home General biology Criteria for building a chain of associations. We develop associative thinking. The use of associations in practical psychology

Criteria for building a chain of associations. We develop associative thinking. The use of associations in practical psychology

The main role of associations in memorization is that we link new knowledge to information we already know. To build a good association, you need to know some useful criteria for finding a connection between things, as well as develop your associative thinking and creative imagination. It is equally important to learn how to build associative series and connections to stimulate figurative memory. This lesson will show you how to use the association building method for .

What are associations?

Association- this is a connection between individual facts, events, objects or phenomena reflected in the mind of a person and fixed in his memory. Associative perception and human thinking lead to the fact that the appearance of one element in certain conditions causes the image of another associated with it.

In addition, the expansion of the range of associations can be achieved through targeted training. Below we offer you some simple exercises:

Exercises

Exercise 2. Drawing up a chain of associations. Choose any word and start building a chain of associations from it, writing them down on paper. Try to write down the associations as quickly as possible, and make the connections as unusual as possible.

Exercise 3. Search for missing associations. Choose any two words or phrases that should have as little in common as possible. Try to build an association that connects these two words. For example, for the words "morning" and "food", the element that complements the associative array will be the word "breakfast". Try to find the missing link for the words: movie and dream, elevator and car, flower and skyscraper.

Exercise 4. Suitable associations. Choose two words, and try to name associations that are suitable for each of these words at the same time. For example, for the words "white" and "light" one can name such associations: snow, fluff, feather, etc. To complicate the exercise, you can choose not two, but three or even more words.

Exercise 5. Unusual associations. For the development of associative thinking in order to better remember, it is useful to be able to look for the most vivid and non-standard associations. In this case, the image will be better fixed in memory. Most people for these words and phrases will name the following associations:

Russian poet - Pushkin
Poultry - chicken
Fruit - apple
Part of the face - nose

Try to come up with other, less popular associations with the same words.

Exercise 6. Drawing up mental maps. useful exercise for the development of associative memory are mental maps. One of the creators of the idea of compiling such maps, Tony Buzan, in his book “Supermemory” wrote that “... if you want to remember something new, you just need to correlate it with some already known fact using your imagination to help." You can read more about the method of compiling mental maps consisting of associative series in the next lesson on memory development.

If you do at least part of these exercises for 10-15 minutes a day, then in a few days the training will become easier and more exciting, and most importantly, you will be able to remember any new material faster.

For the development of associative thinking in order to improve the memorization of the material, it is also useful to use the following recommendations. Association link must:

arouse genuine interest in you (how to achieve this was written in the previous lesson);
affect various sense organs;
be unusual, but meaningful to you;
contain the most detailed picture (size, color, etc.).

And most importantly, the association should be bright and easy to remember.

So the second rule of thumb is:

To remember certain information well, find suitable bright associations that will be an indispensable assistant in the process of representation (reproduction of information).

Test your knowledge

If you want to test your knowledge on the topic of this lesson, you can take a short test consisting of several questions. Only 1 option can be correct for each question. After you select one of the options, the system automatically moves on to the next question. The points you receive are affected by the correctness of your answers and the time spent on passing. Please note that the questions are different each time, and the options are shuffled.

All people have the ability to think with associations and use it regularly in Everyday life, but not everyone knows how to develop associative thinking. What associations are and how to improve associative memory with the help of exercises will be discussed in this article.

Associative Thinking: What is it?

Associative thinking is a kind of thought process based on connections between words, that is, associations.

Connections can arise between objects, events, facts, information about which is stored in a person's memory. For example, if you pronounce the word “mimosa”, then many people will think about the holiday of March 8 or about the famous salad, and the word “tangerine” most often evokes sweet memories of a wonderful holiday. New Year. Such memories are called associations, which depend on the experience of a particular person.

In psychology, associations are divided into several subspecies:

Contrasting or opposite (morning-evening).
Similar or similar (stove - microwave).
Generalized (cucumber - vegetable, jacket - clothes).
Adjacent in space and time (winter - cold).
Causal by (clouds - rain).
Thematic (cough - illness).
Derivational, appearing on the basis of a single root of words (horror - creepy).
Phonetic, caused by the consonance of words (daughter-night).

Associative thinking is very useful for solving a wide variety of problems, they stimulate mental activity. Connections between concepts are manifested not only in the form of words, for many people they appear in the form of images, smells, sounds. It all depends on who the person is (auditory, visual, kinesthetic).

All people remember information differently. It is easier for some to remember what they see, others need to write down information on paper, and others need to listen to it. Everyone has it healthy person there is the ability to create associative series. But there is such a thing as "associative disorder". This is a mental illness in which a person cannot build a consistent series of related terms in his mind.

The training of the thinking process, built on the connection of concepts, helps to make new discoveries, generate new ideas, and improve the memorization of new material. So at the heart of the system quick memorization T. Buzan is supposed to use the associative method. For fixing new information in memory, you need to correlate it with already familiar objects.

Our memory is so arranged that related concepts are much easier to remember. If you need to remember some new word, you should associate it with a familiar word by consonance or other criteria. So new knowledge is tied to the basic one, which is already firmly entrenched in the human brain. This is how associative memory works.

IMPORTANT! By establishing links between words, images, concepts, memory develops during the thought process and ideas are generated. This is very helpful for creative people, pioneers of new laws in all spheres of scientific and creative activity.

Workout Exercises

The thought process itself, through the construction of an associative series, is directly related to creativity, so it is simply necessary to develop it. At a young age, he is very well developed.

Toddlers, as a rule, perfectly play with words, create non-trivial connections between them, which helps them learn new knowledge. The development of associative thinking stimulates creativity, so it is also useful for adults to learn to memorize information using words related to each other.

Specialists have developed special exercises that not only help improve thought processes in adults and children, but also contribute to replenishment vocabulary and development competent speech. They are quite simple, you can do them throughout the day.

The most effective developmental exercises:

association chain. It is necessary to invent two absolutely different words. You should build a chain of words between them that will connect them. For example, the original words are bark and car. The chain will look like this: barking-dog-owner-man-machine.
Beginning of associations. You should come up with a word that will serve as the beginning of an associative chain. And then you will need to select words to it in order to continue the chain. For example, coffee - aroma - arabica coffee - robusta - cream - sugar.
general association. This task assumes the presence of two words, to which you need to come up with associations that connect them both. For example, warm, yellow. It can be sand, sun, fire.
associated association. Invent two words and match them with others that have a connection in one or more ways. For example, the source codes are the words cold and bright. Related terms could be ice, light, ice cream.
Reveal the secret of the drudles. This exercise boils down to describing a picture that shows a kind of scribbles, but they initially contain the variability of perception. The picture can have many interpretations and perfectly trains the thinking process.
Non-trivial association. To the invented term, you need to pick up an extraordinary association. For example, after hearing the word "CD", the first thing that comes to mind for most people is music or a movie. But CDs can be used to decorate the Christmas tree, for crafts. So the association can be called the word "craft" or "tree".

So, associative memory is necessary in order to remember the necessary information and keep it in memory for a long time. There is nothing difficult in creating an associative series, you just need to take into account that the association should be bright, unusual, interesting. Training based on associative thinking exercises has a very good effect on development creativity, imagination. It helps to develop memory, improve the quality of life.

Word list

It is impossible to get a good memory without training it. It is also impossible to become strong or learn to run fast while lying on the couch. Good memory is a skill that needs practice and by spending some time doing memory improvement exercises, you will be able to remember much better.

Exists a large number of exercises that will allow you to improve the ability of your memory to memorize.

When getting started, remember that it is not the amount of time that you spent doing tasks that matters, but the regularity of training. By exercising five times a week for ten to fifteen minutes, you will achieve greater results with less effort than if you trained twice a week for two hours a day.

chain of images

Training in creating a chain of associations between two arbitrary images. It helps a lot in the development of imaginative thinking, which is so necessary in mnemonics, and is also considered important for the development creative thinking and imagination.

Thinking in images

Mnemonics is based on working with images. Often this causes difficulties, since most people are used to being guided by logic and working with images can be difficult at first. Therefore, before moving on to memorization, do the following exercise several times.

"Chain of Images"

To train figurative abilities, you can use an exercise called "Chain of Images". It is described in Harry Lorraine's book "The Development of Memory and the Ability to Concentrate" and is recommended for strengthening creative abilities. Harry Lorraine in the book "Supermemory" describes it under the name of the method of correlations for the development of the imagination. This exercise is also known as "Katena" - a game for development. creative thinking. It is quite possible that you have met him under other names - its rules are simple, and you can play alone and in a company.

Rules of the game

Any two words are taken. It is required to connect them with a chain of association words. For communication, you should use words between which there is something in common or vice versa.

Examples

Example:

Clock and Cloud

Possible Solution: Clock - Time - Day - Sun - Sky - Cloud

It is clear that there are other ways to connect these two images. Everyone can come up with something of their own - and this will also be correct. The main thing is to establish a connection between adjacent words.

And one more example:

Rooster - Demon

Rooster - Yard - Church - God - Demon

In the transition from God to the Demon, a transition based on opposites was used. This is also possible.

In some cases, the associations are so obvious that it makes no sense to create a chain of images. For example, for a Crane - Pipe pair, it would be quite natural to imagine a crane lifting a pipe. In this case, it makes sense to come up with additional associations: Crane - Rope - Hook - Pipe.

Pairs of words

An exercise in memorizing pairs of words. First, an association is created between two words. Then, having seen one of the words, you need to remember the second.

Description of the exercise

The exercise is performed in three stages.

For memorization, you are offered several pairs of words written in two columns. For each pair, you need to create an association. Consider this exercise using the example of three pairs of words.

Ship - Spiral - imagine a ship spiraling up into the sky

Circus - Star - a performance in a circus in which the arena is not round, but in the form of a pentagonal star. A trainer stands in the center, and a lion sits in each corner of the star.

Aquarium - Impression - the problem in this case lies in the rather abstract word impression. If an aquarium and a circus can be imagined without difficulty, then such a difficult word as an impression will be much more difficult to master. In such cases, instead of an abstract word, an image similar in meaning is selected to participate in the association, which can be expressed more specifically. In this case, one can imagine the following picture: the owner of the aquarium, being greatly impressed by the beauty of the fish living in this aquarium, pulled it out into the street, stopped those passing by so that everyone could see this aquarium and admire it.

At the second stage, while looking through the words of the left column, based on the created associations, you remember the words of the right column. After reading the word ship, you see how it rises into the sky and remember the word spiral. The pentagonal arena of the circus will tell you the star, and an enthusiastic eccentric with an aquarium will remind you of the impression.

3. Checking what you managed to remember. Although the use of the associative method will immediately increase the number of memorized words, it is rarely one hundred percent. There are several reasons for this - lack of experience in working with images, ignorance of one's own characteristics. Regular training will develop your abilities and improve the quality of memorization.

If you think that this is too simple, and in order to remember the second word, it is not at all necessary to build any associations, try to complete the exercise (how to do it on this site is described below), at least for 10 words, first just relying on your memory, and then using your imagination and associations.

For the future

After you acquire the first skills in this exercise, you can increase the number of memorized pairs of words, and set a time limit for which they must be memorized. Try to bring the number of memorized pairs to at least 20 in 40 seconds.

Word list

Description of the exercise

This is an exercise in memorizing a sequence of unrelated words. Its implementation is based on the method of associations. The essence of the exercise is as follows:

Link the first two words with the help of an association.

Connect the second and third word with the help of an association.

3. etc. to the end of the list

As a result of performing the described operations, it turns out that each word in the chain is associated with the previous and subsequent words, being a link in the chain of associations.

An example of using the "Word List" method

Let's remember the following sequence:

Knife - Flattery - Fox - Needle - Shelter - Teacher - Suitcase - Phrase - Scales - Moss

For a given verbal chain, the following chain of associations can be made.

Having obtained the Knife with the help of Flattery, the Fox lured the Needle into the house where she found shelter. She was given shelter by the Teacher, who walked everywhere with the Suitcase. A Phrase was uttered that the suitcase contains Scales, which will need to be mixed with Moss.

Thus, we get a more or less coherent story made up of these words. And most importantly, the story, unlike the list of words on the basis of which it was created, will be remembered by itself. And with it, the list of words itself.

This is not strictly a group exercise, it can be performed in pairs, and even alone.

To perform exercises for the development of associative thinking, it is advisable to have a voice recorder and a notebook with a pen at hand - for subsequent decoding and analysis of the sound recording. Do not rely on memory when performing such exercises. Exercises. Working with a chain of associations, akin to the analysis of dreams. And everyone knows: a dream needs to be written down in hot pursuit, if you do not want to immediately forget 70% of its details.

The same with associations.

I suggest doing three simple exercises that help develop associative thinking in those who do them fairly regularly.

So, let's start with the simplest - preparatory exercise. I recommend starting any intellectual workout with him.

Associative Thinking Exercise #1

It consists of two equal parts. In the first part we play connected associations. In the second part - in unrelated associations.

Related associations

The leader gives the floor. This word should be (preferably) a common noun in the nominative case.

Then, in a circle, each player (or you alone) continues the chain of associations under a dictaphone record - that is, he calls one more word, clearly associative related to the previous one.

In the next round of the game we play

Unrelated associations

Both in the first and in the second case, after the end of the game, there is a sharing, an exchange of opinions, which is mandatory for any psychological games.

In the course of sharing, each participant in the game must explain how and why he decided that it was appropriate to continue the chain of associations (sometimes tightly connected, but especially vague ones) with his word.

For example

I said “View” after “fellow traveler” because I probably don’t want to look at people, I would rather admire the view from the window.

I said "fellow traveler" after "passenger" because I wanted to clarify - I'm on the way with this person, we are going in the same direction.

I said "polythene" after "bombing" because "bombing" involves corpses, and corpses (in my mind) are wrapped in polyethylene.

I said "collar" after "horror" because I feel terrible when something chokes me, and the collar is able to "choke".

In the course of sharing, the very “psychotherapeutic insights” occur, during which the players gain insight - an understanding of their situation, as well as the release negative emotions and fears.

Associative Thinking Exercise #2

"Fleeing Association"

The leader says the word. For example, wardrobe.

Within five minutes, each player must write down in his personal notebook a chain of associations caused by this word. The goal is to let go of your thought, allowing it to jump from one association to another.

For example: Wardrobe,

During the sharing, each player must explain (briefly) their associations. (This explanation is recorded on a dictaphone).

Associative Thinking Exercise #3

"Strapped Association"

The host sets the word and gives the task: for five minutes, try to keep thoughts on this image, (without being distracted by other topics and images). Then the Leader turns on the song composition. While the song is playing, each participant must keep the given word in memory.

In order to do this (not to forget the word and not to be distracted by thoughts on other objects and topics), we turn on the imagination and create a whole plot in our thoughts, which helps to stay in the field of a given image. We write down the main moves of this plot in a notebook.

At the end of the time, each player tells the story that was born in his head, which helped him to focus on this word.

The host and other players at the time of sharing can ask leading questions, provoke, disagree, or vice versa, agree, supporting the player.

Good luck with your association games, friends! Develop your associative thinking.

Elena Nazarenko

Contents Associative method for finding solutions to creative problems Associative chain 1. Associative chain 2. Associative chain 3. Associative chain 4. Associative chain 5. Associative chain 6. Associative chain 7. Associative chain 8. Game "Associative chain of steps".

TASK: build an associative chain linking the concepts of "computer mouse" and "sun". EXAMPLE: A computer mouse resembles a living one, mice are caught in mousetraps, for this they put cheese there, in its shape the cheese resembles the sun. Association chain 2 Contents

TASK: build an associative chain linking the concepts of "wheel" and "zoo". EXAMPLE: The wheel is installed on the car, the car is often on the road, on which there are footpaths - zebras, zebras live in the zoo. Contents Association chain 5

TASK: build an associative chain linking the concepts of "winter", "airplane over the beach" and "airport". Association chain 6 Contents
10 TASK: build an associative chain linking the concepts of "feast" and "winter". Contents Association chain 8

Game "Associative chain of steps" Condition: Condition: An object is proposed: a cat. Task: Task: Choose a characteristic for this object. According to the proposed characteristic, select a new object corresponding to it. According to this principle, make an associative chain of steps: object - characteristic - object - characteristic ... Example: A cat is characterized by sharp teeth, claws, and other signs of the feline family. These characteristics are also suitable for a tiger cub. Content