Abstraction
The power of abstract thinking is captured by the brilliance of John von Neumann who made many contributions to mathematics, computer science, and game theory. One definition of abstraction is that an instance exists only in the mind (the word truth) rather than in the environment (the word car). An advantage of the latter, concrete examples is they support the formation of visual images to aid recall. A second definition of abstraction is a focus on the most important attributes of an instance. These attributes include those that differentiate one object from another or one category from another. A third definition of abstraction is that an abstract idea applies to many particular instances of a category. Prototypes, rules, and schema are examples.