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In what language do deaf people think?

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Re: In what language do deaf people think?

#91

Post by Natsu »

est wrote: post #79
awongh wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

actually, AFAIK, all the studies I've seen about english say that when you read, what you're looking at is the shape and pattern of the word, not it's representation as a string of symbols pasted together. (this is why you can read things that are misspelled and not notice that there are mistakes- your brain thinks that the shape of the linked letters looks close enough and is interpreted as being the actual word...…

> Maybe that system is just more prevalent in the asian education system. Sadly the modern Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese are choosing an alphabetical system rather than Chinese characters. The one and only civilization today still using logograms is China.

The Japanese have been using a hybrid system for some time now. I guess the number of Chinese characters they use regularly has become somewhat more limited, but it's been holding steady for quite a while now. They did try to get rid of them once, only to find out that it wasn't going to work very well.

You're right that the Koreans have pretty much abandoned logograms entirely, though. Now that they use hangul, I understand that there aren't many people remaining who can read anything written in their older writing systems.

Re: In what language do deaf people think?

#92

Post by stck »

ars wrote: post #14
tkahn6 wrote: post #3

I've also often wondered if the language one thinks in has any effect on cognition or the "efficiency" of thought (if that even makes sense).

Yes, but the difference is not the language, but the words. The complexity of the words. A single word can hold a large amount of meaning, but to the brain that single word uses the same "storage" and any other word. So by having many complex words a person can think more "efficiently". This is why many fields have jargon - the jargon helps the thinking process, by essentially acting like file compression - you compr…

Drawbacks? The difference could also be positive. Think of toki pona, an artificial language with only 123 words and their compounds.

http://en.tokipona.org/wiki/What_is_Toki_Pona%3F

When you see a bug, you a bug, whether it's a cockroach or a spider. Thinking becomes clearer and simpler (or so they say).

Re: In what language do deaf people think?

#93

Post by RiderOfGiraffes »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #73
RiderOfGiraffes wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious. I don't read "out loud, but silently" (if you see what I mean). I don't hear the words in my head as I read. I trained myself at age 8 or 9 to read very, very fast by not "sounding out" things in my head. Net result is that I get confused quickly by misspellings. Then I need to backtrack and read things "out loud" while trying not to see what's there. Which is tricky.

It's not sounding out as if I read aloud it's definitely much faster but it's also a phonic process to some extent. Scanning is less phonic in that no single words get sounded but somewhere there is a subconscious process still make phonic analysis I think - I can scan your comment for example and tell someone it's meaning but not the words you used. Were you an early reader? I read at age 11 when I was 6 (although f…

I don't really know how old I was when I learned to read - certainly I was reading by age 4, and probably reading at a standard of age 10 when I entered school at age 5.

But that's a guess.

And it seems to me that I have two modes of reading: fast and "normal." In both I have trouble with misspellings that create alternate or near alternate parses, and yet in "normal" I do "hear the voices in my head."

So it's not just that.

At this point I'm reminded of the tennis player who was losing a match, and during the change-over he said admiringly to his oppenent: "Your serve is the most fluid, flowing and graceful serve I've ever seen." "Thank you" replied his opponent. At the next change of ends he asked: "On the ball toss, do you breathe in or out?" His opponent didn't reply, but did lose his next 6 service games as he wondered.

I probably won't think too much more about exactly what happens when I read. Besides, I've heard that double-blind experiments in psychology and linguistics often produce results contrary to those produced by introspection.

I think I'll stick to math and hacking.

Re: In what language do deaf people think?

#94

Post by pbhjpbhj »

RiderOfGiraffes wrote: post #93
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not sounding out as if I read aloud it's definitely much faster but it's also a phonic process to some extent. Scanning is less phonic in that no single words get sounded but somewhere there is a subconscious process still make phonic analysis I think - I can scan your comment for example and tell someone it's meaning but not the words you used. Were you an early reader? I read at age 11 when I was 6 (although f…

I don't really know how old I was when I learned to read - certainly I was reading by age 4, and probably reading at a standard of age 10 when I entered school at age 5. But that's a guess. And it seems to me that I have two modes of reading: fast and "normal." In both I have trouble with misspellings that create alternate or near alternate parses, and yet in "normal" I do "hear the voices in my head." So it's not ju…

Lol, thanks for your thoughts.

Re: In what language do deaf people think?

#95

Post by scott_s »

shasta wrote: post #84
Groxx wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

additional thought, after ability to edit had passed: I wonder if it's to intentionally deflate scores which drop to -4. For particularly bad ones, it'd encourage moderators to downvote. Not that I particularly think yours is. Must've rubbed a few the wrong way.

I'm surprised that ~45 and counting people would downvote this. I assume these are people who saw "See no evil, hear no evil" and are taking it out on me.

Or, they felt you turned an honest, personal, on-topic comment into a bad joke.

Re: In what language do deaf people think?

#96

Post by scott_s »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #83
sliverstorm wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think in English as if I was having a conversation with myself. I think the best way to describe it is my brain precaches the words of objects or things or concepts I am thinking about. If I look at the bolts sitting on my table, I don't literally think in my mind 'oh look those are bolts'. I recognize them for what they are, my brain does some processing, and at the same time as my mind is about to wander of…

Agreed, thinking isn't words. Thinking happens lightning-fast below words. We just routinely load it into and out of the "language buffer" because we are the communicating animal. I often solve problems when thinking about something else - a song, a radio program. THen when I go back to the problem, the solution is clear. Where did that "Thinking" occur? Not in my language buffer, it was fully occupied. In fact in mi…

The debugging process you described has the same drawback as editing your own essay: you see what you think you wrote, not necessary what is there. That is, you know what a certain chunk of code is supposed to do, so you might glance over it and not actually read it again.

Experienced programmers know this, and constantly re-read their code to make sure it does what they think it does. But I just finished teaching programming to complete beginners, and this was a big hurdle. They would constantly say "My code's right, but the answer is wrong," not realizing the absurdity of the statement. It took a lot of time and patience to train them to always read the code they wrote.

Re: In what language do deaf people think?

#97

Post by riffic »

shasta wrote: post #84
Groxx wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

additional thought, after ability to edit had passed: I wonder if it's to intentionally deflate scores which drop to -4. For particularly bad ones, it'd encourage moderators to downvote. Not that I particularly think yours is. Must've rubbed a few the wrong way.

I'm surprised that ~45 and counting people would downvote this. I assume these are people who saw "See no evil, hear no evil" and are taking it out on me.

upvoted, I thought it was funny.

Re: In what language do deaf people think?

#98

Post by JoeAltmaier »

scott_s wrote: post #96
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, thinking isn't words. Thinking happens lightning-fast below words. We just routinely load it into and out of the "language buffer" because we are the communicating animal. I often solve problems when thinking about something else - a song, a radio program. THen when I go back to the problem, the solution is clear. Where did that "Thinking" occur? Not in my language buffer, it was fully occupied. In fact in mi…

The debugging process you described has the same drawback as editing your own essay: you see what you think you wrote, not necessary what is there. That is, you know what a certain chunk of code is supposed to do, so you might glance over it and not actually read it again. Experienced programmers know this, and constantly re-read their code to make sure it does what they think it does. But I just finished teaching pr…

Agreed. I am "reading" my code, a page/method/block at a time, but not with an internal dialog. And I'm certainly not "arguing with myself" in words about what it does. So the thinking is occurring below/behind/between the words.

Re: In what language do deaf people think?

#99

Post by JoeAltmaier »

est wrote: post #25

> Your speculations raise a larger question: Can you think without language? Answer: Nope, at least not at the level humans are accustomed to. Wait, I have a question: by thinking in language, does this mean, that, it's very common for people (in the English speaking world) to think like there was a background voice speaking in your head, like the thinking bubble scenes depicted in movies and sitcoms? As a Chinese, n…

No. No dialog. Unless I'm composing something to say to someone, no words going on. Just ideas.
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