Can we think without language?

[Jumpinbare]

I took dance lessons for many years in my teens and early 20s. There is something that dancers call "muscle memory" when the body just knows how to move to execute the steps of choreography without conscious thought. The body just knows what to do even though the mind is seemingly blank.

To please my wife, I took ballroom dance lessons. We went together, because she wanted to see what they were teaching so we could practice at home.

I tried. I really tried. After the third lesson, as we drove home, she said "Thank you for trying. I know you tried your best. But we don't need to keep putting you through this.

Trying to execute the dance movements was like trying to do long division in my head. I think dyspraxia trumps muscle memory every time.

 

[Crossbreed]

Does that mean that you are not just going to waltz into this forum...?

 

[Jumpinbare]

Correct

 

[AuAL]

My wife at one stage taught ballet. We tried to dance in the kitchen. We crashed into the stove.

 

[Crossbreed]

The WAIS IQ test has four different subtests,*

1. nonverbal reasoning,
2. memory,
3. verbal reasoning &
4. processing speed.

The article in the OP is contrasting nos. 1 & 3.

*Listed in order of my highest to lowest. (Most NTs have about the same score in each.)

Further, nonverbal IQ tests (like Raven's Matrices) are more accurate for autistics* than verbal IQ tests are. NTs, OTOH, score about the same on each.

*Even for ASD1s.

 

[FayetheAspie]

Further, nonverbal IQ tests (like Raven's Matrices) are more accurate for autistics* than verbal IQ tests are. NTs, OTOH, score about the same on each.

*Even for ASD1s.

What if your verbal IQ is well above average and so is your visual/spatial IQ, but your mathematical IQ struggles to stay in the average range?

In high school I scored within the top 1% in some categories of verbal intelligence. A couple of years ago I was tested by a psychiatrist. She had a book that gets progressively more complex as you go through and upon reaching an area you no longer do well at the test ends. She had to open a vocabulary page that she said she never has to open when testing people like she was doing. Needless to say, my score was very high. Back in high school, I don't believe my visual spatial IQ was ever tested but I scored extremely high on her test for that as well. In high school, I managed to keep my mathematical scores within the average range, but math always stressed me. I did not use math much after graduation so my mathematical abilities deteriorated by the time she tested me. I was only able to do math at an 8th grade level on her test.

 

[FayetheAspie]

What if your verbal IQ is well above average and so is your visual/spatial IQ, but your mathematical IQ struggles to stay in the average range?

In high school I scored within the top 1% in some categories of verbal intelligence. A couple of years ago I was tested by a psychiatrist. She had a book that gets progressively more complex as you go through and upon reaching an area you no longer do well at the test ends. She had to open a vocabulary page that she said she never has to open when testing people like she was doing. Needless to say, my score was very high. Back in high school, I don't believe my visual spatial IQ was ever tested but I scored extremely high on her test for that as well. In high school, I managed to keep my mathematical scores within the average range, but math always stressed me. I did not use math much after graduation so my mathematical abilities deteriorated by the time she tested me. I was only able to do math at an 8th grade level on her test.

I was mistaken about the visual/spatial IQ. They bragged on me at the time so I was under the impression that I had done extremely well; however, I have been examining that portion of my evaluation in detail today and it is actually average.
The verbal portion really is high though.
I'm a bit confused because my strengths seem to be backwards of what one would expect with an autism diagnosis. Verbal IQ should be my biggest struggle, and yet it seems to be my strongest point as IQ scores go.
I'm also puzzled because I seem to notice when something breaks a visual pattern so much that some people find it annoying.

 

[Captain Caveman]

I was mistaken about the visual/spatial IQ. They bragged on me at the time so I was under the impression that I had done extremely well; however, I have been examining that portion of my evaluation in detail today and it is actually average.
The verbal portion really is high though.
I'm a bit confused because my strengths seem to be backwards of what one would expect with an autism diagnosis. Verbal IQ should be my biggest struggle, and yet it seems to be my strongest point as IQ scores go.
I'm also puzzled because I seem to notice when something breaks a visual pattern so much that some people find it annoying.

You have me thinking. If the ones assessing usually assess those with either very low general IQ's or people who are generally hopeless at certain subjects, and one happens to be blessed with a generally high IQ, the subjects one may be failing in due to autism, could be very noticeable for oneself who would in other subjects do extremely well without even trying, but to get up to just average when one has tried extremely hard, and then told by an assessor that one is very good (When one knows it is not good as if it was any other subject, due to ones IQ one would have done exceptionally well...)
I remember for a few weeks some kids I was in class with in primary school joined the cubs (Same as scouts, though scouts were for older children). The regulars were the kids of one or two families in classes that were not mine as were different ages to me, and a few were older as the son of one of the ladies in charge was there (May have been the ladies husband was the organizer?).
Now we all met at the village hall and they organized a quiz. I think I was somewhere around 7, 8 or 9 years old at the time? Not that old, and the boy who was the son of the leaders was older. I think the others from my class who I knew had not turned up that day, but as I was made to feel welcome I was there. Most there were older. Now as the quiz commenced, I found the questions were so easy to answer it was if the questions had been set for younger children? But oddly, the older children did not seem to know the answers, or were struggling to answer them. So I was far quicker to answer them first. And despite me being younger than most of them there, they assumed I was extremely intelligent. (I am above average but I would say if there was a test in my class of around 30 pupils, I would come around 8th? So if the top of my class had come, they would outclass me, but it was then when I realized that the older ones I had looked up to were not that bright, and neither were their parents, though I am certainly not knocking them at all! They were very nice people and gave a lot of their time up to leading the cubs!)
Anyway. As my classmates decided to abandon the cubs I did not stay, as it kinda came to a head when they said it was compulsory to attend a church for this one event which I did not want to go without there being anyone else I knew there, and also, on the day, I could not get anyone to take me as there was something my parents had to do that day. I wasn't allowed to walk there by myself. So that was the last I did as we were told if we did not attend we could not stay in the cubs.

Anyway. What I am saying is that if the bulk of the people the assessors deal with are of very low intelligence (Which does not matter really as it is what one does with whatever intelligence one has which matters), then they may assume one has no problem when in reality one does, as one maybe seriously compensating in other ways to get average results, and if average is higher than expected, it may not be picked up on where one is struggling, which is what I am trying to say!

Maths... I am a bit spikey in maths. I either do well or do not that great, and the difference between the one extreme and the next extreme through exams would even puzzle me, and those who taught me.
Many years later my Mum and I discovered why. I am a visual thinker which does not always work well in maths. I failed college due to maths as all mechanical and electrical subjects relied on maths, and then I left collage, did night classes to resi a maths exam I had a mediocre result in my final exam when I left school, and when I reset it I got 100%. So maths with me is very up and down. And I was really upset when I did that maths exam as I saw a baby bird on a drain unable to get out or get back to its nest in the gutter above. It was sitting on the grating of the drain. The caretaker for the building was around while we were outside waiting to be let in, and I pointed this little bird out, and he went over to it and there and then stepped on it and killed it. And I had to there and then go in to do that exam! How I got 100% I have no idea. I even answered the trick question correctly. The next week the teacher was giving us our results. I was the only one to get a good grade, but I wasn't hanging around as the building brought me the memories of that little bird. I would have looked after it had I known he was going to do that! I would have dug worms every day and fed them to the little bird!

Anyway. I just came in, got my results and left. The rest wanted to stay and chat. I just wanted to leave as soon as I could.

 

[Wolfiedog]

My question is does language dampen our ability to think?

 

[Crossbreed]

My question is does language dampen our ability to think?

No. It is just a different paradigm. Most (if not all) pattern recognition is nonverbal.

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

I talk to myself in my mind, do a lot of picturing things, even rerunning stuff in minds eye. Nothing I enjoy more than seeing a new physics theory, visualizing it in my head If I cannot know it's probably wrong. Heisenberg. uncertainty principle, Pauli exclusions principle special theory of relativity so obvious. do not need to do the math.

 

[FayetheAspie]

@Captain Caveman That's horrible about the little bird. I don't understand why some people are so cold like that.

 

[Crossbreed]

No. It is just a different paradigm. Most (if not all) pattern recognition is nonverbal.

In first grade spelling bees, I could see the texts in my mind's eye, in their printed font.* That is an example of nonverbal reasoning.

In high school spelling bees, I knew enough spelling rules (like "i before e except after c...") that I could spell words that I had not even seen before. That is an example of verbal reasoning.

*Words still look wrong to me when they are misspelled.

 

[SusanLR]

In first grade spelling bees, I could see the texts in my mind's eye, in their printed font.* That is an example of nonverbal reasoning.

I use this technique all the time to remember certain things. I get the visual image and then when I want to remember it, I can see it in my mind's eye like I'm reading it.

I use both mental pictures and language. My mind is never still from words though.
So, thinking in words is the most dominant.

@Captain Caveman

I think in pictures a lot so I guess the answer is "Yes", though I do remember as a very young me being seriously frustrated to the point of meltdowns because I could not communicate. I have memories right back to my first few months and actually one where I must have been a day or two old

I have the same memories. It is possible for some of us to remember back to birth and I also remember being frustrated at not being able to put my word thoughts into speech before my brain developed to the point I could speak.

I know science and psychology say this is impossible, yet it has been proven babies do form memories and can pick up on language even before birth. Why these memories are not retained is an area that neuroscience has been studying.
They have theories but no real proof.
Also, I could see at that age too. Just wanted to add more proof to your above message.

 

[Crossbreed]

...and actually one where I must have been a day or two old.

It seems to me that even if you saw stuff at that age, there would not be any context to know why it was relevant. About the only relevant interactions would be the stream of giant creatures appearing by your bed, sometimes picking you up and one even shoves her body parts in your face...!

 

[Crossbreed]

I have the same memories. It is possible for some of us to remember back to birth and I also remember being frustrated at not being able to put my word thoughts into speech before my brain developed to the point I could speak.

I know science and psychology say this is impossible, yet it has been proven babies do form memories and can pick up on language even before birth. Why these memories are not retained is an area that neuroscience has been studying.
They have theories but no real proof.

Some have taught their babies to sign before they acquire spoken language.

Baby Sign Language

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

My mind works visually so words said may not be relevant, but visual film-like segments of time were remembered and recorded. Think of an early memory before I learned to talk and understand words being like watching TV without sound. But there again I did remember words in some of the visions and made sense of these words later.

Example. I was in my pram on the railway station being shown to look at a train coming in. I remember the very distinct shape of the locomotive as it came in ready to stop at the station for us to get on the guards van where prams would go, so we could be taken to the next town.
Now for many years I could not make sense of this memory. I recall my Mum telling me to look at the train, so I remember this... but the loco and when this memory happened was a mystery to me for a great many years.
One day around 15 years ago, I realized that why the loco was a mystery to me, as it was not the same shape of locomotive I commonly saw as a child. I later put two and two together and realized it was a Western Diesel which is a class of loco that was commonly in use on the line before I was born, and when I worked on the railway and worked with some of the older staff who had been there a long time (Not long before they retired) I asked the ones with a good memory when the last time a Western diesel was working the line. One of these members of staff had such an accurate mind for detail that when I once asked him about the 82T Pallet Vans I also used to see passing my primary school next to the line, he told me the guards turn numbers, the trains headcode numbers, the train times and where they went and how many pallet vans were being towed (The question I had initially asked him. Answer =14 ). His mind and the mind of other staff were so clear and sharp! I was given the exact year when these distinctive locomotives were last used, so the oldest I would have been was a year old.
And then by telling my Mother of the memory she said "I only had you in a pram for the first six months or just a little later than that as I bought a pushchair after that". (Pushchair had a tray underneath so she could bring back shopping as my parents did not have a car on the road in those days, and was one that could recline and also had an additional seat to go on the front, as my parents had been trying for a second child so had bought this multi-use pushchair instead).

So this memory was at the latest when I was a year old and it took me many years to work out when it was and what type of locomotive I had seen! (I knew exactly where it was!)

NIce to know of another visual thinker.

 

[Captain Caveman]

NIce to know of another visual thinker.

Do you find you do maths in a different way when you need to think deeply?

 

[Crossbreed]

Do you find you do maths in a different way when you need to think deeply?

For programming and electronics, I visualize block diagrams. The latter ultimately led me to the faulty component(s).

It is like having Legos in your head.
In electronics, you have to get physical components to realize your vision.
In programming, you have an unlimited supply of commands that you can repeat, as often as needed.

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

Do you find you do maths in a different way when you need to think deeply?

Math has always been easy to me as long as I can see it my mind one of the reasons I prefer physics to math. proofs not my thing.