Humans think in two ways: verbal conceptualization and nonverbal conceptualization. Everyone thinks in both modes, but individuals tend to specialize in one or the other.
Verbal Conceptualization means thinking with the sounds of words. Verbal thought is linear in time. It follows the structure of the language. When using verbal thought, a person composes mental sentences one word at a time. Verbal thinking occurs at about the same speed as speech.
When we use verbal thought, we are thinking with the sounds of the language.
Nonverbal Conceptualization means thinking with the pictures of concepts or ideas. Nonverbal thought is evolutionary. The picture "grows" as the thought process adds more concepts.
When we form mental pictures of concepts and ideas, the pictures aren't merely visual; they are more like three-dimensional, multi-sensory movies. They change and evolve as a sentence is read. The process is many times faster than verbal conceptualization.
In nonverbal thought, we can easily think with the word elephant if we know what an elephant looks like. The animal we call elephant is the literal meaning of the word "elephant". Seeing its picture is seeing its meaning.
It is impossible for a nonverbal thinker to think with words whose meaning cannot be pictured. Knowing what an a looks like doesn't let us think with an a, or tell us what a means. Seeing the letters T-H-E for the word the is not seeing its meaning. The only picture available is the forms of the letters themselves.
Reading a sentence while using nonverbal thought can produce dyslexic symptoms. The development of the picture being formed is stopped each time an unknown word is encountered, because it creates a blank spot in the overall picture. This problem is compounded each time we try to read a word with no mental picture.
Each time the picture-making process is stopped, the person will feel confused. Soon they will reach their threshold of confusion and become disoriented.
