Thought

Thought is the activity or content of the mind that involves processing information to form beliefs, intentions, plans, and judgments. It is typically considered to be internal, private, and not directly observable, though its outputs may be expressed in speech, action, or written records. Thought connects perception, memory, language, and emotion.

Thought can take several forms. Propositional thought concerns statements that can be true or false; imagistic or visuospatial thought uses mental images; linguistic thought uses inner speech. Thought content can be about concrete objects, abstract concepts, future events, or hypotheticals.

Cognitive processes such as reasoning, problem solving, decision making, and planning implement thought. Working memory and executive function support the holding and manipulation of information, while attention filters distractors. Thoughts can be conscious, volatile, and deliberate, or unconscious and automatic.

Philosophical and scientific perspectives describe thought in different ways. In philosophy of mind, thoughts bear intentionality—the directedness toward things. In cognitive science, thought is often modeled as information processing or computation on mental representations; some frameworks emphasize embodied or situated cognition in which thinking is linked to bodily states and environment.

Thought is studied through behavioral tasks, introspection, and neuroimaging. While introspection is controversial, experiments, brain imaging, and computational modeling help map the neural and algorithmic basis of thinking and how biases or heuristics influence judgment.