Has Language Changed How We Think?

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Language is based on the way we perceive and interact with things in space. It's fair to say that space and movement have changed how we describe things. All our spatial representations depend on interactions, they're a coupling of what we do and how we perceive it. People adapted by moving, by grasping things and if they didn't grasp things and recalibrate how space was represented in the brain, then they didn't learn to behave in the new situation.

My guest today is acclaimed psychologist and longtime Stanford University professor Barbara Tversky who calls on her nearly 50 years in the field of cognitive psychology for an in-depth discussion about how our minds work.

We discuss the Nine Laws of Cognition, why action shapes thought, how the language we use changes what we think, tactics to communicate better on Zoom, why she dove into the work of Leonardo da Vinci, when to use charts and when to avoid them, the importance of perspective taking, learned knowledge vs. earned knowledge, and so much more.

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