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The New Science of How the Mind Makes Meaning
Basic Books
November 2012
On Sale: October 30, 2012
312 pages
ISBN: 0465028292
EAN: 9780465028290
Kindle: B00918JOBI
Hardcover / e-Book
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Non-Fiction
Whether itβs brusque, convincing, fraught with emotion, or dripping with innuendo, language is fundamentally a tool for conveying meaningβa uniquely human magic trick in which you vibrate your vocal cords to make your innermost thoughts pop up in someone elseβs mind. You can use it to talk about all sorts of thingsβfrom your new labradoodle puppy to the expansive gardens at Versailles, from Roger Federerβs backhand to things that donβt exist at all, like flying pigs. And when you talk, your listener fills in lots of details you didnβt mentionβthe curliness of the dogβs fur or the vast statuary on the grounds of the French palace. Whatβs the trick behind this magic? How does meaning work? In Louder than Words, cognitive scientist Benjamin Bergen draws together a decadeβs worth of research in psychology, linguistics, and neuroscience to offer a new theory of how our minds make meaning. When we hear words and sentences, Bergen contends, we engage the parts of our brain that we use for perception and action, repurposing these evolutionarily older networks to create simulations in our minds. These embodied simulations, as they're called, are what makes it possible for us to become better baseball players by merely visualizing a well-executed swing; what allows us to remember which cupboard the diapers are in without looking, and what makes it so hard to talk on a cell phone while weβre driving on the highway. Meaning is more than just knowing definitions of words, as others have previously argued. In understanding language, our brains engage in a creative process of constructing rich mental worlds in which we see, hear, feel, and act. Through whimsical examples and ingenious experiments, Bergen leads us on a virtual tour of the new science of embodied cognition. A brilliant account of our human capacity to understand language, Louder than Words will profoundly change how you read, speak, and listen.
 Media BuzzMorning Edition - May 2, 2013
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