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What is thinking without words like?

Einfallspinsel

I once heard somebody casually say that a deaf-mute or autistic person could not possibly be thinking or understanding anything, because they didn't know any words. Without words, what would they be thinking? Nothing! It would be like a newborn baby's brain.

My first reaction was that this is nonsense. Don't people often have thoughts without words? (Isn't that what intuition is supposed to be like?) And when we were babies, were we not thinking? We were admitedly thinking in a different way than after we learned speaking. Don't babies think a lot about edibility and patterns and senses?

So, does anybody remember what thinking without words is like, and can put it in words? (I know I know, it's as bad as "googling for google", the world will implode!) Innocent

I would spontaneously describe it as a Venn diagram of memories.

And by "memory" I don't mean one word, rather... an associated set of sensory information, which may include moods/emotions, but not necessarily time. And by Venn diagram I mean thoughts such as "A and B can/must happen together" or "A and C rarely/never happen together".

Hard to describe, I'm not satisfied with my description. Anyone have anything better?

Parents

  • What an interesting question. I agree that infants make connections between co-occuring sensory information and internal emotions, and they extract patterns of co-occurance.  For people that learn speech and language the early memories are reorganised into new "formats" and the early "raw" memories are not available to conscious access, though the memories still exist and can still evoke emotions and sensations (memory of sensory experience). I think the problem with the Venn diagram as a description is that it has very clear boundaries whereas I think the mental collections have fuzzier boundaries which can change over time.

    Even people with speech and language can think in other ways which can be just as symbolic as verbal language e.g. University level mathematics - they don't have to translate all their thinking into speech (and it has the satisfaction of being more precise!).  Thinking in visual imagery is also quite common. I think that infants probably start developing unified concepts before speech. The abilty to attach shared labels to these concepts accelerates conceptual development, but it occurs even without speech. They may still develop symbolic thinking.

    My (speculative) view is they would not think of a 'blue banana' not because they could not combine these two visual images but because without some one suggesting it there would be no imputous to do so, why would they?  That doesn't mean they would have no imagination, I think they would be able to imagine 'objects' not present and to image future events. In this view they would be able to combine representation in novel ways but I think the range of possibilites that would occur (rather than could occur) would be more rooted in experience.

    Language, of course, is not the same as speech.  Sign languages are just as valid as verbal language and there are people (including a 14 year old autistic blogger) who have a verbal language without speech.  I think some of the frustration and anger expressed by people with "low function" autism is because some have more ability to think than is recognised but they cannot communicate it.

Reply

  • What an interesting question. I agree that infants make connections between co-occuring sensory information and internal emotions, and they extract patterns of co-occurance.  For people that learn speech and language the early memories are reorganised into new "formats" and the early "raw" memories are not available to conscious access, though the memories still exist and can still evoke emotions and sensations (memory of sensory experience). I think the problem with the Venn diagram as a description is that it has very clear boundaries whereas I think the mental collections have fuzzier boundaries which can change over time.

    Even people with speech and language can think in other ways which can be just as symbolic as verbal language e.g. University level mathematics - they don't have to translate all their thinking into speech (and it has the satisfaction of being more precise!).  Thinking in visual imagery is also quite common. I think that infants probably start developing unified concepts before speech. The abilty to attach shared labels to these concepts accelerates conceptual development, but it occurs even without speech. They may still develop symbolic thinking.

    My (speculative) view is they would not think of a 'blue banana' not because they could not combine these two visual images but because without some one suggesting it there would be no imputous to do so, why would they?  That doesn't mean they would have no imagination, I think they would be able to imagine 'objects' not present and to image future events. In this view they would be able to combine representation in novel ways but I think the range of possibilites that would occur (rather than could occur) would be more rooted in experience.

    Language, of course, is not the same as speech.  Sign languages are just as valid as verbal language and there are people (including a 14 year old autistic blogger) who have a verbal language without speech.  I think some of the frustration and anger expressed by people with "low function" autism is because some have more ability to think than is recognised but they cannot communicate it.

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