Hello, dear readers! Some people have great difficulty finding solutions to simple problems. It is quite difficult for them to come up with something on their own, it takes them quite a lot of time to find a synonym for a word, and when you ask them something, they are lost and can answer when the topic has already been covered or the second or third question has already been asked.
Inertia of thinking is a phenomenon in which it is difficult for a person to change the type of activity, they think a little longer than others and have difficulty finding answers even to simple questions. This problem most often occurs in patients with epilepsy, people with brain injuries, and mental retardation.
If you ask such a person to name an antonym, he will select the most suitable word for a long time, perhaps when you have already named the second or third option.
Content
- Inertia in children
- How to overcome
- Books for the development of thinking
Hello, dear readers! Some people have great difficulty finding solutions to simple problems. It is quite difficult for them to come up with something on their own, it takes them quite a lot of time to find a synonym for a word, and when you ask them something, they are lost and can answer when the topic has already been covered or the second or third question has already been asked.
Inertia of thinking is a phenomenon in which it is difficult for a person to change the type of activity, they think a little longer than others and have difficulty finding answers even to simple questions. This problem most often occurs in patients with epilepsy, people with brain injuries, and mental retardation.
If you ask such a person to name an antonym, he will select the most suitable word for a long time, perhaps when you have already named the second or third option.
Inertia in children
Inertness or slowness of mind, another synonym for inertia of thinking, is not always found exclusively in clinical cases. You can try for a long time to explain to your child that a whale is an animal, but using the experience he has already gained, he will insist that it is a fish and will not accept your words. You should not lose your temper; it is quite possible that the reason is not stubbornness, his behavior is characterized by inertia of thinking.
It is quite difficult for children to get used to new rules, to cope with volumes of information, and then they begin to act according to already established rules, ignoring the changed conditions.
Inability to transfer knowledge to related or other areas
Many examples can be given that confirm this form of psychological inertia of thinking. The physicist Hertz, who discovered radio waves, could not agree that his discovery would find application in communications technology. “And don’t argue,” Hertz waved, “I discovered these waves myself. I know better". This continued until A.S. Popov, without arguing with Hertz, built the first radio station.
Another example.
Microbiologists have conducted thousands of experiments to find ways to defeat pathogenic bacteria. But the experiments were often hampered by mold. Where it appeared, the microbes immediately died. Microbiologists desperately fought mold and protected laboratory glassware from it. And only 20 years later, the English researcher Fleming came to the conclusion that mold contains some kind of substance that destroys microbes, and it can be used to treat diseases. This is how penicillin was born. His invention was 20 years late. During this time, about 20 million people died from various infectious diseases, who could have been saved.
Next example. In the 50s, metallurgical scientists tried to use heating with a high-frequency electromagnetic field to melt metal. However, nothing worked; the metal only heated up at the surface and stubbornly refused to heat up inside. Several years of experiments did not bring success, and the experiments were stopped. And only ten years later, other scientists were able to use this property of a high-frequency field for surface heating and hardening of products. Again the invention was many years late due to the psychological inertia of thinking.
The solution of inventive problems within the framework of a narrow specialization can be attributed to this form of psychological inertia of thinking
Our age is the age of narrow specialization. A railway automation specialist does not know how elevator automation works, an aircraft designer is very far from a combine designer, etc. Each of them uses literature only in his specialty, communicates only with colleagues and strives to solve all problems only within the framework of his specialization. In many cases, it does not occur to anyone to look at how the same problems are solved in other areas of technology, in the animal and plant world, in the microcosm, etc.
How to overcome
When it comes to the clinical cases described in the first part of this article, treatment should be handled exclusively by a doctor. This is a requirement. If you decide on your own that you have some problems finding answers and you want to develop your own intelligence and instill in yourself new qualities, then the best way would be logic problems.
Over time, chess, backgammon, monopoly and other board games will help raise your level of intelligence and teach you to quickly find the right solutions. Solve crosswords, Sudoku, buy other games to develop logic that you can play yourself. Psychology has not yet come up with a more effective way to eliminate this problem.
Also, don't forget to read. It engages imagination, develops memory, and contributes to the emergence of new everyday experiences. I can also recommend you several books to develop your creative abilities.
Books for the development of thinking
In the book “Turbulent Thinking” by Dmitry Gavrilov you will find many interesting facts that you can show off to your friends and colleagues. In addition, there are many practical exercises that will contribute to the development of creative abilities. The questions may seem difficult to you, but the interesting facts and benefits for the mind will more than compensate for all the difficulties that you will encounter during the learning process.
In Edward de Bono's book "The Art of Thinking" you will find the secrets of the literal thinking technique developed by the author. It helps you learn to think flexibly, to look at the same phenomena from different angles. It is aimed at solving everyday problems that we face at work or at home. Literal thinking, according to the author of the book, contributes to the rapid achievement of success in any field.
The book Rice Storm by Michael Micalco contains 21 ways to think outside the box. There are not only logic games, puzzles and non-standard strategies, but also inspiring facts that will help you not give up and read the book to the end.
The most interesting thing is that the author pays attention not only to thinking itself, but also tries to help readers overcome self-doubt and fears and other unpleasant moments that interfere with life.
That's basically it. Don't forget to subscribe to the newsletter to know a little more about yourself. See you again and good luck.
The concept of “inert thinking” can be used to define a group of syndromes of thinking disorders, the main symptom of which is insufficient mobility of mental processes. It includes viscous thinking, perseverative thinking and thinking with stereotypies. Elements of inertia of mental activity are also observed in depressive states, however, in these cases, the inertia of thought processes is a secondary factor, since the leading role is played by slowing down of thinking and persistent depressive affect, characterized by the attenuation of incentives for an action that has already begun.
B.V. Zeigarnik (1976) calls the mental activity of patients with epilepsy inert thinking. We consider this term to be broader - the inertia of the course of mental processes can explain such psychopathological phenomena as rigidity, perseverations and stereotypies, which in relation to behavioral acts are united by the concept of “fixed forms of behavior”. G.V. Zalevsky (1976) understands fixed forms of behavior as acts of behavior that are persistently and involuntarily repeated or continued in situations that objectively require their cessation or change. In relation to the pathology of thinking, it seems more appropriate to us to talk about fixed forms of mental activity. Manifestations of inert thinking are observed in diseases of various origins, mainly in schizophrenia, as part of gross organic pathology of the brain. Therefore, we cannot talk about their causal etiological relationship; we are talking about similar pathogenetic mechanisms that can be caused by both functional and organic-destructive changes.
Viscous thinking
observed in epileptic dementia. It is characterized by thoroughness, a tendency to detail, the inability to separate the main from the secondary, stiffness, “treading water”, the inability to leave the circle of certain ideas and switch to something else. The viscous thinking of patients with epilepsy can be characterized primarily as rigid, insufficiently labile.
Getting stuck on little things and details, the epileptic patient, however, never loses sight of the purpose of his story. The facts reported to the patient are associated with random circumstances, but within the given topic. The patient carefully describes the details, lists them in such a way that it is difficult to interrupt him. It is difficult for him to connect details with the general content. This tendency to get stuck, “sticking” to the same circle of ideas, excessive detail, and inability to highlight the main thing characterize thinking in epilepsy. Although the patient deviates in his reasoning from the direct path leading to the goal, he does not lose attention to this goal itself. When talking about something, he either marks time, or gets carried away by details, teachings, reasoning, explanations, but remains within the circle of those ideas that are indicated by the initial intention of the narration. The theme of the story does not change. The pace and character of speech of a patient with epilepsy is extremely difficult to correct.
Ya. V. Bernstein (1936) pointed out that stiffness and inertia of thinking in epilepsy, being primary, is always included in the complex symptom complex of characteristic features of the main lesion, is reflected in every feature of this lesion and all its features are reflected in it. Indeed, stiffness is characteristic of the entire mental life of a patient with epilepsy; it manifests itself in his behavior, affectivity, and in the peculiarities of his thinking. At the same time, rigidity, which can be observed in other diseases, is specifically colored in the epilepsy clinic due to its inextricable connection with other symptoms inherent in epileptic dementia.
The speech of a patient with viscous thinking is characterized by oligophasia, repetitions, pauses, diminutives and endearments. Patients fill pauses in speech with words such as “you understand”, “so to speak”, “means”, etc. Already in ordinary conversation, patients with viscous thinking show a tendency towards excessive thoroughness and detail. This is revealed even more when they describe a drawing or retell a text. Often, having described the drawing in great detail, listing even the most insignificant details depicted on it, the patient still cannot comprehend it or grasp its content. This weakness of judgment corresponds to the severity of the epileptic dementia.
Here is a typical example of viscous thinking: the patient turns to his interlocutor.
“Not just anything, but really - can I ask you for a cigarette? Yesterday my mother came - she comes to see me every other day - and brought me cigarettes. He says: “Take it, Minechka, I brought you some cigarettes.” Good cigarettes - I love them. I was so happy that mommy brought cigarettes, and they were just my favorite ones. And the nanny says: “Now, Minechka, you have something to smoke, mummy brought some cigarettes.” But at night, not just anything, but really, when I was sleeping, this sick man smoked my cigarettes. Would you give me something? but really, a cigarette, and tomorrow mommy will bring many more cigarettes, and I’ll give them to you.”
Viscous thinking in epilepsy is also characterized by pronounced egocentric tendencies. This is clearly visible in the example above. With severe epileptic dementia, the patient’s responses are monotonous and have the character of cliches - the patient can respond to all stimulus words in an associative experiment with 2-3 words (“good” or “bad”, “I know” or “I don’t know”). Often verbal reactions reflect only the patient’s attitude towards objects designated by stimulus words. When asked to compose a story based on 3 given words “house, lamp, fire,” the patient wrote:
“We got a new apartment and moved to a five-story building. My wife didn’t like the room because there was no light bulb, and I had to run to the store in the evening to buy a light bulb. A bright light illuminated our new room. I went to the kitchen to put some tea. When a bright light sparkled on the gas stove, I put the kettle on and returned to my room.”
This kind of inclusion of oneself in a situation is considered as a sign of the predominance of specific ideas in the thinking of patients with epilepsy, insufficiency in understanding the conditional nature of the task, as a manifestation of egocentric tendencies (I. Ya. Zavilyansky, R. E. Tarashchanskaya, 1959). External distractions have little effect on the course of thought processes - while expressing his thoughts, the patient does not pay attention to the questions with which his interlocutor interrupts his speech, even if this should make the task facing him easier.
A similar inclusion of oneself in the situation is observed in the pictograms of patients with epilepsy, which are always of a purely situational nature and reflect the personal experience and assessment system inherent in the subject.
The inertia of the mode of activity of patients with epilepsy is especially clearly revealed when performing tasks using switching methods (addition and subtraction with one of the addends or the subtrahend alternating, proofreading request with switching).
Perseverative thinking.
Perseveration in thinking is understood as the tendency for any thoughts, ideas, images, words or phrases to get stuck in the patient’s mind, regardless of changes in the situation and violation of the goal of the activity. G.V. Zalevsky (1976) writes about the weakening during perseveration of the representation of the goal of activity. Perseveration manifests itself in the patient’s speech.
Perseverations are most often observed as part of gross organic pathology of the brain - with cerebral atherosclerosis (mainly when it is significant or in the presence of local symptoms), senile dementia, Alzheimer's disease, Pick's disease. They are especially clearly detected when the lesion is localized in the frontal lobe. In these cases, perseverations are a frequent structural component of motor aphasia. Thus, a patient suffering from motor aphasia, at the doctor’s request, repeats the word “yes” after him, after which the doctor unsuccessfully asks him to repeat the word “no” after him, but the patient stubbornly says “yes”. Only after a long break was the patient able to repeat “no” after the doctor. In such cases, perseverations in speech are often accompanied by motor perseverations. The patient does not always correctly assess the presence of such manifestations.
Perseverations are also found in amnestic aphasia. The patient names the object shown to him, and then names all other objects with the same words. For example, seeing a kettle, the patient says: “This is to drink... they boil it, and then drink it.” Then they show him a thimble and he says: “Well, a teapot... they need to sew. My daughter has something like this.”
Patients do not notice perseveration with simultaneous damage to the speech-perceiving analyzer, for example, with sensory-motor aphasia.
Within the framework of the aphasic syndrome, perseveration is, as it were, a structural component of aphasia and persists for a long time even after the disappearance of the main aphasic manifestations. They are also observed in non-focal organic lesions of the brain - in severe but non-stroke cerebral atherosclerosis, in mental retardation.
There are numerous observations of perseverations in thinking and speech in schizophrenia. According to N. Flegel (1965), they cover a wide range of speech phenomena - from individual sounds to words, fragments of phrases and entire speech patterns. E. Kraepelin (1927) associated the appearance of perseverations in schizophrenia with the impoverishment of ideas and the tendency to fill these gaps in thinking at the expense of previous ideas. N. Flegel (1965), being in the same positions, in the genesis of perseverations attaches great importance to the increasing automation of mental and speech activity.
Perseverations are also observed during severe fatigue, and
also under the influence of alcohol. In such cases, however, they are episodic and short-term in nature.
Stereotypes in thinking. Stereotypes are understood as a tendency to repeat the same acts of mental activity. Sometimes individual words are repeated stereotypically, in other cases we are talking about thinking in stereotypes. The degree of automation in the process of stereotypy also varies. Thus, verbigeration (the manifestation of stereotypy in the speech of patients with schizophrenia) is characterized by a completely meaningless, automatic, involuntary repetition of the same words or phrases. Motor and hallucinatory stereotypies seem just as automated. The latter are often carried out with insufficiently clear consciousness, for example, during acute intoxication. Stereotypies of thoughts are somewhat more arbitrary, however, in these cases, the phenomena of mental automatism obviously play a large role.
Stereotypes should be distinguished from perseverations. Perseverations, according to M. S. Lebedinsky and V. N. Myasishchev (1966), are characterized by the fact that an already completed action, entirely or in some of its elements, penetrates into the subsequent one, aimed at solving a new task, although for its implementation the perseveratory components of the activity , which began as part of the previous task, are alien and unsuitable. With stereotypies, the patient’s activity (mental, speech, motor) loses all meaning and is not at all connected with solving any problem. We cannot grasp the connection between stereotypical phrases in thinking or speech with any previous activity; they are also alien to previous mental tasks.
Stereotypes appear over a long period of time and do not change under the influence of a specially created switch in the mode of activity of the psychiatrist in communication with the patient. Perseverations depend on the degree of difficulty of solving a new problem; they are more easily identified in activities similar to past actions. These signs are not found in stereotypies. Unlike perseverations, the patient does not try to counteract stereotypies.
E. Kraepelin (1918), who saw in stereotypies a tendency to repeat the same ideas for a long time, emphasized that with them, unlike perseverations, the content of these ideas does not depend on the previous ones.
We give an example of stereotypy in the thinking of a patient with schizophrenia.
“I was attacked 8 years ago by foreign intelligence officers, who cut my stomach and sewed radio equipment in my stomach. And wherever I go, I hear voices on the radio in my head from the radio machines that are hardwired in my stomach, I hear how on the radio various feelings are instilled into my soul. The seam after the abdominal incision, when radio equipment was sewn into it, was smoothed out and the radio equipment was felt so much that the seam was no longer visible.” Next, several pages detail the patient’s painful experiences and describe his pseudohallucinatory experiences. The patient very clearly outlines the phenomena of Capgras syndrome observed in him (the same foreign intelligence officers replaced his closest relatives—12 people—in his village with people similar to them). Eight pages later in the same letter, the patient writes: “Foreign intelligence officers cut open my uncle’s stomach and then sewed radio devices into it, and with these radio devices they angered him so much that he hit his wife, and his wife died. The prosecutor did not know that the uncle had radio equipment sewn into his stomach and that they deliberately angered him, and the uncle was tried in the city of Makeyevka. This is what foreign intelligence officers wanted, so that my uncle would be convicted and put in prison.”
This motif (foreign intelligence officers sewing radio equipment into various people’s stomachs) is stereotypically repeated in the future, throughout the patient’s written and oral speech in relation to a variety of people. We see here the tendency noted by E. Kraepelin (1910) in patients with schizophrenia to constantly return to the same thoughts and ideas, which the author defined as stereotypies in thinking.
Stereotypes are observed not only in schizophrenia. They are often found in the clinic of organic psychoses. An example of stereotypy of organic genesis is the gramophone record symptom (chimes symptom) described by W. Mayer-Gross (1931). It refers to the standing turns characteristic of Pick's disease and consists of a stereotypical and non-stop repetition with unchanged intonations at certain intervals of time of the same story or several phrases. According to the course of the disease, standing turns in Pick's disease undergo changes due to the increase in dementia and the breakdown of speech - they are increasingly simplified, reduced and ultimately reduced to a stereotypically repeated phrase or several words.
Over time, standing phrases become more and more meaningless, sometimes the words in them are so paraphatically distorted that they lose even the remotest resemblance to the prototype word.
