Thought without Language
Published on 1. June 1988
Book
Paperback/Softback
548 pages
978-0-19-852177-8 (ISBN)
Description
A collection of 19 essays aiming to answer questions about the dependancy of thought on language, based on a Fyssen Foundation symposium held in Versailles in April 1987 and bringing together research into non-verbal thinking in adults, in pre-linguistic infants and in animals. Topics covered include the role of the "non-verbal" right cerebral hemisphere in humans; the investigation of non-verbal aspects of various categories of cognition (such as abstract reasoning, spatial awareness and pattern recognition); evidence for cognition without conscious awareness, and neurological and developmental evidence. The concluding chapter is a personal account by a dyslexic mathematician of the nature of his handicap and the non-verbal reasoning that he has developed to cope with this.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Oxford University Press
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
102 illustrations including half-tones, bibliography, index
ISBN-13
978-0-19-852177-8 (9780198521778)
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Schweitzer Classification
Content
Introduction. Part 1 Emergence and instruction: the origins of referential communication in human infancy; the Ontogenesis of different types of thought language and motor behaviours as non-specific manifestations; minds with and without language. Part 2 Categorical perception: functional organization of visual recognition; face perception and the right hemisphere; stimulus generalization and the acquisition of categories by pigeons. Part 3 The Ontogeny of perceptual and casual knowledge: the origins of physical knowledge; perception and thought in infancy; an information-processing approach to infant cognitive development. Part 4 Implicit processing and intentionality: dissociation between implicit and explicit knowledge in neuropsychological syndromes; what can the bird brain tell us about thought without language?; intentionality in animal conditioning. Part 5 Shapes, space and memory: differences between adult and infant cognition; animal spatial cognition; primate cognition of space and shapes. Part 6 Verbal/non-verbal interaction and independence: the dynamics of cerebral specialization and modular interactions; cognitive function in severe aphasia; language without thought. Part 7 Dyslexia and a mathematician's experience: a personal view. Afterthoughts.