durex carson: Mental imagery gives language meaning

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Mental imagery gives language meaning

David Robson, features editor

WHAT do you think of when you read the phrase "flying pig"? Chances are that a striking image will have fleetingly passed through your mind. Perhaps it's a winged "Pigasus", as imagined by John Steinbeck. Or, if you are a fan of The Simpsons, it might be Homer's precious roast pig launching past Mr Burns's office.

In Louder Than Words, Benjamin Bergen, a cognitive scientist at the University of California, San Diego, builds a strong case that such "embodied simulations" lie at the centre of the brain's processing of language. Every time we hear a word, he argues, it brings to mind sights, sounds, feelings and actions, as if we are experiencing them first-hand. Importantly, what is brought to mind depends on your unique experiences - your flying pig will be very different to mine.

Writers have been working with this principle for thousands of years, of course, but the idea has only recently attracted the focused attention of cognitive scientists, with fascinating results. We take longer to comprehend "I kick" than "I eat", for instance, simply because the neurons that process sensations from the feet are further from the language centres than those handling the mouth. Considering how the brain embodies words - whether or not you have a strongly visual imagination, for example - might even explain a preference for the vivid imagery in Jane Eyre over the wordplay of The Importance of Being Earnest.

Bergen writes with a lightness of touch and a jovial wit. He is particularly captivating when he explains the hoops the brain jumps through to embody mercurial sentences that seem to flip halfway through, such as the Groucho Marx quip that "time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana".

After reading this book, words will never hold quite the same meaning for you again.