Productive and reproductive thinking. Group

Although thinking as a process of generalized and mediated cognition of reality always includes elements of productivity, its share in the process of mental activity can be different. Where the share of productivity is high enough, one speaks of productive thinking proper as a special kind of mental activity. As a result of productive thinking, something original arises, fundamentally new for the subject, i.e., the degree of novelty here is high. The condition for the emergence of such thinking is the presence of a problem situation that contributes to the awareness of the need to discover new knowledge, stimulating the high activity of the subject solving the problem.

The novelty of the problem dictates a new way of solving it: spasmodicity, the inclusion of heuristic, search samples, the great role of semantics, meaningful analysis of the problem. In this process, along with verbal-logical, well-conscious generalizations, intuitive-practical generalizations are very important, which at first do not find their adequate reflection in the word. They arise in the process of analyzing visual situations, solving specific practical problems, real actions with objects or their models, which greatly facilitates the search for the unknown, but the process of this search itself is outside the clear field of consciousness, it is carried out intuitively.

Weaving into conscious activity, being sometimes stretched out in time, often very long, the process of intuitive-practical thinking is recognized as an instant act, as an insight due to the fact that the result of the decision first breaks into consciousness, while the path to it remains outside of it and is realized. on the basis of subsequent more detailed, conscious mental activity.

As a result of productive thinking, the formation of mental neoplasms takes place - new communication systems, new forms of mental self-regulation, personality traits, her abilities, which marks a shift in mental development.

So, productive thinking is characterized by the high novelty of its product, the originality of the process of obtaining it, and, finally, a significant influence on mental development. It is a decisive link in mental activity, as it provides a real movement towards new knowledge.

From a psychological point of view, there is no fundamental difference between the productive thinking of a scientist who discovers objectively new laws of the world around us that are not yet known to mankind, and the productive thinking of a student who makes a discovery of something new only for himself, since the basis is general mental laws. However, the conditions for the search for new knowledge are very different for them, just as the level of mental activity leading to the discovery is also different.

In order to somehow indicate these differences, most researchers prefer to use the term productive thinking in relation to this type of thinking of schoolchildren, and the term creative thinking denotes the highest stage of mental activity carried out by those who discover fundamentally new knowledge for humanity, create something original, which does not have analogue to itself.

With less productivity, reproductive thinking nevertheless, it plays an important role in both cognitive and practical human activities. On the basis of this type of thinking, the solution of problems of a structure familiar to the subject is carried out. Under the influence of the perception and analysis of the conditions of the task, its data, the desired, functional links between them, previously formed systems of links are updated, providing a correct, logically justified solution to such a task, its adequate reflection in the word.

Reproductive thinking is of great importance in the educational activities of schoolchildren. It provides an understanding of new material when it is presented by a teacher or in a textbook, the application of knowledge in practice, if this does not require their significant transformation, etc. The possibilities of reproductive thinking are primarily determined by the presence of an initial minimum of knowledge in a person; is easier to develop than productive thinking, and at the same time plays a significant role in solving new problems for the subject. In this case, it appears at the initial stage, when a person tries to solve a new problem for him using methods known to him and is convinced that familiar methods do not ensure his success. Awareness of this leads to the emergence of a problematic situation, i.e., it activates productive thinking, which ensures the discovery of new knowledge, the formation of new systems of connections, which will later provide him with the solution of similar problems. As already noted, the process of productive thinking is spasmodic, part of it is carried out subconsciously, without adequate reflection in the word. First, its result finds expression in the word (Aha! Found! Guessed!), And then - the path to it itself.

Awareness of the solution found by the subject, its verification and rationale are again carried out on the basis of reproductive thinking. Thus, real activity, the process of independent cognition of the surrounding reality, is the result of a complex interweaving, interaction of reproductive and productive types of mental activity.

Productive thinking is thinking in the course of which new knowledge arises. It can be described as a type of thinking that gives a new end product, which ultimately affects mental development. It is productive thinking that allows not only to quickly and deeply assimilate knowledge, but also to be able to apply it in new conditions.

Productive and reproductive thinking

Unlike productive thinking, the reproductive type is responsible only for the assimilation of information and the ability to reproduce them in approximately similar conditions. Despite the fact that this type of thinking will not allow you to make a discovery or bring something new, it is very important, because without it it is difficult to get the initial knowledge base.

It is very simple to distinguish productive thinking from reproductive thinking: if the result is some new mental product, then thinking is productive. If, in the process of thinking, new knowledge is not formed, but only the process of reproducing knowledge takes place, then thinking is reproductive.

Development of productive thinking

In order to develop productive thinking, you first need to think concretely. Compare: "I will lose weight" and "I will not eat after six." If the first statement is generalized and most likely will not lead to anything, then the second one speaks of a specific intention and is productive.

It is important to accustom yourself to giving up empty thoughts: memories, negativity, experiences for no reason. Starting to think, think about where this thought will lead you. If it's pointless, you're just wasting your time. This filter should be applied not only to your thoughts, but also to your conversations, as well as to communication and life in general. Do not communicate with people because there is nothing to do and do not read books that will not teach you anything. Pay attention to more important activities that will bring you some benefit.

To develop productive thinking as the basis of a productive lifestyle, you should have a schedule for each day. This will allow you not to waste time and discipline yourself. It is advisable to communicate with those people who are developed and highly organized - you can learn from them the most important qualities.

Tasks that involve productive thinking

Your work necessarily involves productive thinking. Indeed, in this vein, you can achieve much more striking results. Think about whether you need to change something in this area? How should this be done? What tasks to solve? What are the first things to do? If during your reflections you stumble upon negative thoughts, be sure to turn them into positive ones. By approaching your working days in this way, you will improve your results.

PRODUCTIVE THINKING (stages) (English productive thinking) - a synonym for "creative thinking" associated with problem solving: new, non-standard intellectual tasks for the subject. The most difficult task facing human thought is the task of knowing oneself. “I'm not sure,” A. Einstein said to the outstanding psychologist M. Wertheimer, “whether one can really understand the miracle of thinking. You are undoubtedly right in trying to achieve a deeper understanding of what happens in the process of thinking ... ”(Productive Thinking. - M., 1987, p. 262). Thinking is akin to art, the miracle of which also resists understanding and cognition. In a paradoxical form, something similar was expressed by N. Bohr. To the question "Can the atom be understood?" Bohr replied that perhaps it was possible, but first we must know what the word "understanding" means. Great scientists, to a greater extent than mere mortals, tend to be surprised at the Great and realize the modesty of their forces. M. Mamardashvili also bowed before the miracle of thinking: “Thinking requires almost superhuman effort, it is not given to man by nature; it can only take place - as a kind of awakening or right-remembering - in the field of force between the person and the symbol.

Despite his doubts, Einstein not only sympathized with, but also assisted Wertheimer in understanding M. p. and, beginning in 1916, spent hours telling him about the dramatic events that culminated in the creation of the theory of relativity. The psychologist presented the "titanic thought process" as a drama in 10 acts. Its "participants" were: the origin of the problem; persistent focus on its solution; understanding and misunderstanding, which caused a depressed state, up to despair; findings, hypotheses, their mental playback; identification of contradictions and search for ways to overcome them. All this happened against the background of comprehension, rethinking and transformation of the initial problem situation and its elements and continued until the picture of the new physics was built. The process of thinking took 7 years. The main thing during this period was “a sense of direction, of direct movement towards something concrete. Of course, it is very difficult to express this feeling in words; but it was definitely present and must be distinguished from later reflections on the rational form of the decision. Undoubtedly, there is always something logical behind this direction; but I have it in the form of some kind of visual image” (Einstein). The psychologist N. Akh, a representative of the Würzburg school, called the orientation proceeding from the task and ordering the process of thinking a determining tendency, and O. Selz studied the role of intellectualized (non-sensory) visual representations - images that play the role of plastic tools of M. p.

Let us consider the collective image of the creative thought process, that is, the idea of ​​its main stages.
1. The emergence of the topic. At this stage, there is a sense of the need to start work, a sense of directed tension that mobilizes creative forces.
2. Perception of the topic, analysis of the situation, awareness of the problem. At this stage, an integral holistic image of the problem situation is created, an image of what is and a premonition of the future whole. In modern language, a figurative-conceptual or sign-symbolic model is created, adequate to the situation that arose in connection with the choice of topic. The model serves as a material (“intelligible matter”) in which the leading contradiction, conflict, is found, i.e., the problem to be solved is crystallized.
3. Stage 3 is the (often painful) work to solve the problem. It is a bizarre mixture of conscious and unconscious efforts: the problem does not let go. There is a feeling that the problem is not in me, but I am in the problem. She captured me. The result of such pre-decision work might be. not only the creation, testing and rejection of hypotheses, but also the creation of special tools for solving the problem. An example is the efforts to visualize the problem, the creation of new versions of the figurative-conceptual model of the problem situation.
4. The emergence of an idea (eidos) of a solution (insight). There are countless indications of the decisive importance of this stage, but there are no meaningful descriptions and its nature remains unclear.
5. Executive, in fact, a technical stage that does not require special explanations. It is often very time consuming when there is no appropriate apparatus for solving. As I. Newton pointed out, when the problem is understood, reduced to a known type, the application of a certain formula does not require labor. Mathematics does this for us.

The distinguished stages are very arbitrary, but such descriptions are interesting because they seem to naturally alternate between reflection, visualization (imagination), routine work, intuitive acts, etc.; all this is linked by the focus on solving the problem, its concretization.

The above analytical description can be supplemented with a synthetic one. Goethe saw in cognition and thinking "an abyss of aspiration, a clear contemplation of the given, mathematical depth, physical accuracy, the height of reason, the depth of reason, the mobile swiftness of fantasy, the joyful love of the sensual." Let's try for a second to imagine that Goethe owes all this to schooling, and the question immediately arises, what team of teachers could provide such education and development of thinking? It is equally difficult to imagine a scientist who would undertake to study the work of such an incredible orchestra as was the thinking of a great poet, thinker, scientist. Each researcher of thinking chooses to study k.-l. one instrument, inevitably losing the whole. There is no big trouble in this as long as the researcher does not impose the tool he studied as the only or main one, for example, on the education system. (V.P. Zinchenko.)

PRODUCTIVE THINKING (STAGES)

Great Psychological Encyclopedia

(English productive thinking) - a synonym for "creative thinking" associated with solving problems: new, non-standard intellectual tasks for the subject. The most difficult task facing human thought is the task of knowing oneself. “I'm not sure,” A. Einstein said to the outstanding psychologist M. Wertheimer, “whether one can really understand the miracle of thinking. You are undoubtedly right in trying to achieve a deeper understanding of what happens in the process of thinking ... ”(Productive Thinking. - M., 1987, p. 262). Thinking is akin to art, the miracle of which also resists understanding and cognition. In a paradoxical form, something similar was expressed by N. Bohr. To the question "Can the atom be understood?" Bohr replied that perhaps it was possible, but first we must know what the word "understanding" means. Great scientists, to a greater extent than mere mortals, tend to be surprised at the Great and realize the modesty of their forces. M. Mamardashvili also bowed before the miracle of thinking: “Thinking requires almost superhuman effort, it is not given to man by nature; it can only take place - as a kind of awakening or right-remembering - in the field of force between the person and the symbol. Despite his doubts, Einstein not only sympathized with, but also assisted Wertheimer in understanding M. p. and, beginning in 1916, spent hours telling him about the dramatic events that culminated in the creation of the theory of relativity. The psychologist presented the "titanic thought process" as a drama in 10 acts. Its "participants" were: the origin of the problem; persistent focus on its solution; understanding and misunderstanding, which caused a depressed state, up to despair; findings, hypotheses, their mental playback; identification of contradictions and search for ways to overcome them. All this took place against the background of comprehension, rethinking and transformation of the initial problem situation and its elements and continued until the picture of new physics was built. The process of thinking took 7 years. The main thing during this period was “a sense of direction, of direct movement towards something concrete. Of course, it is very difficult to express this feeling in words; but it was definitely present and must be distinguished from later reflections on the rational form of the decision. Undoubtedly, there is always something logical behind this direction; but I have it in the form of some kind of visual image” (Einstein). The orientation proceeding from the task, ordering the process of thinking, the representative of the Würzburg school, the psychologist N. Akh called it a determining trend, and O. Seltz studied the role of intellectualized (non-sensory) visual representations - images that play the role of plastic tools of mental st. 1. The emergence of the topic. At this stage, there is a sense of the need to start work, a sense of directed tension that mobilizes creative forces. 2. Perception of the topic, analysis of the situation, awareness of the problem. At this stage, an integral holistic image of the problem situation is created, an image of what is and a premonition of the future whole. In modern language, a figurative-conceptual or sign-symbolic model is created, adequate to the situation that arose in connection with the choice of topic. The model serves as a material (“intelligible matter”) in which the leading contradiction, conflict, is found, i.e., the problem to be solved is crystallized. 3. Stage 3 is the (often painful) work to solve the problem. It is a bizarre mixture of conscious and unconscious efforts: the problem does not let go. There is a feeling that the problem is not in me, but I am in the problem. She captured me. The result of such pre-decision work might be. not only the creation, testing and rejection of hypotheses, but also the creation of special tools for solving the problem. An example is the efforts to visualize the problem, the creation of new versions of the figurative-conceptual model of the problem situation. 4. The emergence of an idea (eidos) of a solution (insight). There are countless indications of the decisive importance of this stage, but there are no meaningful descriptions and its nature remains unclear. 5. Executive, in fact, a technical stage that does not require special explanations. It is often very time consuming when there is no appropriate apparatus for solving. As I. Newton pointed out, when the problem is understood, reduced to a known type, the application of a certain formula does not require labor. Mathematics does this for us. The distinguished stages are very arbitrary, but such descriptions are interesting because they seem to naturally alternate between reflection, visualization (imagination), routine work, intuitive acts, etc.; all this is linked by the focus on solving the problem, its concretization. The above analytical description can be supplemented with a synthetic one. Goethe saw in cognition and thinking "an abyss of aspiration, a clear contemplation of the given, mathematical depth, physical accuracy, the height of reason, the depth of reason, the mobile swiftness of fantasy, the joyful love of the sensual." Let's try for a second to imagine that Goethe owes all this to schooling, and the question immediately arises, what team of teachers could provide such education and development of thinking? It is equally difficult to imagine a scientist who would undertake to study the work of such an incredible orchestra as was the thinking of a great poet, thinker, scientist. Each researcher of thinking chooses to study k.-l. one instrument, inevitably losing the whole. There is no big trouble in this as long as the researcher does not impose the tool he studied as the only or main one, for example, on the education system. (V.P. Zinchenko.)...

1. General characteristics of the types of thinking.

The subject of our research is creative (productive) thinking. Although this concept has long been used in the psychological literature, its content is debatable. Turning to the analysis of the literature, we set ourselves the task of finding out how the largest representatives of psychological theories define the concept of creative thinking, how they solve the question of the relationship between productive and reproductive components of mental activity.

For foreign psychology, a one-sided approach to the characterization of thinking is very typical: it acts as a process that is only reproductive or productive. Representatives of the first approach were associationists (A. Bain, D. Hartley, I. Herbart, T. Ribot, and others). Characterizing thinking from idealistic positions, they reduced its essence to abstraction from dissimilar elements, to the unification of similar elements into complexes, to their recombination, as a result of which nothing fundamentally new arises.

At present, the reproductive approach has found its expression in the theory of behaviorism (A. Weiss, E. Gasri, J. Loeb, B. Skinner, E. Thorndike, and others). This theory attracted the attention of scientists with its focus on the development of accurate methods for studying the psyche, on the objectivity of the approach to the analysis of mental phenomena, but the behaviorists themselves carried out the analysis from the standpoint of mechanistic materialism.

Although behaviorism has been sharply criticized for denying the role of internal, mental factors, its ideas find their supporters.

This is very clearly expressed in the works of B. Skinner. In theoretical terms, he directly denies the existence in humans of such a phenomenon as thinking, reduces it to conditioned behavior associated with the consolidation of reactions that lead to success, to the development of a system of intellectual skills that can be formed in principle in the same way as skills in animals. On these foundations, he developed a linear system of programmed learning, which provides for the presentation of the material, so detailed and detailed that even the weakest student almost never makes mistakes when working with him, and, therefore, he does not have false connections between stimuli and reactions, correct ones are developed. skills based on positive reinforcement.

The representatives of Gestalt psychology (M. Wertheimer, W. Köhler, K. Koffka, and others) are the spokesmen for the second approach to thinking as a purely productive process. Productivity is considered by them as a specific feature of thinking that distinguishes it from other mental processes. Thinking arises in a problem situation that includes unknown links. The transformation of this situation leads to such a decision, as a result of which something new is obtained, which is not contained in the fund of existing knowledge and is not derived from it directly on the basis of the laws of formal logic. Insight plays a significant role in solving the problem as a direct direct vision of the path to finding the desired, the way to transform the situation, giving an answer to the question posed in the problem. Gestaltists in the study of thinking widely used tasks, in the solution of which the subjects had a conflict between the available knowledge and the requirements of the task, and they were forced to overcome the barrier of past experience, as a result of which the very process of searching for the unknown appeared especially clearly. Thanks to this, scientists received very valuable material on the features of mental activity (K. Dunker, L. Szekely).

However, attaching great importance to insight, aha-experience, the Gestaltists did not show the very mechanism of its occurrence, they did not reveal that insight was prepared by the active activity of the subject himself, his past experience.

Having singled out its productive nature as a specificity of thinking, the Gestaltists sharply opposed it to reproductive processes. In their experiments, past experience and knowledge acted as a brake on naturally productive thinking, although under the influence of the accumulated facts they still had to limit the categoricalness of their conclusions and recognize that knowledge can also play a positive role in mental activity.

Such recognition, in particular, is available from L. Szekely, who specifically dwells on the question of the relationship between thinking and knowledge. Describing reproductive thinking, the author notes that it involves the reproduction of processes that took place in the past, and allows some minor modifications in them. He does not deny the role of past experience in creative thinking, considering knowledge as a starting point for understanding and material for solving a problem.

In the aspect of the problem facing us, we were interested in the question of what are the signs on the basis of which the researchers revealed the specifics of thinking, whether they reflected and to what extent its reproductive and productive sides. An analysis of foreign literature showed that in any case, when it came to thinking, it was said about the emergence of a new one, but the nature of this new one, its sources in various theories, were indicated non-identical.

In the reproductive theories of thinking, the new acted as a result of complication or recombination based mainly on the similarity of the existing elements of past experience, the actualization of the direct connection between the requirements of the task and the subjectively identical elements of existing knowledge. The very solution of the problem proceeds on the basis of either mechanical trial and error, followed by the fixation of a randomly found correct solution, or the actualization of a certain system of previously formed operations.

In productive theories of thinking, the new, arising as a result of mental activity, is characterized by its originality (for Gestaltists, this is a new structure, a new gestalt). It arises in a problematic situation, usually involving overcoming the barrier of past experience that hinders the search for a new one that requires understanding of this situation. The solution is carried out as a transformation of the initial problems, but the very principle of the solution arises suddenly, suddenly, in the order of insight, direct discretion of the solution path, which depends mainly on the objective conditions of the problem and very little on the activity of the decisive subject himself, on his own experience.

Ideas about the creative nature of human thinking, about its specificity, relationships with other processes, and above all with memory, about the patterns of its development were developed in the studies of many Soviet psychologists (B. G. Ananiev, P. Ya. Galperin, A. V. Zaporozhets , G. S. Kostyuk, A. N. Leontiev, A. A. Lyublinskaya, N. A. Menchinskaya, Yu. A. Samarin, B. M. Teplov, M. N. Shardakov, P. Ya. Shevarev, L (I. Uznadze, N. P. Eliava, etc.). A broad generalization of the provisions on the essence and specifics of thinking was carried out by S. L. Rubinshtein.

In the works of Soviet psychologists, productivity appears as the most characteristic, specific feature of thinking, which distinguishes it from other mental processes, and at the same time, its contradictory connection with reproduction is considered.

Thinking is an active purposeful activity, during which the processing of existing and newly incoming information is carried out, the separation of its external, random, secondary elements from the main, internal, reflecting the essence of the situations under study, and the regular connections between them are revealed. Thinking cannot be productive without relying on past experience, and at the same time it involves going beyond it, discovering new knowledge, which expands their fund and thereby increases the possibility of solving more and more new, more complex problems.

In thinking as a process of generalized and mediated cognition of reality, its productive and reproductive components are intertwined in a dialectically contradictory unity, and their share in a particular mental activity may be different. Under the influence of the ever-increasing demands of life on its creative component, it became necessary to single out special types of thinking - productive and reproductive.

It should be noted that in Soviet literature there is an objection to the allocation of such species, since any process of thinking is productive (A. V. Brushlinsky). However, most psychologists who study thinking consider it appropriate to distinguish these types (P. P. Blonsky, D. N. Zavalishina, N. A. Menchinskaya, Ya. A. Ponomarev, V. N. Pushkin, O. K. Tikhomirov) .

In the literature, these types (sides, components) of mental activity are called differently. As synonyms for the concept of productive thinking, the terms are used: creative thinking, independent, heuristic, creative. Synonyms for reproductive thinking are the terms: verbal-logical, discursive, rational, receptive, etc. We use the terms productive and reproductive thinking.

Productive thinking is characterized by a high degree of novelty of the product obtained on its basis, its originality. This thinking appears when a person, having tried to solve a problem on the basis of its formal logical analysis with the direct use of methods known to him, is convinced of the futility of such attempts and he has a need for new knowledge that allows him to solve the problem: this need ensures high activity. problem solving subject. Awareness of the need itself speaks of the creation of a problem situation in a person (A. M. Matyushkin).

Finding what is sought presupposes the discovery of signs unknown to the subject, essential for solving the problem of relationships, regular connections between signs, the ways in which they can be found. A person is forced to act in conditions of uncertainty, to plan and test a number of possible solutions, to make a choice between them, sometimes without sufficient grounds for this. He is looking for the key to the solution based on hypotheses and their testing, i.e., methods are based on a known foresight of what can be obtained as a result of transformations. A significant role in this is played by generalizations, which make it possible to reduce the amount of information on the basis of the analysis of which a person comes to the discovery of new knowledge, to reduce the number of operations carried out in this case, steps to achieve the goal.

As L. L. Gurova emphasizes, in the search for a way to solve a problem, its meaningful, semantic analysis is very fruitful, aimed at revealing the natural relations of the objects that are discussed in the problem. In it, an essential role is played by the figurative components of thinking, which allow you to directly operate with these natural relations of objects. They represent a special, figurative logic that makes it possible to establish connections not with two, as in verbal reasoning, but with many links of the analyzed situation, to act, according to L. L. Gurova, in a multidimensional space.

In studies conducted under the guidance of S. L. Rubinshtein (L. I. Antsyferova, L. V. Brushinsky, A. M. Matyushkin, K. A. Slavskaya, etc.), as an effective technique used in productive thinking, put forward analysis through synthesis. On the basis of such an analysis, the desired property of the object is revealed when the object is included in the system of connections and relations in which it more clearly reveals this property. The found property opens a new circle of connections and relations of the object with which this property can be correlated. Such is the dialectic of creative cognition of reality.

In this process, as many researchers note, there is often an outwardly sudden vision of a solution - insight, aha-experience, and it often occurs when the person was not directly involved in solving the problem. In reality, such a decision was prepared by past experience, depends on the previous analytical and synthetic activity and, above all, on the level of verbal-logical conceptual generalization reached by the decisive one (K. A. Slavskaya). However, the process of searching for a solution to a large part is carried out intuitively, under the threshold of consciousness, not finding its adequate reflection in the word, and that is why its result, breaking through into the sphere of consciousness, is recognized as an insight, allegedly not related to the activity previously carried out by the subject, aimed at to discover new knowledge.

Including its immanent, unconscious components in productive thinking, some researchers have found experimental techniques that make it possible to reveal some of the features of these components.

An interesting methodological technique for the experimental study of the intuitive components of productive thinking was applied by V. N. Pushkin. He offered the subjects such visual tasks (simulating chess games, the game of 5, etc.), the solution of which could be traced with the eyes. These eye movements were recorded using an electrooculographic technique. The path of eye movement was correlated with the features of the solution of the problem and with verbal reports about it. The study showed that a person, solving a problem, collects much more information based on the analysis of a visual situation than he himself realizes.

A great influence on the solution of the problem, as shown by the results of studies by Georgian psychologists belonging to the school of D. N. Uznadze, can be exerted by the presence of an attitude, i.e., an internal unconscious state of readiness for action, which determines the specifics of all ongoing mental activity.

Applying the method of introducing auxiliary problems, Ya. A. Ponomarev revealed a number of regularities in the influence of auxiliary problems on problem solving. The greatest effect is achieved when, on the basis of logical analysis, a person has already become convinced that he cannot solve the problem using the methods he has tried, but has not yet lost faith in the possibility of success. Moreover, the auxiliary task itself should not be so interesting as to completely absorb the consciousness of the solver, and not so easy that its solution could be performed automatically. The less automated the solution method, the easier it is to transfer it to the solution of the main task - the problem.

As experiments showed, using the hint contained in the second task, the subject usually believed that the later found solution to the main problem had nothing to do with the solution of the auxiliary problem. It seemed to him that the solution to the problem that hampered him came suddenly, in the order of insight. If an auxiliary task was given before the main one, then it did not have any effect on the subsequent actions of the subjects.