Louder Than Words: The New Science of How the Mind Make Meaning by Benjamin K. Bergen

Author:Benjamin K. Bergen
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Language Arts & Disciplines, Linguistics, Life Sciences, Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Science, General, Sociolinguistics, Neuroscience
ISBN: 9780465033331
Publisher: Basic Books
Published: 2012-10-15T16:56:12+00:00

CHAPTER 7

What Do Hockey Players Know?

Thus far we’ve emphasized the features of embodied simulation that people have in common. But the truth is far more nuanced. People don’t all simulate the same things or simulate them in the same way. For one thing, the embodied simulations you construct are based on the experiences you’ve had. If everyone had the same experiences, they’d be able to run the same simulations. But they haven’t, so they don’t. Even something as banal as the word dog has qualitatively different effects on people. For someone who was bitten by a dog as a child, the mere mention of the word dog can evoke images of a massive, snarling, ferocious beast with frightening incisors—images that the word dog doesn’t usually trigger for the rest of us, except upon extended reflection or in the right context. Our unique personal histories produce stark differences in everything from how we reason to what we value, and so it shouldn’t be surprising that they also affect how we understand language.

There’s a second way that embodied simulation differs across people. As you’ve surely noticed, we don’t all have precisely the same cognitive capacities or cognitive preferences. For example, I have a really bad visual memory. I honestly can’t tell you what color my bathroom is. I’m pretty sure it’s either pink or blue. It might be green. I’d have to check. But on the other hand I can often remember the exact words someone said, verbatim, a week after hearing them. Other people’s minds work differently. And as a result, people have different resources at their disposal to deploy when understanding language. Someone with a really reliable, detailed visual memory might use their vision system more in understanding, as compared to someone like me, who might use their motor or auditory system more.

How much do these differences matter? If simulation is really used for comprehension, then you might think that a speaker and a listener need to run very similar simulations to understand each other. And it’s quite possible that compatibility or incompatibility of embodied simulations can make it easier or harder to communicate with people. To the extent that we have similar mental lives, due to similar personal histories or cognitive abilities, communication can feel effortless. When our mental lives differ, communication can grind to a standstill. But, at the same time, people are still often able to make themselves understood, even when simulating differently from the people they’re communicating with.

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