How Action Shapes Thought

A Book Review of Mind in Motion By Barbara Tversky

I’m curious about cognition, and I’m particularly interested in cognition that goes beyond words or analytic thought. I was intrigued when I found this book, and I was hoping for something covering embodied cognitive science, which I’m familiar with but wanted to dig deeper into.

The idea is that thought is not based on language but rather spatial in nature. A good way to introduce this, which the author often mentions, is how we often use spatial terms without even thinking. For example, one of the most obvious spatial dimensions is our bodies. It is something “outside” of us, in a Cartesian sense, but at the same time, the closest we have. We use metaphors such as “head of the nation, lost his head; right-hand person, on the one hand, hands down; foot of the mountains, all feet; arm of a chair, arm of the government; the idea doesn’t have legs”, etc.

There are also tons of other metaphors that go well beyond the body, such as “We grow close to some people and apart from others. Someone’s at the top of the heap; someone else has fallen into a depression. Ions attract or repel. New fields open up, uncharted territory. Others implode. Actions on thoughts are like actions on objects. We scan, focus, and scrutinize ideas; we turn them upside-down, we pull them together, we tear them up, we toss them aside. We move meetings forward or back, up or down.”

Perhaps the best thing I took from the book was when she mentioned maps. And maps are not at all like an aerial photographs. They are maps of meaning, and what is important. The information is selective. Only what matters for practical (spatial) terms is retained. An “objective” map is actually a poor one. The best example, perhaps, is an underground map. It is a schematic representation. It’s not an objective geographical description at all, and that’s what makes it readable and useful. They are, in some sense, obvious, but I didn’t think about them before, and I found them useful when thinking about representations in general and how they relate to real-world phenomena.

Another aspect I liked about the book was reference points and asymmetries in spatial thinking. For example, famous landmarks seem closer to a given point if they are thought about by going from a point to a landmark. For example, from a random coffee shop in Paris to the Eiffel Tower. The distance is the same if we went backwards, from the Eiffel Tower to the coffee shop, but we don’t think it is. This applies to cognitive reference points as well. It creates a “conceptual” distance. For example, people view magenta as closer to red than red to magenta. This is because red is the reference point.

I really liked what the author calls “9 Laws of Cognition”. From my understanding, it was created by the author, and she uses it to explain some spatial factors. Regardless of the spatial use, I found they are good very rules for anyone when thinking about human psychology in general. The 9 rules are: There are no benefits without costs; Action moulds perception; Feeling comes first; The mind can override perception; Cognition mirrors perception; Spatial thinking is the foundation of abstract thought; The mind fills in missing information; When thought overflows the mind, the mind puts it into the world; We organize the stuff in the world the way we organize the stuff in mind.

But overall, the book was disappointing. Despite the useful points that I mentioned, they could be explained in 20 pages or less. It didn’t justify the book for me. The marketing of the book oversells the idea, and the writing is boring and repetitive. There were a few ideas that I think they were mentioned not only several times throughout the book, but it seemed like almost word for word…As if I was reading a draft that was not finished, and there was the same passage scattered across the book.

In the beginning, there was a lot of pop-psychology that was barely related to spatial thought. As it progressed, it got more on-topic, but it never really delivered an “aha moment”. I was expecting to be convinced how space is fundamental to thought, but what the author presented most of the time were instances where thought is influenced by space. I’m not being pedantic. It’s just the author treats the topic as if it is a complete revolution in psychology, but what supports this supposed revolution is rather underwhelming.

In addition, the book felt disorganized, and some topics seemed like they should barely make it into the book at all, and they were made into whole chapters. The author clearly has a deep interest in anything space related, but I had the impression that I was reading random notes of interesting studies that the author found but not building a very coherent narrative with them. For example, at the end of the book, there is a chapter dedicated to comics. It was perhaps my favourite part of the book, as I quite like manga. However, it added almost nothing; there was no important insight into spatial thought. As interesting as it was, it wasn’t an important pillar of the author’s thesis. And that was an enjoyable chapter. Many others also did not fit in very well, but they were tedious.

I wish I had spent my time reading something else. I wanted to quit several times, but due to the few interesting ideas I mentioned in the book, I decided to push through. I kind of regret it. Nevertheless, I did take something out of it. And if you’re interested in spatial thought, there might be some useful material, and perhaps her writing will not be as tedious as it was for me. However, for anyone interested in the topic, I would urge you to look into embodied cognitive science first.

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I also have a philosophy podcast. If you want to check it out look for Anagoge Podcast.

Tiago V.F.