Abstract thinking skills explained with examples - what their functions are - how to develop them

I give a lot of examples for the benefit and usage of abstract thinking and contrast it with concrete thinking. There is an abstract thinking test at the end of the video for fun and for illustration. Abstract thinking is a skill and everybody uses it all the time even if we are not aware of it. You can develop your abstraction skills in a specific domain because abstract thinking is domain specific. Someone can master math in a very abstract level but not able to do abstraction in drawing or painting. Maybe they paint a tree first. then think, then a dog. They are very concrete thinkers in this case, they need to see some image and can think only one step ahead. An artist, on the other hand can create the final image in their head, spending months and them manifest it on the canvas. Same with movies or stories. Creating and understanding metaphors, analogies requires abstract thinking, too because it draws parallels and depart from the literal meaning of the words, expressions or stories. For example, "I want to recharge my batteries." Same with jokes and humor where you need to connect information that is not necessarily said or used.
Abstraction is used in technological and system innovation where the role of abstraction is that you determine or define the essential function of the new system, like educational system.
Abstract thinking is applied in understanding trends, seeing patterns of changes. It also used in psychology to understand a person's thinking, motivation, biases. It is meta-model building. Also abstract thinking is necessary for empathy and figuring out how to motivate people. We use theories and frameworks to look at somebody is various perspectives to build an abstract profile, a mental model of the individual like knowing their locus of control. Psychological personality test are also abstraction tools.

Creating categories requires abstract thinking - seeing similarities and differences. Science and statistics uses abstraction to eliminate context and focus on one or a few factors how they influence something. Transferring knowledge, learning to learn is also abstraction and mental model building. Using and understanding symbols required good abstraction skills - scientific symbols like in math, chemistry. Language uses grammar rules and you need to apply them in concrete sentences. Law, history, religion - same.
Pattern recognition and IQ test are measuring abstract thinking skills. I demonstrate this with a simple I.Q. question but the goal is understanding how to abstract concrete things. Other abstract thinking areas: computer coding (class, instantiation), seargons and other doctors; abstract concept like love, trust, respect; theories, processes, procedures,divergent thinking like coming up many usages of objects; thought experiements like changing history by time travel;perspective taking; understanding social constructs; consequential thinking; optimizationl reading and comprehension; seeing potentials in people like by teachers and coaches.