From: Coopz 20/07/99 11:11:52 Subject: Our thoughts. post id: 24950 We all think with an internal voice. If a person is born deaf in what manner do they think? Do they develop their own language or do they think in vision or with some other sense? From: James Richmond (Avatar) 20/07/99 13:42:25 Subject: re: Our thoughts. post id: 24997 I disagree with your first statement. We don't think with an internal voice, or at least not most of the time. If people think in any type of language at all, it is probably some type of "mentalese" as opposed to any spoken or written language. However, even saying we think in mantalese might be going too far. Thinking may be a combination of images, sounds and concepts pulled from memory and integrated with sensory inputs. A common mistake which can slow down reading is to sub-vocalise the words being read - i.e. when you imagine how the words on the page would sound if spoken by someone. This adds an extra, unnecessary step into the reading comprehension process. If you avoid subvocalisation, your reading speed will improve significantly. I imagine that deaf people think in much the same way as everybody else. The equivalent to subvocalisation for a deaf person might be to imagine the sign gestures which match up with the words being read. JR From: Dr. Ed G (Avatar) 20/07/99 20:23:50 Subject: re: Our thoughts. post id: 25150 Read "Seeing voices" by Oliver Sacks, which covers much of the important history, physiology, and politics of the Deaf. I suspect the internal "mentalese" grammar is the same just mapped onto a visual grammar rather than an aural one. Soupie twist, Ed G. From: Trev(TAO) 20/07/99 20:51:06 Subject: re: Our thoughts. post id: 25160 what if the person is both blind an deaf from birth will they their mentalese be a touch based language or something else? :-)> Trev(TAO) This forum is un-moderated. The views and opinions expressed are those of the individual poster and not the ABC. The ABC reserves the right to remove offensive or inappropriate messages.