Combining is part of human perception. Through the process of perception, people take in stimuli from their environment. Along with the other cognitive abilities of observing, interpreting, judging, and summing, combining is part of crystalline and fluid intelligence.
What is combining?
Combining is part of human perception. Through the process of perception, people take in stimuli from their environment. Combining involves the ability to relate different facts to each other. The perceptual process enables people to consciously or unconsciously take in stimuli from their perceptual environment and process them. They observe, interpret, judge, sum up and combine sensory impressions, situations and facts. This process enables people to orient themselves in their environment and to communicate with their social environment and react accordingly. The gift to combine, together with the previously mentioned sensory abilities, belongs to crystalline and fluid intelligence, which is based on practice, expertise and cultural influence. It is the prerequisite for verbal expression, learning ability, knowledge expansion and social competence.
Function and task
Crystalline intelligence is the prerequisite for the successful processing of sensory impressions and experiential values. The limbic system, as the oldest part of the human brain, is responsible for the formation of intelligence. Researchers have found that the mind plays a minor role in this process. People rely 99 percent on sensory impressions and knowledge that are already stored in the brain. Only one percent of processed knowledge comes from outside. 80 percent of the perceptual processes take place unconsciously, 20 percent are processed via the emotional system. The left hemisphere of the brain enables people to think logically and analyze sensory impressions. In this way, they can relate different facts to each other and draw logical conclusions. This processing is a prerequisite for solving problems. The ability to combine is also part of fluid intelligence. In contrast to crystalline intelligence, it is independent of environmental and experiential values. It is a mental performance that determines how quickly a person can process situations and facts and arrive at solutions to problems. Fluid intelligence is significantly influenced by genes. The more creative and intelligent a person is, the more extensive is his or her mental capacity. These individuals perceive facts differently and more strongly than less intelligent people. The ability to combine requires both creativity and analytical and logical thinking to arrive at a solution to a problem. People who can easily combine, i.e. relate facts to each other, are less likely to make misjudgments and misunderstandings. The brain’s own emotional and motivational system perceives, combines and interprets stimuli more or less unconsciously or consciously, depending on interest, attention, state of mind and attitude. Criminologists, for example, have to relate facts to each other on a daily basis. They combine circumstantial evidence and proof in order to put them together to form an overall picture. It is through this combination that criminalists are able to solve a crime such as a murder. It is the combination of different clues that ultimately leads them to the trail of the murderer. The forensic investigators of the police’s forensic investigation department examine traces at the crime scene and combine these individual clues until they are able to reconstruct the course of events. By combining and using the equipment in the forensic laboratory, the forensic investigators assemble individual facts into an overall picture that the police and the public prosecutor’s office can then use.
The ability to combine is thus based not only on empirical values and expert knowledge, but also on observations and already prevailing facts.
Diseases and complaints
Since the entire perceptual system is controlled by the left hemisphere of the brain, people with perceptual disorders get great problems to find their way in their environment. Depending on the severity of the disorder, the affected person may become a care recipient if he or she is no longer able to care for himself or herself.Diseases that affect the ability to perceive can be both psychological and physiological. These include diseases that directly affect the ability to perceive such as dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, strokes, psychoses, neuroses and depression. Secondary, physiologically caused diseases and limitations such as heart problems, various organ diseases, headaches or fatigue can affect the ability to perceive. A patient with dementia suffers from impaired perception, he is unable to correctly classify, process, judge and interpret sensory impressions. He is not able to put the individual fragments into a meaningful context. Severe disorders of perception must be treated with extensive therapeutic measures. Patients with stroke have a good prognosis for recovery thanks to modern medical measures, while dementia or Alzheimer’s disease are incurable and the course of the disease can only be delayed by adequate treatment measures. Everyone can train and increase their crystalline and fluid intelligence through regular training such as brain jogging, reading, and intelligence and combination tests. The ability to combine is a sub-discipline of brain physiological efficiency, which expresses how quickly a person is able to process sensory input and arrive at a problem solution. This efficiency can persist into old age if people continue to develop throughout their lives, regularly learning new things and remaining mentally alert. Therefore, those who obtain mental stimulation are successfully investing in their crystalline and fluid intelligence.
