Effective and visually imaginative thinking. The most ancient form of understanding the world
Visual-figurative thinking begins to develop within visual-effective thinking and is the next stage in the development of thinking. It is characterized by the fact that the content of a mental task is presented in a visual form, and the solution is carried out by operating in the mind with images-representations of objects, or their images by transforming these images or their parts. Consequently, the success of solving visual problems depends on the level of formation of visual images, mental operations, and the level of development of visual-effective thinking.
To study visual-figurative thinking and assess its formation, J. Raven's technique (progressive matrices) is widely used.
When V.A. Lonina studied visually impaired schoolchildren in comparison with normally sighted ones, she used the examination method using J. Raven’s matrices, developed by T.V. Rozanova.
It has been established that visual-figurative thinking develops intensively throughout primary school age and continues to develop further in middle school. school age. It is the period of primary school age that should be considered a sensitive period for the development of visual-figurative thinking. And this is natural. This age period is directly related to the development of visual functions, which lasts up to 13 years (L.A. Novikova, D.A. Farber, etc.).
The noted patterns in the development of visual-figurative thinking in schoolchildren of primary and middle age are confirmed by a higher rate of increase in the number of independent correct decisions by the end of primary school age than by the end of middle school age, a reduction in the amount of help needed, and a decrease in the time spent on completing tasks. So, normally sighted first-graders
72.6% of the problems were correctly solved without help; fourth-graders had higher results - 82.6%; seventh-graders - slightly more than 85.8%. The results are lower for the visually impaired. They are, respectively, for students in grades I, IV and VII - 55.9, 72.8 and 79.3%.
Comparing the indicators of normally sighted and visually impaired schoolchildren, one can see that visually impaired students lag behind their normally sighted peers in terms of the level of success in solving problems. Moreover, the greatest differences are noted between first-graders (16.7%) and the smallest between seventh-graders (6.5%).
Not all tasks are solved equally successfully. Simple identity problems are easier to solve. Somewhat worse - for complicated identity and symmetry. When solving analogy problems, schoolchildren encounter difficulties. However, by the senior grades, visually impaired children successfully cope with them.
The process of solving visual-figurative problems requires analysis, which consists in recognizing individual elements, parts of a figure or several figures depicted in a picture, and at the same time correlating, juxtaposing and synthesis - establishing connections between various elements, parts of the fusion of these parts into one figure or complex of figures. Analysis and comparison carried out when solving problems create the possibility of identifying essential features, connections and spatial relationships of certain elements, parts of figures and abstracting general essential properties and connections.
Violation of unity, analysis and synthesis, incomplete, unsystematic elementary analysis, superficial comparison, incorrect abstraction, highlighting of unimportant features and connections leads to one-sided synthesis and incorrect generalizations, in particular, to erroneous problem solving.
With a second, and in some cases a third attempt at solving, some of the errors are corrected, since with repeated and subsequent consideration of the conditions of the problem, the information previously received by students is supplemented and clarified. At the same time, thought processes are activated. This is especially typical for students with normal vision, who quickly and more successfully correct the mistakes they made during the first solution.
Of no small importance in successfully solving problems is the sufficient clarity and stability of visual-spatial representations formed under experimental conditions. The slowness and inaccuracy of the perception process in the visually impaired leads to incomplete, poorly differentiated, unclear and unstable ideas.
Investigating the problem of interaction between inner speech and visual thinking when solving J. Raven’s matrix problems, A. N. Sokolov noted that even minor complications in the structure of matrix problems necessitate verbal definitions.
lenitions and inferences and visual thinking becomes visual-verbal. With visual thinking (in this case, with a visual search for similar figures) most of the situation is perceived in a figurative form, and only if a more detailed analysis of the situation is necessary, the mechanisms of the second signaling system are activated, through which: 1) the characteristic features of the perceived figures are verbally recorded and thereby the visual clarity is translated into a system of speech signs and 2) the inferences required by the task are carried out ( in this case, first of all, dividing and inferences by analogy) in the form of logical enthymemes, that is, with omissions of initial premises, since the latter are presented visually.”
Visually impaired and normally sighted schoolchildren find the same tasks difficult, although their success rates in solving them are different.
Insufficiently deep analysis of the problem and partial, one-sided synthesis lead to errors. Children “snatch” one of the signs in the task conditions and, as a result, find an incorrect solution.
The mistakes made by students in solving problems are varied. Basically, two types of errors predominate. The first includes errors that consist in insufficient consideration of the features available in the drawings and a superficial comparison of them. The second type includes errors consisting in underestimating the spatial relative position of different components, parts that make up one or another figure presented in a problem, and their relationship to general structure drawing. The reasons underlying these errors are different, but it is quite difficult to distinguish between them. Errors of the first type depend to a greater extent on the initial visual analysis of the conditions of the task - identifying essential and non-essential features and connections perceived in the picture geometric figure or figured compositions. The second type of error is based on insufficient mastery of the operations of perceiving the spatial relationships of figures and figurative compositions depicted on the plane of a sheet.
The formation and development of visual and conceptual thinking in children with visual impairments occurs according to the general laws of the development of thinking in childhood: in preschool age Visual-effective thinking develops; at primary school age, visual-figurative thinking and concrete-conceptual thinking intensively develop, then a transition occurs to the highest stage of thinking development - abstract-conceptual.
" Cm.: Sokolov A. I. Inner speech and thinking. - M., 1968.
Inadequate vision is the reason for children's relatively greater passivity in the implementation of practical and cognitive activities, starting from early childhood, than with normal vision.
The shortcomings of objective-practical activity in preschool age determine the uniqueness of the formation of concrete conceptual thinking with the inadequate development of visual-effective and visual-figurative thinking.
Children with visual impairments have great potential in the development of visual-figurative and verbal-conceptual thinking when relying on visual-effective thinking and using various means abstraction and generalization. The uniqueness in the development of visual-figurative and conceptual thinking in visually impaired children of primary and secondary school age is most evident. Among visually impaired high school students, features in the development of imaginative thinking are noted only when solving fairly complex problems.
From a comparison of the number of errors of the first and second types among students with defective and normal vision, it can be noted that among those with normal vision there are much fewer of them: three times less mistakes of the first type and four times less errors of the second type. Even visually impaired first-graders make much fewer errors of both types than visually impaired fourth-graders.
The predominance of errors of the second type in schoolchildren with low vision compared to public school students is explained by the insufficient clarity and stability of visual-spatial concepts formed in the conditions of experience, which in turn is caused by the inaccuracy of visual perception with defective vision.
A significant part of the errors of the first and second types made by junior schoolchildren when solving problems of three sets of Raven matrices are corrected after single or double stimulation (“look more carefully,” “look again”). At the same time, students with normal vision correct the mistakes they made during the first solution faster and more successfully. For visually impaired children, general stimulation is not always sufficient. In a significant number of cases, solving problems was possible after the experimenter's help - explaining the conditions of the problem.
Thus, consideration of the nature and causes of errors observed when solving problems of three sets showed that in children with visual impairments, the basis for solving visual problems by analogy is the same processes as in normally sighted schoolchildren. However, with defective vision,
significant difficulties in carrying out more complex visual analysis and synthesis.
It should also be noted that visually impaired students show significant differences in their success in solving visual problems within different age groups. Among the children of one group, some solve problems very successfully, others with moderate success, and others at a very low level.
During school age, there is a significant development of visual-figurative thinking in visually impaired children. In the period from 7-8 to 10-11 years, their rate of development of imaginative thinking is even somewhat faster than that of those with normal vision. In the next age period - from 10-11 to 13-14 years, the rate of its development decreases, the number of correct decisions increases, but only slightly. Differences in the success of solving visual problems between normally sighted and visually impaired people are leveled out.
A number of domestic and foreign authors note that the development of thinking does not depend on the degree of visual impairment (M. I. Zemtsova, A. I. Zotov, Yu. A. Kulagin, A. G. Litvak, V. A. Lonina, L. I. Solntseva, V. From, V. Roth, J. Yesensky, etc.). Thinking can be highly developed in the completely blind and in the deaf-blind (N.S. Kostyuchek, A.I. Meshcheryakov, I.A. Sokolyansky, L.I. Solntseva, A.V. Yarmolenko, etc.).
The source of mental activity is the perception of reality, which is carried out with the help of vision, hearing, touch and other types of sensitivity. The generalizing role of the word in the knowledge of reality has an important compensatory value and helps children, even with profound visual impairment, to go beyond the limits of immediate sensory experience. In the process of learning and purposeful practical activity, in children with visual impairments, as in those with normal vision, the relationship between the sensory and verbal-logical changes. The role of direct sensory forms of cognition in high school age is narrowed due to the development of mental operations and logical interpretation of facts. The processes of internalization also have an important compensatory significance.
An analysis of problem solving by schoolchildren with impaired vision shows that their assimilation of the content of problems, reasoning and inferences do not differ from that observed in students with normal vision.
Of particular importance in children with visual impairments is the development of deductive thinking, based on inductive inferences based on the variety of specific visual experiences.
It is important for schoolchildren to master the ability to draw conclusions by analogy. When forming
knowledge that mediates the development of concepts, verbal communication and the use of communicative technical means play an important role. Speech, with the help of which knowledge is acquired, is of great importance for the correction and compensation of impaired visual functions.
What is visually effective thinking? How is it different from other types? What makes it special? And what is thinking anyway? We will try to give answers to these questions in our article.
It is worth saying that the concept of effective thinking is interpreted differently everywhere. Here are just a few of them.
The concept of visually effective thinking
For example, the short psychological dictionary “Phoenix” of 1998, the authors of which are L. A. Karpenko, A. V. Petrovsky and M. G. Yaroshevsky, gives the following definition: visually effective thinking is one of the types of thinking that characterizes solution to a specific problem, but this occurs due to a physical change in a certain situation, in other words, due to a real transformation. A striking example the child serves this purpose. For him, visually effective thinking is the first stage of thinking (development).
Another characteristic of visually effective thinking is given by the dictionary practical psychologist"Harvest", published by S.Yu. Golovin 1998 year of manufacture: this type thinking is a special form of thinking. We can observe both its elementary properties and more complex ones. A more complex form is the creation of a certain internal human space, where the relationships between subjects are quite schematized.
V.M. Gordon gave the following characteristic visually effective thinking: its characteristic feature is the solution to a non-standard problem by observing real objects. As well as their mutual interaction and various material changes, the main participant of which is the subject himself. In his opinion, this type of thinking is nothing more than the simplest form of thinking: the elementary form of its manifestation.
All these definitions, given by different scientists, are somewhat different from each other, however, they all have one characteristic feature in common: the adoption of a solution to a problem through conscious human action.
Visually - effective thinking - human mental activity
Thanks to the activation of brain activity, a person has the opportunity to understand the world around him and carry out certain actions in it. In the human mind goes continuous creation process a certain model of the world. It is worth noting that during this activity the brain can take several forms. It is they who are characterized as visually effective and figurative.
Since ancient times, mental activity has its origins in visual and effective thinking. It is responsible for solving problems of a practical nature. For example, with its help a person understands that he needs to build a house or cook dinner.
In general, there are three main types:
- visually - figuratively
- clearly - effective
- verbal - logical
Main stages of formation
Psychologists give the following definition of visually effective thinking: this is nothing more than practical activity to change the reality around us, the implementation of which occurs through the interaction of objects with real objects.
Interesting fact: visual - effective thinking - main activity of babies. This is visible from birth and continues until the age of three. Next, the child performs certain actions with objects and gradually learns to think. A child explores the world around us tactilely, that is, touching everything. Of course, there are some incidents: they break toys, but this is precisely the first step towards research activities and awareness of the reality that surrounds us.
The main feature of the child’s thought process is the fact that the child, in order to solve any, even the most primitive problem, begins to take active action. The same cannot be said about an adult. He passes the essence of the problem through his own consciousness. There are many examples of such behavior. Here is one of them: the child needs to get this or that object, but it is impossible to reach it, since the object is located on the very high field closet Baby aged 2-3 years will use the chair.
At an older age, at about 5 years old, the ability to form a preliminary picture in one’s consciousness and analyze the result of one’s actions comes. That is, a 5-6 year old child will think: “Won’t he fall?” Thus, another type of thinking is formed: figurative.
Formation of thinking in childhood
Let's figure it out: how does the formation of thinking in children occur? Of course, thanks to games and communication with adults. Baby's thought process goes through the following stages:
It is very important to develop in a child from a very early age mental activity. There are recommendations for different ages that should be followed:
- Before the child is one year old, you need to teach him to play using ropes. For example, to get a toy that is in his field of vision, you just need to pull the rope, which should be tied in advance. Thus, the child learns not to immediately grab an object, but to reach it with the help of another device.
- As soon as the child starts to get up and starts throwing all the toys out of the crib, you can do the following: tie all the toys with ropes to the side of the crib. The baby will understand that when throwing them out, they do not fall. It will be fun and educational for him to pull the ropes, thereby returning the toys to the crib.
- From the age when the baby gets used to sitting, you can try to play this game with him: put interesting toys near him and tie a ribbon to each of them. You give all the ends of the ribbons into his hands, he will, if desired, pull the ribbon that is tied to the toy he likes.
From all of the above, we can draw the following conclusion: visually - effective thinking - is of a practical nature.
For the full development of the child, it is in your interests to come up with a variety of games, thanks to which the child will learn to use a foreign object to achieve a goal.
Many people believe that in adulthood, visually effective thinking becomes irrelevant. However, it is not. An adult, without noticing it, actively uses a form of brain activity.
Vivid examples of this are more complex processes in the human brain: ability to understand operating principles the latest equipment, ability to invent interesting interior premises. That is, everything that presupposes a certain result of work. It is especially evident in the following areas of activity: engineering, mechanics, various repair and construction work.
Conclusion
Psychologists characterize the thinking process as a certain type of mental activity, thanks to which a person develops a completely new knowledge (product) associated with knowledge of the world and creativity.
Formation of mental activity takes place in three stages, with the help of which a person goes through the inevitable stages of age: he learns to perform practical actions, to create in his own imagination a plan for achieving the desired result. All this is characterized as figurative and conceptual thinking.
In order for a person to grow up intellectually educated, with a broad outlook and a developed mind, it is necessary to work with the child from a very early age, encouraging his brain to develop to its full potential.
Subject-effective thinking
The peculiarities of objective-active thinking are manifested in the fact that problems are solved with the help of a real, physical transformation of the situation, testing the properties of objects. This form of thinking is most typical for children under 3 years of age. A child of this age compares objects, placing one on top of another or placing one next to another; he analyzes, breaking his toy into pieces; he synthesizes, putting together a “house” from cubes or sticks; he classifies and generalizes by arranging cubes by color. The child does not yet set goals and does not plan his actions. The child thinks by acting. The movement of the hand at this stage is ahead of thinking. Therefore, this type of thinking is also called manual. One should not think that objective-active thinking does not occur in adults. It is often used in everyday life (for example, when rearranging furniture in a room, if it is necessary to use unfamiliar equipment) and turns out to be necessary when it is impossible to fully foresee the results of some actions in advance (the work of a tester, designer).
Visual-figurative thinking
Visual-figurative thinking is associated with operating with images. This type of thinking is spoken of when a person, solving a problem, analyzes, compares, generalizes various images, ideas about phenomena and objects. Visual-figurative thinking most fully recreates the whole variety of different factual characteristics of an object. The image can simultaneously capture the vision of an object from several points of view. In this capacity, visual-figurative thinking is practically inseparable from imagination.
IN simplest form Visual-figurative thinking manifests itself in preschoolers aged 4-7 years. Here, practical actions seem to fade into the background and, learning an object, the child does not necessarily have to touch it with his hands, but he needs to clearly perceive and visually imagine this object. It is clarity that is a characteristic feature of a child’s thinking at this age. It is expressed in the fact that the generalizations that the child comes to are closely related to individual cases, which are their source and support. The content of his concepts initially includes only visually perceived signs of things. All evidence is visual and concrete. In this case, visualization seems to outstrip thinking, and when a child is asked why the boat floats, he can answer because it is red or because it is Vovin’s boat.
Adults also use visual and figurative thinking. So, when starting to renovate an apartment, we can imagine in advance what will come of it. It is the images of wallpaper, the color of the ceiling, the color of windows and doors that become the means of solving the problem, and internal tests become the methods. Visual-figurative thinking allows you to give the form of an image to such things and their relationships that are in themselves invisible. This is how the images were created atomic nucleus, internal structure globe, etc. In these cases, the images are conditional.
Both types of thinking considered - theoretical conceptual and theoretical figurative - in reality, as a rule, coexist. They complement each other and reveal to a person different but interconnected aspects of existence. Theoretical conceptual thinking provides, although abstract, the most accurate, generalized reflection of reality. Theoretical figurative thinking allows us to obtain a specific subjective perception of it, which is no less real than the objective-conceptual one. Without this or another type of thinking, our perception of reality would not be as deep and versatile, accurate and rich in various shades as it actually is.
The peculiarity of visual-figurative thinking is that the thought process in it is directly related to the thinking person’s perception of the surrounding reality and cannot take place without it. The functions of figurative thinking are associated with the presentation of situations and changes in them that a person wants to obtain as a result of his activities that transform the situation, with specification general provisions. With the help of figurative thinking, the whole variety of different factual characteristics of an object is more fully recreated. The image can capture the simultaneous vision of an object from several points of view. Very important feature figurative thinking - the establishment of unusual, “incredible” combinations of objects and their properties.
This form of thinking is most fully represented among children of preschool and primary school age, and among adults - among people engaged in practical work. This type of thinking is quite developed in all people who often have to make decisions about the objects of their activity only by observing them, but without directly touching them.
Visual-effective thinking is understood as thinking that is a practical transformative activity carried out by a person with real objects. The main condition for solving the problem in this case is correct actions with relevant items. This type of thinking is widely represented among people engaged in real production work, the result of which is the creation of any specific material product.
All listed species thinking act simultaneously as levels of its development. Theoretical thinking is considered more perfect than practical thinking, and conceptual thinking is more high level development than figurative. On the one hand, this is true, since conceptual and theoretical thinking in phylo- and ontogenesis actually appears later than practical and figurative thinking. But on the other hand, each of these types of thinking can develop relatively independently of the others and reach such a height that it will certainly surpass the phylogenetically later, but ontogenetically less developed form. For example, among highly qualified workers, visual-effective thinking can be much more developed than the conceptual thinking of a student reflecting on theoretical topics. And the visual and figurative thinking of an artist can be more perfect than the verbal and logical thinking of a mediocre scientist.
Thus, the difference between practical and theoretical thinking is that practical thinking is aimed at solving any particular problems, and the work of theoretical thinking is aimed at finding general patterns. In addition, practical thinking develops under conditions of severe time pressure. In particular, for fundamental sciences, the discovery of a particular law in April or May is not so important of great importance, while drawing up a battle plan after it ends makes this work meaningless. It is the time limitations for testing hypotheses that make practical thinking sometimes even more complex than theoretical thinking.
All of the listed types of thinking coexist in humans and can be represented in the same activity. However, depending on the nature and purpose of the activity, one or another type of thinking dominates.
The described classification is not the only one. Several “paired” classifications are used in the psychological literature.
Thinking like difficult process reflection and knowledge of reality is a source of new knowledge, such that a person cannot obtain in direct experience. Modern thinking capable of solving the most difficult tasks and operate with abstract concepts, has gone through a long journey of formation. Visual-effective thinking is genetically the first, earliest stage of its development.
Types of thinking
The human brain continuously receives and processes information from the environment. great amount information. This processing occurs at two levels: at the level of direct sensory cognition (sensation and perception) and at the level of thinking.
What distinguishes thinking from simple sensory cognition is its indirect nature. “Intermediaries” in the thought process can be images (visual, auditory, tactile, etc.) and signs - words and concepts.
Visual-effective thinking is a unique type of cognitive process in which objects of the material world are used as “intermediaries”. This is its qualitative difference from other types of thinking. This thinking is also called sensorimotor, thereby emphasizing its connection with the sensory and motor spheres.
The highest is considered abstract-logical, conceptual, which is abstract in nature. However, no one, even the most intellectually developed person, thinks exclusively with the help of words and concepts. The process of cognition of reality necessarily includes images; moreover, the creative process is associated precisely with visual-figurative thinking.
Therefore, in consciousness modern man The two types and visual-figurative thinking constantly interact. The visually effective, it would seem, remains on the sidelines. Or does it not play a role at all in the mental life of an adult?
Features of sensorimotor thinking
Firstly, it is closely related to activity and is included in direct operations with objects, as a result of which a person transforms them, combines them, creating new objects.
Secondly, visual-effective thinking - it arises only at the moment of manipulation with objects and allows you to comprehend exclusively specific actions. In contrast, both the abstract and the visual-figurative are abstract in nature. They allow a person to escape in his thoughts from the situation in which he is, to imagine things in this moment non-existent, fantasize and plan activities.
Thirdly, visual-effective thinking is situational cognitive process. It cannot take a person beyond a specific situation. This is “here and now” thinking. It is, as it were, limited, constrained by the conditions in which a person finds himself.
The most ancient form of understanding the world
Sensorimotor thinking appeared in our very distant ancestors. Paleopsychologists believe that they possessed primitive people, and it largely determined the mental activity of backward peoples, who in the 19th century were at the stage primitive society. For example, ethnographers (M. Wertheimer, R. Thurnwald), describing the thinking of savages, noted that they were incapable of abstract calculation. It was important for them to know what objects needed to be counted. Only 6 bears can be counted, since not a single person has been able to see more of these animals at the same time. But the cows can be counted up to 60.
That is why in the language of many archaic peoples there were no general concepts, but there were many words denoting specific objects, actions, states. K. Levy-Bruhl, who studied primitive thinking, counted 33 words for walking in the language of one of the African tribes. The verbs changed depending on who was going, where, with whom and why.
Visual-effective thinking is a kind of “pre-thought”, which also exists in a rudimentary form in animals. At the beginning of the 20th century, studies of chimpanzee behavior conducted by the German psychologist W. Köhler showed that they were capable of solving simple mental problems in the process of manipulating objects.
Children's thinking
The most vivid and distinct manifestation of this reality can be seen in children under 3 years of age. Such little ones have visual and effective thinking - it’s a game. All their mental actions occur in the process of manipulating objects. The basic ones are available to the child, but only as direct practical actions.
Here is a kid enthusiastically disassembling a house that his mother has just built from cubes. You shouldn’t be offended by him, because this is exactly how a child’s analysis occurs—the division of the whole into individual elements.
Then the baby goes through the cubes - compares them, selects the ones he needs, discarding, from his point of view, those that are unnecessary. This is a comparison, and then comes the turn of a more complex mental operation - synthesis. The child begins to build, constructing a figure that seems to be unlike anything else.
The structure grows, becoming taller with each cube. The kid looks at it with interest and at some point joyfully exclaims: “This is a tower! Mom, look, I built a tower!” Having compared his construction with the image in his memory, the child performed a generalization operation and made a conclusion.
This is a little thinker, only his thinking is still visual and effective, inseparable from objective, “manual” activity. That’s why a child needs toys that can be taken apart and put back together again, because it is in playing with them that visual and effective thinking develops.
Formation of thinking in children
Manipulating various items, the child learns to establish connections between them, to highlight their main and secondary qualities. But the most important thing is that he retains in his memory images of actions once performed and later uses them to solve new problems. This is how the formation of more complex, imaginative thinking begins.
Sensorimotor thinking is not only objective, but also emotional. Surprise at something new created with your own hands, irritation at a failed action and delight when you manage to achieve the desired result - all this enriches and develops inner world baby.
The role of sensorimotor thinking in the psyche of a modern adult
The human psyche is one, just as thinking is one, and it is impossible to isolate any type from this harmonious process. Each of them is important and performs its own function.
But quite often a certain type of thinking dominates in a particular person. Creative people and dreamers are characterized by highly developed imaginative thinking. And mathematicians and economists are characterized by a high level of conceptual thinking.
People with a predominance of sensorimotor thinking also occur. These are the ones who are said to have golden hands. Craftsmen “from God”, capable, without knowing anything about the operating principles of a particular mechanism, to disassemble it, repair it, reassemble it, and even improve it during the assembly process.
Can we say that abstract and figurative are more important types of thinking? Visual and effective is also necessary for any person; it accompanies all objective actions. Without it, it is impossible to make repairs in an apartment, to weed a garden bed, or to knit a hat. Even soup cannot be cooked without this thinking.
Having emerged in childhood, sensorimotor thinking does not remain at a primitive level, but develops in the same way as other types cognitive activity.
Visual-figurative thinking begins to develop within the visual-effective, is the next stage in the development of thinking and is characterized by the fact that the content of the mental problem is presented in a visual form, and the solution is carried out by operating in the mind with images-representations of objects or their images by transforming these images or their parts. Consequently, the success of solving visual problems depends on the level of formation of visual images, mental operations.
To study visual-figurative thinking and assess its formation, J. Raven's technique (progressive matrices) is widely used.
When V. A. Lonina studied visually impaired schoolchildren in comparison with normally sighted ones, she used the examination method using J. Raven matrices, developed by T. V. Rozanova.
It has been established that visual-figurative thinking develops intensively throughout primary school age and continues to develop further in middle school age. It is the period of primary school age that should be considered a sensitive period for the development of visual-figurative thinking. This is natural, since this age period is directly related to the development of visual functions, which continues until the age of 13 (L. A. Novikova, D. A. Farber, etc.).
The noted patterns in the development of visual-figurative thinking in schoolchildren of primary and middle age are confirmed by a higher rate of increase in the number of independent right decisions by the end of primary school age than by the end of middle school age, by a reduction in the amount of help needed, and a decrease in the time spent on completing tasks.
Thus, first-graders with normal vision solved 72.6% of the problems correctly without help; fourth-graders had higher results – 82.6%; seventh-graders – slightly more than 85.8%. For the visually impaired, the results are lower and are respectively for students in 1st, 4th and 7th grades – 55.9, 72.8 and 79.3%.
Comparing the performance of normally sighted and visually impaired schoolchildren, one can see that the latter lag behind their normally sighted peers in terms of their level of success in solving problems. Moreover, the greatest differences are noted between first-graders (16.7%) and the smallest between seventh-graders (6.5%).
Not all tasks are solved equally successfully. Problems involving simple identities are easier to solve, while problems involving complex identities and symmetry are somewhat worse. When solving analogy problems, schoolchildren encounter difficulties. However, by the senior grades, visually impaired children successfully cope with them.
The process of solving visual-figurative problems requires analysis, which consists in recognizing individual elements, parts of a figure or several figures depicted in a picture, and at the same time correlating, juxtaposing and synthesis - establishing connections between various elements of merging these parts into one figure or complex of figures. Analysis and comparison carried out when solving problems create the possibility of identifying essential features, connections and spatial relationships of certain elements, parts of figures and abstracting general essential properties and connections.
Violation of the unity of analysis and synthesis, incomplete, unsystematic elementary analysis, superficial comparison, incorrect abstraction, highlighting of unimportant features and connections leads to one-sided synthesis and incorrect generalizations, in particular to erroneous problem solving.
With a second, and in some cases a third attempt at solving, some of the errors are corrected, since with repeated and subsequent consideration of the conditions of the problem, the information previously received by students is supplemented and clarified. At the same time, thought processes are activated. This is especially typical for students with normal vision, who quickly and more successfully correct the mistakes they made during the first solution.
Of no small importance in successfully solving problems is the sufficient clarity and stability of visual-spatial representations formed under experimental conditions. The slowness and inaccuracy of the perception process in the visually impaired leads to incomplete, poorly differentiated, unclear and unstable ideas.
Investigating the problem of interaction between inner speech and visual thinking when solving matrix problems of J. Raven, A. N. Sokolov noted that even minor complications in the structure of these problems create the need for verbal definitions and inferences, and visual thinking becomes visual-verbal. With visual thinking (in this case, when visually searching for similar figures), most of the situation is perceived in figurative form, and only when a more detailed analysis of the situation is necessary, the mechanisms of the second signaling system are activated, through which: 1) verbal recording occurs characteristic features perceived figures and thereby the translation of visual clarity into a system of speech signs; 2) the inferences required by the task are carried out (in this case, first of all, divisive and analogical inferences) in the form of logical enthymemes, i.e. with omissions of the initial premises, since the latter are presented clearly.
Visually impaired and normally sighted schoolchildren find the same tasks difficult, although their success rates in solving them are different.
Insufficiently deep analysis of the problem and partial, one-sided synthesis lead to errors. Children “snatch” one of the signs in the conditions of the problem and, as a result, find an incorrect solution.
The mistakes made by students in solving problems are varied. Basically, two types of errors predominate: the first includes errors that consist in insufficient consideration of the features present in the drawings and their superficial comparison; the second - errors consisting in underestimating the spatial relative position of different components, parts that make up one or another figure presented in the problem, and their relationship to the overall structure of the drawing. The reasons underlying these errors are different, but it is quite difficult to distinguish between them. Errors of the first type depend to a greater extent on the initial visual analysis of the task conditions - identifying essential and non-essential features and connections of the geometric figure or figurative compositions perceived in the drawing. The second type of error is based on insufficient mastery of the operations of perceiving the spatial relationships of figures and figurative compositions depicted on the plane of a sheet.
The formation and development of visual and conceptual thinking in children with visual impairments occurs according to general laws development of thinking in childhood: in preschool age, visual-effective thinking develops, in primary school age, visual-figurative and concrete-conceptual thinking intensively develops, then a transition occurs to the highest stage of development of thinking - abstract-conceptual.
Inadequate vision is the reason for children's relatively greater passivity in the implementation of practical and cognitive activities, starting from early childhood, than with normal vision.
The shortcomings of objective-practical activity in preschool age determine the uniqueness of the formation of concrete conceptual thinking with the inadequate development of visual-effective and visual-figurative thinking.
Children with visual impairments have great potential in the development of visual-figurative and verbal-conceptual thinking when relying on visual thinking and using various means of abstraction and generalization. The uniqueness in the development of visual-figurative and conceptual thinking in visually impaired children of primary and secondary school age is most evident. Among visually impaired high school students, features in the development of imaginative thinking are noted only when solving fairly complex problems.
From a comparison of the number of errors of the first and second types in students with defective and normal vision, it can be noted that those with normal vision have much fewer of them: three times less errors of the first type and four times less of the second type. Even visually impaired first-graders make much fewer errors of both types than visually impaired fourth-graders.
The predominance of errors of the second type in schoolchildren with low vision compared to public school students is explained by the insufficient clarity and stability of visual-spatial concepts formed in the conditions of experience, which in turn is caused by the inaccuracy of visual perception with defective vision.
A significant part of the errors of the first and second types made younger schoolchildren when solving problems of three sets of Raven matrices, it is corrected after single or double stimulation (“look more carefully,” “look again”). At the same time, students with normal vision correct the mistakes they made during the first solution faster and more successfully. For visually impaired children, general stimulation is not always sufficient. In a significant number of cases, solving problems was possible after the experimenter’s help—explaining the conditions of the problem.
Thus, consideration of the nature and causes of errors observed when solving problems of three sets showed that in children with visual impairments, the basis for solving visual problems by analogy is the same processes as in normally sighted schoolchildren. However, with defective vision, significant difficulties arise in carrying out more complex visual analysis and synthesis.
It should also be noted that visually impaired students show significant differences in their success in solving visual problems within different age groups. Among the children of one group, some solve problems very successfully, others with moderate success, and others at a very low level.
During school age, there is a significant development of visual-figurative thinking of visually impaired children, in whom, in the period from 7–8 to 10–11 years, the rate of development of imaginative thinking is even somewhat faster than that of normally sighted children. In the next age period - from 10–11 to 13–14 years, the rate of its development decreases, the number of correct decisions increases, but only slightly. Differences in the success of solving visual problems between normally sighted and visually impaired people are leveled out.
A number of domestic and foreign authors note that the development of thinking does not depend on the degree of visual impairment (M. I. Zemnova, A. I. Zotov, Yu. A. Kulagin, A. G. Litvak, V. A. Lonina, L. I. Solntseva, V. From, V. Roth, J. Yesensky, etc.). Thinking can be highly developed in the completely blind and in the deaf-blind (N. S. Kostyuchek, A. I. Meshcheryakov, I. A. Sokolyansky, L. I. Solntseva, A. V. Yarmolenko, etc.).
The source of mental activity is the perception of reality, which is carried out with the help of vision, hearing, touch and other types of sensitivity. The generalizing role of the word in the knowledge of reality has an important compensatory value and helps children, even with profound visual impairment, to go beyond the limits of immediate sensory experience. In the process of learning and purposeful practical activity, in children with visual impairments, as in those with normal vision, the relationship between the sensory and verbal-logical changes. The role of direct sensory forms of cognition in high school age is narrowed due to the development of mental operations and logical interpretation of facts. Internalization processes also have an important compensatory value.
An analysis of problem solving by schoolchildren with impaired vision shows that their assimilation of the content of problems, reasoning and inferences do not differ from that observed in students with normal vision.
Of particular importance in children with visual impairments is the development of deductive thinking, which is based on inductive inferences based on the variety of specific visual experiences.
It is important for schoolchildren to master the ability to draw conclusions by analogy. In the formation of knowledge that mediates the development of concepts, verbal communication and the use of communicative tools play an important role. technical means. Speech, with the help of which knowledge is acquired, is of great importance for the correction and compensation of impaired visual functions.
- Cm.: Sokolov A. N. Inner speech and thinking. M., 1968.