Based On The Cognitive Psychology Of Tcm Diagnosis And Treatment To Explore Thinking Process

Cognitive psychology is a subject for studying human cognition. Cognition refers to cognitive activities of human beings’to objective world. In cognitive psychology, it is an individual’s activities of reconstruction and application of knowledge for assimilating or adapting to new knowledge in the minds based on existing knowledge structures. From the angle of cognition, the thinking process of TCM diagnosis and treatment can be regarded as disease information processing, which is gotten from the patient by four diagnostics, diagnosing, and treatment programming based on doctor’s medical knowledge. It can be seen that this process has the feature of information processing. The doctor and his/her cognition, in this process, plays an important role. It is because of the differences of knowledge accumulation, clinical experiences to different doctors, which brings the diversity of the diagnosis and treatment. Therefore, to research the process of TCM diagnosis and treatment from the angle of doctors, that using the appropriate methods of cognitive psychology for reference may be an useful attempt.Purpose:1) to explore thinking, TCM thinking mode, thinking view of problem-solving from the angle of cognitive psychology;2) to explore the features and the dynamic cognitive process of TCM diagnosis-treatment thinking, and to point out an important method, language analyzing, for disclosing this process;3) to study the explicit representation process of TCM diagnosis-treatment thinking from the angle of intercross of many subjects, and to express the doctor’s thinking process by the method of cognitive flow chart.Methods:This paper is completed under the financial aid of the following researches:Research into Cognitive Model of TCM Diagnosis-Treatment Based on Automatic Question and Answer System (No.30873461), Research into TCM Diagnosis-Treatment Methods Based on Cognitive Process (No.90409005), and Research into Diagnosis-Treatment Thinking method of Doctor’s Based on Their Cognition (No.JYB22-XS003). The research subject is collected clinical data; under the guidance of TCM theories, the aim is to explore the features of diagnosis-treatment thinking of TCM doctors’and the research methods.First, probe into development background of cognitive psychology from the angles of philosophy, psychology, and related interdiscipline; and discuss the basic viewpoints of cognitive psychology from the angles of cognition and its process; then point out that human being’s psychological activities are processed in some information structures. After that, probe into the thinking view of problem-solving and perceive the doctor’s diagnosis-treatment thinking process as a problem-solving one. Besides, the dynamic cognitive process of TCM diagnosis-treatment thinking, in this research, is studied. Through the study, the language analyzing is found to be an important method for disclosing the doctor’s diagnosis-treatment thinking process. At last, this research use the think-aloud protocol and in-depth interview of cognitive psychology to make the thinking path in solving diagnosis-treatment problem explicit. It is under the principle of not opening the black box to reappear the whole real diagnosis-treatment thinking process.Results:1) From the angle of cognitive psychology, the doctor’s diagnosis-treatment thinking process can be recognized as a problem solving process. The initial state includes the patient’s chief complaints, symptoms and physical signs. And the target state refers to recovering health. Between them, it is intermediate state, which includes the diagnosing of the doctor to patient’s disease, as well as determining the treating principle and prescription.2) The doctor’s diagnosis-treatment thinking process is a circulatory dynamic cognitive process. In the process, the doctor’s cognitive abilities and clinical efficacy are continuous improved and form the double helix structure of spiraling.3) Apply the think-aloud protocol and in-depth interview of cognitive psychology to imitate the doctor’s diagnosis-treatment thinking process and explore its features.Conclusion:It involves multiple academic disciplines such as psychology, epistemology, history of science, philology etc. to research diagnosis-treatment thinking of TCM. Thinking is a form of psychological activities. Its process needs to coordinate with other intellectual mental activities; and it can be affected by lots of non-intellectual mental activities. Therefore, it has great significance to solve the psychological problem in TCM diagnosis-treatment thinking with the psychological principles and methods. Besides, to a certain extent, existing theories and techniques can make the TCM diagnosis-treatment thinking process explicit. This makes the process research feasible. This research, only from the multidisciplinary angle, tries to reappear the doctor’s thinking process in diagnosing and treating disease. With the follow-up "researches and development of technology, researchers will achieve lots of positive results.