5.10.2. How It Works
Peter Carruthers thinks that you get this effect because language is essential for conjoining information from different modules. Specifically he thinks that it is needed at the interface between beliefs, desires, and planning. Combining across modalities is possible without language for simple actions (see the other crossmodal hacks [Hack #57] through [Hack #59] in this book for examples), but there’s something about planning, and that includes reorientation, that requires language.
This would explain why people sometimes begin to talk to themselvesto instruct themselves out loudduring especially difficult tasks. Children use self-instruction as a normal part of their development to help them carry out things they find difficult.7 Telling them to keep quiet is unfair and probably makes it harder for them to finish what they are doing.
If Carruthers is right, it means two things. First, if you are asking people to engage in goal-oriented reasoning, particularly if it uses information of different sorts, you shouldn’t ask them to do something else that is verbal, either listening or speaking.
I’ve just realized that this could be another [Hack #54] part of the reason people can drive with the radio on but need to turn it off as soon as they don’t know where they are going and need to think about which direction to take. It also explains why you should keep quiet when the driver is trying to figure out where to go next.
T.S.
Second, if you do want to get people to do complex multisequence tasks, they might find it easier if the tasks can be done using only one kind of information, so that language isn’t required to combine across modules.
Taken from : Mind Hacks
