Mind in Motion: How Action Shapes Thought

When we describe how we think, we usually do so in terms of an internal conversation. Indeed, some have even called language the stuff of thought. But if you can fill up a bathtub with just enough water to submerge your body without flooding the bathroom, you’ve accomplished something remarkable: abstract thinking without using any words at all. In Mind in Motion, psychologist Barbara Tversky reveals that spatial cognition isn’t just an aspect of thought, but its foundation, enabling us to draw meaning from our bodily senses and the world around us. Spatial reasoning helps us to use maps, turn strategy into plans, design skyscrapers and spacecraft, even create mathematic abstractions.

Like Thinking, Fast and Slow before it, Mind in Motion gives us a new way to think about how--and where--thinking takes place.