Different Kinds of Thinking

In the early 1900's, Gestalt psychologists as well as contemporary psychologists studied problem solving as a way to learn about creativity. Gestalt theories and research focused on two main areas:
1. reproductive thought involves recall of past experiences and
2. productive thought involves the creation of something truly novel by going beyond one's past experience and looking at each problem in a new and independent way.

The main difference between ordinary problem solving and the creative thinking that charaterizes great accomplishment is the high degree of motivation and expertise done in the creative thinking process.

Problem solving is based on knowledge. Solutions to problems require creative thinking in other domains or areas of expertise, therefore, extensive knowledge in those domains may be required to develop a more creative result. In order to access the new areas of expertise, groups are created with experts in a variety of fields to work on solutions. This type of "brainstorming" brings solutions to the table that could not otherwise be thought of by like minded people.
Knowledge and expertise contribute to a solution but Insightful Thinking brings about the unexpected realization of a creative solution. BOTH knowledge and different approaches are needed to come to a successful solution. Not necessarily the most creative solution.

Adrian DeGroot a cognitive psychologist studied areas of expertise as it relates to problem solving. He studied master and novice chess players to see if knowledge contributed to more and quicker solutions and found
Experts:
- could focus more quickly on the correct move and did not have to search.
Novice:
- needs to examine many elements / options in solving the problem.
Experts:
- previous knowledge is easy to retrieve.
Novice :
- does not have a storage of previous experiences.
Expert:
- expert can relate to something already known and use that knowledge as a basis for performance.
Novice:
- needs to search much further to find correct solution.

An example of expertise and applying that knowlegde in a different way to solve a problem.
The Hubble Telescope had a flaw in it's primary mirror and was discovered after it was sent into space. Jim Crocker and his engineering team were hired by NASA to correct the problem. They couldn't solve the problem; they couldn't adjust the optics.The solutions they found were either too dangerous for the astronauts, or just too complicated.

Team disbanded and met several months later in Germany. Before the meeting, Crocker was taking a shower. He's a tall man and had to adjust the shower head. While adjusting the shower head mechanism he saw the solution to the Hubble mirror problem.

Solution:
Small eliptical adjustments could be fitted to correct each beam of information reflected by the flawed mirror using a simple mechanism conceptually related to the shower head device. It worked!

referenced from: "Creativity: Beyond the Myth of Genious" by Robert Weisberg

The knowledge or practical phase of problem solving is also called Hard Thinking or Reproductive thinking. The problem is evaluate and ideas are executed.
Hard Thinking or logical thinking is a series of steps each one building on the next and is merely an extension of what we know rather than being truly newand can be described as:
- logical
- precise
- exact
- specific
- consistent

Soft Thinking is productive thinking; being proactive and thinking something different. Something that doesn't fit into the "practical" process.
Roger von Oech, author of 'A whack on the side of the head', introduced the useful concept of 'soft thinking' as an important ingredient of creativity. Whereas much academic thinking is 'hard', i.e. rigorous and focused, if we wish to be creative we need to switch to 'soft thinking'.
Soft thinking is the Imaginative Phase where questions-what if? and why not? are posed. Here we are more likely to be playful and wide-looking. Soft thinking can be described as:
- playful
- humorous
- irrational
- approximate
- metaphorical
- deals with contradiction
- finds similarities and connections among things

It's okay to begin with hard, logical thinking BUT very important to switch to Soft, playful thinking to find truly creative solutions.

Hard Thinking vs. Soft Thinking
When exploring a creative challenge, take a leaf out of Einstein's book and utilise the power of hard thinking followed by soft thinking. Hard thinking occurs in the time you deliberately set-aside to fully explore a creative challenge. For Einstein, he would pour over his calculations, covering everything he knew and he would conduct the thought experiments previously mentioned, and have deep discussions with his peers. All this involved hard creative effort.
But Einstein appreciated the concept of soft thinking when you consciously set aside the problem and redirect your attention to something enjoyable and relaxing. For Einstein, this was playing the violin or sailing -- two things that he loved to do and could "disappear" while he was doing them. And what he found was that during these pleasuable pursuits, his unconscious mind would go on thinking about the challenge and surprise him with a breakthrough insight or innovation at the time when he least expected it. Use hard thinking and soft thinking to turbo-charge your creative thinking breakthroughs.

(source for above information:http://www.creativethinkingwith.com/Albert-Einstein.html)

Lateral Thinking
Edward de Bono recommends the use of various lateral thinking techniques. For example, there is the simple method of picking out a word at random, say from a dictionary, and using it as a trigger to stimulate the creation of new ideas.

Intuitive thinking has no rules or step-by-step reasoning.
Intuitive thinking has a freedom and flexibility that enables the thinker to make connections between ideas to produce something truly new.

Graphic ideation (sketching, doodling) is complementary to verbal ideation and can help you develop new ideas.

Verbal Language
Most psychologists feel that verbal languages are the basis of thinking.
Schools reinforce this.
Reading, writing and math are stressed.

Visual Thinking
Helps to solve problems where shapes, forms, or patterns are concerned and visual imagery is very common in dreams. When we recall a dream we usually will "see" it, perhaps in color, before we verbalize it.

Visual thinking is used by everybody on a regular basis.
• moving chess pieces on a chess board
• moving men steering a piano along a winding staircase