Hareket Halindeki Zihin

by Barbara Tversky, Barış Gönülşen (Translator)

Sözcüklerle düşünüyoruz; kurduğumuz düşünce sistemleri sözcüklere dayanıyor. Fakat atalarımız konuşmuyordu. Bebekler de konuşmuyor. Ama yine de düşünüyorlar. Dile sahip olmadan önce düşünebiliyorsak, bu durumda bizim düşüncelerimizi oluşturan aslında nedir?

Psikolog Barbara Tversky düşüncenin gerçek temelinin dil değil, hareket ve uzamdaki etkileşimlerimiz olduğunu söylüyor. Uzamsal düşünüş, bedenlerimizden ve bedenlerimizin dünyadaki eylemlerinden anlam çıkarmamıza olanak sağlıyor. Haritaları yaratma ve kullanma becerimizin, mobilya montajı yapabilmemizin, futbol stratejileri oluşturmamızın, binalar tasarlayabilmemizin, sanat üretebilmemizin, insanların, trafiğin, suyun ve fikirlerin akışını anlayabilmemizin altında yatan şey, uzamsal düşünüş. Düşünce üzerindeki eylemler de, nesneler üzerindeki eylemler gibi.

Bilim, sanat, edebiyat, dünya tarihinin büyük fikirleri sadece beyinlerimizden değil, tüm bedenimizden doğdu. Hareket Halindeki Zihin nasıl düşündüğümüz konusunda yepyeni bir bakış ortaya koyuyor.

Genres: Psychology, Nonfiction, Science, Neuroscience, Philosophy, Health, Audiobook

414 pages, Paperback

Published December 1, 2020

About the author

Barbara Tversky is a Professor Emerita of Psychology at Stanford University and a Professor of Psychology and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University.

Reviews

[Nelson Zagalo · Rating 5 out of 5]

In her latest book, ‘Mind in Motion: How Action Shapes Thought’ (2019), Barbara Tversky presents a theorisation on cognition that, although not completely new, is bold. She argues that our thinking is not constructed by language, but by action, by movement. Tversky tells us that we use words to describe, but in fact our mind builds concepts through mental images created from our action on reality. Damasio has spoken a lot about these mental images, and about the implication of emotion and the body in reasoning processes, but even closer is the work of Benjamin Berger, in his book ‘Louder Than Words: The New Science of How the Mind Makes Meaning’ (2012), who also argues that we don't process information in text mode, but through images or mental simulations. Tversky gives a classic example, but one that we can all quickly intuit, which is the enormous difficulty we have in describing someone's face in words. For Tversky, this is an indication that our ability to think doesn't come from an innate algorithmic textual mental process, as Chomsky argues, but is rather produced through our action in space and time, through our interactive action with reality, which allows us to relate and mentally construct reality in our minds.

...a análise contem muitas citações e links, por isso continua no blog Virtual Illusion:
https://virtual-illusion.blogspot.com...

[Meg · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book was repetitive and monotonous. Watch her lectures online instead. I liked that she challenged Chomsky’s linguistic theories. She is very intelligent and she had a lot of fun studies to talk about. I also liked how she thought our environment and the things we create represent how our minds work. Our brains are organized like the lines, hierarchies, boxes, and concepts we create. She showed a pick of a city (with all the lines and squares) verse a road with leaves scattered to represent the difference between our minds and nature. Kinda cool. But my mind is organized more like the leaves so I can’t really relate.

[Dan Graser · Rating 4 out of 5]

Barbara Tversky is a brilliant thinker and psychologist who has taught previously at Stanford and is currently on faculty of Teachers College at Columbia University. In this latest volume she makes a case for a different answer to the question: How do we think? Most would instinctively answer with words/language but Tversky's assertion throughout, which is reinforced in her 6th Law of Cognition, is that spatial thinking is the foundation of abstract thought.

Divided into two larger sections, there is a change of tone and depth halfway through that keeps this very interesting reading from being completely convincing. Part I is quite fascinating and involves a wealth of data with which you may not be familiar. She lays out the laws of cognition gradually as she makes her points specifically pertaining to our physical representations of the world through gesture and mimicry and how this shapes the ways in which we think about the world. In some cases, she most assuredly does make the case for the primacy of a spatial as opposed to linguistic basis for abstract thought.

Part II I found to be a bit meandering and less specific than the first part. While there are some interesting discussions of connections in artistic and scientific disciplines as well as more quotidian aspects of how we design our environments, the train of thought is more difficult to follow and is lighter on actual data.

Anyway, if you have an interest in the foundations of our thought processes and the mechanisms with which we intuitively deal with the world, this is an excellent and singular contribution from a brilliant author. Just for reference, here are the 9 Laws of Cognition around which the prose of this work is woven:
1) There are no benefits without costs
2) Action molds perception
3) Feeling comes first
4) The mind can override perception
5) Cognition mirrors perception
6) Spatial thinking is the foundation of abstract thought
7) The mind fills in missing information
8) When thought overflows the mind, the mind puts it into the world
9) We organize the stuff in the world the way we organize the stuff in the mind

[Oleksandr Golovatyi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Тренировка мозга. (promo)

Лучшие заметки из книги:

"Пространство накладывает на движение два фундаментальных ограничения — и они отражаются в мышлении. Одно из них — близость (до ближних мест добраться проще, чем до дальних), другое — гравитация (подъем требует больших усилий, чем спуск)."

"даже отдельные нейроны могут быть специализированными, т.е. отвечать за распознавание определенного ракурса лица или отслеживание объекта, движущегося за ширмой. В мозге человека их миллиарды. По свежим оценкам, 86 млрд."

"Первый закон когниции: за любое приобретение приходится платить."

"Поскольку действием меняется восприятие, неудивительно, что действием меняется и мозг. Это было продемонстрировано многократно и многими способами как на обезьянах, так и на людях"

"продолжительная практика использования орудий расширяет как осознанный образ тела, так и неосознанную, по большей части телесную схему"

"Второй закон когниции: восприятие оформляется действием."

"Зеркальные нейроны объединяют выполнение определенных действий и наблюдение за ними."

"Ритм — самое фундаментальное требование минимального совместного действия — также является основой максимального совместного действия."

"В химии валентность обеспечивает связь молекул, в психологии — связь людей. Эмоциональная валентность — великий подытоживающий фактор, ключевой момент. Третий закон когниции: сначала чувства."

"Четвертый закон когниции: ум способен пересилить восприятие."

"Мы с большей вероятностью замечаем свидетельства, подтверждающие нашу гипотезу, чем опровергающие ее."

"Мы — каждый из нас — подвержены ошибке подтверждения: мы активно ищем подтверждения своей гипотезе и игнорируем опровергающие свидетельства, причем даже не имея личной заинтересованности в гипотезе"

"Пятый закон когниции: познание отражает восприятие."

"основная гипотеза этой книги: пространственное мышление — основа абстрактного."

"Следствие из Пятого закона когниции (познание отражает восприятие): идеи могут упорядочиваться пространственными ментальными схемами. Любые идеи."

"Почти невозможно разделить ум и мозг. Они связаны поведением: изучая мозг именно по поведению организмов, мы и можем делать выводы о нейронном веществе"

"Шестой закон когниции: пространственное мышление является фундаментом абстрактного мышления. Фундаментом, а не всей конструкцией."

"Параллели между пространственным мышлением и абстрактным служат убедительным аргументом в пользу предположения, что пространственное мышление — фундамент абстрактного."

"Категории — эффективный способ систематизировать и хранить знакомые факты, а также усваивать новые."

"Седьмой закон когниции: ум заполняет пропуски в информации."

"Мы наполнили ум (и мозг) тем, что важнее всего для нашей жизни: лицами, телами, объектами, сценами, событиями."

"Мышление — ментальные действия, осуществляемые над ментальными объектами, т.е. идеями."

"Пространственные способности являются базовыми во множестве профессий, задач и видов деятельности. Чтение, письмо и арифметика, как всем известно, преподаются в школе, но как насчет понимания и создания карт и графиков, составления и использования инструкций и визуальных объяснений не только в естественных науках и математике, но и в литературе, истории, социальных науках и многом другом?"

"Жесты появляются первыми, до слов — как эволюционно, так и в индивидуальном развитии."

"Почему люди жестикулируют? Ответ прост. Жесты выражают очень много смысла непосредственно."

"Жесты раскрывают мысль — часто намного лучше слов."

"репрезентации, создаваемые руками и создаваемые словами, имеют множество отличий."

"Речь — это слова, идущие одно за другим. Слова — это символы, произвольные и косвенные выразители смысла, высококонцентрированного смысла."

"гипотезы Сепира-Уорфа, согласно которой язык, на котором вы говорите, влияет на то, как вы мыслите."

"явление называется эффектом пространственно-числовой ассоциации ответных реакций, или SNARC-эффектом (От англ. «spatial-numerical association of response codes».)"

"Помещение мысли в мир помогает не только выполнять действия и находить путь, но и — что имеет гораздо более далеко идущие последствия — создавать общества и культуры. Мысль, помещенная в мир, позволяет распространять и накапливать знания, особенно если они — на странице."

"Восьмой закон когниции: если мысль переполняет ум, он помещает ее в мир."

"все словесные выражения мысли являются репрезентациями."

"Общие принципы когнитивного дизайна:
1) Принцип соответствия: содержание и форма репрезентации должны соответствовать содержанию и форме целевых концепций. 2) Принцип использования: репрезентация должна способствовать эффективному решению целевых задач."

"Как искать новые перспективы:
1) Двигайтесь вокруг. Принимайте разные точки зрения: кого-то или чего-то другого. 2) Двигайтесь наверх. Переходите на уровень абстракции: ищите общее между перспективами, ищите связи между перспективами."

"Девятый закон когниции: мы организуем содержимое мира так же, как содержимое ума"

"Мир отражает ум"

"Мир отражает ум... ум отражает мир. Возникает цикл, в действительности — спираль."

"Жес��ы — физические действия, но не над физическими объектами. Жесты суть действия над невидимыми объектами, над идеями — идеями, существующими только в уме жестикулирующего человека или его партнера по разговору, если он есть."

"Мир превращен в схему. Мы укоренили в нем свой коллективный разум. Схема в мире — это информация; она сообщает вам, где вы находитесь и что за объекты вас окружают"

"Сконструированный мир — это схема, которая раскрывает свое значение посредством пространства плюс меток в пространстве и руководит нашими действиями."

"Девять законов когниции:
1) Первый закон когниции: за любое приобретение приходится платить.
2) Второй закон когниции: восприятие оформляется действием.
3) Третий закон когниции: сначала чувства.
4) Четвертый закон когниции: ум способен пересилить восприятие.
5) Пятый закон когниции: познание отражает восприятие.
6) Шестой закон когниции: пространственное мышление — фундамент абстрактного мышления.
7) Седьмой закон когниции: ум заполняет пропуски в информации.
8) Восьмой закон когниции: если мысль переполняет ум, он помещает ее в мир. 9) Девятый закон когниции: мы организуем содержимое мира так же, как содержимое ума."

"Kanwisher, N. (2010). Functional specificity in the human brain: A window into the functional architecture of the mind. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107(25), 11163–11170."

"Shepard, R. N. (1967). Recognition memory for words, sentences, and pictures. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 6(1), 156–163."

"Использование нейронов для новых функций. Anderson, M. L. (2010). Neural reuse: A fundamental organizational principle of the brain. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 33(4), 245–266."

"Роль гиппокампа в событийной памяти. Eichenbaum, H., & Cohen, N. J. (2014). Can we reconcile the declarative memory and spatial navigation views on hippocampal function? Neuron, 83(4), 764–770."

"Гиппокамп планирует будущие события. Addis, D. R., & Schacter, D. (2012). The hippocampus and imagining the future: Where do we stand? Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 5, 173."

"Мысленное вращение активирует двигательные зоны мозга. Zacks, J. M. (2008). Neuroimaging studies of mental rotation: A meta-analysis and review. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 20(1), 1–19."

"Мысленная анимация является пошаговой, а не непрерывной.
1) Hegarty, M. (1992). Mental animation: Inferring motion from static displays of mechanical systems. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 18(5), 1084.
2) Hegarty, M., & Sims, V. K. (1994). Individual differences in mental animation during mechanical reasoning. Memory & Cognition, 22(4), 411–430."

"Области мозга, отвечающие за пространственные и математические способности, пересекаются. Dehaene, S., Bossini, S., & Giraux, P. (1993). The mental representation of parity and number magnitude. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 122, 371–396."

"Жестикуляция как основа языка. Rizzolatti, G., & Arbib, M. A. (1998). Language within our grasp. Trends in Neurosciences, 21(5), 188–194."

"Почему мы жестикулируем? Cartmill, E. A., Goldin-Meadow, S., & Beilock, S. L. (2012). A word in the hand: Human gesture links representations to actions. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 367(1585), 129–143."

"Метафоры. Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (2008). Metaphors we live by. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press."

"Жестикуляция снижает когнитивную нагрузку. Cook, S.W., Yip, T., & Goldin-Meadow, S. (2012). Gestures, but not meaningless movements, lighten working memory load when explaining math. Language and Cognitive Processing, 27, 594–610."

"Жесты лучше изображений способствуют решению задач на динамику. Schwartz, D. L. (1999). Physical imagery: Kinematic versus dynamic models. Cognitive Psychology, 38(3), 433–464."

"Жестикуляция для себя помогает понимать и запоминать устройство сложных систем. Liu, Y., Bradley, M., & Tversky, B. (2018). Gestures for self help learning complex systems. Proceedings of Embodied and Situated Language Processing."

"Заученные жесты помогают осваивать математику. Goldin-Meadow, S., Cook, S. W., & Mitchell, Z. A. (2009). Gesturing gives children new ideas about math. Psychological Science, 20, 267–272. doi:10.1111/j.1467–9280.2009.02297.x."

"Согласованные жесты при пользовании тачпадом помогают решать математические задачи. Segal, A., Tversky, B., & Black, J. (2014). Conceptually congruent actions can promote thought. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 3(3), 124–130."

"Изучение действия сложных систем труднее, чем изучение структуры.
1) Hmelo-Silver, C. E., & Pfeffer, M. G. (2004). Comparing expert and novice understanding of a complex system from the perspective of structures, behaviors, and functions. Cognitive Science, 28(1), 127–138.
2) Tversky, B., Heiser, J., & Morrison, J. (2013). Space, time, and story. In B. H. Ross (Ed.), The psychology of learning and motivation (pp. 47–76). San Diego, CA: Elsevier Academic Press. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978–0–12–407...."

"Жесты учителей, изображающие действия, помогают учащимся глубже понять работу сложных систем. Kang, S., & Tversky, B. (2016). From hands to minds: Gestures promote understanding. Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications, 1(1), 4."

"Создание визуализации в форме дерева.
1) Munzner, T. (2014). Visualization analysis and design. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.
2) Shneiderman, B. (1992). Tree visualization with tree-maps: 2-d space-filling approach. ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG), 11(1), 92–99."

"Бо́льшая чувствительность к меньшим значениям (закон Вебера — Фехнера). Cantlon, J. F., Platt, M. L., & Brannon, E. M. (2009). Beyond the number domain. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 13(2), 83–91."

"Воображаемая дистанция влияет на время чтения. Bar-Anan, Y., Liberman, N., Trope, Y., & Algom, D. (2007). Automatic processing of psychological distance: Evidence from a Stroop task. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 136(4), 610."

"Язык указывает на восприятие. Arnheim, R. (1974). Art and visual perception. Berkeley: University of California Press."

"Пространственное мышление как основа языка.
1) Fauconnier, G. (1994). Mental spaces: Aspects of meaning construction in natural language. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
2) Fauconnier, G., & Sweetser, E. (Eds.). (1996). Spaces, worlds, and grammar. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
3) Talmy, L. (1983). How language structures space. In H. L. Pick & L. P. Acredolo (Eds.), Spatial orientation (pp. 225–282). Boston, MA: Springer."

"История письменности. Gelb, I. J. (1952). A study of writing. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press."

"«Три П» (производство, предпочтение, производительность) при создании дизайна. Kessell, A., & Tversky, B. (2011). Visualizing space, time, and agents: Production, performance, and preference. Cognitive Processing"

"Изотип и универсальный пиктографический язык Neurath, O. (1936). International Picture Language. The first rules of Isotype. London, England: Kegan Paul. Neurath, O., & Ogden, C. K. (1937). BASIC by Isotype. London, England: K. Paul, Trench, Trubner."

"Схемы помогают учиться.
1) Carney, R. N., & Levin, J. R. (2002). Pictorial illustrations still improve students’ learning from text. Educational Psychology Review, 14(1), 5–26.
2) Mayer, R. E., & Gallini, J. K. (1990). When is an illustration worth ten thousand words? Journal of Educational Psychology, 82(4), 715."

"Дуга повествования Фрейтага — Аристотеля. Freytag, G. (1863). Die Technik des Dramas."

"Блуждание ума.
1) Baird, B., Smallwood, J., Mrazek, M. D., Kam, J. W., Franklin, M. S., & Schooler, J. W. (2012). Inspired by distraction: Mind wandering facilitates creative incubation. Psychological Science, 23(10), 1117–1122.
2) Mrazek, M. D., Smallwood, J., & Schooler, J. W. (2012). Mindfulness and mind-wandering: Finding convergence through opposing constructs. Emotion, 12(3), 442."

"Смена парадигм. Kuhn, T. S. (2012). The structure of scientific revolutions. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press."

[Tony · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found the insight that thought originates in movement very liberating. Concepts and abstractions evolve from gestures and from crawling around in the world like animals. It fits well with John Gray's The Silence of the Animals. While the book goes into great detail on how actiion shapes thought and language. I found it filled a gap in how I imagine our origins and how to conceptualize our social future.

[Hayden · Rating 3 out of 5]

Super interesting subject material but the organization and writing was a little messy and repetitive. While the central claim is profound it doesn't come across that way.

[Nderitu Pius · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well researched book with amazing points to actually use when going about combating issues with addictions and so on and forth. I love how well this book has been written, each law by itself. I might search for this book in hard copy. Maybe.
It may be a deeper study into John Locke's Essay on Human Understanding.

[Nicole Simovski · Rating 1 out of 5]

Read my Brief Book Review here 👉🏼 https://link.medium.com/9d4Aig9xs3

[Martin Henson · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is always interesting to see how a serious researcher will fare at writing popular science. Not everyone can be Robert Sapolksy (Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst) who appears to have been born to communicate well - and without the slightest dumbing down. In contrast, excellent scientists like David Reich and (especially) Martin Nowak (even with the help of a ghost writer) in one case, bores to death and, in the other, just collapses into a pointless heap. So it was gratifying to find that Barbara Tversky can write with flair and passion. Like many a populariser, the result can feel unsatisfying to a reader who is used to reading scientific articles - but when the topic is mostly outside one's expertise, the advantage of the popular book is its ability to survey and summarise - where the scientific article must concentrate on the particular, in depth, and pull no punches. This was the reason why Novak's Supercooperators: The Mathematics of Evolution, Altruism and Human Behaviour {Or, Why We Need Each Other to Succeed} was such a disappointment, and why Reich's Who We Are and How We Got Here: Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past made me want to slit my throat, despite having one of the most interesting topics to discuss. In Tversky's book there are nearly 60 pages of well organised bibliographic references clearly relating to the chapters and their sub-topics - so really no excuse if a reader wishes to follow anything up in detail.

Tversky's book convincingly argues for an embodied basis for thought: thought as primarily and primitively centred on the body in space. I always found the debate about thinking and language rather sterile - it seems to me to be rather like wondering whether you could have value transactions without money - which, of course, you can - but with the recognition that, with money, the complexity and sophistication of what "value transactions" can amount to become infinitely greater (think, first, compound interest, then futures, then collateralised debt obligations ...). In the case of thought, Tversky demonstrates the extent to which the bodily/spatialised basis of thought remains deeply present in language and how the body - through gestures for example - impacts on how we understand what is said. She takes a standard referential approach to psychology and also to language, and it would have been interesting if she had looked at language more performatively - words as tools (which would have been very much in line with her general thesis) - and, for those special cases where words are indeed ostensively defined, looked at the complexity of that performance, with its reliance on pointing and arrows, two topics she has a great deal of interest in.

For me there was a nice bit of serendipity in having recently read Terry Eagleton's Materialism and noting the connection between Tversky's scientific conclusions and Eagleton's philosophical approach to what he calls somatic materialism: "... it takes seriously what is most palpable about men and women - their animality, their practical activity and corporeal constitution." (p. 35) and discussions of, for example, Merleau-Ponty ("Having a body, for a living creature, is to be interinvolved in a definite environment, to identify oneself with certain projects and to be continually committed to them."), and Wittgenstein ("If you want an image of the soul, you should take a look at the human body") - or as Eagleton, himself, puts it "There is something more to a copy of Mansfield Park than print, but not in the sense that there is print and something else ...". I would add "Who could ... be so superstitious as to suppose that because one cannot see one's soul at the end of a microscope it does not exist" The Politics of Experience/The Bird of Paradise (p. 19). Well, that barely scratches the surface of the parallel - anyway ... fascinating!

I wondered if I would enjoy the latter parts of the book - which moves away from the more fundamental psychological research and discusses the impact of the findings in the context of design and culture more generally - especially the very long chapter 8 "Spaces We Create" - but that was really engaging. Less so, the final two chapters, which are somewhat rapturous - and in places verging on triumphalist; for example, the reference to Hans Rosling's Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think and "... the key to jumping up an economic level is moving farther in the world" (feet, bicycle, motor scooter, car, ...). Compare that with what Ivan Illich has to say in Tools for Conviviality about distance, time, and modes of transport (and the bicycle in particular) - now that's my example of perspective taking, which is itself one of the major topics of these last two chapters!

[Tiago F · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm curious about cognition, and I'm particularly interesting in cognition that goes beyond words or analytic thought. I was intrigued when I found this book, and I was hoping for something covering embodied cognitive science, which I'm familiar with but wanted to dig deeper.

The idea is that thought is not based on language, but rather spatial in nature. A good way to introduce this, which the author often mentions, is how we often use spatial terms without even thinking. For example, one of the most obvious spatial dimensions are our bodies. It is something "outside" of us, in a Cartesian sense, but at the same time the closest we have. We use metaphors such as "head of the nation, lost his head; right-hand person, on the one hand, hands down; foot of the mountains, all feet; arm of a chair, arm of the government; the idea doesn’t have legs", etc.

There also tons of other metaphors that go well beyond the body, such as "We grow close to some people and apart from others. Someone’s at the top of the heap; someone else has fallen into a depression. Ions attract or repel. New fields open up, uncharted territory. Others implode. Actions on thoughts are like actions on objects. We scan, focus, and scrutinize ideas; we turn them upside-down, we pull them together, we tear them up, we toss them aside. We move meetings forward or back, up or down."

Perhaps the best thing I took from the book was when she mentioned maps. And maps are not at all like an aerial photograph. They are maps of meaning, what is important. The information is selective. Only what matters for practical (spatial) terms is retained. An "objective" map is actually a poor one. The best example perhaps being an underground map. It is a schematic representation. It's not an objective geographical description at all, and that's what makes it readable and useful. They are in some sense obvious, but I didn't think about it before, and I found it useful when thinking about representations in general and how they relate to real-world phenomena.

Another aspect I liked about the book was reference points and asymmetries in spatial thinking. For example, famous landmarks seem closer to a given point if they are thought about from going a point to a landmark. For example from a random coffee shop in Paris to the Eiffel Tower. The distance is the same if we went backward, from the Eiffel Tower to the coffee shop, but we don't think it is. This applies to cognitive reference points as well. It creates a "conceptual" distance. For example, people view magenta as closer to red than red to magenta. This is because red is the reference point.

I really liked what the author calls "9 Laws of Cognition". From my understanding, it was created by the author and she uses it to explain some spatial factors. Regardless of the spatial use, I found they are good very rules for anyone when thinking about human psychology in general. The 9 rules are: There are no benefits without costs; Action molds perception; Feeling comes first; The mind can override perception; Cognition mirrors perception; Spatial thinking is the foundation of abstract thought; The mind fills in missing information; When thought overflows the mind, the mind puts it into the world; We organize the stuff in the world the way we organize the stuff in the mind.

But overall the book was disappointing. Despite the useful points that I mentioned, they could be explained in 20 pages or less. It didn't justify the book for me. The marketing of the book oversells the idea, and the writing was boring and repetitive. There were a few ideas that I think they were mentioned not only several times throughout the book, but it seemed like almost word for word...As if I was reading a draft that was not finished, and there was the same passage scattered across the book.

In the beginning, there was a lot of pop-psychology that was barely related to spatial thought. As it progressed, it got more on-topic, but it never really delivered a "aha moment". I was expecting to be convinced how space is fundamental to thought, but what the author presented most of the times were instances where thought is influenced by space. I'm not being pedantic. It's just the author treats the topic as if it is a complete revolution in psychology, but what supports this supposed revolution is rather underwhelming.

In addition, the book felt disorganized, and some topics seemed like they should barely made it the into the book at all, and they were made whole chapters. The author clearly has a deep interest in anything space related, but I had the impression that I was reading random notes of interesting studies that the author found, but not building a very coherent narrative with them. For example, at the end of the book, there is a chapter dedicated to comics. It was perhaps my favorite part of the book, as I quite like manga. However, it added almost nothing, there was no important insight into spatial thought. As interesting as it was, it wasn't an important pillar of the author's thesis. And that was an enjoyable chapter. Many others also did not fit in very well, but they were tedious.

I wish I had spent my time reading something else. I wanted to quit several times, but due to the few interesting ideas I mentioned in the book, I decided to push through. I kind of regret it. Nevertheless, I did take something out of it. And if you're interested in spatial thought, there might be some useful material, and perhaps her writing will not as tedious as it was for me. However, for anyone interested in the topic, I would urge you to look into embodied cognitive science first.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's not just that language is used to talk about the world, it's that the space of the world and the entities and events we perceive in the world structure language. It's not just that language structures space; it's that space structures language. Space came first. . . .

We spend our lives perceiving and acting in space. It is perceiving and acting in space that keeps us and our predecessors alive. The language and reasoning of space, perception, and action become the language and reasoning of all thought, spatial, social, emotional, scientific, philosophical, and spiritual.

A fascinating book. Not always the most dynamic writing and with a tendency to repeat itself over time, but clearly communicated and easy to understand, with myriad examples of the concepts. Well argued and convincing.

Assembly is actions on real objects. Thinking is mental actions on mental objects--ideas. Actions on ideas that transform them into something else. That's how we talk about thinking, as if it were actions on ideas. We put ideas aside or turn them upside down or inside out. We split them into parts or pull them together. We arrange and rearrange, enlarge, stretch, reverse, join, copy, add, scramble, subtract, lift, glue, push, fold, mix, toss, embellish separate, nail, scatter, bury, eliminate, turn, elevate, and poke holes in both real objects and mental ones. Intriguingly, we will see soon in the chapter on gesture that performing the actual actions helps the mental ones, the thinking.

-----

Despite the extraordinary expressiveness of the body, the face, and the hands, when we think about thinking, we typically think of words. . . .

Gestures come first, before words, both in evolution and in development.

-----

People blind from birth, both children and adults, gesture, even when speaking to each other. They have never seen gestures nor have their conversations partners. They seem to gesture for themselves. Gesturing by people who are blind, as for the people with sight in the previous experiments, seems to help them speak. But it turns out it isn't just word finding people have trouble with when they can't use their hands. Preventing gestures doesn't just disrupt speaking, it disrupts thinking.

-----

[To talk about the location of something,] you need a shared perspective. You need a common way of looking at the world as a starting point. In fact, it's likely you can't talk about anything without taking a perspective, implicit or explicit, and making sure that perspective is shared (n.b.: shared does not mean agreed). A number of different disciplines arrived at the same two basic perspectives if by different routes: egocentric, that is, with respect to a specific body, typically yours, and allocentric, that is, with respect to the surrounding world. The most familiar allocentric perspective is north-south-east-west.

[Clive F · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a intriguing book in two ways: first, the subject matter was fascinating, which wasn't a surprise as that's why I was reading it, but secondly, I found the prose style delightful. I'll come back to this later: let's start with the contents.

It's all about spatial thinking, and how the way space itself - via gestures, and the metaphors we derive from it - shape the very fundamentals of the way we think. Abstract thinking isn't "abstract" at all - it's based on spatial metaphors. We don't think with words inside our head, we think in (abstract) space in there.

From a personal point of view, this really struck a chord. I was a mathematician and then a computer programmer, and still play with both, and in these worlds I almost always find myself thinking spatially about problems, imagining I'm moving this variable or data structure from here to there, or twisting it in some way to change its form or use. Spatial thinking, Barbara Tversky contends, enables us to draw meaning from our bodies and their actions in the world.

One of the excellent things about this book is that it's all based in experiment. Hundreds of different experiments underpin the picture that is painted herein, with practical applications everywhere from things that are obviously spatial - how to draw better assembly instructions or navigation instructions - through the physically laid out - comic strips - to the abstract - how to come up with a larger variety of original designs.

As I said, I also came to love the prose style of Barbara Tversky. It beautifully combines short sentences, long sentences, simple words, technical jargon, sentence fragments, lists, the whole gamut, in such an elegant and rhythmic way. Here's a random example, where she's talking about tree diagrams:
"The enormity of the influence of tree diagrams on the accumulation and dissemination f knowledge has not been fully recognized. Trees, knowledge, brain. By now their uses are uncountable and their visualizations myriad. The Big Bang, phylogenetic trees, corporate trees, occupational trees, decision trees, diagnostic trees, linguistic trees, knowledge trees, probability trees, family trees, the list goes on. And on."

All in all, a great book. Four and a half stars.

[Joe Hoggard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mind in Motion by Barbara Tversky

Books that deeply explore how we think are intriguing and in this book Barbara Tversky explains how spatial thought (about our actions and place in space) is the basis for abstract thought and precedes and influences our use of language. She offers the Nine Laws of Cognition (which she admits are a bit of an oversimplification) in support of her thesis beginning with the first law: "There are no benefits without costs." The developing human brain from the time of infancy must perform trade-offs if we are to survive and learn. One such trade-off is deciding between taking in more information or acting on what's available at the moment. Acting on the world changes perception and in turn changes our brains.
The Eighth Law of Cognition: When thought overflows the mind, the mind puts it into the world. Think about to-do lists or any kind of externalization of thought. Taking those inner thoughts and putting them in the world "enlarges the mind, though not without limit because attention has limits: we still need to work with what we've put out there to make sense of it." (p 191) Thoughts in the world become tools for thinking which we use, revise and use again. Think about the feedback loop this has created through writing which allowed inner thoughts to be shared, to persist and to change both our thinking and our lives. Much like a good book! The author explains that expressing ideas does not have to be limited to words. Think of architecture, maps and gestures as a few examples where words are optional but continue to effect how we think and express how we have thought. There is so much more to this book, including a rich section on empathy and perspective taking, that if you are even a bit curious and persistent through some challenging sections, it is time well-spent for a broader perspective backed by scientific research.

[Brian Reid · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mind in Motion is a reminder that thinking isn’t something that happens only in the head; it happens in the body, in the way we move, point, trace, and make. Tversky treats gesture not as an afterthought to language but as a primary way humans understand, remember, and communicate.

Her observations on gesture as “responsive, not premeditated” reveal it as a living record of thought. A flick of the hand or sweep of the arm can map ideas, mark space, and even store memory, often before words arrive. She shows how gestures resemble environments, creating virtual maps that guide both speaker and listener step by step. In her framing, movement translates language into thought, shaping not only what we express but how we conceive of it in the first place.

What makes the book powerful is its attention to the hidden, uncharted dimensions of creativity: intuition as authority, the act of creating as the act of remembering who we are, the arts as mirrors of life’s sacred currents. Tversky gives a kind of “sacred permission” to trust the unknown, to let the hand lead the mind.

Whether she’s talking about drawing, teaching, or everyday conversation, her ideas have far-reaching implications for how we communicate, learn, and change perspective. Mind in Motion leaves you seeing gestures—and the potential of line, space, and movement—not as ornament but as the architecture of thought.

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked it. It has moments that inspired a desire to conceptualize the ideas in movement. I could imagine a choreographer or modern dancer exploring specific concepts it contained. This book appealed because I really enjoy big idea books and this book's materials suggested it would scratch that ich, but it felt like this book was trying too hard to be a big idea book. The style seemed to try to persuade and frame ideas as big,but they did not always match the hype in their originality or level of awe that they were trying to cue.

There are some interesting ideas, but mixed with some baseless claims about language and culture, and some that lacked a sense of nuance. I found myself thinking about my father-in-law who had confined movement after polio and yet was very intellectually sharp and accomplished, as a stand-in for an entire series of potential cases that were not addressed when describing how physical movement undergirds the ability to think. Perhaps some physical gesturing can still be simulated mentally--I guess I just wanted the claims to address this more fully.

Alva Noe may be of interest if you found this top compelling.

[William · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book with the expectation that I would finally hear someone explain how perception worked. How the brain gave us the experience of consciousness through some mechanism of behavior in our heads that matched our environment. Sadly, this was not what I got. Movement was the basis of abstract thought because Tversky said so without any explanation of how the brain did that. The author beguiled us with many fascinating experiments on the fact that movement of some sort or another aided subjects in completing a myriad of tasks thus implying that movement was the foundation of abstract thought. I didn’t get that in a convincing argument. Instead, I was, it appeared, to make that connection myself. I learned that gesture, and our ability to make designs, maps, illustrations, graphs and even comics showed how movement was foundational. I wish it did. Despite all this, I found the book interesting. At least I learned Tversky’s 9 rules of cognition and the fact that she could produce long lists of verbs.

[Xiang Chen · Rating 3 out of 5]

As summarized on the book jacket, the main thesis is that "movement and our interactions in space, not language, are the true foundation of thought". For one, thinking occurred much earlier before language so movement in space had a better chance of influencing thinking at a more foundational level.

This book is another difficult one to read.

The whole book reads like a prose. Colloquial. Easy to understand at the individual sentences level; yet hard to put together what's the take-away altogether.

A better way to organize this book would have been following the **nine laws of cognition**, which I think are the most salient message this book can deliver. However, the unstructured organization makes it hard to deep-dive into each individual law, leaving the reader wondering what each law means exactly.

[Alex Delogu · Rating 3 out of 5]

A sweeping look at how movement in space shapes thought. Written in a very accessible and exciting way. High point: the chapter on gesture. Gestures change thought and facilitate different understanding, not merely additional embellishment for language. Low point: sometimes there are just long lists of things. This feels a little content free.
Some other interesting takes include how taking a distant perspective, i.e. something is far away, facilitates abstract thinking.
Sketching as a creative means of thinking. Thinking is not just in your brain.

[Will Leben · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really exciting look at the operation of mind. Tversky presents a wealth of highly accessible experimental evidence, supplemented by everyday anecdotes that are even easier to fathom, showing how abstract thought is founded on concrete properties of the body as it exists in space. Action molds perception, and in turn the mind both mirrors perception and fills in missing information. A high point is the detailed description of the structural components of diagrams--points, lines, arrows, and the like--showing how data from the empirical world are mapped in the mind.

[Ken · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book did not deliver on what I thought was its promise--to explain how motion and our relationship with space is the basis for our thinking. It made a few really tantalizing points but the majority of the book feels like a vast survey letting you know briefly about every interesting thing the author had ever learned about thinking. Clearly someone with a lot of interests in a lot of areas, Tversky couldn't seem to settle on something for the book to be about.

[Jim Witkins · Rating 3 out of 5]

Perhaps a little disorganized, but I skipped around reading it anyway, picking out the sections that most interested me. I’d buy that spacial thinking was the precursor to other forms of thinking. “Space structures language.” Before we were able to communicate, educate, philosophize, gesture, make art, we had to survive our environment through action. Without bodies, in an environment, most of our thoughts wouldn’t make evolutionary sense.

[Marc Sierra · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book starts out strong but fades as you get further in. The author is definitely repetitive. Loves to use eight to ten words to categorize something when two or three would do.

It is a useful scientific reminder that we are not just souls being carried around in a meat suitcase. We really are body and soul.

[Jacob Folkman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fascinating subject matter, and I believe her assertions are correct, but it was on the repetitive side. I guess I'm a little more interested in the follow up to this book, what it all means for the nature of consciousness.

[Joanne McKinnon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Makes you think about how you think

No doubt Barbara Tversky is a much loved teacher. So engaging. Love her way with words. Makes want to learn more about cognitive science. I thoroughly loved this book.

[Cheryl Johnson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think this is important information, but the book just didn't catch for me. I'd highly recommend that people listen to Tversky's conversations with other academics and thought leaders (like Sam Harris).

[Alan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thought it was too much TED talk, and not coherent. Didn't live up to its title, but seems to cling to dualism.

[Rafał Grzesiakowski · Rating 3 out of 5]

She lost me in the second part of the book.

[RustyShack · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dnf chapter 4. Reads like the unedited draft of a dissertation.

[Brett · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book really changed the way I think about thinking. Brava!

[Keven Wang · Rating 2 out of 5]

A bit scattered.