Thinking Without Language?

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=140 BGCOLOR="#9966CC" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="04100a20ezthtv.gif"> <div> <A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Kings Psychology Network"><U><B>home</B></U></A><B>     |     </B><FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#000099" FACE="Papyrus" ><I><B>King's Psychology Network</B></I></FONT></div> <div> <A HREF="id60.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Discussion Forum"><U>Discussion Forum</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id181.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="What is Psychology?Pre Post Definition"><U>What is Psychology?-Pre & Post Definition</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id241.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Overview of Psychology"><U>Overview of Psychology</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id61.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Research on Human and Animal Subjects"><U>Research on Human and Animal Subjects</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id168.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="History of Psychology"><U>History of Psychology</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id62.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Neuroscience: Brain Behavior"><U>Neuroscience: Brain & Behavior</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id118.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Sensation"><U>Sensation</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id119.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Perception"><U>Perception</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id121.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Development"><U>Development</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id63.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Evolutionary Psychology"><U>Evolutionary Psychology</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id179.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Motivation"><U>Motivation</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id180.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Emotion"><U>Emotion</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id64.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Learning"><U>Learning</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id145.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Memory"><U>Memory</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id146.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Thinking Language"><U>Thinking & Language</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id204.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Language or Thinking?"><U>Language or Thinking?</U></A>   |   <B> Thinking Without Language?</B>   |   <A HREF="id206.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Language Development"><U>Language & Development</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id147.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Animal Learning, Language Cognition"><U>Animal Learning, Language & Cognition</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id148.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Intelligence"><U>Intelligence</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id65.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Personality"><U>Personality</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id167.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Non Ordinary States of Consciousness"><U>Non Ordinary States of Consciousness</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id120.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Social Psychology"><U>Social Psychology</U></A></div> <div> <B> Thinking Without Language?</B></div> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" width=210 BGCOLOR="#CCFF66" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <I><B>What, then, should we say about the relationship between thinking and language?</B></I></div> <bR> <div> <B>Back To:</B></div> <div> <A HREF="id18.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Course Syllabus PSY 200"><U><B>Course Syllabus-Psy 20</B></U></A><B>0</B></div> <div> <A HREF="id53.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Overview of Class SchedulePsy 200"><U><B>Class Schedule-Psy 20</B></U></A><B>0</B></div> <div> <A HREF="id32.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Lessons Handouts"><U><B>Lessons & Handouts - Psy 2</B></U></A><B>00</B></div> <div> <A HREF="id23.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Related Learning Links"><U><B>Related Learning Links - Psy 20</B></U></A><B>0</B></div> <div> <A HREF="id234.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Related ReadingsPsy 200"><U><B>Related Readings-PSY 200</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id60.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Discussion Forum"><U><B>Discussion Forum - Psy 20</B></U></A><B>0</B></div> <div> <A HREF="id60.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Discussion Forum"><U><B>Discussion Forum - Psy 20</B></U></A><B>0</B></div> <bR> <bR> </td> <td valign="top" height=340 BGCOLOR="#CCFF66" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <B>Thinking Without Language?</B></div> <bR> <div>      When you are alone, do you talk to yourself? Is “thinking” simply conversing with yourself? Without a doubt, words convey ideas. But aren't there times when ideas precede words? To turn on the cold water in your bathroom, in which direction do you turn the handle? To answer this question, you probably thought not in words but with procedural memory-a mental picture of how you do it. Indeed, we often think in images. Artists think in images. So do composers, poets, mathematicians, athletes, and scientists. Albert Einstein reported that he achieved some of his greatest insights through visual images and later put them into words.</div> <bR> <div> Pianist Liu Chi Kung showed the value of thinking in images. One year after placing second in the 1958 Tchaikovsky piano competition, Liu was imprisoned during China's cultural revolution. Soon after his release, after seven years without touching a piano, he was back on tour, the critics judging his musicianship better than ever. How did he continue to develop without practice? “I did practice,” said Liu, “every day. I rehearsed every piece I had ever played, note by note, in my mind” (Garfield, 1986).</div> <bR> <div> Athletes in many fields now supplement physical with mental practice. For Olympic athletes, “mental practice has become a standard part of training,” reports Richard Suinn (1997). Golf great Jack Nicklaus has said that he would “watch a movie” in his head before each shot. In a laboratory test, Georgia Nigro (1984) demonstrated the wisdom of mental practice. She had people actually throw darts 24 times at a target, then had half the people throw 24 darts mentally, and, finally, had everyone throw another 24 darts. Only those who had mentally practiced showed any improvement.</div> <bR> <div> Young members of the U.S. Figure Skating Association have exhibited similar improvement in their performance ratings for jumps and spins following mental practice while listening to their skating music (Garza & Feltz, 1998). And several experiments on mental practice and basketball foul shooting have found comparable benefits. In one such experiment (Savoy & Beitel, 1996), conducted with the University of Tennessee women's team over 35 games, the team's free-throw shooting increased from approximately 52 percent in games following standard physical practice to some 65 percent after mental practice. During the mental practice, players repeatedly imagined making foul shots under various conditions, including being “trash-talked” by their opposition. The experiment's dramatic conclusion occurred when Tennessee won the national championship game in overtime, thanks in part to their foul shooting.</div> <bR> <div> Mental rehearsal can also help you achieve an academic goal. In one study, Shelley Taylor and her UCLA colleagues (1998) engaged introductory psychology students who were a week away from facing a midterm exam. Some were told to visualize themselves scanning the posted grade list, seeing their A, beaming with joy, and feeling proud. Repeating this “outcome simulation” 5 minutes each day until the exam had little effect, adding only 2 points to their exam scores, compared with scores of student counterparts not engaging in any mental simulation. But the researchers had another group visualize themselves effectively studying-reading the chapters, going over notes, eliminating distractions, declining an offer to go out. Repeating this “process simulation” for 5 minutes each day had a beneficial effect. Compared with the control students, this second group of students began studying sooner, spent more time at it, and beat the control group average by 8 points. From such experiments, the researchers conclude that it is better to spend your fantasy time planning how to get somewhere than to dwell on the imagined destination.</div> <bR> <div> More evidence of thinking without language comes from earlier chapters: Much of our information processing occurs outside of consciousness, beyond language. Inside the ever-active brain, many streams of activity flow in parallel, function automatically, are remembered implicitly, and only occasionally surface as conscious words. “Thinking lite,” this unconscious processing has been called-“one-fourth the effort of regular thinking.” So, yes, there certainly is cognition without language.</div> <bR> <div> <I><B>What, then, should we say about the relationship between thinking and language? As we have seen, language does influence our thinking. But if thinking did not also affect language, there would never be any new words. And new words and new conbinations of old words express new ideas. The basketball term slam dunk was coined after the act itself had become fairly common. So, let us say that thinking affects our language, which then affects our thought.</B></I></div> <bR> <div> Psychological research on thinking and language mirrors the mixed reviews given our species in literature and religion.</div> <div> The human mind is simultaneously capable of striking intellectual failures and of vast intellectual power. Some misjudgments have disastrous consequences, so we do well to appreciate our capacity for error. Yet our heuristics often serve us well, and they certainly are efficient. Moreover, our ingenuity at problem solving and our extraordinary power of language surely, among the animals, rank humankind as almost “infinite in faculties.”</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>