Chapter I. Theoretical aspects of the development of creative thinking in primary school age.
1.1 The concept of creative thinking.
The concept of "creative thinking" occupies a special place among psychological terms: on the one hand, it is inextricably linked to the concept of creativity itself, appears where we talk about abilities and talent, is mentioned almost everywhere where the problem of individualization of learning is discussed, but on the other hand, creative thinking remains poorly understood, undefined and insufficiently differentiate
d from other psychological concepts.
Even the general psychological characteristics of creative thinking are in themselves a problem for several reasons.
First, creative thinking is included in the global concept of creativity, and often even in highly professional studies the authors tend to either identify creativity and creative thinking, as, for example, in the works of G.S. Altshuller, N.N. Veresaev, etc., or to correlate them in completely different ways, as, for example, in diametrically opposed concepts of M.S. Bernstein, E. Bono, I.N. Semenov [4, p.224], [28, p.215].
Second, the majority of developments on the problem exist outside the unified system, and if the concept of creative thinking and its criteria are defined, for example, by P. Weinzweig and Y.A. Ponomarev [7, p.127], then the very structured knowledge of creative thinking is absent.
In the modern Western and Russian psychology of development of creative thinking exist in the form of a complex of concepts and theories, in the form of theoretical and experimental works on certain aspects:
1) Creative thinking as a prerequisite for scientific activity and activity in art in the works of R. Arnheim, M.M. Bakhtin [1,p.410], [2,p.230];
2) creative thinking as a special kind of talent in the works of Ch.D. Chistyakova, V. Stern [35,p.204]; 3) creative thinking as a specific intellectual activity in the works of A.V. Brushlinsky [6,p.178], etc.
As a result, the absence of a more or less uniform concept of knowledge about creative thinking and significant ambiguity in terms create significant difficulties in using this concept.
Despite all the existing theoretical and terminological difficulties associated with creative thinking, the most confusing issue and the relationship between creative thinking and thinking in general. The most common understanding of creative thinking as a type of thinking, while an in-depth analysis of various psychological theories of thinking proves a completely different nature of the relationship of these concepts.
In our paper we propose the thesis that creative thinking is expedient to understand as a higher form of thinking, and we are ready to show the possibility of such interpretation of this concept from the standpoint of different psychological theories of thinking.
Thus, L.M. Vecker's theory singles out the following properties of thinking as a cognitive process: 1) a special spatial and temporal structure, 2) a special modality, and 3) a special intensity [8,p.685].
Spatiality and temporal measurements are traditionally the properties of simpler and more "sensual" mental processes than thinking. Thinking has a very special spatial and temporal structure. From the point of view of space, thinking is characterized by removal of borders and barriers, removal of thresholds, ability to travel any distance regardless of physical laws and time.
In contrast to the traditional understanding of thinking as a non-modal process, L.M. Vecker points to the special properties of thinking modality. Thinking is intermodal, i.e. in thinking specific modalities deepen and transform into maximally synthetic mental formations.
Special properties of the intensity of thinking are manifested in the fact that the intensity of this process depends not on the energy of the stimulus, but on the energy of the subject. The intensity of thinking depends on the overall activation of the cerebral cortex, which is most often caused by special motivation of thinking.
Thus, if thinking has the properties of spatial and temporal freedom and unlimitedness, is intermodal and depends on the internal activation of the subject in its intensity, then creative thinking should have the same characteristics to the maximum extent. Creative thinking is characterized by maximum freedom in overcoming space and time and in their operation in solving specific tasks; it is maximally synthetic, maximally generalized in relation to specific images and sensory experiences, and is based on maximum subjective activation, without which it cannot be developed at all. It is these characteristics that we find in almost any of its descriptions.