What Is Concrete Thinking?

Specific thinking is also called "specific image thinking." Use specific experience in specific situations, such as specific images, appearances, charts, examples, figures, etc., to conduct specific analysis to solve specific problems or understand the thinking process of specific knowledge. The form of concrete thinking is a specific concept that is closely related to appearance and experience, so it has a certain image, and its generality is lower than abstract thinking. There are two different perspectives on its relationship with figurative thinking. One view is that concrete thinking is different from figurative thinking. It is the main way of thinking of individuals in childhood. With the improvement of thinking ability, this specific thinking has developed into adult abstract thinking on the one hand, and image thinking on the other hand. The specific thinking is lower-level thinking, and the image thinking of writers and artists is difficult to distinguish from the abstract thinking of scientists and philosophers. But adults sometimes think in concrete terms. Another view is that concrete thinking or concrete image thinking is the image thinking opposite to abstract thinking. This view also believes that in some advanced animals, image thinking already exists. This is obviously the result of equating image thinking with concrete thinking. ^[1]

Specific thinking depends on specific content, such as

Development of generalization ability: visual image level (external features) image abstraction level (both internal and external features) preliminary essential abstraction level (essential features, internal connections)
Development of word concepts Development of reasoning ability (indirect reasoning ability):
· Deductive reasoning: direct perception of things verbal representation of things abstract problems. Inductive reasoning: can complete simple inductive reasoning with age. Analogical reasoning: rapid development from middle to senior grades ^[3]