Abstract

This paper focuses on the nature of mental imagery as a component of human cognition. Imagery has been considered as mere epiphenomena and unable to alter belief. However, recent evidence in neuroscience and psycholinguistics suggest that the mental image can be accessed and interact with higher order processes of cognition in the determination of speaker meaning. If this is true, then mental imagery can play a role during the comprehension procedure for metaphoric utterances. To understand the reasons why mental images have been discarded from linguistic theories of utterance comprehension, past philosophical ideas about the mental image are discussed. Many have questioned the existence of the image, stating that they are, in fact, constituted by propositional components. These perspectives fit within a theory of the mind that conforms to an amodal symbol system in which the relation between perceptual input and mental representation is an arbitrary one. This paper is suggesting that the mind follows a perceptual symbol system, and that the relation is an analogous one. Therefore, through an extension of relevance theory, it is possible to flesh out the meaning of metaphors by incorporating this embodied view of the mind.

Highlights

  • Language is thought to access abstract propositional representations in the mind of the hearer whilst processing the utterance

  • The distinction between propositional and non-propositional works along these lines: propositions are mental representations in the conceptual part of cognition that are about entities in the world, and so can be judged in terms of their truth or falsity (SPERBER & WILSON, 1986, 1995); non-propositional entities refer to phenomenological qualities, such as sensory and affective information that correlate with notions of aptness rather than truth

  • The last section employs aspects of relevance theory, a theory rooted in communication and cognition, to explain how the mind/brain chooses the correct speaker meaning from the words

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Summary

Introduction

Language is thought to access abstract propositional representations in the mind of the hearer whilst processing the utterance. The proposal is that these so-called higher areas of cognition that deal with rational conceptualising about the world can access the lower areas of perception and feelings This basically means that propositional information is able to interact with non-propositional states of mind in the processing of metaphors in human cognition. Mental imagery is assumed here to access higher and lower areas of cognition in the understanding of speaker meaning, with metaphor This is seen to be in contrast to Fodor’s (1983) ideas on the modular mind. The last section employs aspects of relevance theory, a theory rooted in communication and cognition, to explain how the mind/brain chooses the correct speaker meaning from the words It focuses on metaphors and the way the mental image functions in the processing of meaning

Percepts and Imaging
A Philosophical Debate from the Eighties on Mental Imagery
Relevance Theory
A Move into the Beyond
Conclusion
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