Building Cognitive Flexibility
Try this exercise of moving up and down the ‘abstraction ladder:’
Think of any word. It works best with nouns, but any word will work when you’re creative enough.
For an example, let’s use ‘a ball.’
A ball is somewhere in the middle of the ladder: not very specific, but not totally abstract either.
If we’re trying for more specificity, we might ask, ‘what kind of ball is it?’ And the answers might be: a basketball, a baseball, or a medicine ball.
If we’re trying for even more specificity, we might further ask for more detail: ‘how inflated is that basketball?’ ‘how worn is that baseball?’ or ‘how heavy is the medicine ball?’
And down the abstraction ladder, all the way to atoms, quarks, and the tiniest details imaginable. Of course, at some level of getting down into the details, we might lose the sense of usefulness. So, don’t think that you have to go all the way down to the smallest detail possible. Keep it at a level appropriate for the thing you’re detailing.
Then, we can move up the abstraction ladder. Up is towards abstraction, away from specificity. For example, a basketball might be an example of sporting equipment in general. And sporting equipment can lead up to sports in general. Sports can lead up to organized activities, which can further be abstracted to ideas like society or order.
As you can see, it can get pretty abstract. Essentially, we’re zooming out when we move up the ladder and zooming in when we’re moving down the ladder.
Why is this useful? This simple exercise is a great way to organize your thoughts, gain perspective, evaluate the categories you’re using, identify if you’re stuck on the details or the big picture, and think on your feet in real time.
Give it a try with a few different words. See if you can go 3 up and 3 down from your starting word. For more advanced application, consider going up one, then down one, then up one, and down one again, searching for new examples when you go towards details and specificity. Use a pencil and paper if it helps.
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