Critical thinking is the analysis of facts to form a judgment. The subject is complex, and several different definitions exist, which generally include the rational, skeptical, unbiased analysis, or evaluation of factual evidence. Critical thinking is self-directed, self-disciplined, self-monitored, and self-corrective thinking. It presupposes assent to rigorous standards of excellence and mindful command of their use. It entails effective communication and problem-solving abilities as well as a commitment to overcome native egocentrism and sociocentrism.


The earliest records of critical thinking are the teachings of Socrates recorded by Plato. These included a part in Plato's early dialogues, where Socrates engages with one or more interlocutors on the issue of ethics such as question whether it was right for Socrates to escape from prison. The philosopher considered and reflected on this question and came to the conclusion that escape violates all the things that he holds higher than himself: the laws of Athens and the guiding voice that Socrates claims to hear.


Socrates established the fact that one cannot depend upon those in "authority" to have sound knowledge and insight. He demonstrated that persons may have power and high position and yet be deeply confused and irrational. Socrates maintained that for an individual to have a good life or to have one that is worth living, he must be a critical questioner and possess an interrogative soul. He established the importance of asking deep questions that probe profoundly into thinking before we accept ideas as worthy of belief.


Socrates set the agenda for the tradition of critical thinking, namely, to reflectively question common beliefs and explanations, carefully distinguishing beliefs that are reasonable and logical from those that—however appealing to our native egocentrism, however much they serve our vested interests, however comfortable or comforting they may be—lack adequate evidence or rational foundation to warrant belief.


Critical thinking was described by Richard W. Paul as a movement in two waves (1994). The "first wave" of critical thinking is often referred to as


a 'critical analysis' that is clear, rational thinking involving critique. Its details vary amongst those who define it. According to Barry K. Beyer (1995), critical thinking means making clear, reasoned judgments. During the process of critical thinking, ideas should be reasoned, well thought out, and judged. The U.S. National Council for Excellence in Critical Thinking defines critical thinking as the "intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action."


In the term "critical thinking", the word "critical", (Grk. κριτικός = "kritikos" = "critic") derives from the word "critic" and implies a critique; it identifies the intellectual capacity and the means "of judging", "of judgement", "for judging", and of being "able to discern". The intellectual roots of critical thinking are as ancient as its etymology, traceable, ultimately, to the teaching practice and vision of Socrates 2,500 years ago who discovered by a method of probing questioning that people could not rationally justify their confident claims to knowledge.


Traditionally, critical thinking has been variously defined as follows:


Contemporary critical thinking scholars have expanded these traditional definitions to include qualities, concepts, and processes such as creativity, imagination, discovery, reflection, empathy, connecting knowing, feminist theory, subjectivity, ambiguity, and inconclusiveness. Some definitions of critical thinking exclude these subjective practices.


The study of logical argumentation is relevant to the study of critical thinking. Logic is concerned with the analysis of arguments, including the appraisal of their correctness or incorrectness. In the field of epistemology, critical thinking is considered to be logically correct thinking, which allows for differentiation between logically true and logically false statements.


In the 'second wave' of critical thinking, authors consciously moved away from the logocentric mode of critical thinking characteristic of the 'first wave'. Although many scholars began to take a less exclusive view of what constitutes critical thinking, rationality and logic remain widely accepted as essential bases for critical thinking. Walters argues that exclusive logicism in the first wave sense is based on "the unwarranted assumption that good thinking is reducible to logical thinking".


There are three types of logical reasoning. Informally, two kinds of logical reasoning can be distinguished in addition to formal deduction, which are induction and abduction.


Kerry S. Walters, an emeritus philosophy professor from Gettysburg College, argues that rationality demands more than just logical or traditional methods of problem solving and analysis or what he calls the "calculus of justification" but also considers "cognitive acts such as imagination, conceptual creativity, intuition and insight" (p. 63). These "functions" are focused on discovery, on more abstract processes instead of linear, rules-based approaches to problem-solving. The linear and non-sequential mind must both be engaged in the rational mind.


The ability to critically analyze an argument—to dissect structure and components, thesis and reasons—is essential. But so is the ability to be flexible and consider non-traditional alternatives and perspectives. These complementary functions are what allow for critical thinking to be a practice encompassing imagination and intuition in cooperation with traditional modes of deductive inquiry.


The list of core critical thinking skills includes observation, interpretation, analysis, inference, evaluation, explanation, and metacognition. According to Reynolds (2011), an individual or group engaged in a strong way of critical thinking gives due consideration to establish for instance:


In addition to possessing strong critical-thinking skills, one must be disposed to engage problems and decisions using those skills. Critical thinking employs not only logic but broad intellectual criteria such as clarity, credibility, accuracy, precision, relevance, depth, breadth, significance, and fairness.


Critical thinking calls for the ability to:


"A persistent effort to examine any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the evidence that supports or refutes it and the further conclusions to which it tends."


The habits of mind that characterize a person strongly disposed toward critical thinking include a desire to follow reason and evidence wherever they may lead, a systematic approach to problem solving, inquisitiveness, even-handedness, and confidence in reasoning.


According to a definition analysis by Kompf & Bond (2001), critical thinking involves problem solving, decision making, metacognition, rationality, rational thinking, reasoning, knowledge, intelligence and also a moral component such as reflective thinking. Critical thinkers therefore need to have reached a level of maturity in their development, possess a certain attitude as well as a set of taught skills.


There is a postulation by some writers that the tendencies from habits of mind should be thought as virtues to demonstrate the characteristics of a critical thinker. These intellectual virtues are ethical qualities that encourage motivation to think in particular ways towards specific circumstances. However, these virtues have also been criticized by skeptics, who argue that there is lacking evidence for this specific mental basis that are causative to critical thinking.


Edward M. Glaser proposed that the ability to think critically involves three elements:


Educational programs aimed at developing critical thinking in children and adult learners, individually or in group problem solving and decision making contexts, continue to address these same three central elements.


The Critical Thinking project at Human Science Lab, London, is involved in the scientific study of all major educational systems in prevalence today to assess how the systems are working to promote or impede critical thinking.


Contemporary cognitive psychology regards human reasoning as a complex process that is both reactive and reflective. This presents a problem which is detailed as a division of a critical mind in juxtaposition to sensory data and memory.


The psychological theory disposes of the absolute nature of the rational mind, in reference to conditions, abstract problems and discursive limitations. Where the relationship between critical thinking skills and critical thinking dispositions is an empirical question, the ability to attain causal domination exists, for which Socrates was known to be largely disposed against as the practice of Sophistry. Accounting for a measure of "critical thinking dispositions" is the California Measure of Mental Motivation and the California Critical Thinking Dispositions Inventory. The Critical Thinking Toolkit is an alternative measure that examines student beliefs and attitudes about critical thinking


John Dewey is one of many educational leaders who recognized that a curriculum aimed at building thinking skills would benefit the individual learner, the community, and the entire democracy.


Critical thinking is significant in the learning process of internalization, in the construction of basic ideas, principles, and theories inherent in content. And critical thinking is significant in the learning process of application, whereby those ideas, principles, and theories are implemented effectively as they become relevant in learners' lives.


Each discipline adapts its use of critical thinking concepts and principles. The core concepts are always there, but they are embedded in subject-specific content. For students to learn content, intellectual engagement is crucial. All students must do their own thinking, their own construction of knowledge. Good teachers recognize this and therefore focus on the questions, readings, activities that stimulate the mind to take ownership of key concepts and principles underlying the subject.


Historically, the teaching of critical thinking focused only on logical procedures such as formal and informal logic. This emphasized to students that good thinking is equivalent to logical thinking. However, a second wave of critical thinking, urges educators to value conventional techniques, meanwhile expanding what it means to be a critical thinker. In 1994, Kerry Walters compiled a conglomeration of sources surpassing this logical restriction to include many different authors' research regarding connected knowing, empathy, gender-sensitive ideals, collaboration, world views, intellectual autonomy, morality and enlightenment. These concepts invite students to incorporate their own perspectives and experiences into their thinking.


There used to also be an Advanced Extension Award offered in Critical Thinking in the UK, open to any A-level student regardless of whether they have the Critical Thinking A-level. Cambridge International Examinations have an A-level in Thinking Skills.


From 2008, Assessment and Qualifications Alliance has also been offering an A-level Critical Thinking specification.


OCR exam board have also modified theirs for 2008. Many examinations for university entrance set by universities, on top of A-level examinations, also include a critical thinking component, such as the LNAT, the UKCAT, the BioMedical Admissions Test and the Thinking Skills Assessment.


In Qatar, critical thinking was offered by AL-Bairaq—an outreach, non-traditional educational program that targets high school students and focuses on a curriculum based on STEM fields. The idea behind AL-Bairaq is to offer high school students the opportunity to connect with the research environment in the Center for Advanced Materials (CAM) at Qatar University. Faculty members train and mentor the students and help develop and enhance their critical thinking, problem-solving, and teamwork skills.


In 1995, a meta-analysis of the literature on teaching effectiveness in higher education was undertaken.


The study noted concerns from higher education, politicians, and business that higher education was failing to meet society's requirements for well-educated citizens. It concluded that although faculty may aspire to develop students' thinking skills, in practice they have tended to aim at facts and concepts utilizing lowest levels of cognition, rather than developing intellect or values.


Scott Lilienfeld notes that there is some evidence to suggest that basic critical thinking skills might be successfully taught to children at a younger age than previously thought.


Critical thinking is considered important in the academic fields for enabling one to analyze, evaluate, explain, and restructure thinking, thereby ensuring the act of thinking without false belief. However, even with knowledge of the methods of logical inquiry and reasoning, mistakes occur, and due to a thinker's inability to apply the methodology consistently, and because of overruling character traits such as egocentrism. Critical thinking includes identification of prejudice, bias, propaganda, self-deception, distortion, misinformation, etc. Given research in cognitive psychology, some educators believe that schools should focus on teaching their students critical thinking skills and cultivation of intellectual traits.


It requires nurses to engage in Reflective Practice and keep records of this continued professional development for possible review by the college.


Critical thinking is also considered important for human rights education for toleration. The Declaration of Principles on Tolerance adopted by UNESCO in 1995 affirms that "education for tolerance could aim at countering factors that lead to fear and exclusion of others, and could help young people to develop capacities for independent judgement, "critical thinking" and ethical reasoning".


Researchers assessing critical thinking in online discussion forums often employ a technique called Content Analysis, where the text of online discourse (or the transcription of face-to-face discourse) is systematically coded for different kinds of statements relating to critical thinking. For example, a statement might be coded as "Discuss ambiguities to clear them up" or "Welcoming outside knowledge" as positive indicators of critical thinking. Conversely, statements reflecting poor critical thinking may be labeled as "Sticking to prejudice or assumptions" or "Squashing attempts to bring in outside knowledge". The frequency of these codes in CMC and face-to-face discourse can be compared to draw conclusions about the quality of critical thinking.


Parallel thinking is a term coined by Edward de Bono. Parallel thinking is described as a constructive alternative to: "adversarial thinking"; debate; and the approaches exemplified by Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle (whom de Bono refers to as the "Greek gang of three" (GG3) ). In general parallel thinking is a further development of the well known lateral thinking processes, focusing even more on explorations—looking for "what can be" rather than for "what is".


Parallel thinking is defined as a thinking process where focus is split in specific directions. When done in a group it effectively avoids the consequences of the adversarial approach (as used in courts).


In adversarial debate, the objective is to prove or disprove statements put forward by the parties (normally two). This is also known as the dialectic approach. In Parallel Thinking, practitioners put forward as many statements as possible in several (preferably more than two) parallel tracks. This leads to "exploration" of a subject where all participants can contribute, in parallel, with knowledge, facts, feelings, etc.


Crucial to the method is that the process is done in a disciplined manner, and that all participants play along and contribute "in parallel". Thus each participant must stick to the specific track.


The constructive developmental framework (CDF) is a theoretical framework for epistemological and psychological assessment of adults. The framework is based on empirical developmental research showing that an individual's perception of reality is an actively constructed "world of their own", unique to them and which they continue to develop over their lifespan.


CDF was developed by Otto Laske based on the work of Robert Kegan and Michael Basseches, Laske's teachers at Harvard University. The CDF methodology involves three separate instruments that respectively measure a person's social–emotional stage, cognitive level of development, and psychological profile. It provides three epistemological perspectives on individual clients as well as teams. These constructs are designed to probe how an individual and/or group constructs the real world conceptually, and how close an individual's present thinking approaches the complexity of the real world.


The methodology of CDF is grounded in empirical research on positive adult development which began under Lawrence Kohlberg in the 1960s, continued by Robert Kegan (1982, 1994), Michael Basseches 1984, and Otto Laske (1998, 2006, 2009, 2015, 2018). Laske (1998, 2009) introduced concepts from Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's philosophy and the Frankfurt School into the framework, making a strict differentiation between social–emotional and cognitive development.


In CDF, social-emotional, cognitive, and psychological assessment are arrived at separately, as follows:


In CDF, each of these profiles by itself is considered a pure abstraction since it is only in their togetherness that the "hidden dimensions of a person's consciousness" can be empirically understood and made the basis of an intervention. Importantly, a CDF intervention requires dialectical thinking, in contrast to purely logical thinking as used in positivistic research. For this reason, CDF is a model of dialogical, not monological, research.


According to the developmental psychologist Robert Kegan, a person's self-concept evolves in a series of stages through their lifetime. Such evolution is driven alternately by two main motivations: that of being autonomous and that of belonging to a group. Human beings are "controlled" by these motivations in the sense that they do not have influence on them but are rather defined by them. Additionally, these motivations are in conflict and their relationship develops over a lifespan.


Kegan describes 5 stages of development, of which the latter 4 are progressively attained in adulthood, although only a small proportion of adults reach the fourth stage and beyond:


CDF refers to such stages as "social–emotional" in that they relate to the way a person makes meaning of their experience in the social world. CDF holds that people are rarely precisely at a single stage but more accurately are distributed over a range where they are subject to the conflicting influences of a higher and a lower stage.


Assessing the social–emotional profile of a person.


The social–emotional profile of person is assessed by means of an interview, referred to as the "subject–object" interview. In the interview, the interviewer offers prompts such as "success", "change", "control", "limits", "frustration", and "risk" and invites the interviewee to describe meaningful experiences under those headings. The interviewer serves as a listener, whose role is to focus the attention of the interviewee onto their own thoughts and feelings.


The interview is scored by identifying excerpts of speech that indicate a particular stage or sub-stage. Relevant sections are chosen from the transcript of the interview and analyzed for indications of the stage of development. The most frequent sub-stage revealed by the scoring is described as the interviewee's "centre of gravity". Stages scored at below the center of gravity are described as "risk" (of regression) while stages scored above the center of gravity are described as "potential" (for development). The distribution of scores is summarized by a "risk–clarity–potential" index (RCP) that can be used to characterize the nature of the developmental challenges facing a person.


According to Jean Piaget, thinking develops in 4 stages from childhood to young adulthood. Piaget named these stages sensory-motor, pre-operational, concrete-operational, and formal-operational. Development of formal-operational thinking is considered to continue until approximately until the 25th year of life. Subsequent researchers have concentrated on the now famous question of Kohlberg: "Is there a life after 25?" In CDF, the development of post formal-operational thinking in an adult is indicated primarily by the strength of dialectical thinking measured in thought form use fluidity.


Dialectical thinking has its roots in Greek classical philosophy but is also found in ancient Hindu and Buddhist philosophy, and relates to the search for truth through reasoned argument. It finds its foremost expression in the work of the German philosopher Georg Hegel. Essentially, dialectics is viewed as the system by which human thought attempts to capture the nature of reality. Building on Bhaskar and Basseches, CDF uses a framework for dialectical thinking based on the idea that everything in reality is transient and composed of contradictions, part of a larger whole, related in some way to everything else, and subject to sudden transformation. This framework therefore distinguishes dialectical thinking in terms of four classes of dialectical thought forms that can be said to define reality:


In addition, CDF distinguishes seven individual thought forms for every class, making a total of 28 thought forms, representing a re-formulation of Basseches' 24 schematas.


The cognitive profile describes the thinking tools at a person's disposal and shows the degree to which a person's thinking has developed as indicated by their use of dialectical thought forms in the four classes. The profile is derived by means of a semi-structured interview where the interviewer has the task of eliciting the interviewee's use of thought forms in a conversation about the interviewee's work and workplace. The text of the interview is subsequently analyzed and scored to give a series of mathematical indicators.


According to CDF thinking that is highly developed is represented by the following features:


Link between social–emotional development and cognitive development.


Social–emotional and cognitive development are often seen as separate lines of development but Laske (2008) proposed that they are linked by "stages of reflective judgment" or "epistemic position", described as the view taken by a person on what constitutes "knowledge" and "truth". Epistemic position defines a person's ability to deal with uncertainty and insecurity in their knowledge of the world and, together with the stage of social–emotional development, reflects the "stance" that a person takes towards the world. Whilst cognitive development provides a person with "tools" for thinking consisting of thought forms derived from both logic and dialectics, the "stance" that a person takes determines whether they apply the thinking tools at their disposal.


CDF employs the theory put forward by psychologist Henry Murray that much of human behavior is determined by the effort to satisfy certain psychological (or "psychogenic" needs), most of which are unconscious. Personality is thus seen as characteristic behavior emerging from the dynamic between a person's pattern of psychogenic needs and the environmental forces acting on that person—termed "press".


The need–press analysis draws on Sigmund Freud's model of the human psyche divided into the components of Id, Ego and Super-ego. In living, a person is subject to the unconscious yearnings of the Id, whilst consciously aspiring to certain ideals imposed by the Super-ego, which itself is influenced by the social context. It is the dynamic balance between the forces of Id and Super-ego and the work environment that determines a person's capacity for work. Imbalances between the social reality of work and a person's ideals lead to frustration, and imbalances between a person's unconscious needs and their ideals lead to a waste of energy or "energy sink."


CDF assessment methodology uses a self-report psychometric questionnaire originated by Henry Murray's student Morris Aderman, called the need–press (NP) inventory.


The assessment methodology employed by CDF was created to measure peoples' capability and capacity for work. The theory of work used by CDF is derived from the work of Elliott Jaques. According to Jaques, work is defined as the application of reflective judgment in order to pursue certain goals within certain time limits. This definition stresses the importance of how decisions are made in a complex world and the time-span within which decisions are carried out. While Jaques offers a strictly cognitive definition of work, CDF views the social–emotional aspects of work as equally important, also including the person's (manager's, CEO's) NP profile.


CDF distinguishes between two kinds of work capability, applied and potential. Applied capability refers to the resources that an individual can already apply in order to carry out work. Potential capability refers to the resources that an individual may be capable of applying in the future. An individual can decide at any time not to apply their potential work capability. Equally circumstances may impede a person from applying their potential capability. Work capability is therefore not the same as the capacity to deliver work but rather defines and limits it.


In CDF work capacity is measured in terms of the need–press personality profile, whilst applied capability is measured in terms of the thinking tools shown up by the cognitive profile, and potential capability is measured in terms of the risk–clarity–potential score taken from the social–emotional profile.


For Elliot Jaques, human organizations are structured managerially according to levels of accountability. Each level of accountability entails a higher level of complexity in the work required of the role-holder, termed "size of role". Jaques defined the notion of requisite organization, where roles in an organization are hierarchically organized at specific levels of increasing complexity.


The application of CDF as an assessment methodology to measure the "size of person" in terms of their work capability and capacity provides a way forward for talent management systems to match the "size of person" to the "size of role". Progressively more complex roles require progressively higher levels of social–emotional development and cognitive development in the role-holder. In this way requisite organizations can align their human capability architecture with their managerial accountability architecture and design "growth assignments" that facilitate the development of capability for more complex roles.


CDF provides a platform for professional coaching such as in leadership development and management development in a variety of ways. Firstly it provides assessment tools from which the coach can construct an integrated model of the coachee complete with the developmental challenges of the client who is to be helped. Secondly, and in the sense used by Edgar Schein the use of the assessment tools and the feedback of results by the coach is an act of "process consultation" by which the client may come to understand better the assumptions, values, attitudes and behaviors that are helping or hindering their success. Thirdly, CDF provides tools for deeper and more sophisticated thinking, thereby enabling the client to explore and expand their conceptual landscape of a problem.


CDF distinguishes between behavioral and developmental coaching. The goal of behavioral coaching is to improve the client's actual performance at work, described in CDF terms as their applied capability. In contrast, the goal of developmental coaching is to illuminate and develop the client's current and emergent capabilities for work in the context of their cognitive and social–emotional development.


As shown in the book "Dynamic Collaboration: Strengthening Self Organization and Collaborative Intelligence in Teams", by Jan De Visch and Otto Laske (2018), CDF can be a tool for building in organizations a "dialogical culture" by which distributed leadership in organizations can be realized.


Covert facial recognition is the unconscious recognition of familiar faces by people with prosopagnosia. The individuals who express this phenomenon are unaware that they are recognizing the faces of people they have seen before.


Joachim Bodamer created the term prosopagnosia in 1947. Individuals with this disorder do not have the ability to overtly recognize faces, but discoveries have been made showing that people with this disorder have the ability to covertly recognize faces.


There are two types of prosopagnosia, congenital and acquired. Congenital prosopagnosia is an inability to recognize faces without a history of brain damage; while acquired prosopagnosia is caused by damage to the right occipital-temporal region of the brain. In the 1950s it was theorized that the right cerebral hemisphere was involved in facial recognition and in the 1960s this theory was supported by many experiments.


Although the ability for overt facial recognition is inhibited in patients with prosopagnosia, there have been many studies done which show that some of these individuals may have the ability to recognize familiar faces covertly. These experiments have used behavioral and physiological measures in order to demonstrate covert facial recognition. A common physiological measure that is used is the measure of autonomic activity by using skin-conductance responses (SCR) which show a larger response in individuals with prosopagnosia who are shown pictures of familiar faces compared to pictures of unfamiliar faces.


Many theories reside in the topic of cognitive facial recognition. First, the theory of contradiction between prosopagnosia and covert recognition. Prosopagnosia is the inability to recognize faces but is believed to stem from damage to the ventral route of the visual system. Whereas covert recognition is shown in people that lost their ability to recognize faces, implying an intact ventral limbic structure projecting to the amygdala.


Theory two states that it cannot be observed in developmental cases of prosopagnosia, which was proposed by Grueter. Developmental prosopagnosia is a severe face processing impairment without brain damage and visual or thinking dysfunction but can sometimes run in families (some indications that there may be a genetic reason for the disorder). This theory is thought to rely on the activation of face representations created during the time of normal processing.


Contradicting the last theory, the affective valence in developmental prosopagnosia theory states that individuals may be processing faces on affective dimensions, feelings and emotions, rather than familiarity dimensions, previous occasions and when they met.


Next is the dual-route models theory, proposed by Bauer, and states covert recognition can be seen in people that endured a time of normal face processing before actually getting the condition. With this, there are two different types of covert recognition: behavioral and physiological. Behavioral covert recognition is measured by reaction time and occurs within a cognitive pathway consisting of face recognition units (FRUs), personality identity units (PINs) and semantic information units. Physiological covert recognition is measured by SCR and is the second route that mediates reactions to familiar faces. This theory can be explained by the disconnection of FRUs or that it may be that the face recognition system is intact but has been disconnected from a higher system enabling their conscious awareness.


The parallel distributing process is a theory that proposes it would be easier to relearn previous known faces rather than to learn new ones. This process has three steps: the distributed information is represented, memory and knowledge for some things are not stored explicitly but are connected between nodes, learning can occur with gradual changes to the connections. Damaged networks are less effective by zeroing the weight of the connection. Each connection is embedded and is still faintly there, making it easier to relearn.


Other theories include one proposed by Bauer, states that neurological routes mediate overt recognition. His theory went with Bruce and Young’s theory that when using these three sequential stages in order, each stage will affect the next with overt mediation. The three stages are familiarity, occupation and name retrieval.


There are several problems that may damage the ability to properly perceive faces, many of these don’t have effects on both the covert and overt recognition of faces. Many of these problems only have an effect on the overt recognition of faces and leave the covert recognition intact.


Global precedence was first studied using the Navon figure, where many small letters are arranged to form a larger letter that either does or does not match. Variations of the original Navon figure include both shapes and objects.


Individuals presented with a Navon figure will be given one of two tasks. In one type of task, participants are told before the presentation of the stimulus whether to focus on a global or local level, and their accuracy and reaction times are recorded.


In another type of task, participants are first presented with a target stimulus, and later presented with two different visuals. One of the visuals matches the target stimulus on the global level, while the other visual matches the target stimulus on the local level. In this condition, experimenters note which of the two visuals, the global or local, is chosen to match the target stimulus.


In general, reaction time for identifying the larger letter is faster than for the smaller letters that make up the shape. Navon directed participants to focus either globally or locally to stimuli that were consistent, neutral, or conflicting on the global and local levels (see figures above). Reaction time for global identification was much faster than for local identification, showing global precedence. Additionally, global interference effect, which occurs when the global aspect is automatically processed even when attention is directed locally, causes slow reaction time. Navon's study global precedence and his stimuli, or variations of it, are still used in nearly all global precedence experiments.


When presented with a Navon figure, there is a slight local preference for Caucasians, but East Asians show an obvious global preference and are faster and more accurate at global processing. The inclination towards global precedence is also evident in second generation Asian-Australians, but the correlation is weaker than that of recent immigrants. This could stem from the physical environment of East Asian versus Western cities, as the level of visual complexity varies across these environments. The tendency of Caucasians to process information "analytically" and Asians "holistically" has also been attributed to differences in brain structure.


For some cognitive scientists, the stark contrast in cognitive processing trends across cultures and races suggests that all studies on cognitive perception should report participants’ races to ensure valid theoretical conclusions. Especially in experiments involving spatially distributed stimuli, neglected racial or cultural differences in visual perception could skew results.


Global precedence is not a universal phenomenon.


When Navon figure stimuli are presented to participants from a remote African culture, the Himba, local precedence is observed although the Himba show the capabilities for both global and local processing.


This difference in precedence for Navon figure stimuli can be attributed to cultural differences in occupations, or in the practice of reading and writing. This finding dispels the idea that local precedence is a consequence or symptom of disorders, since the Himba is a normally functioning society capable of both global and local processing.


Stimuli are either meaningful or meaningless. For example, letters and familiar objects, like a cup, are meaningful, while unidentifiable and non-geometric forms are not. In both types of stimuli, the global advantage is observed, but the global interference effect only occurs with meaningful stimuli. In other words, when the global object is meaningful, the reaction time for identification of the local feature increases.


This supports the theory that within global precedence, global advantage and global interference rely on two separate mechanisms. Global-local interference occurs as a result of automatic processing of global objects. The theory is that the global precedence effect has a sensory mechanism active in global advantage, whereas automatic and semantic processes are active in the interference effect.


Cognitive processing varies across different age groups, and several studies have been done using Navon-like figures to examine the correlation between precedence and age.


When presented with a global-local task, children and adolescents exemplify a local bias. Younger children respond slower to different types of stimuli compared to older children, and thus local precedence seems more prevalent than global precedence in perceptual organization, at least until adolescence, when the transition to globally oriented visual perception begins. The ability to encode a global shape, which is necessary for efficiently recognizing and identifying objects, increases with age. However, it has also been found that there is a bias towards global information during infancy, which may be based upon high spatial frequency information, as well as limited vision. Therefore, global precedence during the early years of life may not be upwards but rather a U-shaped development.


There is a decline of global precedence in older subjects. When presented with a Navon-like figures, young adults demonstrate global precedence enhancement in that when the number of local letters forming the global letter increases, their global precedence increases. On the other hand, there is no precedence effect or enhancement for older subjects when presented with the same task. This links global precedence to the Gestalt principles of Proximity and Continuity, and suggests that Gestalt-related deficiencies, such as decline in perceptual grouping, may underlie the decline of global precedence in older subjects.


Global precedence decline may also relate to hemispheric specialization. The spatial frequency theory proposes that global versus local information is processed through two “channels” of low (global) versus high (local) spatial frequencies. spatial frequency measures how often a stimulus moves through space. Based upon this theory, the double frequency theory links the left hemisphere with high spatial frequencies, leading to a global precedence effect, and the right hemisphere with low spatial frequencies, leading to a local precedence effect. This suggests neuropsychological factors behind global precedence decline in there may be faster aging in the right than the left hemisphere.


Studies regarding mood have shown that positive and negative cues can influence global versus local attention during image-based tasks.


Some studies have shown that positive priming decreases local response time, demonstrating a lessening effect of global precedence, while negative priming increases local response time. Mood dictates one's preferences for processing type.


The result that negative priming reduces flexibility correlates to the Psi theory states that negative emotion inhibits one’s access to extension memory, reducing cognitive flexibility. This also supports the theory that positive affect increases cognitive flexibility.


Positive mood priming also increases cognitive flexibility when prime words do not have individualistic specificity and when primes are visual. Positive affect does not simply promote local processing, but rather improves one’s abilities in his non-preferred dimension. For example, one preferring the local aspect of stimuli would show increased performance in identifying the global aspect and vice versa. This further supports the cognitive flexibility theory.


Priming with Navon figures aides the recognition of faces, a holistic task, when the response elicited from the figure matches the precedence of the figure. For example, if the stimulus has local precedence and the participant is cued to respond with the local feature identification, his accuracy in facial recognition improves. The same occurs when global responses are asked of global stimuli.


When a facial task requires local processing for identification, participants’ facial recognition improves when they must respond to global precedence stimuli with local responses and vice versa. They are forced to show cognitive flexibility in their responses to the Navon figure primes.


One theory explains that normal facial recognition requires automatic processes, whereas special facial recognition requires controlled processes. Automatic processes are aided by correlative stimuli and responses, while controlled processes are aided by stimuli and responses that do not correlate. This indicates that facial recognition depends on type of attention, automatic or controlled, rather than focus on global or local features.


When identifying inverted faces, those showing stronger global precedence show a more prominent Those showing a stronger global precedence also have a greater deficit in identification abilities when the faces are inverted; their identification abilities decrease more from upright identification to inverted identification than weak global precedence individuals.


This correlates to the theory that upright faces are processed holistically, or with a special mechanism. Those with stronger global precedence should perform better at holistically processing a face upright. Stronger global precedence should show a greater decrease in accuracy of identification of inverted faces because the task relies on local processing.


The degree of global precedence one demonstrates has been found to differ in relation to the variable of an individual's field dependence.


Field dependency is the amount that one relies on Gestalt laws of perceptual organization. High field dependency corresponds to a greater bias toward the global level, while field independence corresponds to a lesser dependency on the global level.


This indicates that individual characteristics have an effect on the prevalence of global precedence and that global and local processing exist on a continuum.


Neuropsychological evidence based on PET scans suggests that the global aspect of visual situations activates and is processed preferentially by the right hemisphere, whereas the local aspect of visual situations activates and is processed preferentially by the left hemisphere. The classical view of Gestalt psychology also suggests the right hemisphere is involved in the perception of wholes and thus plays a stronger role in global processing, whereas the left hemisphere involves separate local elements and therefore plays a stronger role in local processing.


However, hemispheric specialization is relative because it depends on the experimental setting as well as the individual’s “attentional set.” In addition, stimulus type may influence the neural structures underlying hemispheric specialization. Global processing is the default strategy for most individuals, but local stimuli are often more perceptually demanding to recognize and identify, showing the effect of stimuli on visual processing.


The Navon figure has been used in relating theories regarding processing to assessing cognitive learning disabilities, such as developmental dyslexia, dyscalculia, obsessive-compulsive personality disorder, and autism.


When given a Navon figure test, people with dyslexia have difficulty automatically identifying graphemes with phonemes, but not with identifying numbers with magnitudes. On the other hand, people with dyscalculia have difficulty automatically identifying numbers with magnitudes, but not letters and with phonemes. This suggests a dissociation between subjects with dyslexia and dyscalculia. These developmental learning disabilities do not cause general problems with identifying symbols to their mental representations, but rather create specific challenges.


Obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD) subjects are prone to be distracted by the local aspects of stimuli when asked to identify global aspects of figures such as the Navon figure. This is likely because individuals with OCPD characteristically have sharp, detail-oriented attentions, and tend to focus more on specifics rather than the larger context.


There are correlations between global or local performance on a task and the abilities to identify emotion and canine age for autistic children. In both cases, global responses correlate to better identification. In general, autistic children demonstrate much weaker global precedence than those without the disorder. Within the group of autistic children, those who respond more globally to a discrimination task perform better on emotion and canine age tasks.


One explanation is a possible biological dysfunction in the brain region where facial processing occurs. Research indicates that global processing, facial recognition, and emotional expression recognition are all linked to the right hemisphere. A defect in that area would explain the characteristics of autism. For further information on facial recognition and processing in individuals with autism see the autism and facial recognition section of face perception.


A contrast effect is the enhancement or diminishment, relative to normal, of perception, cognition or related performance as a result of successive (immediately previous) or simultaneous exposure to a stimulus of lesser or greater value in the same dimension. (Here, normal perception, cognition or performance is that which would be obtained in the absence of the comparison stimulus—i.e., one based on all previous experience.)


Perception example: A neutral gray target will appear lighter or darker than it does in isolation when immediately preceded by, or simultaneously compared to, respectively, a dark gray or light gray target.


Cognition example: A person will appear more or less attractive than that person does in isolation when immediately preceded by, or simultaneously compared to, respectively, a less or more attractive person.


Performance example: A laboratory rat will work faster, or slower, during a stimulus predicting a given amount of reward when that stimulus and reward are immediately preceded by, or alternated with, respectively, different stimuli associated with either a lesser or greater amount of reward.


The oldest reference to simultaneous contrast in the scientific literature is by the hand of the 11th century physicist Ibn al-Haytham who describes spots of paint on a white background appearing almost black and conversely paler than their true colour on black:


He also describes that a leaf green paint may appear clearer and younger on dark blue and darker and older on yellow:


Johann Wolfgang von Goethe writes in 1810 that a grey image on a black background appears much brighter than the same on white. And Johannes Peter Müller notes the same in 1838 and also that a strip of grey on a brightly coloured field appears to be tinted ever so slightly in the contrasting colour.


The subject of the impact of the surrounding field on colour perception has been a subject of ongoing research since. It has been found that the size of the surrounding field has an impact, as does the separation between colour and surround, similarity of chromaticity, luminance difference and the structure of the surround.


There has been some debate over the degree to which simultaneous contrast is a physiological process caused by the connections of neurons in the visual cortex, or whether it is a psychological effect. Both appear to have some effect. A possible source of the effect are neurons in the V4 area that have inhibitory connections to neighboring cells. The most likely evolutionary rationale for this effect is that it enhances edges in the visual field, thus facilitating the recognition of shapes and objects.


Successive contrast occurs when the perception of currently viewed stimuli is modulated by previously viewed stimuli. In the example below you can use the scrollbar to quickly swap the red and green disks for two orange disks. Staring at the dot in the centre of one of the top two coloured disks and then looking at the dot in the centre of the corresponding lower disk makes the two lower disks briefly appear to have different colours, though in reality their colour is identical.


Metacontrast and paracontrast involve both time and space. When one half of a circle is lit for 10 milliseconds (ms), it is at its maximal intensity. If the other half is displayed at the same time (but 20–50 ms later), there is a mutual inhibition: the left side is darkened by the right half ("metacontrast"), and the center may be completely obliterated. At the same time, there is a slight darkening of the right side due to the first stimulus ("paracontrast").


The contrast effect was noted by the 17th century philosopher John Locke, who observed that lukewarm water can feel hot or cold depending on whether the hand touching it was previously in hot or cold water.


Imagination is the ability to produce and simulate novel objects, sensations, and ideas in the mind without any immediate input of the senses. It is also described as the forming of experiences in one's mind, which can be re-creations of past experiences such as vivid memories with imagined changes, or they can be completely invented and possibly fantastic scenes. Imagination helps make knowledge applicable in solving problems and is fundamental to integrating experience and the learning process. A basic training for imagination is listening to storytelling (narrative), in which the exactness of the chosen words is the fundamental factor to "evoke worlds".


Imagination, however, is not considered to be exclusively a cognitive activity because it is also linked to the body and place, particularly that it also involves setting up relationships with materials and people, precluding the sense that imagination is locked away in the head.


Imagination can also be expressed through stories such as fairy tales or fantasies. Children often use such narratives and pretend play in order to exercise their imaginations. When children develop fantasy they play at two levels: first, they use role playing to act out what they have developed with their imagination, and at the second level they play again with their make-believe situation by acting as if what they have developed is an actual reality.


The notion of a "mind's eye" goes back at least to Cicero's reference to mentis oculi during his discussion of the orator's appropriate use of simile.


In this discussion, Cicero observed that allusions to "the Syrtis of his patrimony" and "the Charybdis of his possessions" involved similes that were "too far-fetched"; and he advised the orator to, instead, just speak of "the rock" and "the gulf" (respectively) — on the grounds that "the eyes of the mind are more easily directed to those objects which we have seen, than to those which we have only heard".


The concept first appeared in English in Chaucer's (c.1387) Man of Law's Tale in his Canterbury Tales, where he tells us that one of the three men dwelling in a castle was blind, and could only see with "the eyes of his mind"; namely, those eyes "with which all men see after they have become blind".


The condition of not being able to internally visualize (the lack of a ”mind’s eye”) is called aphantasia.


The common use of the term is for the process of forming new images in the mind that have not been previously experienced with the help of what has been seen, heard, or felt before, or at least only partially or in different combinations. This could also be involved with thinking out possible or impossible outcomes of something or someone in life's abundant situations and experiences. Some typical examples follow:


Imagination, not being limited to the acquisition of exact knowledge by the requirements of practical necessity is largely free from objective restraints. The ability to imagine one's self in another person's place is very important to social relations and understanding. Albert Einstein said, "Imagination ... is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world."


The same limitations beset imagination in the field of scientific hypothesis. Progress in scientific research is due largely to provisional explanations which are developed by imagination, but such hypotheses must be framed in relation to previously ascertained facts and in accordance with the principles of the particular science.


Regarding the volunteer effort, imagination can be classified as:


Psychologists have studied imaginative thought, not only in its exotic form of creativity and artistic expression but also in its mundane form of everyday imagination. Ruth M.J. Byrne has proposed that everyday imaginative thoughts about counterfactual alternatives to reality may be based on the same cognitive processes on which rational thoughts are also based. Children can engage in the creation of imaginative alternatives to reality from their very early years. Cultural psychology is currently elaborating a view of imagination as a higher mental function involved in a number of everyday activities both at the individual and collective level that enables people to manipulate complex meanings of both linguistic and iconic forms in the process of experiencing.


The phenomenology of imagination is discussed In "The Imaginary: A Phenomenological Psychology of the Imagination" (), also published under the title "The Psychology of the Imagination", a 1940 book by Jean-Paul Sartre, in which he propounds his concept of the imagination and discusses what the existence of imagination shows about the nature of human consciousness.


The imagination is also active in our perception of photographic images in order to make them appear real.


Piaget posited that perceptions depend on the world view of a person. The world view is the result of arranging perceptions into existing imagery by imagination. Piaget cites the example of a child saying that the moon is following her when she walks around the village at night. Like this, perceptions are integrated into the world view to make sense. Imagination is needed to make sense of perceptions.


A study using fMRI while subjects were asked to imagine precise visual figures, to mentally disassemble them, or mentally blend them, showed activity in the occipital, frontoparietal, posterior parietal, precuneus, and dorsolateral prefrontal regions of the subject's brains.


Three philosophers for whom imagination is a central concept are Kendall Walton, John Sallis and Richard Kearney. See in particular:


In education, computational thinking (CT) is a set of problem-solving methods that involve expressing problems and their solutions in ways that a computer could also execute. It involves the mental skills and practices for designing computations that get computers to do jobs for people, and explaining and interpreting the world as a complex of information processes. Those ideas range from "basic CT for beginners" to "advanced CT for experts", and CT includes both "CT-in-the-small" (related to how to design small programs and algorithms by single people) and "CT-in-the-large" (related to how to design multi-version programs consisting of millions of lines of code written in team effort, ported to numerous platforms, and compatible with a range of different system setups).


The history of computational thinking dates back at least to the 1950s but most ideas are much older. Computational thinking involves ideas like abstraction, data representation, and logically organizing data, which are also prevalent in other kinds of thinking, such as scientific thinking, engineering thinking, systems thinking, design thinking, model-based thinking, and the like. Neither the idea nor the term are recent: Preceded by terms like algorithmizing, procedural thinking, algorithmic thinking, and computational literacy by computing pioneers like Alan Perlis and Donald Knuth, the term "computational thinking" was first used by Seymour Papert in 1980 and again in 1996. Computational thinking can be used to algorithmically solve complicated problems of scale, and is often used to realize large improvements in efficiency.


For the first ten years computational thinking was a US-centered movement, and still today that early focus is seen in the field's research. The field's most cited articles and most cited people were active in the early US CT wave, and the field's most active researcher networks are US-based. Dominated by US and European researchers, it is unclear to what extent can the field's predominantly Western body of research literature cater to the needs of students in other cultural groups.


The characteristics that define computational thinking are decomposition, pattern recognition / data representation, generalization/abstraction, and algorithms. By decomposing a problem, identifying the variables involved using data representation, and creating algorithms, a generic solution results. The generic solution is a generalization or abstraction that can be used to solve a multitude of variations of the initial problem.


Another characterization of computational thinking is the "three As" iterative process based on three stages:


The four Cs of 21st century learning are communication, critical thinking, collaboration, and creativity. The fifth C could be computational thinking which entails the capability to resolve problems algorithmically and logically. It includes tools that produce models and visualise data. Grover describes how computational thinking is applicable across subjects beyond science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) which include the social sciences and language arts. Students can engage in activities where they identify patterns in grammar as well as sentence structure and use models for studying relationships.


Similar to Seymour Papert, Alan Perlis, and Marvin Minsky before, Jeannette Wing envisioned computational thinking becoming an essential part of every child's education. However, integrating computational thinking into the K–12 curriculum and computer science education has faced several challenges including the agreement on the definition of computational thinking, how to assess children's development in it, and how to distinguish it from other similar "thinking" like systems thinking, design thinking, and engineering thinking. Currently, computational thinking is broadly defined as a set of cognitive skills and problem solving processes that include (but are not limited to) the following characteristics (but there are arguments that few, if any, of them belong to computing specifically, instead of being principles in many fields of science and engineering)


Current integration computational thinking into the K–12 curriculum comes in two forms: in computer science classes directly or through the use and measure of computational thinking techniques in other subjects. Teachers in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) focused classrooms that include computational thinking, allow students to practice problem-solving skills such as trial and error. Valerie Barr and Chris Stephenson describe computational thinking patterns across disciplines in a 2011 ACM Inroads article However Conrad Wolfram has argued that computational thinking should be taught as a distinct subject.


There are online institutions that provide a curriculum, and other related resources, to build and strengthen pre-college students with computational thinking, analysis and problem-solving.


A textbook `From Computing to Computational Thinking' by Paul S. Wang has been used, at the high school and college levels, to introduce the topic to non-computer science students through understanding of computing and applying concepts as a way of thinking in


other areas including in everyday life. The textbook, written in English, has been translated into other languages and used in many parts of the world. The textbook also introduced a new word `computize', a verb defined as `to apply computational thinking to analize and solve problems.'


Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh has a Center for Computational Thinking. The Center's major activity is conducting PROBEs or PROBlem-oriented Explorations. These PROBEs are experiments that apply novel computing concepts to problems to show the value of computational thinking. A PROBE experiment is generally a collaboration between a computer scientist and an expert in the field to be studied. The experiment typically runs for a year. In general, a PROBE will seek to find a solution for a broadly applicable problem and avoid narrowly focused issues. Some examples of PROBE experiments are optimal kidney transplant logistics and how to create drugs that do not breed drug-resistant viruses.


Cognitive holding power is a concept measured by John C. Stevenson in 1994 using a questionnaire, the Cognitive Holding Power Questionnaire (CHPQ). This tool is assesses first- or second-order cognitive processing preferences.


Studies using holding power have suggest improvements to mathematical education.


Cognitive styles analysis (CSA) was developed by Richard J. Riding and is the most frequently used computerized measure of cognitive styles. Although CSA is not well known in North American institutions, it is quite popular among European universities and organizations.


Unlike many other cognitive style measures, CSA has been the subject of much empirical investigation. Three experiments reported by showed the reliability of CSA to be low. Considering the theoretical strength of CSA, and unsuccessful earlier attempts to create a more reliable parallel form of it , a revised version was made to improve its validity and reliability.


In psychology and cognitive neuroscience, pattern recognition describes cognitive process that matches information from a stimulus with information retrieved from memory.


Pattern recognition is not only crucial to humans, but to other animals as well. Even koalas, who possess less-developed thinking abilities, use pattern recognition to find and consume eucalyptus leaves. The human brain has developed more, but holds similarities to the brains of birds and lower mammals. The development of neural networks in the outer layer of the brain in humans has allowed for better processing of visual and auditory patterns. Spatial positioning in the environment, remembering findings, and detecting hazards and resources to increase chances of survival are examples of the application of pattern recognition for humans and animals.


There are six main theories of pattern recognition: template matching, prototype-matching, feature analysis, recognition-by-components theory, bottom-up and top-down processing, and Fourier analysis. The application of these theories in everyday life is not mutually exclusive. Pattern recognition allows us to read words, understand language, recognize friends, and even appreciate music. Each of the theories applies to various activities and domains where pattern recognition is observed. Facial, music and language recognition, and seriation are a few of such domains. Facial recognition and seriation occur through encoding visual patterns, while music and language recognition use the encoding of auditory patterns.


Template and feature analysis approaches to recognition of objects (and situations) have been merged / reconciled / overtaken by multiple discrimination theory. This states that the amounts in a test stimulus of each salient feature of a template are recognized in any perceptual judgment as being at a distance in the universal unit of 50% discrimination (the objective performance 'JND') from the amount of that feature in the template.


The RBC principles of visual object recognition can be applied to auditory language recognition as well. In place of geons, language researchers propose that spoken language can be broken down into basic components called phonemes. For example, there are 44 phonemes in the English language.


In psychologist Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development, the third stage is called the Concrete Operational State. It is during this stage that the abstract principle of thinking called "seriation" is naturally developed in a child. Seriation is the ability to arrange items in a logical order along a quantitative dimension such as length, weight, age, etc. It is a general cognitive skill which is not fully mastered until after the nursery years . To seriate means to understand that objects can be ordered along a dimension, and to effectively do so, the child needs to be able to answer the question "What comes next?" Seriation skills also help to develop problem-solving skills, which are useful in recognizing and completing patterning tasks.


To help build up math skills in children, teachers and parents can help them learn seriation and patterning. Young children who understand seriation can put numbers in order from lowest to highest. Eventually, they will come to understand that 6 is higher than 5, and 20 is higher than 10. Similarly, having children copy patterns or create patterns of their own, like ABAB patterns, is a great way to help them recognize order and prepare for later math skills, such as multiplication. Child care providers can begin exposing children to patterns at a very young age by having them make groups and count the total number of objects.


Recognizing faces is one of the most common forms of pattern recognition. Humans are extremely effective at remembering faces, but this ease and automaticity belies a very challenging problem. All faces are physically similar. Faces have two eyes, one mouth, and one nose all in predictable locations, yet humans can recognize a face from several different angles and in various lighting conditions.


Neuroscientists posit that recognizing faces takes place in three phases. The first phase starts with visually focusing on the physical features. The facial recognition system then needs to reconstruct the identity of the person from previous experiences. This provides us with the signal that this might be a person we know. The final phase of recognition completes when the face elicits the name of the person.


Although humans are great at recognizing faces under normal viewing angles, upside-down faces are tremendously difficult to recognize. This demonstrates not only the challenges of facial recognition but also how humans have specialized procedures and capacities for recognizing faces under normal upright viewing conditions.


Scientists agree that there is a certain area in the brain specifically devoted to processing faces. This structure is called the fusiform gyrus, and brain imaging studies have shown that it becomes highly active when a subject is viewing a face.


Several case studies have reported that patients with lesions or tissue damage localized to this area have tremendous difficulty recognizing faces, even their own. Although most of this research is circumstantial, a study at Stanford University provided conclusive evidence for the fusiform gyrus' role in facial recognition. In a unique case study, researchers were able to send direct signals to a patient's fusiform gyrus. The patient reported that the faces of the doctors and nurses changed and morphed in front of him during this electrical stimulation. Researchers agree this demonstrates a convincing causal link between this neural structure and the human ability to recognize faces.


Recent research reveals that infant language acquisition is linked to cognitive pattern recognition. Unlike classical nativist and behavioral theories of language development, scientists now believe that language is a learned skill. Studies at the Hebrew University and the University of Sydney both show a strong correlation between the ability to identify visual patterns and to learn a new language. Children with high shape recognition showed better grammar knowledge, even when controlling for the effects of intelligence and memory capacity. This is supported by the theory that language learning is based on statistical learning, the process by which infants perceive common combinations of sounds and words in language and use them to inform future speech production.


The first step in infant language acquisition is to decipher between the most basic sound units of their native language. This includes every consonant, every short and long vowel sound, and any additional letter combinations like "th" and "ph" in English. These units, called phonemes, are detected through exposure and pattern recognition. Infants use their "innate feature detector" capabilities to distinguish between the sounds of words. They split them into phonemes through a mechanism of categorical perception. Then they extract statistical information by recognizing which combinations of sounds are most likely to occur together, like "qu" or "h" plus a vowel. In this way, their ability to learn words is based directly on the accuracy of their earlier phonetic patterning.


The transition from phonemic differentiation into higher-order word production is only the first step in the hierarchical acquisition of language. Pattern recognition is furthermore utilized in the detection of prosody cues, the stress and intonation patterns among words. Then it is applied to sentence structure and the understanding of typical clause boundaries. This entire process is reflected in reading as well. First, a child recognizes patterns of individual letters, then words, then groups of words together, then paragraphs, and finally entire chapters in books. Learning to read and learning to speak a language are based on the "stepwise refinement of patterns" in perceptual pattern recognition.


Music provides deep and emotional experiences for the listener. These experiences become contents in long-term memory, and every time we hear the same tunes, those contents are activated. Recognizing the content by the pattern of the music affects our emotion. The mechanism that forms the pattern recognition of music and the experience has been studied by multiple researchers. The sensation felt when listening to our favorite music is evident by the dilation of the pupils, the increase in pulse and blood pressure, the streaming of blood to the leg muscles, and the activation of the cerebellum, the brain region associated with physical movement.


The medial prefrontal cortex – one of the last areas affected by Alzheimer’s disease – is the region activated by music.


MIT researchers conducted a study to examine this notion. The results showed six neural clusters in the auditory cortex responding to the sounds. Four were triggered when hearing standard acoustic features, one specifically responded to speech, and the last exclusively responded to music. Researchers who studied the correlation between temporal evolution of timbral, tonal and rhythmic features of music, came to the conclusion that music engages the brain regions connected to motor actions, emotions and creativity. The research indicates that the whole brain "lights up" when listening to music. This amount of activity boosts memory preservation, hence pattern recognition.


Recognizing patterns of music is different for a musician and a listener. Although a musician may play the same notes every time, the details of the frequency will always be different. The listener will recognize the musical pattern and their types despite the variations. These musical types are conceptual and learned, meaning they might vary culturally. While listeners are involved with recognizing (implicit) musical material, musicians are involved with recalling them (explicit).


A UCLA study found that when watching or hearing music being played, neurons associated with the muscles needed for playing the instrument fire. Mirror neurons light up when musicians and non-musicians listen to a piece.


In a study at University of California, Davis mapped the brain of participants while they listened to music. The results showed links between brain regions to autobiographical memories and emotions activated by familiar music. This study can explain the strong response of patients with Alzheimer’s disease to music. This research can help such patients with pattern recognition-enhancing tasks.


The human tendency to see patterns that do not actually exist is called apophenia. Examples include the Man in the Moon, faces or figures in shadows, in clouds, and in patterns with no deliberate design, such as the swirls on a baked confection, and the perception of causal relationships between events which are, in fact, unrelated. Apophenia figures prominently in conspiracy theories, gambling, misinterpretation of statistics and scientific data, and some kinds of religious and paranormal experiences. Misperception of patterns in random data is called pareidolia.


Introspection is the examination of one's own conscious thoughts and feelings. In psychology, the process of introspection relies on the observation of one's mental state, while in a spiritual context it may refer to the examination of one's soul. Introspection is closely related to human self-reflection and self-discovery and is contrasted with external observation.


Introspection generally provides a privileged access to one's own mental states, not mediated by other sources of knowledge, so that individual experience of the mind is unique. Introspection can determine any number of mental states including: sensory, bodily, cognitive, emotional and so forth.


Introspection has been a subject of philosophical discussion for thousands of years. The philosopher Plato asked, "…why should we not calmly and patiently review our own thoughts, and thoroughly examine and see what these appearances in us really are?" While introspection is applicable to many facets of philosophical thought it is perhaps best known for its role in epistemology; in this context introspection is often compared with perception, reason, memory, and testimony as a source of knowledge.


Partly as a result of Titchener's misrepresentation, the use of introspection diminished after his death and the subsequent decline of structuralism. Later psychological movements, such as functionalism and behaviorism, rejected introspection for its lack of scientific reliability among other factors. Functionalism originally arose in direct opposition to structuralism, opposing its narrow focus on the elements of consciousness and emphasizing the purpose of consciousness and other psychological behavior. Behaviorism's objection to introspection focused much more on its unreliability and subjectivity which conflicted with behaviorism's focus on measurable behavior.


The more recently established cognitive psychology movement has to some extent accepted introspection's usefulness in the study of psychological phenomena, though generally only in experiments pertaining to internal thought conducted under experimental conditions. For example, in the "think aloud protocol", investigators cue participants to speak their thoughts aloud in order to study an active thought process without forcing an individual to comment on the process itself.


Indeed, it is questionable how confident researchers can be in their own introspections.


Another question in regards to the veracious accountability of introspection is if researchers lack the confidence in their own introspections and those of their participants, then how can it gain legitimacy? Three strategies are accountable: identifying behaviors that establish credibility, finding common ground that enables mutual understanding, and developing a trust that allows one to know when to give the benefit of the doubt.


That is to say, that words are only meaningful if validated by one's actions; When people report strategies, feelings or beliefs, their behaviors must correspond with these statements if they are to be believed.


One experiment tried to give their subjects access to others' introspections. They made audio recordings of subjects who had been told to say whatever came into their heads as they answered a question about their own bias. Although subjects persuaded themselves they were unlikely to be biased, their introspective reports did not sway the assessments of observers. When subjects were explicitly told to avoid relying on introspection, their assessments of their own bias became more realistic.


In Eastern Christianity some concepts addressing human needs, such as sober introspection "(nepsis"), require watchfulness of the human heart and the conflicts of the human "nous", heart or mind. Noetic understanding can not be achieved by rational or discursive thought (i.e. systemization).


Jains practise "pratikraman" (Sanskrit "introspection"), a process of repentance of wrongdoings during their daily life, and remind themselves to refrain from doing so again. Devout Jains often do Pratikraman at least twice a day.


Introspection is encouraged in schools such as Advaita Vedanta; in order for one to know their own true nature, they need to reflect and introspect on their true nature—which is what meditation is. Especially, Swami Chinmayananda emphasised the role of introspection in five stages, outlined in his book "Self Unfoldment."


Introspection (also referred to as Rufus dialogue, interior monologue, self-talk) is the fiction-writing mode used to convey a character's thoughts. As explained by Renni Browne and Dave King, "One of the great gifts of literature is that it allows for the expression of unexpressed thoughts…"


According to Nancy Kress, a character's thoughts can greatly enhance a story: deepening characterization, increasing tension, and widening the scope of a story. As outlined by Jack M. Bickham, thought plays a critical role in both scene and sequel.


In the field of psychology, cognitive dissonance occurs when a person holds contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values, and is typically experienced as psychological stress when they participate in an action that goes against one or more of them. According to this theory, when two actions or ideas are not psychologically consistent with each other, people do all in their power to change them until they become consistent. The discomfort is triggered by the person's belief clashing with new information perceived, wherein they try to find a way to resolve the contradiction to reduce their discomfort.


In "A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance" (1957), Leon Festinger proposed that human beings strive for internal psychological consistency to function mentally in the real world. A person who experiences internal inconsistency tends to become psychologically uncomfortable and is motivated to reduce the cognitive dissonance. They tend to make changes to justify the stressful behavior, either by adding new parts to the cognition causing the psychological dissonance (rationalization) or by avoiding circumstances and contradictory information likely to increase the magnitude of the cognitive dissonance (confirmation bias).


Coping with the nuances of contradictory ideas or experiences is mentally stressful. It requires energy and effort to sit with those seemingly opposite things that all seem true. Festinger argued that some people would inevitably resolve dissonance by blindly believing whatever they wanted to believe.


To function in the reality of society, human beings continually adjust the correspondence of their mental attitudes and personal actions; such continual adjustments, between cognition and action, result in one of three relationships with reality:


The term "magnitude of dissonance" refers to the level of discomfort caused to the person. This can be caused by the relationship between two differing internal beliefs, or an action that is incompatible with the beliefs of the person. Two factors determine the degree of psychological dissonance caused by two conflicting cognitions or by two conflicting actions:


There is always some degree of dissonance within a person as they go about making decisions, due to the changing quantity and quality of knowledge and wisdom that they gain. The magnitude itself is a subjective measurement since the reports are self relayed, and there is no objective way as yet to get a clear measurement of the level of discomfort.


Cognitive dissonance theory proposes that people seek psychological consistency between their expectations of life and the existential reality of the world. To function by that expectation of existential consistency, people continually reduce their cognitive dissonance in order to align their cognitions (perceptions of the world) with their actions.


The creation and establishment of psychological consistency allows the person afflicted with cognitive dissonance to lessen mental stress by actions that reduce the magnitude of the dissonance, realized either by changing with or by justifying against or by being indifferent to the existential contradiction that is inducing the mental stress. In practice, people reduce the magnitude of their cognitive dissonance in four ways:


Three cognitive biases are components of dissonance theory. The bias that one does not have any biases, the bias that one is "better, kinder, smarter, more moral and nicer than average" and confirmation bias.


That a consistent psychology is required for functioning in the real world also was indicated in the results of "The Psychology of Prejudice" (2006), wherein people facilitate their functioning in the real world by employing human categories (i.e. sex and gender, age and race, etc.) with which they manage their social interactions with other people.


Based on a brief overview of models and theories related to cognitive consistency from many different scientific fields, such as social psychology, perception, neurocognition, learning, motor control, system control, ethology, and stress, it has even been proposed that "all behaviour involving cognitive processing is caused by the activation of inconsistent cognitions and functions to increase perceived consistency"; that is, all behaviour functions to reduce cognitive inconsistency at some level of information processing. Indeed, the involvement of cognitive inconsistency has long been suggested for behaviors related to for instance curiosity, and aggression and fear, while it has also been suggested that the inability to satisfactorily reduce cognitive inconsistency may - dependent on the type and size of the inconsistency - result in stress.


Another method to reduce cognitive dissonance is through selective exposure theory. This theory has been discussed since the early days of Festinger's discovery of cognitive dissonance. He noticed that people would selectively expose themselves to some media over others; specifically, they would avoid dissonant messages and prefer consonant messages. Through selective exposure, people actively (and selectively) choose what to watch, view, or read that fit to their current state of mind, mood or beliefs. In other words, consumers select attitude-consistent information and avoid attitude-challenging information. This can be applied to media, news, music, and any other messaging channel. The idea is, choosing something that is in opposition to how you feel or believe in will render cognitive dissonance.


Another example to note is how people mostly consume media that aligns with their political views. In a study done in 2015, participants were shown “attitudinally consistent, challenging, or politically balanced online news.” Results showed that the participants trusted attitude-consistent news the most out of all the others, regardless of the source. It is evident that the participants actively selected media that aligns with their beliefs rather than opposing media.


In fact, recent research has suggested that while a discrepancy between cognitions drives individuals to crave for attitude-consistent information, the experience of negative emotions drives individuals to avoid counterattitudinal information. In other words, it is the psychological discomfort which activates selective exposure as a dissonance-reduction strategy.


There are four theoretic paradigms of cognitive dissonance, the mental stress people suffer when exposed to information that is inconsistent with their beliefs, ideals or values: Belief Disconfirmation, Induced Compliance, Free Choice, and Effort Justification, which respectively explain what happens after a person acts inconsistently, relative to their intellectual perspectives; what happens after a person makes decisions and what are the effects upon a person who has expended much effort to achieve a goal. Common to each paradigm of cognitive-dissonance theory is the tenet: People invested in a given perspective shall—when confronted with contrary evidence—expend great effort to justify retaining the challenged perspective.


The contradiction of a belief, ideal, or system of values causes cognitive dissonance that can be resolved by changing the challenged belief, yet, instead of effecting change, the resultant mental stress restores psychological consonance to the person by misperception, rejection, or refutation of the contradiction, seeking moral support from people who share the contradicted beliefs or acting to persuade other people that the contradiction is unreal.


The study of "The Rebbe, the Messiah, and the Scandal of Orthodox Indifference" (2008) reported the belief contradiction that occurred in the "Chabad" Orthodox Jewish congregation, who believed that their Rebbe (Menachem Mendel Schneerson) was the Messiah. When he died of a stroke in 1994, instead of accepting that their Rebbe was not the Messiah, some of the congregation proved indifferent to that contradictory fact and continued claiming that Schneerson was the Messiah and that he would soon return from the dead.


In the "Cognitive Consequences of Forced Compliance" (1959), the investigators Leon Festinger and Merrill Carlsmith asked students to spend an hour doing tedious tasks; e.g. turning pegs a quarter-turn, at fixed intervals. The tasks were designed to induce a strong, negative, mental attitude in the subjects. Once the subjects had done the tasks, the experimenters asked one group of subjects to speak with another subject (an actor) and persuade that impostor-subject that the tedious tasks were interesting and engaging. Subjects of one group were paid twenty dollars ($20); those in a second group were paid one dollar ($1) and those in the control group were not asked to speak with the imposter-subject.


In the "Effect of the Severity of Threat on the Devaluation of Forbidden Behavior" (1963), a variant of the induced-compliance paradigm, by Elliot Aronson and Carlsmith, examined self-justification in children. Children were left in a room with toys, including a greatly desirable steam shovel, the forbidden toy. Upon leaving the room, the experimenter told one-half of the group of children that there would be severe punishment if they played with the steam-shovel toy and told the second half of the group that there would be a mild punishment for playing with the forbidden toy. All of the children refrained from playing with the forbidden toy (the steam shovel).


Later, when the children were told that they could freely play with any toy they wanted, the children in the mild-punishment group were less likely to play with the steam shovel (the forbidden toy), despite the removal of the threat of mild punishment. The children threatened with mild punishment had to justify, to themselves, why they did not play with the forbidden toy. The degree of punishment was insufficiently strong to resolve their cognitive dissonance; the children had to convince themselves that playing with the forbidden toy was not worth the effort.


In "The Efficacy of Musical Emotions Provoked by Mozart's Music for the Reconciliation of Cognitive Dissonance" (2012), a variant of the forbidden-toy paradigm, indicated that listening to music reduces the development of cognitive dissonance. Without music in the background, the control group of four-year-old children were told to avoid playing with a forbidden toy. After playing alone, the control-group children later devalued the importance of the forbidden toy. In the variable group, classical music played in the background while the children played alone. In the second group, the children did not later devalue the forbidden toy. The researchers, Nobuo Masataka and Leonid Perlovsky, concluded that music might inhibit cognitions that induce cognitive dissonance.


Music is a stimulus that can diminish post-decisional dissonance; in an earlier experiment, "Washing Away Postdecisional Dissonance" (2010), the researchers indicated that the actions of hand-washing might inhibit the cognitions that induce cognitive dissonance.


In the study "Post-decision Changes in Desirability of Alternatives" (1956) 225 female students rated domestic appliances and then were asked to choose one of two appliances as a gift. The results of a second round of ratings indicated that the women students increased their ratings of the domestic appliance they had selected as a gift and decreased their ratings of the appliances they rejected.


This type of cognitive dissonance occurs in a person faced with a difficult decision, when there always exist aspects of the rejected-object that appeal to the chooser. The action of deciding provokes the psychological dissonance consequent to choosing X instead of Y, despite little difference between X and Y; the decision "I chose X" is dissonant with the cognition that "There are some aspects of Y that I like". The study "Choice-induced Preferences in the Absence of Choice: Evidence from a Blind Two-choice Paradigm with Young Children and Capuchin Monkeys" (2010) reports similar results in the occurrence of cognitive dissonance in human beings and in animals.


"Peer Effects in Pro-Social Behavior: Social Norms or Social Preferences?" (2013) indicated that with internal deliberation, the structuring of decisions among people can influence how a person acts, and that social preferences and social norms are related and function with wage-giving among three persons. The actions of the first person influenced the wage-giving actions of the second person. That inequity aversion is the paramount concern of the participants.


Cognitive dissonance occurs to a person who voluntarily engages in (physically or ethically) unpleasant activities to achieve a goal. The mental stress caused by the dissonance can be reduced by the person exaggerating the desirability of the goal. In "The Effect of Severity of Initiation on Liking for a Group" (1956), to qualify for admission to a discussion group, two groups of people underwent an embarrassing initiation of varied psychological severity. The first group of subjects were to read aloud twelve sexual words considered obscene; the second group of subjects were to read aloud twelve sexual words not considered obscene.


Both groups were given headphones to unknowingly listen to a recorded discussion about animal sexual behaviour, which the researchers designed to be dull and banal. As the subjects of the experiment, the groups of people were told that the animal-sexuality discussion actually was occurring in the next room. The subjects whose strong initiation required reading aloud obscene words evaluated the people of their group as more-interesting persons than the people of the group who underwent the mild initiation to the discussion group.


In "Washing Away Your Sins: Threatened Morality and Physical Cleansing" (2006), the results indicated that a person washing their hands is an action that helps resolve post-decisional cognitive dissonance because the mental stress usually was caused by the person's ethical–moral self-disgust, which is an emotion related to the physical disgust caused by a dirty environment.


The study "The Neural Basis of Rationalization: Cognitive Dissonance Reduction During Decision-making" (2011) indicated that participants rated 80 names and 80 paintings based on how much they liked the names and paintings. To give meaning to the decisions, the participants were asked to select names that they might give to their children. For rating the paintings, the participants were asked to base their ratings on whether or not they would display such art at home.


The extent of cognitive dissonance with regards to meat eating can vary depending on the attitudes and values of the individual involved because these can affect whether or not they see any moral conflict with their values and what they eat. For example, individuals who are more dominance minded and who value having a masculine identity are less likely to experience cognitive dissonance because they are less likely to believe eating meat is morally wrong.


The study "Patterns of Cognitive Dissonance-reducing Beliefs Among Smokers: A Longitudinal Analysis from the International Tobacco Control (ITC) Four Country Survey" (2012) indicated that smokers use justification beliefs to reduce their cognitive dissonance about smoking tobacco and the negative consequences of smoking it.


To reduce cognitive dissonance, the participant smokers adjusted their beliefs to correspond with their actions:


If a contradiction occurs between how a person feels and how a person acts, one's perceptions and emotions align to alleviate stress. The Ben Franklin effect refers to that statesman's observation that the act of performing a favor for a rival leads to increased positive feelings toward that individual. It is also possible that one's emotions be altered to minimize the regret of irrevocable choices. At a hippodrome, bettors had more confidence in their horses after the betting than before.


The management of cognitive dissonance readily influences the apparent motivation of a student to pursue education. The study "Turning Play into Work: Effects of Adult Surveillance and Extrinsic Rewards on Children's Intrinsic Motivation" (1975) indicated that the application of the effort justification paradigm increased student enthusiasm for education with the offer of an external reward for studying; students in pre-school who completed puzzles based upon an adult promise of reward were later less interested in the puzzles than were students who completed the puzzle-tasks without the promise of a reward.


The incorporation of cognitive dissonance into models of basic learning-processes to foster the students’ self-awareness of psychological conflicts among their personal beliefs, ideals, and values and the reality of contradictory facts and information, requires the students to defend their personal beliefs. Afterwards, the students are trained to objectively perceive new facts and information to resolve the psychological stress of the conflict between reality and the student's value system. Moreover, educational software that applies the derived principles facilitates the students’ ability to successfully handle the questions posed in a complex subject. Meta-analysis of studies indicates that psychological interventions that provoke cognitive dissonance in order to achieve a directed conceptual change do increase students’ learning in reading skills and about science.


The general effectiveness of psychotherapy and psychological intervention is partly explained by the theory of cognitive dissonance. In that vein, social psychology proposed that the mental health of the patient is positively influenced by his and her action in freely choosing a specific therapy and in exerting the required, therapeutic effort to overcome cognitive dissonance. That effective phenomenon was indicated in the results of the study "Effects of Choice on Behavioral Treatment of Overweight Children" (1983), wherein the children's belief that they freely chose the type of therapy received, resulted in each overweight child losing a greater amount of excessive body weight.


In the study "Reducing Fears and Increasing Attentiveness: The Role of Dissonance Reduction " (1980), people afflicted with ophidiophobia (fear of snakes) who invested much effort in activities of little therapeutic value for them (experimentally represented as legitimate and relevant) showed improved alleviation of the symptoms of their phobia. Likewise, the results of "Cognitive Dissonance and Psychotherapy: The Role of Effort Justification in Inducing Weight Loss" (1985) indicated that the patient felt better in justifying their efforts and therapeutic choices towards effectively losing weight. That the therapy of effort expenditure can predict long-term change in the patient's perceptions.


Cognitive dissonance is used to promote positive social behaviours, such as increased condom use; other studies indicate that cognitive dissonance can be used to encourage people to act pro-socially, such as campaigns against public littering, campaigns against racial prejudice, and compliance with anti-speeding campaigns. The theory can also be used to explain reasons for donating to charity.


Three main conditions exist for provoking cognitive dissonance when buying: (i) The decision to purchase must be important, such as the sum of money to spend; (ii) The psychological cost; and (iii) The purchase is personally relevant to the consumer. The consumer is free to select from the alternatives and the decision to buy is irreversible.


Cognitive dissonance theory might suggest that since votes are an expression of preference or beliefs, even the act of voting might cause someone to defend the actions of the candidate for whom they voted, and if the decision was close then the effects of cognitive dissonance should be greater.