Flying Pigs on National Public Radio: Promoting the wrong theory of language and understanding

NPR aired an interview recently with Benjamin Bergen, UCSD cognitive scientist, discussing an embodied view of word meaning.  The basic idea is nothing new by now: we understand words by "simulating" our physical experiences that have become associated with those words.  Here's a quote taken from the NPR transcript of the interview: If someone read a sentence like, "the shortstop threw the ball to first base," parts of the brain dedicated to vision and movement would light up, Bergen says. "The question was, why?" he says. "They're just listening to language. Why would they be preparing to act? Why would they be thinking that they were seeing something?"  The answer that emerged from this research is that when you encounter words describing a particular action, your brain simulates the experience, Bergen says.  "The way that you understand an action is by recreating in your vision system what it would look like to perceive that event and recreating in your motor system what it would be like to be that shortstop, to have the ball in your hand and release it," Bergen says. This is standard embodied cognition speak.  I haven't read his book, but this view seems to be the central topic of Bergen's monograph, Louder than words: the new science of how the brain makes meaning.  I'm sure his book is much more careful and articulated than the interview, but the interview is what more people will hear and so deserves a response, particularly because t...
Source: Talking Brains - Category: Neurologists Authors: Source Type: blogs