Making Sense with Sam Harris #168 — Mind, Space, & Motion
9 snips
Sep 11, 2019 
In this engaging conversation, Barbara Tversky, an Emeritus professor of psychology at Stanford and expert in spatial thinking, joins to explore the connections between mind, space, and motion. They discuss how our understanding of space predates language and the role of gestures in communication. Tversky explains the influence of mirror neurons on cognition and the complexity of spatial reasoning. The impact of technology on navigation skills and the relationship between body movement and thought are also intriguing focal points that resonate throughout the discussion.
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Spatial Thinking's Primacy
- Barbara Tversky initially found cognitive psychology's focus on language incomplete, believing spatial thinking was foundational.
- Spatial thinking, predating language, underpins our understanding of the world, even influencing abstract concepts like numbers.
Spatial Reasoning Without Language
- Animals and babies, without complex language, demonstrate spatial reasoning, like number estimation.
- Number representation, often visualized spatially on a line, influences our mathematical thinking and notation systems.
Embodiment and Gesture
- Tversky avoids "embodiment," preferring to demonstrate body's role in thought through phenomena like mirror neurons and gesture.
- Gesturing externalizes thoughts, creating spatial-motor representations that improve comprehension and memory, even for the blind.
