ETHNOCULTURAL PREFERENCES OF LOGIC AND INTUITIVE THINKING

Abstract

The paper analyzes the results of an experimental study of the preferences of logical and intuitive thinking of Udmurt and Russian students (a total of 121 people). In logical thinking, an object is selected from its context and assigned to categories based on necessary and sufficient functions, with the preferred use of rules, including rules of formal logic. Intuitive thinking based on life experience is characterized by integrity and contextuality with a dialectical resolution of obvious contradictions. The research program, developed on the basis of a conceptual categorization model, consisted of a training phase and an experiment phase. In the computer program, categorization “by rule” was performed by determining how much a new object satisfies a rule that defines categories by their necessary and sufficient characteristics; categorization “by pattern” - by similarity of the new object with existing samples. The experiment created a cognitive conflict between thought strategies. The experiment results show that Russian students prefer to classify objects “by rule” in case of positive and negative matches of characteristics, while Udmurt students prefer “by pattern” There were no significant cross-cultural differences between negative match indicators, when the images “according to the rule” were very similar to the training sample from the opposite category. The explanation of the obtained data was carried out in comparison with the “world pictures”, with their cognitive content about the ways of cognition of the surrounding world, embodied in the traditional values of peoples.