Associative thinking is thinking, which is due to the manipulation of images that arise in the memory of a person. Each image is individual and causes others, associated with them known only to their owner connections, and is drawn from a person's personal experience. Any word can cause a whole picture of the images associated with it. On this property of the mind is based the memory and creative thinking of man. An example of associative thinking can be a child who gives an inverted flower the meaning of "girl" and operates further created analogies in the process of playing activity. In this case, there is no limit to imagination.
An adult, for example, at the word "peach" imagines a garden, a tree, a blue sky, insects, summer heat, earth, the smell of fruit.
From associative - figurative thinking, it follows also the ability of a person to create something new, to generate new ideas. This kind of thinking contributes to the development of memory and attention through the creation of associative links between objects and phenomena, and also allows us to understand new information based on what is already available. The more different images we accumulate, the wider and more diverse the possibility of performing operations in the mind with their use, and the better we can develop memory and creative thinking.
With the help of exercises for the development of associative thinking, you can increase the number of associative images and connections, and thus develop your creative potential.
How to develop associative thinking?
Exercise 1. Drawing up chains of associations
We call any word for the beginning of the chain, then the next one, which is associated with it in your memory.
For example: sky-bird-beak-food, etc.
Exercise 2. "Search for a chain of associations"
We name two initial words. Next, we select a chain of words-images, which begins with the first selected word and ends with the second. For example, there are two words: a tree is a rain. Let's make a chain: the tree - the fruits - the drought - the rain. Or: hay and a piano. Chain: hay - scythe - death - coffin - church - church - organ - piano.
Exercise 3. "Combination by feature"
Call 2-3 words, then look for them a few words, suitable for one or all of the original ones by definitions or signs. For example, hollow and dark: a cube, a bucket, a barrel, a jug.
Exercise 4. "Suitable words"
Choose 2-4 words, then look for in memory those words that would fit each taken as the basis of the chain word simultaneously. For example, the source words: fireplace - fire - kindling. Suitable words: living room, room, house, restaurant.
Exercise 5. Unusual associations
Proceeding from one first word in the chain, we select original, unusual words, distant from it in meaning. For example, the first word is a pen. The banal association is a notebook. But "letting bubbles" out of its cavity or "the ancient composition of ink" is a more unusual association.
Associative Thinking Test
The game in the association is used as a method of researching their deep problems and personality traits, testing themselves. With the help of the test, you can look into your subconscious!
- Enter the first 16 words that come to your mind.
- For simplicity, below you are offered specific letters, on which these associative words begin.
- So you get the first associative array.
- Next you will be offered a pair of words (from your associative series). Enter the word association for each word pair.
- So you will have a second associative row of 8 words.
- Further, by entering each time the association words to the next pair of words, you will have associative rows of 4 words, of 2 words.
- The last word-association is considered the most important for you at the moment. Carefully look at him - you practically dragged him out of your subconscious.
The list of letters to which the words-associations begin:
- Enter the first (the word that comes to mind) - on the letter T:
- Enter the first word - with the letter D:
- Enter the first word - in the letter B:
- Enter the first word in the letter M:
- Enter the first word in the letter G:
- Enter the first word - in the letter A:
- Enter the first word - the letter Z:
- Enter the first word - with the letter O:
- Enter the first word - the letter K:
- Enter the first word - with the letter P:
- Enter the first word - the letter B:
- Enter the first word - with the letter H:
- Enter the first word in the letter Z:
- Enter the first word - with the letter P:
- Enter the first word - the letter A:
- Enter the first word - with the letter C:
It should be noted that the associative method of research appeared for the first time in the psychoanalysis of Freud, who developed and used in his practice the importance of uncontrolled associations and their chains as direct projection of deeply internal, often unconscious problems. Having passed this test, you better know yourself and the root of your problems.