>>>>> "Alan" == Alan Roth <alan42 at mindspring.com> writes:
Alan> I used to be a totally verbal thinker. One day (in 1983?) on
Alan> a whim, I went around the office to 7 or 8 of my
Alan> high-tech. co-workers and asked them "how" they think. In
Alan> those days, that would not get you fired immediately--I
Alan> wouldn't recommend it today. Once they understood the
Alan> question, the answers seemed to fall about equally into two
Alan> groups, (and, yes, I know this is a very small
Alan> sample)--either they were verbal like me, or they thought in
Alan> "pictures."
I don't think there are anyone who thinks completely verbally. If
there is any such person, I'd be interested in investigating how he
would play the game of tetris, and how he tells apart squares from
circles.
Anyway, your observation is a pretty typical one: some people think
more dominantly in words and some people tend to visualize concepts
more often. I myself fall into the latter group. I find it much
easier to memorize and make derivations by visualization: a diagram
beats a thousand words! However, there are times that I think neither
verbally or visually: When I'm humming a piece of music. When I
recite the first 200 decimal places of pi, I do it musically: I rely
on the sounds and (predominantly) tones of the Cantonese pronunciation
of the 10 digits. So, I can't recite them if I try to do it in
Mandarin or English.
Alan> This was novel to me, but I taught myself to visualize
Alan> concepts, even abstract ones--guess what--my comprehension
Alan> of the world increased with practice and I suspect my
Alan> measureable IQ has risen too--(it hasn't been tested
Alan> recently, but one knows what things are amenable to solution
Alan> and not).
Knowing more methods of thinking (as well as more languages) do
increase your ability to think. At least, you have more alternatives
to try, so that you can hit some more effective ones by trial and
error.
Alan> I learned to switch modes, depending on the type of
Alan> problem. There is no doubt that "a picture is worth a
Alan> thousand words." It is explication for others that is
Alan> sometimes difficult--words are so limiting and so slow.
True. Same for languages: I can think in Cantonese, English,
Mandarin, or even none of these. Being able to switch is surely an
advantage.
--
Lee Sau Dan $(0,X)wAV(B(Big5) ~{@nJX6X~}(HZ)
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