# An interesting question.



## PixlCrushr (Oct 28, 2011)

I was just thinking, in my head, my thoughts are in English... What does someone who is deaf think in?

-Pixl


----------



## JoostinOnline (Oct 28, 2011)

I've wondered that myself.  All my thoughts (excluding pure emotions of course) are in English.


----------



## AlanJohn (Oct 28, 2011)

That must be the most intelligent and inspiring question I have ever read in my entire life.

I think that people who weren't deaf from birth probably still think in their native language.
But the people who are deaf from birth probably never felt something like this and think without words, which I think is really hard to imagine.


----------



## prowler (Oct 28, 2011)

They would think in whatever language they learned.
They can read so they know words and how to say (well think) them to a degree.

You see these videos of deaf people being able to hear again, one recently I watched was a woman and she could talk normally.


----------



## smash_brew (Oct 28, 2011)

thats a good question. i often ask my bilingual friends what language they think in. the next question now is what would they dream in. i have a friend that thinks mostly in english but dreams mostly in spanish, but a deaf person would probably dream and think the same. at least i think they would. Maybe they see sign language in their minds. i'm going to have to make friends with a deaf person today.


----------



## Hells Malice (Oct 28, 2011)

prowler_ said:


> They would think in whatever language they learned.
> They can read so they know words and how to say (well think) them to a degree.
> 
> You see these videos of deaf people being about to hear again, one recently I watched was a women and she could talk normally.



Damn.
Was just gonna post this.


----------



## PixlCrushr (Oct 28, 2011)

Hells Malice said:


> prowler_ said:
> 
> 
> > They would think in whatever language they learned.
> ...



The thing is though, they have no idea of what the word would sound like, they would have to literally 'see' the word in their head, which would be a really weird way of thinking to me.

It's the same kind of thing if you imagine trying to describe the colour green to a man who has been blind his whole life.


----------



## bowser (Oct 28, 2011)

Wow. Thinking about this is a real mind-fuck


----------



## Densetsu (Oct 28, 2011)

You actually think in pictures, not words.  The mind is highly visual.

When you're awake and recalling a dream, you're subconsciously encoding pictures into words that your conscious mind can understand.  Even when you speak to someone in your dream, you're only seeing a picture (or video, if you will) of yourself speaking to someone.  Your mind fills in the concepts and ideas of the content of the conversation, but you don't actually "hear" the words, per se.

One of my Japanese friends can't speak English, so when I speak to him, we converse in Japanese.  I have another friend who's American and can understand some Japanese, but can't speak it very well.  So when we all get together, our conversations are a mix between Japanese and English.  One time we were planning a road trip.  Later on that evening after my Japanese friend had gone home, the American friend said "oh before I forget, we should stop by Hakone and check out the hot springs sometime during the trip."  And I said "Don't you remember us having a whole conversation about that?  We're already planning to go there!"  He insisted that I never mentioned it, but I swore that I had talked about it and our Japanese friend was also excited about going to Hakone.  Then he said "Oh, then maybe you were talking about it in Japanese and I didn't understand."  When he said that, I thought about it, and I realized that I couldn't remember if I had that conversation in Japanese or English.  I distinctly remembered _having_ the conversation, but I just couldn't recall hearing the words in either language in particular.  It actually happens quite often, and I'm sure that others who are bilingual or multilingual have the same experience.

If dreaming required language, it would preclude dreaming in other mammals.  But other mammals dream as well.  My dog dreams all the time.  He twitches, whines and barks in his sleep.  What language do you think animals dream in?  The answer is, they don't dream in any language.  And neither do we.

I actually first learned this back when I took intro to psychology in university.


----------



## PixlCrushr (Oct 29, 2011)

Densetsu said:


> You actually think in pictures, not words.  The mind is highly visual.



Just found this... worth a read.

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2486/in-what-language-do-deaf-people-think

-Pixl


----------



## Densetsu (Oct 29, 2011)

So did dreaming and thinking not exist in humans before language was invented?




*EDIT*
To counter my own argument, there are people who are born blind, but clearly they can still think. I wish I'd thought of asking that while sitting in my psychology class. I'll have to ponder this some more.


----------



## JoostinOnline (Oct 29, 2011)

Densetsu said:


> So did dreaming and thinking not exist in humans before language was invented?


Language wasn't "invented", lol.


----------



## Vulpes Abnocto (Oct 29, 2011)

JoostinOnline said:


> Densetsu said:
> 
> 
> > So did dreaming and thinking not exist in humans before language was invented?
> ...




Language might not have been "invented" per se, but it "developed", and that's all Densetsu was saying.

Is it odd that I occasionally dream in text?


----------



## Densetsu (Oct 29, 2011)

JoostinOnline said:


> Densetsu said:
> 
> 
> > So did dreaming and thinking not exist in humans before language was invented?
> ...


I meant "before the advent of language," but that's besides the point.

*EDIT*
Whoa,  'd by VP!


----------



## Vulpes Abnocto (Oct 29, 2011)

Densetsu said:


> Whoa,  'd by VP!


I've been learning from the best.


----------



## haflore (Oct 29, 2011)

I've seen this question in at least a few places...
I think people who are born deaf think using mostly images and concepts, and maybe a few (written )words.


----------



## Rayder (Oct 29, 2011)

I have a deaf cousin and asked her that question, she said she thinks in English, since that is the language she learned to read and write.

Did you know that deaf people CAN experience music?  If they touch or sit on a speaker, they can "feel/hear" the sound.  Usually though, they have to have the music so loud that it annoys other people who can hear so they can feel the vibrations.


----------



## JoostinOnline (Oct 29, 2011)

This reminds me of a similar question a friend asked me.  How do you explain color to a blind person?


----------



## Densetsu (Oct 29, 2011)

PixlCrushr said:


> Just found this... worth a read.
> 
> http://www.straightd...af-people-think
> 
> -Pixl


I also did a little more digging on the link you posted to find out who this Cecil Adams is, and this is what I found.  Basically it says we should believe everything he says because he says so.  According to that page, it says something to the effect of "Cecil Adams is the smartest man in the world because he just is" and that "he is never wrong."  To me it seemed like the writer of that page explaining Cecil Adams was simply being facetious.

Think about your own typical day (really, close your eyes and do it).  You wake up, get out of bed, brush your teeth, take a shower, get dressed, eat breakfast, and head out the door to start your day.  When you think about the things you do, are you seeing a paragraph of words describing those tasks in your mind?  Are you reading a "mental paragraph" the same way you would read this paragraph on your monitor?  Nope, you're thinking about it as if it were a movie.

You can post as many links as you can find supporting the idea that you think in words, but I'm willing to bet I'd be able to find equally as many links arguing the case for pictures, and probably even other sources arguing that we think in a combination of both.  So which theory is correct, then?  Well, I'm not claiming to be any more credible than Cecil Adams or any other random website, but I have personal anecdotal experiences to back up my own thoughts on the matter.  I also draw my own conclusions from actual scientific research journals and basic knowledge of neuroscience (I'm a medical student).

*EDIT*
Cecil Adams says that deaf people think in Sign.  American Sign Language is heavily based on images.  Take, for instance, the sign for "Jew."  As racist as it might be considered, it's a depiction of a traditional Ashkenazi Jew with a long beard.



Vulpes Abnocto said:


> Densetsu said:
> 
> 
> > Whoa,  'd by VP!
> ...


I didn't know TrolleyDave took up a new disciple


----------



## Sora de Eclaune (Oct 29, 2011)

Vulpes Abnocto said:


> JoostinOnline said:
> 
> 
> > Densetsu said:
> ...


Is it odd that I occasionally think in images?


----------



## duel (Oct 29, 2011)

Sora de Eclaune said:


> Vulpes Abnocto said:
> 
> 
> > JoostinOnline said:
> ...


That's called imagination.

I'd guess a deaf person would think in a way they could understand. Though I'd never want to be in their shoes.


----------



## Cyan (Oct 29, 2011)

Vulpes Abnocto said:


> Is it odd that I occasionally dream in text?


Yes, it's very odd, because while sleeping the part of the brain which is used for words is deactivated.

You can't read or write in dreams.
You can of course "dream that you write" or "dream that you read", but you can't actually read what's written.
Sometime when you remember your dreams, and there were some reading/writting behavior, try remembering what was written physically and read it again. You shouldn't be able to do it.

Text is just some visual signs too, but it's strange that you can picture an object's form, but not a letter's form.



About thinking in which language:
I'm native French, and I often think in english   

But there are two way of "thinking".
I can "talk the words in my heads like if I were speaking to myself out loud"
and I can "imagine the situation that I want to do without thinking with any word". I can just know what I want, what I desire or need to do.


About what Densetsu said, while not remembering the used language, I think it's not totally the same thing as thinking with pictures.
it's more not caring which language you used to understand a situation.
sometime I read some text and only after few lines I realize which language I'm reading. I don't make any difference when reading French or English, I understand the meaning automatically without the need to translate.
I think you remember talking about that subject, but you didn't care which language you used, it was natural in either ones.

I think meanings or symbols is more appropriate than "visually imagining".
like you said, blind people might not used image, but they know what they want, their ideas (like eating when hungry).

I think Japanese language is even more used in symbols than western languages, like watashi is used for everything referring you yourself and not to the word "I" or "me", kagami for everything that reflect and not to the object "mirror" or the word "reflection".


(sorry, the post may be a little mixed with different ideas)


----------



## ProtoKun7 (Oct 29, 2011)

JoostinOnline said:


> This reminds me of a similar question a friend asked me.  How do you explain color to a blind person?


As various different wavelengths of light.


----------



## JoostinOnline (Oct 29, 2011)

ProtoKun7 said:


> JoostinOnline said:
> 
> 
> > This reminds me of a similar question a friend asked me.  How do you explain color to a blind person?
> ...


That explains what color is, but not what it looks like.


----------



## Wizerzak (Oct 29, 2011)

To explain colour to a person you just need to describe what feelings/emotions that colour depicts or what it is used for etc.

What 'colour' they actually imagine is irrelevant, for all we know, the colour I see as red, someone else might see as what I would call blue.


----------



## spotanjo3 (Oct 29, 2011)

PixlCrushr said:


> I was just thinking, in my head, my thoughts are in English... What does someone who is deaf think in?
> 
> -Pixl



I am curious... Are you deaf ?


----------



## Flame (Oct 29, 2011)

RockmanForte said:


> PixlCrushr said:
> 
> 
> > I was just thinking, in my head, my thoughts are in English... What does someone who is deaf think in?
> ...



you are not the sharpest tool in the toolbox are you.


----------



## Vulpes Abnocto (Oct 29, 2011)

Cyan said:


> Vulpes Abnocto said:
> 
> 
> > Is it odd that I occasionally dream in text?
> ...



Specifically I've dreamed in IRC. I interacted with some of the people around here the way I always do: in text. I could see the keyboard, my hands, the screen, and the conversation. It's only happened a time or two, but it seemed pretty odd to me. 
And no, I can't recall the conversations now.

Wish I could check the history....


----------



## ProtoKun7 (Oct 29, 2011)

JoostinOnline said:


> ProtoKun7 said:
> 
> 
> > JoostinOnline said:
> ...


I know, but it's a start.
It did explain it, after all.



Vulpes Abnocto said:


> Cyan said:
> 
> 
> > Vulpes Abnocto said:
> ...



[img]http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/tcmp.png[/img]


----------



## Densetsu (Oct 29, 2011)

Regarding dreaming about text, when we see it in a dream, I think it's more of a mish-mash of symbols akin to something out of _The Matrix_, only with familiar Roman symbols (or whatever writing you use in your language) and not backwards katakana.  You shouldn't be able to remember the text forming actual words, as Cyan pointed out.  Your mind actually fills in the details of what that text is so that when you wake up and recall the dream, you only think you're remembering what the text said when in reality your mind fabricated and put the (visual) memory there.

And we should keep in mind: exactly what is "language," anyway?  It's just sounds and symbols that encode images, thoughts and concepts into another form external to your mind.  Without language, we'd still have those images, thoughts and concepts, they'd just be locked in our minds with no way to communicate them with _others_.


----------



## alidsl (Oct 29, 2011)

The first post gave me a mindfuck  , but thanks to densetsu I'm OK

Also is there any reason for the hidden links to hot ninjas Densetsu?


----------



## wrettcaughn (Oct 29, 2011)

That is heavy.


----------



## Densetsu (Oct 29, 2011)

alidsl said:


> Also is there any reason for the hidden links to hot ninjas Densetsu?


I don't know what you're talking about.  



Spoiler



Hot ninjas secretly watching you with every post I make


----------



## ThatDudeWithTheFood (Oct 29, 2011)

Densetsu said:


> alidsl said:
> 
> 
> > Also is there any reason for the hidden links to hot ninjas Densetsu?
> ...


WHERE?!?!??!??!?


----------



## Densetsu (Oct 29, 2011)

ThatDudeWithTheFood said:


> WHERE?!?!??!??!?


Stay on topic


----------



## PixlCrushr (Oct 30, 2011)

It was really great to see some intelligent answers, some of which actually helped me get my head round the question, thanks guys 

-Pixl


----------



## Densetsu (Oct 30, 2011)

JoostinOnline said:


> This reminds me of a similar question a friend asked me.  How do you explain color to a blind person?


I can't think of a way to verbally explain color to someone who was born blind.  But interestingly enough, it is possible to show color to a blind person by probing their brain and electrically stimulating the occipital lobe.

Subjects of these kinds of experiments have reported seeing random-colored, amorphous spots of light.  People with congenital blindness (born blind) weren't able to describe the lights since they were using their eyes for the first time ever, and therefore never learned to assign words like "red," "green," "blue" and "yellow" to certain colors.

People who were born with normal eyesight but became blind later on in life were able to confirm different colors and describe qualities like "hazy," "blurry," "sharp edges," etc.



PixlCrushr said:


> It was really great to see some intelligent answers, some of which actually helped me get my head round the question, thanks guys
> 
> -Pixl


Glad we could be of help 

Some of the most intelligent discussions I've ever read have been on this forum!


----------

