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Thinking most generally, any covert cognitive or mental manipulation of ideas, images, symbols, words, propositions, memories, concepts, precepts, beliefs or intentions. In short, it is a term used so that it encompasses all of the mental activities associated with concept‑formation, problem‑solving, intellectual functioning, creativity, complex learning memory, symbolic processing, image; etc. These terms in psychology cast such a broad net and few encompass such a rich array of connotations and entailments.
Certain components nonetheless lie at the core of all usages: (a) Thinking is reserved for symbolic processes; the term is not used for behaviours explicable by more modest processes such as that of rats learning a simple maze. (b) Thinking is treated as a covert or implicit process that is not directly observable. The existence of a thought process is inferred either from reports of the one who was doing the thinking or by observing behavioural acts that suggest that thinking was going on, e.g., a complex problem solved correctly. (c) Thinking is generally assumed to involve the manipulation of some, in theory identifiable, elements. Exactly what these "elements of thought” are anybody's (and sometimes it seems, everybody's) guess. Various theorists have proposed muscular components (Watson), words or language components (Whorf), ideas (Locke), images (Titchener), propositions (Anderson), operations and concepts (Piaget), scripts (Schank) and so forth. Note that some of these hypothesized entities are quite elemental and others are quite holistic. No matter, all are serious proposals and all have at least some evidence to support their use in the process of thinking.
Because of the breadth and looseness of the term, qualifiers are often used to delimit the form of thinking under discussion. Some of these specialized terms follow; others are found under the alphabetic listing of the qualifying term.