceptual model of the problem situation.

4. The emergence of an idea (eidos) of a solution (insight). On crucial There are countless indications of this stage, but there are no meaningful descriptions and its nature remains unclear.

5. The executive stage is essentially a technical stage that does not require any special explanation. It is often very labor-intensive when there is no appropriate apparatus for the solution. As I. Newton pointed out, when the problem is understood and brought to a known type, the application of a certain formula does not require labor. Mathematics does this for us.

The identified stages are very conventional, but such descriptions are interesting because they seem to naturally alternate between thinking, visualization (imagination), routine work, intuitive acts, etc.; all this is linked by the focus on solving the problem, its concretization.

The given analytical description can be supplemented with a synthetic one. Goethe saw in knowledge and thinking “the abysses of aspiration, clear contemplation of the given, mathematical depth, physical precision, height of reason, depth of reason, mobile swiftness of fantasy, joyful love for the sensual.” Let's try to imagine for a moment that Goethe owes all this schooling, and the question immediately arises: what team of teachers could provide such education and development of thinking? It is equally difficult to imagine a scientist who would undertake to study the work of such an incredible orchestra as was the thinking of the great poet, thinker, and scientist. Each researcher of thinking chooses to study a candidate. one instrument, inevitably losing the whole. This is not a big problem as long as the researcher does not impose the instrument he has studied as the only or main one, for example, on the education system. (V.P. Zinchenko.)

Productive thinking

productive thinking) M. Wertheimer devoted all his scientific work two areas: perception and thinking. He formulated a number of postulates that defined the boundaries of the area of ​​“genuine, beautiful, clear, pure productive processes.” Firstly, external factors that complicate these processes are blind habits, prejudices, personal interests and certain types of school drill. Secondly, these processes are also characterized by certain operations, such as grouping, centering and reorganization. Thirdly, these operations are completely natural. They are logically determined by the structural requirements of the problem and relate to holistic characteristics. Fourth, the more traditional operations that are also involved in these processes function in a similar way in relation to the characteristics of the whole. Fifthly, these processes are not in the nature of simple summation, i.e., a sequence of individual, random events, in which associations arise or operations are performed. Thought processes are by no means arbitrary in nature. These processes have a surprisingly harmonious, internal logic of development, edges that can often be discovered only retrospectively. Sixth, productive processes require not only partial, piecemeal factual truths, but also “structural truth.” One of the cases that Wertheimer used to illustrate P. m. was real story with Carl Friedrich Gauss, who was unusually gifted in the field of mathematics from childhood. At the age of three, Gauss was already correcting his father's accounts. The most widely known incident demonstrating Gauss's genius occurred when he was 6 years old. His teacher gave the class a competition to see which student could be the first to find the sum 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 + + 7 + 8 + 9 + 10. While all the other students were adding numbers, Gauss discovered that 1 + 10 = 11, and 2 + 9 = 11, and so on. He determined that there are 5 such pairs, and that 5 times 11 equals 55. This example demonstrates the reorganization of a number series in the light of a specific problem. Reorganization occurs when the individual begins to grasp the internal relationships between the components and their overall structure. In essence, thinking requires that a) all problem situations be considered structurally and that they be treated accordingly, as structures; b) that operations of structural grouping and selection be carried out; c) that operations be seen and applied in their places in the structure; d ) that structural transposition is used (to separate structurally peripheral from fundamental characteristics) and e) that the search for structural (corresponding to the whole) rather than piecewise (corresponding part) truth is carried out. See also Abstract intelligence, Cognitive complexity, Mathematically gifted children R. A. .

The way we solve life's problems learning objectives depends on many factors. As part of the project "", prepared jointly with Charitable Foundation Sberbank “Investment in the Future”, psychologist Sergei Yagolkovsky spoke about how our knowledge and experience can affect the thought process during learning.

Productive thinking plays a very important role in the learning process. What is productive thinking? This is a thought process that results in some very valuable, important results. These could be ideas, innovations, a new state or worldview of a person. That is, this is thinking that changes something, produces something. And, relating to the learning process, say, at school, it must be said that productive thinking is largely tied to how the student understands the task at hand.

In the psychology of thinking, the objective and subjective structure of a task is divided. The objective structure is what is given in the conditions of the task: what target situation is required as a result of solving this problem, what means are given to solve it. But with the subjective structure everything is a little more complicated. This is how a person sees the task at hand within himself. We know from our own experience that it happens that a student immediately grasps the conditions of a problem and then quickly solves it. But there is a slightly different situation when it is difficult to understand the conditions of the task or the student does not understand the task quite correctly. This is very important and largely determines the effectiveness of productive thinking.

In the study of productive thinking there are several main approaches, one of which is the so-called Gestalt approach to understanding thinking. It is represented in the works of fairly well-known classics such as Karl Duncker, Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Köhler. They understood productive thinking primarily in terms of emergence, when a person seems to be illuminated and, as a result, a solution to a given problem appears. They considered the state of insight to be the quintessence, the most important element productive thought process. But with all this, they also saw a number of problems associated with productive thinking. One of the most important problems is functional fixity, which constantly pushes us to think in stereotypes, look at the world through a familiar prism and does not give us anything new. This stereotypical thinking is associated with our habit of seeing a certain functional purpose of some object given to us. Let's say, if we see a shovel, then this shovel must certainly dig. But we don't focus on other possible uses. For example, using its shaft as an electrical insulator when we need to separate two exposed electrical wires so that a short circuit does not occur. A wooden shaft can do this perfectly.

In Gestalt psychology, numerous studies have been carried out confirming the importance of the state of insight. One such example is Wolfgang Köhler's well-known experiment with chimpanzees. The monkey was put in a cage and not fed for some time. After this, a branch of tasty, juicy bananas was placed at some distance from the cage. The poor hungry monkey naturally wanted to reach the bananas, but she couldn’t: the bars of the cage were in the way. The only object that was within her reach was a meter stick. The monkey was furious for a long time, jumped, tried to gnaw at the bars of the cage, tear them apart, got angry, but without this stick he could not get the bananas. Eventually it dawned on her. She had an insight, as a result of which she realized that her legs could be extended with this stick, she could take out bananas, move them towards her and eat them. Thus, she solved this problem, as if discovering for herself a completely new, unknown solution path. This is insight in the full sense, in a vivid form.

Karl Duncker, a very famous researcher of productive thinking, put insight at the core of his theory, the basis for understanding productive thinking. The insight is good, it helps. But, according to Karl Duncker, there are a number of negative factors that prevent this insight from appearing and make productive thinking not so effective, and sometimes even block it. These Gestalt approaches to the study and understanding of productive thinking are based on the idea of ​​insight as an unexpected insight that suddenly gives rise to knowledge out of ignorance. That is, what is insight? This is when, five minutes or a few moments ago, we still didn’t know that the problem could be solved, we didn’t know how to solve it, and suddenly it dawns on us. And we already intuitively feel, and then for ourselves we structure, understand and, perhaps, verbalize the process of solving it. Insight - an absolutely cool thing - enlightens us. The only problem is that the mechanism itself, the principle itself, the fabric of this insight is not completely clear. And this process is quite difficult to influence.

In this regard, I would like to mention a slightly different approach to understanding thinking, which in many cases also very well explains how new solutions, ideas, and inventions are born. This approach was proposed by Otto Selz, a representative and follower of the Würzburg school, quite well known in the psychology of thinking. Unlike Gestalt psychologists, he believed that all of our thinking is based on the knowledge and experience that we have. And moreover, he proposed several specific mechanisms, methods of mental activity that can lead to some productive and interesting solutions. One of the simplest is an already proven method for solving a problem, which can be applied to another situation. For example, if in a school lesson the teacher gives students in the lower grades a task: “Mom went to the market, bought five kilograms of apples and made compote from two kilograms. How many apples are left? It shows that you need to subtract two from five and you get three. The kids understand this, and they are given a very similar problem at home with a similar solution principle: “Dad bought fifteen kilograms of pears, and mom made jam from seven kilograms. How many pears are left? It is completely clear how to solve this problem. It is necessary to apply an already known method for solving it.

This is a very simple situation. And it’s easy to see that there is very little novelty and productivity here. Although it exists, because the situation is different. A more difficult case is when the method for solving the problem is unknown to its solver. Let's take another example from a different area. A ten-year-old schoolboy is faced with a common life situation when someone close to him is offended. And he doesn’t know how to establish and restore relationships with this person. He tries this way and that, but it doesn’t work. And if this is a smart child, he begins to analyze the situation and look for possible ways to solve it. And he remembers that five years ago he witnessed a situation in the family when either mom said a rude word to dad, or vice versa and the other parent was offended. The parents were sulking at each other, and eventually one of them came up and said, “Sorry, please, let’s make up with you.” The second parent broke into a smile, and then everything was fine. This child, solving a current problem, analyzed and suddenly remembered a certain situation that was once completely unclear. He remembered it from a different perspective, extracting it, pulling out the principle of the solution from it.

As you can see, this solution method is completely different. It involves active mental activity of a person, when he needs to analyze his past experience, existing knowledge and pull out from there a principle that was hitherto unknown. This is the second level of problem solving. And finally, Otto Selz proposed an even more complex method that also works great in productive thinking. I will illustrate it to you using a fairly well-known example with Benjamin Franklin - this ex-president

America, who in his youth was engaged in scientific research. For a long time he struggled with a problem that was of great concern to all of humanity at that time: how to channel the powerful energy of lightning so that it would not hit ships, carts, buildings, houses; how to protect people from this powerful energy? No one could solve this problem, and neither did he. He struggled and suffered until one day he witnessed a very simple and rather banal situation. He saw a father and son flying a kite in a meadow. He looked at the kite as an object that was floating high in the sky and was connected by a thread to a person standing on the ground. And suddenly it dawned on him. He realized that the solution to the problem that worries humanity is to take some highly electrically conductive object into the sky and connect it to the ground. That is, this kite prompted him to come up with a cool engineering solution, and as a result, the well-known lightning rod appeared. This is a more complex case when the principle of solving a problem is not presented in a ready-made form in a person’s head. He is not located in past experience, but is presented in some present situation, when random circumstances can lead to an ingenious solution. These problem solving methods proposed by Seltz can be used quite effectively in educational practice. Of course, as is easy to see, the most developing method is the latter, which involves randomly connecting situations and extracting, isolating the basic principle for solving an actual problem from a picture or situation presented by fate. But the second method is also excellent, because it develops the student’s ability to analyze his own experience , some, in which this student finds himself, and find a solution to the problem there. And the first, simplest method is also good - probably at the stage primary school, where students must learn to apply a method explained and tested to them to an entirely different class of situations. All three of these methods are good, and if used correctly, they will certainly benefit the effectiveness of the educational process in school. These two main approaches to research - the Gestalt approach and the Otto Seltz approach - each in their own way describe the specifics of the thought process. In scientific and psychological literature they are in many ways even opposed to each other. But, as is easy to see, both of these approaches can bring educational process there are a lot of interesting and new things and, of course, can be used both in solving assigned problems and in developing creative, productive thinking.

Visual-figurative memory is the preservation and reproduction of images of previously perceived objects or phenomena of reality, smells, sounds, tastes.

a) A leading role in life orientation and professional activity Most specialists play visual and auditory memory.

b) Verbal-logical memory takes a leading place among various types memory. The content of verbal-logical memory is thoughts embodied in linguistic form.

c) Emotional memory is the memory of experienced feelings. This type of memory is of great importance for the self-regulation of human behavior. Feelings experienced and stored in memory act as signals that either encourage action or deter actions that caused negative experiences in the past. Emotional memory is characterized by significant strength of traces.

II. Memory processes

The following memory processes are distinguished: imprinting, storing, reproducing and forgetting.

A) Imprint(memorization) – consolidation of a new thing by associating it with something previously acquired.

b) Preservation– maintaining captured material over a more or less long period of time in a form accessible for reproduction.

V) Playback– updating of material previously fixed in memory by extracting it from long-term memory and transferring it to short-term memory.

G) Forgetting– complete loss or inability to recall material previously imprinted in memory.

III. Memory qualities

Individual differences in memory processes they appear in the form of memory qualities: volume, speed, strength, readiness.

A) Memory– the number of objects recalled immediately after their perception (volume of short-term memory; volume of long-term memory).

b) Memory speed– measured by the amount of time or number of repetitions required for a given subject to memorize certain material.

V) Strength – retention of memorized material and the rate of its forgetting.

G) Memory ready is expressed in how easily and quickly a person can remember at the right moment what he needs.

d) Motor memory– this is the memorization, preservation and reproduction of various movements and their systems. The significance of this type of memory is that it serves as the basis for the formation of practical and work skills.

Voluntary and involuntary memory differ in the purposes and methods of memorization and reproduction.

Involuntary memory characterized by the absence of a conscious goal to remember what is happening or what is seen. Memorization occurs as if by itself, without special volitional efforts.

For random memory characterized by purposeful memorization or reproduction of material.

Based on the duration of retention of impressions, memory is divided into short-term and long-term.

Short-term memory characterized by short preservation of traces.

Long-term memory characterized by significant duration and durability of the retention of the perceived material.

FEATURES OF THINKING

Thinking is a process of reflection in human consciousness complex connections and relationships between objects and phenomena of the objective world.

I. Distinguish between productive and reproductive thinking.

Productive – this is creative thinking. The need for it arises whenever a person is faced with the need to solve non-trivial problems and finds himself in new conditions.

Reproductive – thinking, which is used when solving problems of a known type and suggests the use of ready-made rules and programs for converting material.

Mental activity includes operations of comparison, analysis, synthesis, abstraction, concretization and generalization.

Analysis - This is the selection of certain aspects, elements, properties, connections, and relationships in an object.

Synthesis – unification of the components of the whole identified by analysis.

Abstraction – a mental operation based on identifying the essential properties and connections of an object and abstracting from other, non-essential ones.

THINKING


Visually - Depth of thinking

Figurative Generalization

The experience of repeated effective human actions in various specific situations leads to the formation in his central nervous system neural models of these situations. As long as the information entering the brain is in accordance with these neuronal patterns, the person's response can remain standard. Mental activity caused by stimuli of this kind comes down to the reproduction of the same habitual thoughts, cliched thoughts, conditioned reflex thoughts. In this case, we talk about reproductive thinking.

However, a person constantly has to encounter circumstances that are new to him and, at the same time, require active action from him. Such situations in which a person must act, although the method of action is unknown to him, are called problem situations. For example, for a student, a problematic situation in the learning process arises, in particular, whenever he encounters a task, the method of solving which is still unknown to him.

To overcome a problematic situation, reproductive thinking is not enough. A qualitatively different mental activity is needed, which should lead to the emergence of new ideas, to finding, within a limited time, an adequate course of action that is new for a given individual. Thinking, the result of which is the emergence in a person’s mind of an idea that is new to him, is called productive thinking.

– The concept of “productive thinking” can apparently be considered as a synonym for the term “creative thinking”?

It is possible, but the words “creativity” and “creative” are usually used to denote mental activity that “generates something new, something that has never happened before.” Another definition: “Creativity is a spiritual activity, the result of which is the creation of original values, the establishment of new, previously unknown factors, properties and patterns material world and spiritual culture". In the above definitions one can notice social aspect concepts of “creativity”: creativity, creative thinking results in the creation of ideas or material assets, in which they are embodied, are new to humanity, or at least to a significant part of it. Thus, thinking is recognized as creative only when it leads to a result that is new to other people. For productive thinking, the novelty of the product of mental activity is sufficient only for the person carrying out this activity. Did you notice the significant difference?

- Yes, it is quite. But why then are creative and productive thinking often equated?

From the point of view of psychophysiology. Because all the processes occurring in the brain of a given individual during creative and productive thinking are the same.

- Yes, of course, you could guess it yourself. A person, receiving a new result for him, does not know that it is new only for him.

Absolutely right.

Let's go further. Research by Soviet psychologists has established that a necessary attribute of productive thinking is the participation of the emotional sphere. Emotional tension that arises at certain moments of mental activity ensures a sharp increase in its intensity. Functional purpose of emotions associated with cognitive activity(gnostic emotions), widespread activation of the cerebral cortex. When developing new ones for this person ideas, new forms of behavior, new ways of acting, new neural connections must be formed. Which nerve cells will participate in this will be revealed only after these models arise, that is, after the completion of productive mental activity, as a result of overcoming a problematic situation. Therefore, in the process of productive thinking, almost the entire brain is involved through emotional activation.

– That is, productive thinking and emotions are “tightly” connected?

Yes, and this is not a hypothesis, but a well-established fact. Convincing evidence of the participation of emotions in creative thinking was obtained by O.K. Tikhomirov and his staff.

– I wonder how you can determine whether emotions are involved in thinking or not? If only visually, then this is not a scientific fact, but a subjective point of view.

Exists traditional method registration of occurrence emotional stress in humans – a change in the electrical resistance of the skin. The researchers used it. At the moment of receiving or realizing information that is unexpected for a person, requires immediate active action from him, or in any case greatly worries him, a sharp decrease in skin resistance and a change in skin potential occur. This electrical activity of the skin, associated with mental activity, was discovered back in 1888-1890 by Feret and Tarkhanov independently and was called the galvanic skin response (GSR).

OK. Tikhomirov and his colleagues recorded GSR in the process of mental activity associated with solving chess problems. It was found that GSR occurs (with a delay of up to several seconds) at the moment when a person’s train of thought abruptly changes direction, when the subject has the feeling that he has found a promising approach to solving a problem. Numerous experiments have shown that in the process of solving a chess problem unfamiliar to a subject, in all cases when he manages to find a solution, at least one decrease in the electrical resistance of the skin is observed. Often, during the search for a solution, GSR was observed several times. Synchronous recording of oral reasoning accompanying the decision, and registration of sequences of points of fixation of the gaze on the chessboard in the process of analyzing the position, made it possible to unambiguously associate the moments of the appearance of GSR with sudden changes in the train of thought of the subject, that is, with the moments when the thought begins to work in a new, unexpected way the very direction.