Читать книгу Figure It Out - Stephen P. Anderson - Страница 30

Based on sensory input from our body and the environment, we recall prior associations. What we “think” may or may not be what was intended. Whether we’re having a conversation, reading words on a page, making inferences based on someone’s body language, even being affected by something as subtle as the temperature or a faint smell—all of these sensations influence the associations that come to mind, and what we ultimately think. For this reason, we say: “Associations among concepts is thinking.”

To improve understanding at this level requires some basic knowledge about the brain as a perceptual organ and how much of what we call “thought” is really a tangled web of prior associations, associations that are activated by everything from stories to pictures to even the slightest turn of a phrase. The bulk of this section is dedicated to the many ways these associations are activated, followed by a cautionary note on the dangers and limits of associative thinking.