UDC

Authors

Abstract

The paper considers the formation of the mental space of interoceptive, or inner-body, sensations. Interoceptive sensations are defined as perceptive stimuli located in the internal milieu of the body. Their relevance for linguistics is accounted for by a growing interest in the study of human embodiment on the whole and perceptive processes in particular. The cognitive processing of interoceptive sensations and their verbalization are associated with considerable difficulties due to the specificity of the inner body as an object of cognition. One of the major factors that shape and direct this process is involvement in extraceptive activities, whose results are extrapolated onto the sphere of inner-body processes. This extrapolation contributes to the emergence of different cognitive structures which reflect our interoceptive experiences. The paper focuses exclusively on one type of these structures, namely cognitive images, with further emphasis on two types of images: visual and auditory. The author elucidates the relevance of visual and auditory images for the interpretation of interoceptive sensations, describes their functions, identifies the range of their possible verbal representations and considers the possibility of creating complex multimodal images. Both visual and auditory images are regarded as an effective means of interpreting interoceptive sensations, which has a considerable interpretative potential. The images of these modalities are able to reflect both qualitative and quantitative characteristics of sensations, with auditory images having an extra capacity to reflect their temporal parameters, representing the sensations as transitory or persisting. The paper provides an extensive body of examples, drawing on contemporary British and American literature.

Keywords

References

1. Johnson-Laird P.N. Mental Models. Towards a Cognitive Science of Language, Inference, and Consciousness. Massachusetts, 1983.
   
2. Durst-Andersen P. Linguistic Supertypes: A Cognitive-Semiotic Theory of Human Communication. Berlin, N. Y., 2011.
   
3. Damasio А. The Feeling of What Happens. N. Y., 1999.
   
4. Zalevskaya A.A. Telesnost’/korporeal’nost’ i znachenie slova [Corporality/Corporeality and Meaning of the Word]. Yazykovoe bytie cheloveka i etnosa: psikholingvisticheskiy i kognitivnyy aspekty [Language Being of a Human and Ethnic Group: Psycholinguistic and Cognitive Aspects]. Barnaul, 2004, pp. 57–64.
   
5. Scarry E. The Body in Pain. The Making and Unmaking of the World. N. Y., 1985.
   
6. Velichkovskiy B.M. Kognitivnaya nauka. Osnovy psikhologii poznaniya [Cognitive Science. Fundamentals of Cognitive Psychology]. Moscow, 2006.
   
7. Wylde V., Wells V., Dixon S., Gooberman-Hill R. The Colour of Pain: Can Patients Use Colour to Describe Osteoarthritis Pain? Musculoskletal Care, 2014, no. 12(1), pp. 34–46.
   
8. Rubinshteyn S.L. Osnovy obshchey psikhologii [Fundamentals of General Psychology]. St. Petersburg, 2000.
   
9. Vvedenie v psikhologiyu [Introduction to Psychology]. Ed. by Zinchenko V.P. St. Petersburg, 2007.
   
10. Biro D. Listening to Pain. Finding Words, Compassion, and Relief. N. Y., 2010.
    
11. Nosulenko V.N. Psikhologiya slukhovogo vospriyatiya [The Psychology of Auditory Perception]. Moscow, 1988.
    
12. Jones M.R. Time, Our Lost Dimension: Toward a New Theory of Perception, Attention, and Memory. Psychol. Rev., 1976, vol. 83, no. 5, pp. 323–355.