ABSTRACT
If asked to define thinking, most people would probably agree on a list of mental activities including all or some of the following: daydreams, wishes, fantasies, images, taking in ideas, ruminating over ideas, having new ideas, philosophical theorizing, politica1 arguments, making decisions, reading, writing, planning a holiday, working out a problem - and I dare say one could add many more. How do we arrive at such a list? Essentially by scanning what goes on inside our head during our WaKing - and perhaps sleeping - hours: in other words, what passes through our conscious minds. Qearly, there is some quality which enables us to distinguish between the mental activity we call thinking and other more physica11y overt kinds of behaviour - although, as we shall see, this is not a distinction acceptable to all psychologists.
