ABSTRACT
By productive thinking we mean, in a very general sense, thinking in the service of definite problems. Such thinking is essentially a voluntary activity, and will have to be considered from this point of view later on. At this time we shall consider only the cognitive processes. Formerly we believed that a presented task made all possible associated images appear with the task stimulus, just as though we went through the individual images, rejecting the unsuitable ones and retaining the suitable ones. But Selz has now showed that we cannot speak of such a diffused reproduction of images. Individual images do not emerge unconnected, but instead, they call into consciousness the methodical procedure which we earlier learned to apply to the solution of the task. The image of the procedure operates as an anticipating schema, and thus furnishes us not with something diffuse, but rather with serviceable images which form a complex with the schema. This complex is compared with the task, and if by an apprehension of relation its agreement with the task is recognized, it becomes accepted; otherwise a further methodical search is made.
