Conceptual Images

Conceptual Images

Humans and I suspect all creatures navigate in space through spatial-relations concepts. These concepts are the essence of our ability to function in space. These are not concepts that we can sense but they are the forms and inference patterns for our movement in space that we utilize unconsciously. We automatically ?'perceive' an entity as being on, in front of, behind, etc. another entity.

The container schema is a fundamental spatial-relations concept that allows us to draw important inferences. This natural container format is the source for our logical inferences that are so obvious to us when we view Venn diagrams. If container A is in container B and B is in container C, then A is in C.

A container schema is a gestalt figure with an interior, an exterior, and a boundary?-the parts make sense only as part of the whole. Container schemas are cross-modal?-"we can impose a conceptual container schema on a visual scene…on something we hear, as when we conceptually separate out one part of a piece of music from another."

"Image schemas have a special cognitive function: They are both perceptual and conceptual in nature. As such, they provide a bridge between language and reasoning on the one hand and vision on the other."

Quotes from "Philosophy in the Flesh" and "Where Mathematics Comes From" Lakoff is coauthor of both.