Does it link words to pictures in your mind? So there is a mapping from the word “owl” to a picture of an owl in your head?
Can I also add that I don’t think this mapping involves word definitions, so for example the word owl won’t map to the word definition of an owl since you need to define words in the definition itself. This causes a never ending chain as you keep having to define words in further definitions.
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You gotta think of your brain like a file cabinet that stores all the words you know and has files on the things that a make a word have a meaning. This includes relationships between words/ideas, sensory info, similar words or things, sounds, usages, and all that. Then there’s pathways that form between what you hear/see and where the file is stored in the mind. The word owl would definitely map to the definition of an owl (big, nocturnal, hunter, wise, feathery, bird, bitey, 360 head spin) unless you didn’t know what an owl was, in which case you’d maybe try and figure out if an owl if something that sounds like the word ‘owl’, find a word that sounds similar and maybe come up with a wrong definition and start to build inaccurate files on it.
I don’t know if this is allowed, but the non ELI5 word for this is psycholinguistic processing and it relates to the way words are stored and retrieved in the mind.
Think of it as if the word “owl” (or whatever word you choose) evokes an image in your conscience through, as you say, mapping (neurons talking to each other).
But it is not that simple. The same word can evoke different images depending on your situation, and obviusly depending on the person. For example if I say home you might evoke your home, but I will evoke mine.
Moreover, if you live in a flat for example, you may evoke your flat or your parents’ house.
About the definition… It is very uncommon that the brain evokes a definition without you purposely wanting to do so, because you have to search (literally, you search in your storage of info) the words to describe it, so it is less efficient and more conscience-driven.
Hope it helps!
“What the heck is a brain store and what is it doing with my words? Oh. Store like… Storing… In MY brain. As in… Vocabulary.”
For some of us, it’s a little slow at retrieving all the meanings and linking things together in context
I am helping a woman recouperate from a stroke that really hammered her language area (so she has Aphasia)…. and it is fascinating how her brain works I can see how it finds old memories and can’t form new ones and where connections are or are not made.
I don’t think it necessarily links a world to a picture. It would be interesting to try to understand how people born blind actually think
Haven’t seen anybody bring up the schema theory yet. This theory of memory does a really good job of providing an image of the structure and relationship between short term memory (STM) and long term memory (LTM).
The first thing you should know is a schema. Essentially, a schema is a bundle of information that is stored as one unit in your LTM. For example, the actual word ‘owl’ is only a small part of the ‘owl’ schema in your brain. This helps explain why, when you think ‘owl’, information from multiple contexts are brought up and readily available (what an owl looks like, sounds like, where it might live, maybe you even have the tootsie pop owl from the commercial right on the tip of your tongue).
Second, keeping in mind that schemas are their own discrete units, related schemas (like ‘owl’ and ‘feather’) can be pictured as linked like kindergarteners holding the same rope on a field trip. When a specific schema – let’s say ‘feather’ – is pulled out of your LTM up to your STM, all related schemas including ‘owl’ aren’t necessarily pulled up with it, but are closer to your consciousness than a totally unrelated schema, like ‘railroad’.
There’s a lot more to schema theory than I explained here, and it’s all very interesting – I recommend checking it out.
Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
Google more about the first part of my name. It is a technique where you control how information is linked. It should give you a better idea how our brain naturally does it, if you are the one driving for a while so to speak.
Association and fuzzy logic. Your brain associates a word with something and strengthens the connections between association based on importance.
Fuzzy logic is then used for matching objects, so one thing is like something else. This is why you might say it’s kind of like a truck but it’s actually a car.
Images? Lol:)
Some of us have no linking of an image to anything at all.
If I think of an “owl”, then it links to the concept of “what an owl *is*”, e.g bird, can fly, silent in the air, flexible neck, etc. At no point is an image involved.
I am curious how you mind deals with the definition of words that are concepts – have no image. E.g Logistics, Faith, Calculus, Like, Fear etc?
r/aphantasia
I can’t see picture in my head but I still know what words mean even abstract words that have no pictures.
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