Mental operations

Approaches and Types Piagetian Seriation Transitivity Classification Taxonomy Taxonomy is the science of identifying and naming species, and arranging them into a classification. The field of taxonomy, sometimes referred to as "biological taxonomy", revolves around the description and use of taxonomic units, known as taxa...   Decentering Reversibility Conservation Psychometric Cognition Cognition In science, cognition refers to mental processes. These processes include attention, remembering, producing and understanding language, solving problems, and making decisions. Cognition is studied in various disciplines such as psychology, philosophy, linguistics, and computer science...   Memory Memory In psychology, memory is an organism's ability to store, retain, and recall information and experiences. Traditional studies of memory began in the fields of philosophy, including techniques of artificially enhancing memory....   Divergent production Divergent thinking Divergent thinking is a thought process or method used to generate creative ideas by exploring many possible solutions. It is often used in conjunction with convergent thinking, which follows a particular set of logical steps to arrive at one solution, which in some cases is a "correct" solution...   Convergent production Convergent thinking Convergent thinking is a term coined by Joy Paul Guilford as the opposite of divergent thinking. It generally means the ability to give the "correct" answer to standard questions that do not require significant creativity, for instance in most tasks in school and on standardized multiple-choice...   Evaluation Evaluation Evaluation is systematic determination of merit, worth, and significance of something or someone using criteria against a set of standards.Evaluation often is used to characterize and appraise subjects of interest in a wide range of human enterprises, including the arts, criminal justice,...   Cognitive Cognitive psychology Cognitive psychology is a subdiscipline of psychology exploring internal mental processes.It is the study of how people perceive, remember, think, speak, and solve problems.Cognitive psychology differs from previous psychological approaches in two key ways.... Attentional focalization Attention Attention is the cognitive process of paying attention to one aspect of the environment while ignoring others. Attention is one of the most intensely studied topics within psychology and cognitive neuroscience....   Attentional discarding Attention Attention is the cognitive process of paying attention to one aspect of the environment while ignoring others. Attention is one of the most intensely studied topics within psychology and cognitive neuroscience....   Spatial basic operating scheme Representation  Comparison  Operations of memory Memory In psychology, memory is an organism's ability to store, retain, and recall information and experiences. Traditional studies of memory began in the fields of philosophy, including techniques of artificially enhancing memory....   Temporal basic operating scheme Systemic Cognitive operations  Practical operations Executive functions The executive system is a theorized cognitive system in psychology that controls and manages other cognitive processes. It is responsible for processes that are sometimes referred to as the executive function, executive functions, supervisory attentional system, or cognitive control...   Affective operations  Expressive operations Emotional expression In psychology, emotional expression is observable verbal and nonverbal behaviour that communicates emotion. Emotional expression can occur with or without self-awareness...   Perceptual-motor operations  Regulative operations Writers Pierre Janet Pierre Janet Pierre Marie Félix Janet was a pioneering French psychologist, philosopher and psychotherapist in the field of dissociation and traumatic memory....   Jean Piaget Jean Piaget Jean Piaget was a French-speaking Swiss developmental psychologist and philosopher known for his epistemological studies with children. His theory of cognitive development and epistemological view are together called "genetic epistemology"....   Joy Paul Guilford  Silvio Ceccato Silvio Ceccato Silvio Ceccato was an Italian philosopher and linguist.Born in Montecchio Maggiore, he studied law and music. In 1949 he founded the international magazine Methodos, which was published until 1964....   Giulio Benedetti Codrin Stefan Tapu

Psychology portal

Mental operations are operations that affect mental

Mind

The concept of mind is understood in many different ways by many different traditions, ranging from panpsychism and animism to traditional and organized religious views, as well as secular and materialist philosophies. Most agree that minds are constituted by conscious experience and intelligent...

 contents. Pierre Janet

Pierre Janet

Pierre Marie Félix Janet was a pioneering French psychologist, philosopher and psychotherapist in the field of dissociation and traumatic memory....

 was one of the first using the concept in psychology. Mental operations have been investigated at a developmental level by Jean Piaget

Jean Piaget

Jean Piaget was a French-speaking Swiss developmental psychologist and philosopher known for his epistemological studies with children. His theory of cognitive development and epistemological view are together called "genetic epistemology"....

, and from a psychometric perspective by J. P. Guilford

J. P. Guilford

Joy Paul Guilford was a US psychologist, best remembered for his psychometric study of human intelligence, including the important distinction between convergent and divergent production....

. There is also a cognitive approach to the subject, as well as a systems view of it.

History

In 1903, Pierre Janet describes two types of mental operations:

• reality operations - mental operations under the control of logic;
• disinterested operations - escaping the control of reason.

Jean Piaget differentiates a preoperational stage, and operational stages of cognitive development

Cognitive development

Cognitive development is a field of study in neuroscience and psychology focusing on a child's development in terms of information processing, conceptual resources, perceptual skill, language learning, and other aspects of brain development and cognitive psychology compared to an adult's point of...

, on the basis of presence of mental operations as an adaptation

Adaptation

An adaptation in biology is a trait with a current functional role in the life history of an organism that is maintained and evolved by means of natural selection. An adaptation refers to both the current state of being adapted and to the dynamic evolutionary process that leads to the adaptation....

 tool.

J. P. Guilford's Structure of Intellect theory comprises up to 180 different intellectual abilities organized along three dimensions—Operations, Content, and Products.

According to most logicians, the three primary mental operations are apprehension (understanding), judgement

Judgement

Judgment is the evaluation of evidence in the making of a decision. The term has three distinct uses:* Informal - Opinions expressed as facts....

, and inference

Inference

Inference is the act or process of deriving logical conclusions from premises known or assumed to be true. The conclusion drawn is also called an idiomatic. The laws of valid inference are studied in the field of logic.Human inference Inference is the act or process of deriving logical conclusions...

.

Apprehension is the mental operation by which an idea is formed in the mind. If you were to think of a sunset or a baseball, the action of forming that picture in your mind is apprehension. The verbal expression of apprehension is called a term.

Judgment is the mental operation by which we predicate something of a subject. Were you to think, "That sunset is beautiful" or "Baseball is the all-American sport" is to make a judgment. The verbal expression of judgment is the statement (or proposition).

Inference (or reasoning) is the mental operation by which we draw conclusions from other information. If you were to think, "I like to look at that sunset, because I enjoy beautiful things, and that sunset is beautiful" you would be reasoning. The verbal expression of reasoning is the logical argument.

Developmental view

Jean Piaget

Jean Piaget

Jean Piaget was a French-speaking Swiss developmental psychologist and philosopher known for his epistemological studies with children. His theory of cognitive development and epistemological view are together called "genetic epistemology"....

 identifies several mental operations of the concrete operational stage of cognitive development

Cognitive development

Cognitive development is a field of study in neuroscience and psychology focusing on a child's development in terms of information processing, conceptual resources, perceptual skill, language learning, and other aspects of brain development and cognitive psychology compared to an adult's point of...

:

• Seriation—the ability to sort objects in an order according to size, shape, or any other characteristic. For example, if given different-shaded objects they may make a color gradient.

• Transitivity—The ability to recognize logical relationships among elements in a serial order, and perform 'transitive inferences' (for example, If A is taller than B, and B is taller than C, then A must be taller than C).

• Classification—the ability to name and identify sets of objects according to appearance, size or other characteristic, including the idea that one set of objects can include another.

• Decentering—where the child takes into account multiple aspects of a problem to solve it. For example, the child will no longer perceive an exceptionally wide but short cup to contain less than a normally-wide, taller cup.

• Reversibility—the child understands that numbers or objects can be changed, then returned to their original state. For this reason, a child will be able to rapidly determine that if 4+4 equals t, t−4 will equal 4, the original quantity.

• Conservation—understanding that quantity, length or number of items is unrelated to the arrangement or appearance of the object or items.

Piaget also describes a formal operational stage, with formal operations of abstract thinking: hypothesizing, hypothesis

Hypothesis

A hypothesis is a proposed explanation for a phenomenon. The term derives from the Greek, ὑποτιθέναι – hypotithenai meaning "to put under" or "to suppose". For a hypothesis to be put forward as a scientific hypothesis, the scientific method requires that one can test it...

 testing, and deduction

Deductive reasoning

Deductive reasoning, also called deductive logic, is reasoning which constructs or evaluates deductive arguments. Deductive arguments are attempts to show that a conclusion necessarily follows from a set of premises or hypothesis...

.

Psychometric view

According to J. P. Guilford

J. P. Guilford

Joy Paul Guilford was a US psychologist, best remembered for his psychometric study of human intelligence, including the important distinction between convergent and divergent production....

's Structure of Intellect (SI) theory, an individual's performance on intelligence tests can be traced back to the underlying mental abilities or factors of intelligence. SI theory comprises multiple intellectual abilities organized along three dimensions—Operations, Content, and Products.

• Operations dimension

SI includes six operations or general intellectual processes:
Cognition—The ability to understand, comprehend, discover, and become aware of information.
Memory recording—The ability to encode information.
Memory retention—The ability to recall information.
Divergent production—The ability to generate multiple solutions to a problem; creativity.
Convergent production—The ability to deduce a single solution to a problem; rule-following or problem-solving.
Evaluation—The ability to judge whether or not information is accurate, consistent, or valid.

• Content dimension

SI includes five broad areas of information to which the human intellect applies the six operations:
Visual—Information perceived through seeing.
Auditory—Information perceived through hearing.
Kinesthetic -through actions
Symbolic—Information perceived as symbols or signs that have no meaning by themselves; e.g., Arabic numerals or the letters of an alphabet.
Semantic—Information perceived in words or sentences, whether oral, written, or silently in one's mind.
Behavioral—Information perceived as acts of people.

• Product dimension

As the name suggests, this dimension contains results of applying particular operations to specific contents. The SI model includes six products, in increasing complexity:
Units—Single items of knowledge.
Classes—Sets of units sharing common attributes.
Relations—Units linked as opposites or in associations, sequences, or analogies.
Systems—Multiple relations interrelated to comprise structures or networks.
Transformations—Changes, perspectives, conversions, or mutations to knowledge.
Implications—Predictions, inferences, consequences, or anticipations of knowledge.

Therefore, according to Guilford there are 6 x 5 x 6 = 180 intellectual abilities or factors. Each ability stands for a particular operation in a particular content area and results in a specific product, such as Comprehension of Figural Units or Evaluation of Semantic Implications.

Cognitive view

Following on the footsteps of Silvio Ceccato, Giulio Benedetti describes several types of mental operations:

• attentional focalization - focusing attention
  Attention
  Attention is the cognitive process of paying attention to one aspect of the environment while ignoring others. Attention is one of the most intensely studied topics within psychology and cognitive neuroscience....
  
   on something;
• attentional discarding - stopping our attention on an object;
• spatial basic operating scheme (attentional movement) - passing attention from one part to another of the attentional field;
• operation of representation - evoking a mental image;
• operation of comparison;
• operations of memory
  Memory
  In psychology, memory is an organism's ability to store, retain, and recall information and experiences. Traditional studies of memory began in the fields of philosophy, including techniques of artificially enhancing memory....
  
  ;
• temporal basic operating scheme - variation of attentional focalization.

Systems view

Taking into account all mental processes, the following types of mental operations have been described:

• cognitive operations - production and verbalization of images and thoughts;
• practical operations, pertaining to executive functions
  Executive functions
  The executive system is a theorized cognitive system in psychology that controls and manages other cognitive processes. It is responsible for processes that are sometimes referred to as the executive function, executive functions, supervisory attentional system, or cognitive control...
  
  ;
• affective operations - affective evaluation
  Evaluation
  Evaluation is systematic determination of merit, worth, and significance of something or someone using criteria against a set of standards.Evaluation often is used to characterize and appraise subjects of interest in a wide range of human enterprises, including the arts, criminal justice,...
  
   of the world and self
  Self (psychology)
  The psychology of self is the study of either the cognitive and affective representation of one's identity or the subject of experience. The earliest formulation of the self in modern psychology derived from the distinction between the self as I, the subjective knower, and the self as Me, the...
  
  ;
• expressive operations (emotional expression
  Emotional expression
  In psychology, emotional expression is observable verbal and nonverbal behaviour that communicates emotion. Emotional expression can occur with or without self-awareness...
  
  );
• perceptual-motor operations (e.g., eye-hand coordination);
• regulative operations - verbalization of needs, motives and feelings, and self-control.