How Do You Think?
Are you a visual person? Do you think in words, or images?
- A question someone asked me last week
I struggled with that question, in part because I'd never really thought about it, and in part because, upon giving it some thought, I realized the answer was neither.I decided to post the question here, and see how others respond. When someone says, "Think of an apple," how does your brain work? Do you picture an apple, or does the word apple come to mind? Or, god forbid, does your brain work like mine?
I think with neither words nor images unless words or images are required of my thoughts. Instead, I tend to think in broad senses of "understanding" (or perhaps "meaning") that incorporate emotion, the senses, and a library of associated words and images wrapped up in the "understanding." This "understanding" is like a web of interconnectivity, such that the "understanding" I associate with an apple is not separate from the "understanding" I associate with a pear, but rather partially intertwined in the ways that both share some of the same "understanding" in my mind, yet retain elements of separate "understanding" as well.
Thus, when told to think of an apple, my mind accesses the understanding I have associated with "apple" - which includes a variety of colors, waxy, shiny textures, the flavors and colors of juice, the smells of an orchard, the brief pain and surprise of accidentally biting into a seed, logos and computers, associations with gravity, the sound of crunching, the feeling of cool, moist spray on my lips when I take a bite, and on and on - but my mind doesn't automatically focus on any one of those associations in particular (so I don't necessarily see a red apple). I receive all the associations at once in a rush of meaning that I can only describe as "my understanding of apple."
If told to picture an apple, however, I can vividly picture an apple - and I have several images before me, perfectly vivid and realistic, in my mind, when I try to do so.
Now, since my thoughts are not in words or pictures - I also must always translate my thoughts into words before communicating them ... so I wonder, since this is the first time I've tried to translate how I think into words for others to understand... did any of that just make sense to anyone?
And I would like to know: How do you think?
Comments on "How Do You Think?"
-
Phil said ... (March 14, 2006 8:17 PM) :
-
Anonymous said ... (March 14, 2006 8:46 PM) :
-
Jodi Reher Govig said ... (March 15, 2006 5:12 AM) :
-
Matty G said ... (March 15, 2006 12:38 PM) :
-
Anonymous said ... (March 15, 2006 12:59 PM) :
-
nowfly said ... (March 17, 2006 6:58 PM) :
post a commentStill frames mainly. Large crayola-colored still frames. Very few associations unless something sparks nostalgia. Apple for example: just a big Red Granny apple... nothing else. But the more I think about it, my mind wanders to the apple tree in my childhood friend Gabe's front yard that we would climb and shine a spotlight through the windshields of drivers-by.
I'm telling ya, a bright, shiny, sliver G-4 staring back at me with its beautiful Apple-filled eyes.
Interesting!!
As I read the question... "do you think in images or words"...
I thought, "images, of course... who thinks in words? Maybe a blind person... a writer... who?"
Well... actually all those thoughts didn't rush in when I read that question... they kind of came later when writing the answer ... I did think it was a weird question, just didn't stop to think of the answer until later... just kept reading too fast for an answer to form.
Then I read your question...
"think of an apple" ...
And I did see a mostly round, red fruit... typical (to me) Delicious style apple... I did NOT see a word... and I thought, "well this is silly... surely no one sees a word but sees the fruit... the answer is easy!! Images!!"
But as I read the rest of your article I understood that I didn't JUST see a picture of an apple in my mind when I read the question,
although that might have been the main and strongest part of my response to "think of an apple"... I also had feelings, sounds & smells as well as the sight of an apple come rushing into my mind...
Mostly I am unaware of some of them, I think... but upon reflection, they are there... especially the smells (when asked to "think" of something else like lilacs for instance the smell might be the biggest part of the image or as you say the "understanding" or meaning of the word...)
So there you go... I think like you... and I wonder if a lot of people don't also think like you... not in images or words... but "the broad sense of understanding" that incorporates all 5 senses... ONLY they just don't realize it and never think about how it all works... until someone comes along and asks them a silly question like this...
;)
Interesting! Thanks for your comments! I wonder if everyone thinks differently - how likely or unlikely would that be?
Sort of like, do we all see colors the same? How would we know if what looks red to me looks green to you, because we each agree the color is "red"...?
Do i think in images or words. I guess that depends on what I'm doing while I'm thinking. If I'm writing, I'm thinking in words (letters, punctuation, spacing, formatting all strung together). If I'm creating, I think in images. I think your interviewer was trying to get at your right/left brainedness. I think I think in a balance of the two. When I'm doing math (pfftt) I'm not thinking in images or words. Though when I am remembering, I see the image of words on a page then re read them.
I hear voices in my head. Mostly not in a crazy way (although I do have my psycho days--often brought on by temp jobs that never end), but more in a conversational way. When I read "Think of an apple" then the word apple flows through my mind like music (I can see the music! I can hear the colors!). So the short answer is "Words." But not in Halvetica Bold. More like a Bethoven syphony. You got me thinking, and it's getting a little noisy in here, so that will have to do.