What is cognitive ability. What is cognitive ability

Cognitiveness (cognition) is a person's ability to process and perceive information. In psychology, the term is widely used to explain psychological processes.

In psychology

Cognitiveness in psychology is interpreted as an act of cognition. Specialists under this term mean such processes as memory, attention, perception and making conscious decisions. Emotions do not belong to cognitive states, as they arise uncontrollably and originate from the subconscious.

There is a separate direction applied psychology known as the school of cognitivism. Its representatives consider human behavior through its cognitive processes. They believe that a person acts in a certain way, based on the peculiarities of thinking. Cognitiveness in this context is considered an acquired property that has nothing to do with genetic or gender characteristics.

There is even a theory of cognitive correspondence, which was formed in the 50s of the last century. It describes the cognitive structure of the personality in terms of balance. After all, the main motivation of a mature individual is the preservation of integrity and the achievement of internal balance.

Understanding cognition has spawned a separate section. Cognitive psychology studies the processes of cognition and is directly related to the study of memory, completeness of perception of information, imagination, speed of thinking.

cognitive processes

Cognitiveness has not only philosophical, but also applied significance. As already mentioned, this section of psychology substantively studies the cognitive abilities of a person. They can be equally developed in all individuals, or vary depending on genetic characteristics, upbringing or individual personality traits.

Cognitive abilities are a manifestation higher functions brain. These include: orientation in time, personality and space, learning ability, memory, type of thinking, speech, and many others. Psychologists and neurologists first of all turn their attention to the degree of development or impairment of these particular functions.

Cognitive functions are primarily associated with the ability to recognize and process information, and also characterize the functioning of the brain. Scientists distinguish two main processes:

• gnosis - the ability to recognize and perceive information;
• praxis is the transfer of information and the performance of purposeful actions based on this information.

If even one of these processes is disturbed, then we can talk about the occurrence of cognitive impairment.

Possible reasons

Cognitive impairment, like any pathological process in the body, does not occur out of the blue. Most often, there are neurodegenerative diseases, cerebrovascular pathologies, infectious processes, injuries, malignant neoplasms, hereditary and systemic diseases.

Atherosclerotic changes in blood vessels and arterial hypertension can be considered one of the most common factors in the occurrence of cognitive impairment. Violation of the trophism of brain tissue often leads to structural changes or even death of nerve cells. Such processes are especially dangerous in the places of connections between the cerebral cortex and subcortical structures.

Separately, we should talk about Alzheimer's disease. Cognitive impairment in this pathology is the leading symptom and significantly reduces the quality of life of the patient and his relatives. The main manifestation is dementia, impaired short-term and long-term memory and recognition.

Classification

There are many classifications of cognitive impairments. According to the severity and reversibility of the process, there are:

Timely diagnosis and therapy

Cognitive impairment in the early stages is very difficult to suspect. At first, a person is only concerned about weakness, fatigue, a slight decrease in some functions, or a change in mood. Very rarely, such complaints are cause for concern. Seek medical advice already at later stages of the disease.

First of all, if a loss or decrease in cognitive functions is suspected, it is necessary to carefully collect an anamnesis. After all, these symptoms cannot appear without the main cause, to eliminate which the main therapeutic measures will be directed. When collecting an anamnesis, it is necessary to ask about the presence of chronic diseases and the constant intake of any drugs. After all, many drugs, penetrating the blood-brain barrier, can affect brain cells.

Diagnosis of disorders consists in considering the subjective complaints of the patient himself and his close circle (relatives, roommates), direct assessment of the neurological status and functional examination methods. There are special tests that can accurately determine not only cognitive impairment, but also their severity. Such screening scales help detect pathologies such as stroke, vascular or senile dementia, and others. Too complex tests should not be used for diagnosis. Their data will not be objective, since the complication of tasks will primarily indicate intellectual baggage, and not possible violations.

It is also important to assess the emotional sphere. Often in patients with depression there is a violation of memory and concentration. It is also necessary to pay close attention to this, since screening neuropsychological tests do not always fully reveal the state of the psyche.

How many copies are broken due to different definitions of intelligence! And the thing is that the classical IQ only tells how difficult academic tasks in ideal conditions can be solved by a person. And success in life is connected mainly with the so-called practical intelligence. These nuances are studied by scientists who study cognitive abilities.

Approximately half of all people

What is practical intelligence and why is it so important? Absolutely every mentally healthy person has tremendous adaptability. True, they manifest themselves in different ways. Only 8 psychotypes out of 16 are capable of classical adaptation due to academic intelligence, and even then with varying degrees of success, depending on individual, rather than typical characteristics.

And how to be?

What do the eight other psychotypes do? They master the area like a foreign language, that is, it is difficult and slow. But the main adaptation mechanisms are the use of conjecture, volitional qualities, social connections, manipulation of emotional states. Of course, not every profession allows such behavior, but people of "non-academic" types usually do not choose very complex intellectual specialties.

Miscellaneous tasks

Describing cognitive abilities, it is necessary to focus on the most relevant definition of intelligence. This is not at all the ability to find the right picture for a puzzle, to pick up a number after 10 operations in the mind, or the ability to find a capacious and relevant word. Cognitive abilities are the ability to adapt to a new situation and solve objectively and subjectively new tasks for the psyche.

Mental Threshold

Also, such a definition of intelligence makes it a variable quantity. Which is very, very optimistic. Although ... practice shows that even solving problems for a classical, supposedly unchangeable IQ, can be learned. So this is not a constant factor, and even more so - not a predictor of success in life. A person's cognitive abilities simply have to pass a certain threshold, after which, subject to motivation and concentration, a person has a chance of success. It has been calculated that a factor of 120 is quite enough to defend a doctoral dissertation. Which is not something sky-high, there are usually a couple of people of this level in every grade of high school.

Graduate Equality

Cognitive ability is a very vague term. And it arose because of the desire to find an algorithm, thanks to which it is possible to determine how promising this or that student is. But it turned out that graduates of the same American university, as a rule, are equally successful. Regardless of their academic performance, which is really related to academic endowment.

Don't spray!

Cognitive development is recommended to be planned according to the specific skills you need. That is, the human psyche is very specific. Contrary to popular belief, success at chess does not automatically lead to advantages in other types of algorithmic work. Skills from one area to another are extremely poorly transferred. Therefore, it makes sense to immediately learn what you need. And do not bet on the overall development.

Hello, dear readers of the blog site. Probably, most of you have discussed whether your friend or neighbor can be called smart person. After this question, as a rule, a discussion begins, but by what criteria, in fact, to judge?

Smart is someone who has a large amount of knowledge? But he is simply a carrier of information, and may not use it in practice and in life.

When scientists try to define intelligence, they always talk about human cognitive abilities- cognitive functions. What are they, how to develop them, and what to do in case of a "breakdown"? We will understand and become smarter for our friend.

Cognitive functions, abilities and processes

Cognitive functions are the processes in the brain that are involved in our exploration of the environment.

The information that comes through our analyzers is processed. We translate it into knowledge. They are stored in memory, accumulate over time, becoming life experiences.

Cognitive ability is:

1. Attention;
2. memory;
3. thinking;

If a person throughout his life develops these cognitive characteristics, then it can be considered smart and intelligent.

Since he is able to perceive information from different sources in a large volume and for a long time; remembers it, reproduces it; draws conclusions; has logical thinking; can present the most vivid images based on what they see or hear.

How to develop cognitive thinking

Immediately after birth, the child begins to perceive and explore the world. But he does it at his own level, depending on his age and whether his parents are involved with him.

There are two types of cognitive thinking:

1. Visual and effective(up to 3 years) - the child examines everything around, tries to touch, sometimes even tries to lick. That is, it uses all the simplest ways to learn about the objects around. The role of mom and dad at this stage is to show the child various interesting objects, name them, tell in an accessible language about their properties and how to use them, and let them study for themselves.
2. Visual-figurative(up to 7 years) - the child learns to complete tasks, solve tasks using logic. Parents should play educational games with him on fine motor skills, memory, attention and imagination. Also teach the rules of behavior, which also develops cognitive thinking.
3. abstract(after 7) - the student learns to understand, imagine, which cannot be seen or touched.

But what is an adult to do? Is it possible that the level of development of memory or thinking that is on this moment – this is the limit? No, even in your 40s or 60s, you can continue to exercise your cognitive abilities.

Love for the knowledge of the surrounding world and oneself contribute to the improvement of these functions of the brain.

1. Learn a foreign language.
2. Choose a different route to get to work or school.
3. Do the usual things with the other hand (for right-handers - left, for left-handers - right).
4. Solve crossword puzzles.
5. Draw even if you don't know how. Make it harder: take pencils in both hands and continue to depict something.
6. Speak out loud or to yourself different words vice versa.
7. If you need to calculate simple equations, do it in your head, without the help of a calculator and paper.
8. In order to train your memory, you need to remember in detail how the whole day went before going to bed. You can also reproduce an autobiography from childhood itself. Or in reverse order: from today to the moment when they crawled on the floor for a toy. You can remember just in your head, or by telling someone, or writing in a notebook.
9. Watch various films and read books, of course.
10. There are many applications in our smartphones that are directly aimed at the development of certain cognitive functions.

Cognitive Impairments and Disorders

How more people is engaged in intellectual development, the more connections arise between neurons, which also, in turn, develop. It creates cognitive reserve.

If some part of the brain ceases to function adequately due to injury or aging, then another part will fail to perform important functions.

An experiment was conducted at Harvard where 824 people were observed over the years. They were social security and intellectual development.

The result showed that people who actively developed their cognitive abilities were able to think logically in old age, remember the smallest details, and behave adequately.

cognitive disorders possible for the following reasons:

1. injury;
2. infectious diseases of other systems, in which toxins are released and cells are damaged nervous systems s (syphilis);
3. oncological formations;
4. diabetes;
5. stroke;
6. aging.

Depending on what served as a factor in the occurrence of dysfunction, there will be different symptoms. and cognitive deficits. Let's look at an example.

Dementia that appears after age 65 is called Alzheimer's disease. The main symptom is the development of forgetfulness. In the future, memory deterioration progresses to the point that a person may not remember his name and where he lives. Also, problems with orientation in space begin. Therefore, these patients need constant supervision.

Speech is broken. It is difficult for a person to pronounce words, repeats them. Then there are problems with logical thinking, which is also noticeable when talking with the patient. They become angry at everything around, very sensitive and whiny.

Vascular dementia develops due to insufficient blood circulation in the brain, ischemia, strokes. Memory impairment does not come to the fore, as in Alzheimer's. Immediately noticeable decrease in attention, its concentration. It is difficult for patients to distinguish similarities and differences between objects, slow thinking, and it is difficult to pronounce words.

Treatment is prescribed only after a thorough diagnosis of the cause. If this is a consequence of such diseases as infectious, oncological, diabetes mellitus, then the therapy is aimed at getting rid of or correcting the underlying disease.

In Alzheimer's disease, acetylcholinesterase inhibitors are chosen. In case of vascular disorders, the attention of doctors is directed to improving blood circulation: phosphodiesterase inhibitors, calcium channel blockers, a2-adrenergic receptor blockers.

In order to improve the state of intelligence in diseases, drugs with metabolic and antioxidant properties are often used. Experiments have also proven the positive effect of nootropics. But it is worth remembering that they help only when there is a problem. Do not improve cognitive abilities in healthy people.

Cognitive distortions (dissonance)

Not just a tricky phrase that only applies to scientists and professors. We ourselves in everyday life often encounter this.

This is the state in which there are contradictions:

1. knowledge;
2. opinions;
3. beliefs.

During cognitive distortion, a person experiences confusion, anxiety, awkwardness, feelings of shame and guilt, or even anger - psychological discomfort. For example, there is a beggar in a pedestrian crossing who you have given some money to. She reaches for them, and an expensive watch is shown on her hand.

You are confused at first because you thought the person needed financial support. And it turns out that he can be richer than you yourself. At first you find yourself in a stupor, which can then turn into aggression, because you were fooled.

arises for these reasons.:

1. the discrepancy between a person's knowledge of an object, phenomenon, other people and really what they are;
2. the discrepancy between the acquired experience and the situation, which was repeated, only in a different way;
3. inconsistency of personal opinion with the point of view of others, which pops up randomly;
4. maintaining traditions and beliefs, if you yourself do not sincerely honor and believe them;
5. logical inconsistency of facts.

What to do if this incomprehensible cognitive dissonance happened to you? First you need to reduce the significance of this state. After all, there is an explanation for everything, which is simply not available to you at the moment.

To do this, you need to look for new information about subject of cognitive distortion. Study in more detail, or talk about it with other people. Perhaps you just had a small piece of knowledge, and there was a great opportunity to expand it.

Not worth having very shackled beliefs. You must absorb and notice information of various formats, study everything around. With such an approach to life, it is unlikely that something can surprise or greatly offend. Just stumble upon new knowledge that you immediately take note of.

cognitive psychology

In psychotherapy, there are many directions that are individually selected for the client, depending on his personality type and the current problem. One of the commonly used methods is cognitive behavioral therapy.

The essence of the direction lies in the fact that the cause of the problem, most likely, is in the person himself, and not in the world around him. In his thinking in particular.

Therefore, the psychologist, together with the client, is trying to study it, to find out on what statements it is built and what experience formed the basis of the problem.

Psychotherapist finds a false setting, which causes negative feelings in a person, a feeling of impossibility to overcome the existing difficulties. And shows it from the side. Explains why it is wrong and how to think more effectively. But at the same time, the specialist does not impose his position in life.

Cognitive Therapy suitable for such situations:

1. obsessive-compulsive disorders;
2. eating disorder (,);
3. mild depression;
4. relationship difficulties;
5. addiction.

Good luck to you! See you soon on the blog pages site

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Most people experience a loss of cognitive perception skills and a decrease in intellectual abilities with age.
One of the prominent figures in this field, Professor Timothy Salthouse (Timothy Salthouse) from the University of Virginia, argues that the peak of mental functions occurs at 22 years old, aging of the brain begins at 27 years old, memory deterioration is fixed from 37 years old, loss of other intellectual functions - after 42 years old.
In this published study of American specialists, 2,000 men and women aged 18-60 took part.
The authors of the experiment concluded that the prevention and treatment of disorders such as Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia should begin at a young age.

Interestingly, Craik F and colleagues published more encouraging data. They showed that some of a person's cognitive abilities decline significantly with old age, while others may remain the same or even improve.
Yes, it decreases with age. mobile intelligence- the ability to solve problems, the solutions of which cannot be obtained from the education or practice received (an example of a test for fluid intelligence:
"Determine the rule by which the series A C F J is composed?").
For a long time it was believed that crystallized intelligence
(an analogue of procedural and declarative knowledge obtained in the process of education and practice) does not change significantly with age, but now this position is being challenged.
In old age, there is a deterioration in the abilities associated with mobile intelligence - solving anagrams, recognizing rapidly presented images, planning a route when driving a car.
Young and old people usually perform equally well on tasks that require only maintaining a certain level of attention (for example, listening to an interlocutor alone with him). Significantly worse older people perform tasks on distributed and selective attention. In the first case, the subjects should pay attention to two or more sources of information (one of the ways of studying is dichotic listening), in the second case, selectively track only one source of information, not paying attention to interference.
In assignments for short term memory the success of the elderly depends on the complexity of the task: for example, if you need to remember and reproduce 345142686, then the elderly do not experience difficulties, but if you need to reproduce this series in reverse order, they cope with the task much worse than the young.
It is assumed that this deterioration is based on the use of
ineffective learning strategies: young people, when memorizing a number of numbers, usually break it into segments, and the elderly try to remember it in its entirety.
When testing long-term memory in young and elderly subjects, it turned out that the memory of one's own intentions (mainly about habitual regular actions) and memory for distant events in older people may be even better than in young and adults. So, when using the test for famous names It turned out that older people remember well-known figures (actors, athletes, etc.) who became famous decades ago better than young people. It is considered that implicit memory suffers slightly in older people, but it has been shown that they are less successful in using prompts semantically related to the presented word. For example, if the list of presented words included the word bread, then young subjects will be able to recall the word they were looking for when presented with the word butter, but old ones will not.
It is also shown that semantic memory remains relatively intact in old age, but older people are less confident in their answers than younger people.
On the basis of known data (first of all, studies of crystallized and mobile intellect), F. Craik proposed his own interpretation of the dynamics of cognitive abilities throughout ontogenesis.
According to him, the performance of some cognitive abilities rise and then fall in accordance with an inverted U-shaped curve, the performance of other abilities rise (or slightly decrease) throughout life, and the first correspond to control processes (fluid intelligence), the second to representations ( crystallized intelligence). They cannot be considered as separate independent entities: both the formation of new experience depends on the effectiveness of control processes, and control processes depend on ideas about the surrounding world.
These provisions can be illustrated by the studies of E. Bialystok et al. (2004). In particular, they showed that performance on tests that require highly efficient control processes declines with age. They tried to identify a factor that could prevent the age-related decline in control processes, and the role of such a factor was bilingualism.
In order to build grammatically correct phrases, bilinguals are supposed to actualize one language and temporarily suppress knowledge of another, thus using their highly developed control processes. When performing a non-linguistic task for interference (the Simon test), it turned out that adults and old bilinguals cope with this task better than their peers who know only one language.
The data obtained suggest that bilingualism provides a "cognitive reserve" (F. Craik's term) that can reduce cognitive decline with aging.
It is shown that older individuals (both people and animals) learn worse than younger ones. The reason for this, however, may be that learning in young and old individuals can occur through different mechanisms: in young people, mainly due to the formation of new elements of individual experience, in old ones, mainly due to the reorganization of the structure of existing elements of experience.
It is possible that the decrease in fluid intelligence in older people indicates a decrease in the “reserve” of cells from which neurons are recruited that specialize relatively newly
formed elements of individual experience.

Physical activity improves cognitive performance

Over the years, memory begins to fail a person more and more, because of which he is forced to constantly ask for help from others.
Scientists from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of Pittsburgh have found that older people can fight for their future, stimulate the growth of brain structures, and therefore improve certain types of memory, and in a completely trivial way .
Numerous studies have shown that what more sizes hippocampus, the better a person has developed spatial memory. This assumption is disputed among neurophysiologists. For example, that multimodal (that is, from different sense organs) signals come to the hippocampus. The structures of inputs and outputs in this section are so intertwined that they cannot ensure the preservation of spatial characteristics.
It is this paired part of the brain that is responsible for orientation in space. In addition, it is known that if it is removed, a person loses the ability to remember what is happening now (traces of long-term memory remain).
Studies have been conducted that have shown that experienced London taxi drivers have larger hippocampus than ordinary people, and that in students, while preparing for the most important exams, this part of the brain increases in volume.
It is also known that as a person ages, the hippocampus decreases, there are significant deterioration in memory and cognitive abilities. Of course, the speed at which this happens is different for everyone, but it can be said with certainty that all old people go through this.
American scientists also knew that the size of the hippocampus in mice could be increased by making them do various exercises. And they asked themselves the question: what about a person?
To find the answer, they decided to study 165 older people (109 of them were women) aged 59 to 81. Using magnetic resonance imaging, scientists conducted a volumetric analysis of the right and left halves of the hippocampus. They also asked people to take tests to determine their abilities.
It turned out that older people who lead an active lifestyle with a lot of aerobic loads, 40% better oriented in space, which also correlates with the size of their hippocampus.
"The fitter they were, the more tissue they had in the hippocampus, the better their spatial memory functioned," sums up Professor Arthur Kramer in a university press release.
Scientists believe that they have found evidence of a link between lifestyle and changes in mental abilities in old age. "That is, if you do not evade regular physical activity, then the parts of the brain necessary for a full daily life continue to develop and remember information," adds Professor Kirk Erickson.

Life expectancy depends on the size of the brain

American scientists after long research came to the conclusion that the life expectancy of a person depends on the size of his brain.
Scientists have long been looking for an answer to the question - how to explain the relatively large head size in humans and other representatives of the order of primates. Elephants have the largest brains of any land animal, while humans have the highest ratio between brain size and body size.
American researchers found an explanation for this fact after comparing various anthropological parameters of 28 species of primates.
Scientists have stated that animals with a larger brain than the rest live longer in order to have time to reach puberty and give birth to offspring. The objects of the study were primates living in the wild. Animals kept in captivity tend to grow faster and this
could skew the results scientific work, explained Nancy Barrickman (Barrickman Nancy) from the Department of Anthropology and Anatomy at Duke University in the United States. "To compensate for the time spent growing up, you either live long and have large offspring, or you have offspring very quickly," the scientist explained.
The study found that large brain size is associated more with longevity than with reproduction rates.
According to scientists, the extra "brain reserve" allows primates to quickly learn how to find food, avoid encounters with predators, and also master social communication skills.
A brief overview of this topic can be read

brain aging gene

The development of many diseases of the visual and nervous systems (for example, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases) is directly related to the aging process. The nature of the origin and patterns of occurrence of these ailments have been studied quite well, so an international group of researchers representing the University of Montreal (Canada) and the Berkeley National Laboratory (USA) decided to look at the problem more broadly and determine the basic molecular mechanisms that control the degradation of neurons.
Persistent searches were crowned with success: experimenting on mice, scientists have identified a mutation that significantly accelerates the aging process of neurons in the brain and retina. It is reported that in the absence of the Bmi1 gene, protein activation occurred, resulting in cell death (in the figure from Science, the p53 protein in association with a DNA molecule).
The researchers also noted some concomitant phenomena, for example, an increase in the concentration active forms oxygen and hypersensitivity to the effects of neurotoxins.
“In general, we were able to show that the Bmi1 gene directly controls the process of neuronal degradation in the retina and cerebral cortex, influencing the mechanisms of protection against,” sums up group leader Gilbert Bernier (Gilbert Bernier) from the University of Montreal.

Brain nutrition and age-related decline in intelligence

According to gerontologists, the maximum working capacity in mental workers is observed at the age of 35 to 45 years, and by the age of 50-60 years, due to brain aging, it decreases by 20-40%.
Until the age of 50, the decline in mental functions is smooth and imperceptible, and after 50 years and, especially, after 55 years, signs of a weakening of memory, attention, and thinking make themselves felt in an increasingly obvious form, and not only in life, but also in professional activity. So, on the example of civil aviation pilots, it was established:
There is a statistically significant relationship between dangerous deviations in piloting and age of pilots. Pilots over 55 years of age most often made exits due to their own fault for permissible flight parameters.
Therefore, curbing the rate of brain aging is of high importance for flight safety.
In the course of a survey of 500 pilots of Aeroflot - Russian Airlines, it was noted:
at the age of 50 years, a decrease in intellectual functions in every 10th pilot;
at the age of 55 - every 5th pilot;
at the age of 60 - every 2nd pilot.
Psychological training is ineffective with age, as the ability to learn decreases. There is a close relationship between the speed of the brain and the level of certain amino acids, lipids, hormones, microelements in its neurons. Replenishment of the deficiency of the necessary biologically active substances in the cells should help increase their performance.
A special complex of biologically active substances has been selected:

The effectiveness of the complex of biologically active substances was tested on 60 pilots over 50 years old. On the example of lecithin (diagram below), one can judge the mechanism of its action in the human body.


The reception of the complex was carried out for 4 years during the holidays (1 month).
results psychological tests showed:
In 58% of individuals, it was possible to stop the process of brain aging and weakening of mental functions;
In 28%, an increase in brain performance was observed.
More details of this study can be found in the report of N.V. Yakimovich "REDUCED BRAIN FUNCTIONS IN PILOTS
OF OLDER AGE AND THE METHOD OF PREVENTION OF THIS PROCESS", which was presented at the 3rd Scientific and Practical
Congress of the Association of Aerospace, Marine, Ecological and Extreme Medicine of Russia.

Intelligence training

Numerous studies of psychologists, doctors and sociologists
it has been proven that mentally healthy older people up to 80 years old
there is practically no significant decline in intelligence, and their intellectual abilities remain the same as at a younger age.
Mental condition and intellectual ability in old age depend mainly on two factors: education and level of professional qualification. The higher the level of education,
received by a person in his youth, the better the intellect is preserved in old age. People with more high level vocational training, acquired in their youth, constantly replenish their knowledge in adulthood, that is, they are engaged in intellectual training throughout their lives. Consequently, even in old age they retain their intellectual abilities and high vitality.
During the research, it was discovered interesting fact: the mobility of the psyche in old age is due "habitat" elderly person. This conclusion was made on the basis of a comparative analysis of the results of the two surveyed groups. One group consisted of healthy older people living in a supportive environment that contributed to their increased vitality. In another group there were people of the same age, but living in "greenhouse conditions", which forced them to passivity.
Obviously, environment, requiring independence and independence from older people, allows them to maintain a high level of intellectual development in old age. In addition, reading special and fiction, study of foreign languages, various hobbies - all this requires constant work of the mind.
The authors of these observations conclude that under normal conditions, the mental abilities of a person do not decrease with old age. Naturally, differences between individual individuals can be very significant, but this depends mainly on the conditions of human existence.
There is another observation regarding the intelligence of older people. Due to age-related hearing loss, a person sometimes reacts strangely to questions or comments from others. And those around him attribute inappropriate answers or incorrect remarks to a decrease in his mental abilities.
In some groups of older people with a high level of education, intelligence in old age not only does not decrease, but even increases in a certain sense. So, for example, the ability to abstract and
philosophical reasoning is best manifested in old age, especially between 50-80 years. If in maturity someone creative activity was the norm of life, then this person continues to engage in it until old age. As an example, we can cite the fruitful work until the death of such prominent elders as Leo Tolstoy, Georges Simenon, Johann Goethe and many others.
The best anti aging drug - mental and mental training.

It follows from this that if a person is engaged in intellectual work, studies throughout his life, strives for self-improvement, then later, during aging and old age, his brain works much better.
Of course, there is also an inverse relationship. Just as the underuse of physical functions leads to a decrease in physical abilities, so too does the underuse of the brain, brain cells can lead to memory impairment. Research results show that by old age, not mechanical memory is better preserved, but systematic memory. If necessary, solve a problem that requires memory efforts, certain skills and experience, old man may even surpass the young, who is often hindered by excessive emotions and lack of experience.
Mental work requires a lot of energy. Few people realize that when they are under mental stress, they get tired faster than before and after this kind of activity they need more frequent rest. Therefore, an elderly person needs to take short breaks for rest several times during the working day. A minute of relaxation, a short walk in the fresh air - and the "mental battery" is charged again. The brain will be better supplied with blood and there will be no overstrain. To maintain mental activity and health, a dynamic balance between work and leisure should be maintained. It is also worth noting that positive emotional background also improves cognitive performance and prolongs life.

Usually concepts mind, intellect and thinking are separated very conditionally and for many people are some obscure shades of the same thing. However, these words are not synonymous, and different people may either have all of these types of cognitive abilities at the same time, or have only one of them. And although the semantic definitions of these concepts in explanatory dictionaries were given a very long time ago, a completely different degree of clarity that defines their differences can only be introduced with the advent of clear criteria that distinguish between different innate mental desires and human properties (eight vectors). The consequence of these desires and properties is the existence of the three categories of cognitive abilities mentioned above. There is different types mind, different types of intellects and different types of thinking. Surprisingly, one person is able to contain, for example, logical thinking, analytical thinking, as well as figurative and abstract intelligence. And in the same way, one person can only have logical thinking and nothing more. A simple thought that often comes to people's minds is that a person, in the course of life and due to various circumstances, simply did not develop in himself the rest of the properties and abilities that nature has given to each person in the potential. However, this is not the case, and this statement is confirmed, among other things, by striking differences in cognitive abilities between very young children, they become even more pronounced in the later, school age. It is usually clear even to parents who are not sophisticated in the details of this kind of questions, that it is not worthwhile to overly force a child with such a complex subject as, for example, mathematics, in an attempt to grow mathematics out of him, since he obviously will not pull mathematics. This is not his, and he only suffers from coercion.

In such comparisons and assumptions on the part of parents, there are many erroneous judgments, but this example is enough to indicate the very essence of the phenomenon. With the advent systems-vector psychology, which is primarily a system of mathematically exact differences between different forms mental people, it becomes possible to observe mental and psychological differences between people at any age and in many factors, such as speech. That is, the way people say what they say, their behavior and reactions when interacting with other people, often even their external features of the face and body (although the latter can sometimes lead to incorrect conclusions), indicate one or another set of their vector properties. . Indeed, after all, a person is first of all the psyche and only secondarily the body. Therefore, the more developed a person's ability to observe the mental differences of people on the basis of descriptions of system-vector psychology, the less he resorts to rechecking his perception by external, bodily signs.

The individual mental of a person is expressed by at least one vector (one of the four lower ones): skin, anal, muscle or urethral; and in rare cases, a person may have all eight vectors at once. Each vector is a separate and in no way intersecting with other vectors layer of mental desires and properties, each of which has 40 properties-desires, 36 of which relate to mental manifestations (that is, properties that are not expressed materially - metaphysical), and four of them relate to the properties-desires of the body - to eat, drink, breathe, sleep. The properties of the body are the same in all vectors, so a person who is physically born in one body can have several vectors, because the properties of the body of each vector - eat, drink, breathe, sleep - merge into one. It is like separate portions of water, united into a single integrity, when they are poured into a glass: they are completely mixed there, so that it is impossible to separate from them the portions of water initially poured into it. Therefore, a person with four heads is not born into the world, even if he carries four vectors. Thus, each person is capable of one of the types of thinking, since he possesses at least one of the lower vectors. There are four types of thinking in total: visual-effective, logical, systemic (analytical) or tactical.

Thinking

Thinking is the ability to involuntarily generate thought forms in consciousness, to extract certain knowledge about the surrounding physical reality, to store this knowledge in memory, it is the ability to operate with this knowledge in accordance with emerging thought forms. Thinking arises as a tool for human survival, it is a special ability to interpret reality, allowing you to fill your innate mental desires and save your life. The ability to think changes the perception of human reality, because the surrounding space suddenly begins to fill with completely different meanings: the perceived physical objects, in addition to their natural non-verbal meaning, are suddenly clothed in other, hitherto non-existent meanings. Wood can be made into a canoe, a fallen tree can serve as a bridge, a source of fire, material for a bow arc, etc.

Such thoughts arise in the mind. Consciousness is possessed only by a person, and consciousness has one unusual feature, it is essentially a void - unfilled and never fully filled with a person's additional desire to preserve himself. This is its early form, which, with the evolution of perception, transforms and becomes more complex, but the essence of consciousness remains unchanged. It's not what it is, it's what it isn't. Inside, in the properties of this emptiness, this reduced desire (reduction is an internal limitation, a ban on filling), brought out from within ourselves, we perceive and realize external world including other people. The first forms of the additional desire to preserve oneself were the desire to eat more food and the increased drive to reproduce. The early perception of the other person inside this void was the desire to eat him and at the same time this feeling of the prohibition on killing and cannibalism within the pack. Desire and a ban on it cause hostility towards one's neighbor, towards other people - and this is the primary conscious perception of other people by a person. The ban on cannibalism, which is an element of the system of this new perception, appeared together with the additional desire of the skin vector - a measure of prohibition and restriction, a measure that creates this new form of perception, a new form of life - conscious, social.

In general, the desires and needs of the human level are directed towards other people and are satisfied only through one or another interaction with them. The forms of conscious perception of the surrounding world are different and are determined precisely by a certain form of mental desire to receive pleasure - for example, the form of additional desire in the skin vector differs from the form of additional desire in the anal vector. And all other forms of what exists outside do not fall into the field of conscious perception.

The first types of thinking that appear in human nature are rational logical in the skin vector and visual-effective in the muscular one. Additional desire for food and reproduction appears in the most basic of human mental manifestations - in the muscle vector. Muscle vector - this is the desire to eat, drink, breathe, sleep and maintain the temperature of your body, the root of animal life. Muscular people together are the main collective “backbone” of the reproduction of the human species, because giving birth every year for a muscular woman is a way of life, a craving, a norm. Giving birth to 10 children is not a problem for them - the main thing is to survive.

Any animal is controlled by a system of intraspecies coordinated instincts, of which there are a great many and which stem from more general laws, such as the preservation of form, the force of attraction, the force of desire to receive, to be filled with the necessary - in order to preserve oneself, one's form of life. In the case of a certain kind of living beings, this is strength, the desire to preserve the species. The appearance of an additional desire within this system of preservation of the species of our distant animal ancestor, in essence, meant the beginning of an evolutionary transition to new form life. An illustrative allegory with a grain of cereals can be cited as an example of this dramatic change. Before a grain planted in the ground sprouts as an ear, it goes through a stage of complete decay and decomposition, that is, the loss of its previous form. In the same way, the appearance of an additional desire means the disintegration of the existing integrity of the species of prehumans. Our animal ancestor felt the unity of the species, lived as a single species, where each individual in its perception had a sense of the unity of the species, and in space it was unconsciously controlled by an intraspecific coherent instinct. Additional desire in the skin vector interrupts the intraspecific holistic perception, individuals begin to be born, different from others (with a skin vector), feeling inside themselves a measure of reduction in additional desire, a desire for prohibition, restriction and economy, aimed at food resources and sexual desire. In the perception of this category of contraction, there also appears a primary, rudimentary sense of time (tomorrow) and a new form of additional desire for food: the desire to get more and more of it and save it from uncontrolled consumption, including by the rest of the flock, for the sake of tomorrow ( for the future). Read more about the mechanism of formation of time perception.

The new form of life seeks to preserve itself. But also the new kind living beings, formed on the basis of the previous one, obeys the basic law of nature - self-preservation (compression), in this case - self-preservation of the species. Having been born with an additional desire for prohibition and restriction in the skin vector, a person rushes in the perception of his reduced desire in consciousness to other members of the flock. After all, it is precisely on them that the additional desire for food and reproduction is directed, as well as its restriction and the prohibition of cannibalism and murder within the pack, the prohibition of the uncontrolled realization of sexual desire and the prohibition of forms of sexual intercourse that do not lead to reproduction. Nature is rational in its prohibitions, rational in the restrictions on consumed resources - food, time, energy. Thoughts in the dermal accessory desire enliven and give meaning to the rational forms of cause-and-effect relationships that force the dermal person to limit himself and other members of the pack. The skin man, limiting the rest of the pack members in the primary urge to have sex and kill (this is a tough law and a punishment for disobedience), arouses in them hostility, frustration from the inability to eat their neighbor, since this threatens with death. Thus everyone begins to feel dislike, due to the limitation of his additional desire in food and reproduction. Everyone finds his own emptiness, his own “space” of consciousness. This completely removes future people from the unconscious equilibrium of a single species. The stage of formation of life begins according to a different principle. A flock arises (instead of a herd), a social form of life arises, a collective hunt appears as a sublimant of a reduced additional attraction of a man to a woman. There is a distribution of food according to the rank in the flock. An early collective system of safety and security for all emerges.

In the future, other additional desires arise - oral, anal, visual vectors - until eight additional desires, vectors, and reductions on them arise. This leads to a complete loss of perception of the unity of the species. The flock rushes to a new form of unity for the sake of preserving the social form of life - an eight-dimensional matrix of the human psyche appears. A man appears in full sense of this word, and each person has one or another type of thinking, depending on his vector set.

Skin people are the most logical of all people, and in fact they are the only people with logical thinking. Logical thinking- this is the ability to observe cause-and-effect relationships everywhere and in everything, this is the desire to save in the four main categories of the world around us - space, time, energy, information, this is the desire to achieve benefits and benefits.

Muscular thinking is visual and effective. This is the simplest type of thinking, the earliest. A person does as they teach, learns by repeating actions after others. The simplicity of this thinking lies in the fact that it is not subject to the ability to operate with concepts and generalizations, and it is based to a large extent on a direct and concrete reflection of reality. Muscular people take the form that people of other vectors give them - anal, skin, urethral. As they are taught, so they manifest themselves.

Analytical thinking is the ability to analyze in detail the available information and knowledge in order to master them, understand and turn them into internal knowledge. Analytical thinking is also the ability to sort and structure information, storing it in the annals of memory in a form adapted to existing information and knowledge. People with an anal vector have this kind of thinking. Lovers of accumulating information, teaching and passing on their experience to the younger generation.

There is a special form of thinking - non-standard and unpredictable, in view of the fact that it is a tool for servicing the psyche (desires) of the urethral vector. This thinking occurs much less frequently than those described above, since urethral individuals as a whole are much smaller than muscular, anal and skin ones. The urethral is the leader, and his innate specific role is the responsibility for his flock in time, for its future. His absolute desire is for the future, he is the future, he strives for expansion, for example, territorial, for his flock. The urethral vector is the most powerful libido in human nature, animal altruism, the only desire that is not limited by anything, since animal altruism is getting pleasure from giving to other people (your pack) according to needs. Nature limits only human desire with the intention to receive for oneself, since it is destructive, destructive for other people, while the desire for the urethral vector is not limited and is not sublimated.

Thinking in the urethra is non-standard, because the standard is a certain limitation in manifestation. Unlimitedness in this case is equal to the task of preserving the entire flock at all costs, in any situation, at any speed of development of events. This thinking is largely of a tactical nature, and its amazing feature is its infallibility (most often). One urethral is enough to save the flock and himself along with it, although, by and large, he does not care about his own salvation and life, he is concerned about his flock (such is the manifestation of a giving, altruistic nature). In many ways, this is a kind of bestial instinct, irrational and close to the unconscious. This is a colossal speed of thinking, the fastest reaction to the development of events, if necessary. He did something - and then he understands what happened: such thinking is in most cases accurate, as correct as possible. The urethra is a very powerful psyche, and the urethral follows its nature, moves forward on this power, consciousness is secondary for it. The urethra is generally unable to perceive restrictions. Therefore, he does not perceive skin people (the essence of which is prohibition and restriction), his psyche is not limited by prohibitions and limits. That is why for his thinking there is no word that accurately describes him - such as for the types of thinking inherent in the other three vectors - he has no form, it is difficult to characterize him with a word.

Intelligence

Intelligence is highest degree cognitive and cognitive ability of man. It is the highest capacity for the perception of the sensuous and conscious nature of life. We will not begin the description of the intellectual ability of people with the accepted interpretation of the concept of intelligence, but let's start with the fact - what are the people who are classified as intellectuals? Intellectuals are people who form and / or develop ideas that influence the cultural values ​​and norms of society, ideas about social transformations; these are creative people, people engaged in mental work, people - seeking to feel and understand other people from the inside. Intelligence is the abilities and properties of visual and sound vectors, vectors of the information quartel.

Spectators are the owners of figurative or emotional intelligence.

Sound engineers are the owners of abstract intelligence. So, there are only two types of intellects.

Spectators and sound engineers are exactly the opposite of thinking. Spectators are generally unable to preserve themselves outside of culture and civilization - they are not able to live or die, they are shackled by an innate fear of death and an inability to kill the living. Physically weak, capable of great emotions and feelings, empathy - people who create art, but are not capable of murder.

Sound people are generally special people - they are not interested in the actual reality and in other people around them, they are concentrated on their thoughts and states so much that they often do not notice what is happening around them, for them the world around is to some extent more an abstraction than an absolute reality .

Thinking is about maintaining oneself in the landscape, and the figurative intelligence of spectators is about imagination, fantasies, love and emotions, about value human life, culture and beauty. They preserve themselves due to the fact that they are in their purest form anti-animal, that is, they are the brightest symbol of the estrangement of man from animal nature and are always under the patronage of those in power - this is especially true of skin-visual women (a generalized image is a singer and an emotionally bright beauty), in the second place - anal-visual men (a generalized image - a painter). Abstract intelligence is also extremely far from the ability to save itself. Sound people are generally those for whom the most important thing is finding and discovering the meaning of life for themselves, this neglect of the life of the body and the absence of real desires aimed at the pleasures of the material world. These people often find the meaning of their lives in the implementation of ideas aimed at social transformations, changing the world, revealing the laws of nature, space, etc. These people are self-centered from birth, focused on themselves, they even forget to eat, sometimes they need to be told they want they are or not, so they understand. Often these are people who do not want anything from life, are extremely impractical, that is, it is not for nothing that they are often condescendingly said about them - “not of this world”.

Mind

The mind in the generally accepted sense is the ability to think, but this ability is designed to serve the psychic desire, which is based on the desire to preserve its form, itself - through the principle of pleasure. That is, the mind is the ability to fill the psychic desires that are the essence of a human being. The mind allows you to adapt, master the world around you through certain actions. The mind is also usually understood as a conscious, mental activity, accompanied by the emergence of thought forms in the mind. However, there are two vectors, and accordingly, two types of mind that do not fall under this classification, since they are directly related to the unconscious. Their main feature is not in the formation of thought forms, but in the ability to serve as conductors that perceive the feedback between the non-verbal collective unconscious and conscious perception hidden from all other people. Manifestations of these elements human nature are completely hidden from the ordinary perception of other people, therefore they are the most difficult to understand, as well as the least studied.

The human psyche is one and eight-dimensional. Each person is psychically born of this unity. Consciousness (the product of a reduced, unfulfilled additional desire in one vector or another) is individual.

In the olfactory and oral vectors - special minds. The above types of thinking in the lower vectors can also be attributed to the category of the mind. However, the olfactory and oral minds are the highest mind, they are, in the truest sense of the word, especially intelligent people, and not just capable of thinking. It is important to oppose smart people to intellectuals, because smart people feel the whole “truth of life” with regards to other people, their nature and true thoughts. It's not what they realize, and it's not what they think. They are able to “see to the very root” - bypassing the emotional and sensory disturbances inherent in the perception of the viewer, the search for abstract “vibrations of the soul” and the general system for managing everything and everything, inherent in the perception of the sound engineer, and the endless desire to give to everyone and everyone around them without the ability to understand in people in general, characteristic of urethral perception (although the latter does not belong to intellectuals, although it has an extremely extraordinary mind).

Man is a social form of life. The mental life of a person, human pleasures and the satisfaction of human needs occur precisely within social environment through some form of interaction with others. The mind is that feature that allows you to perceive and smell the true, unconscious motives and desires of other people, regardless of what they say and demonstrate. It is not the ability to solve complex math problems, talk about the future of mankind or the beauty of painting by the greatest artists. It is a mind based on unconscious sensation, on the perception of the psychic unity of the human species - instead of the familiar conscious perception of the uniqueness of one's own "I".

In the olfactory vector - supermind, since the sense of smell is the super-desire to receive pleasure, it is the super-desire to save oneself, to survive at all costs. For this reason, the mind in smell is not limited by consciousness to the extent that it is limited in the other seven vectors that perceive only themselves, and others only as external objects. After all, having such a mind, a person seeks to save only himself.

The sense of smell has a connection with the collective unconscious (through its erogenous zone - the vomeronasal organ), feels the unity of the human species in itself (to one degree or another, which depends on the degree of development of the vector in a person), feels its dependence on the flock (society) and the rigid need save not only himself, but also everyone else, because if there is no pack, he himself will die. This is a non-verbal mind, its product is not a thought form, but an accurate, unmistakable intention for action, coming from the unconscious. This is what saves him, this is what saves the whole flock. This is the guarantor (highest, natural guarantor) of the preservation of the social form of life, group, flock, tribe. This is true even at the state level. There is also consciousness in the olfactory vector, the thoughts that arise in the olfactory mind are special, essentially reminiscent of an alibi for his intention, that is, what rationally justifies his action, will guarantee his action, guarantee control, something that will secure him completely. This is overcaution.

Unconsciously, he is able to take into account everything related to relationships between people (relationships “smell”, which means they are within the limits of unconscious perception for the olfactory), and on the basis of this accurate, holistic perception of life, an unmistakable intention arises. These intentions usually direct the olfactory into finances, because the preservation of integrity (including at the state level) is largely regulated precisely by finances.

The sense of smell strives for complete “dissolution” of itself in the unconscious of the species, for complete entry into the sensation of the species, which is generally possible only at the highest level of development of the olfactory vector.

The verbal mind is no less unique, it is the ability to perceive what the olfactory senses, that is, the unity of the species. An olfactory person is a conductor of the power to preserve our world, the power to preserve all material forms that live and at a certain moment stop living. Smell and orality both belong to the energy quartel, drive quartel, force, and orality is its external part. That is, the sense of smell and orality are interconnected. The verbal mind is the ability to transform the non-verbal meaning, smelled by the olfactory in the unconscious and provoked by the perception (through his erogenous zone) of the flow of material particles of countless smells and pheromones coming from the manifestations of physical life, into its wave equivalent - into a word. It never happens consciously, the speaker is the only one who first speaks and then understands what he said, evaluates and thinks about it.

It is through the additional desire in the oral vector that the collective man becomes a speaker.

The comprehension of what one senses begins in an early person (still a collective person who does not have a full-fledged individual consciousness), when he interacts with other people, which is his natural aspiration to realize a reduced additional desire at the expense of others. Feeling in the unconscious of one's own lack, coming from an additional desire to eat one's neighbor, gives rise to a new additional desire to comprehend this lack, to the ability to express it in order to satisfy and fill it. Early man learns to understand human meanings only if he hears words. With the help of a word, one person can manipulate another. When people hear an oral speaker, they suddenly understand, they begin to comprehend what they smell. The force of lack from the reduction of additional desire in the oral vector is discharged, giving rise to the exact conversion of an unconscious sensation into a series of sounds, into words.

Any oral speaker has a special speech apparatus. Speaking (often constant) is his strength, his need, his passion. However, the oral speaker's words have a special tonality, as if they have a special penetrating ability. The vibrations of his voice reach immediately the unconscious person - bypassing the conscious comprehension of what he heard, creating in the person something like a feeling of consent, "forced" understanding. These vibrations have a special power and impact, they create a connection between consciousness and the unconscious (psyche).