Think Different

I am fascinated by how people think differently from each other. I think there are big differences in the fundamental methods people use to think, but because we rarely talk about how we think these are not well known.

Feynman talks here about how he heard numbers in his head when he counted and his friend saw numbers visually.


He believed that such fundamental differences explained why we sometimes have such difficulties communicating with each other.

I 'see' numbers as a kind of line and I have heard other people describe other ways they 'see' numbers

Reading is another place people think differently. When I read I 'hear' the words as I read them. This is called subvocalisation and is normal but it slows down reading. "Subvocalization, or silent speech, is defined as the internal speech made when reading a word, thus allowing the reader to imagine the sound of the word as it is read". There are all sorts of online guides as to how to stop subvocalising. My wife does not subvocalise and never has. She describes seeing words as the actual word rather then hearing it and then understanding what it means.

Do left handed people who do that hook handed over the top writing have a fundamentally different view of writing? Do you know of any other basic cognitive tasks that people carry out in completely different ways?