IN CHITA, A CITY IN EASTERN SIBERIA, RUSSIA, a young child grew up without normal human contact. Natasha, as the girl was known, was raised in isolation in one room of an apartment. Adults living in other rooms had no contact with her except to drop off food. Her only companions were some cats and dogs. When police discovered her at the age of 5 in 2009, Natasha “had the clear attributes of an animal” (Halpin & Booth, 2009). She jumped at people and lapped up food from plates. She could understand Russian but could not speak it. Having grown up with dogs, she “tried to communicate through barking instead.”

In 1922 the Irish novelist James Joyce began the work that he considered his greatest. Joyce already had mastered English literature; his recently completed novel Ulysses had been hailed as “a work of high genius” (Wilson, 1922). Indeed, Joyce had so mastered the English language that, for his next book, he decided to do the seemingly impossible: invent a new language—an idiosyncratic language, or idioglossia. After years of effort, he completed Finnegans Wake in a language of his own creation:

What clashes here of wills gen wonts, oystrygods gaggin fishy-gods! Brékkek Kékkek Kékkek Kékkek! Kóax Kóax Kóax! Ualu Ualu Ualu! Quaouauh! Where the Baddelaries partisans are still out to mathmaster Malachus Micgranes and the Verdons cata-pelting the camibalistics out of the Whoyteboyce of Hoodie Head.

In San Diego, California, in the 1970s, a pair of infant twins was raised in relative isolation. Their grandmother provided for their physical needs, but did not interact with them socially. The twins had no contact with other children. Their low intelligence test scores at age 5 caused some to conclude that they were mentally impaired. Like Natasha, the twins had not learned to speak their native language. But like Joyce, they invented an entirely new language of their own—an idioglossia. Seemingly without effort, they conversed with each another in this language of their own creation:

“Pinit, putahtraletungay.”

“Nis, Poto?”

“Liba Cabingoat, it.”

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“La moa, Poto?”

“Ya.”

The children, who called each other Poto and Cabengo, were conversing while eating potato salad. Translated, they said (“Education,” 1979):

“Finish, potato salad hungry.”

“This, Poto?”

“Dear Cabengo, eat.”

“Here more, Poto?”

“Yeah.”

Why did Natasha, who possessed a biologically normal human brain, not have normal human abilities to think and use language? Why were the twins—who were uneducated and socially isolated—so unlike Natasha and, instead, more like Joyce? What do these cases teach us about the powers of the mind and the role of social experience in the development of these powers? These are the sorts of questions you will encounter in this chapter on thinking, language, and intelligence.

LET’S BEGIN THIS CHAPTER with an exercise. Look away from this page and stop thinking; try not to think about anything for as long as you can. When a thought pops into your mind, return to the reading. Good luck.

Welcome back. I suspect you weren’t away for long. It’s hard to stop thinking! Some thought or another—even if it was just the thought that “I’m not supposed to be thinking”—probably came to mind soon after you tried to stop.

In this chapter, we’ll discuss the ever-present phenomenon of thinking. We’ll do so by exploring different types of thinking: categories people use to identify what they’re thinking about; language, the tool we use for so much of our thinking; the reasoning, judgment, and decision making that occur when we choose among options; problem solving when we seek solutions to difficult challenges; and thinking in pictures, or mental imagery. Finally, we’ll address the nature of human intelligence.

Most of this chapter is devoted to the mind—specifically, to mental processes in thinking, language, and intelligence. But we’ll also move down to a brain-level analysis, so you can see how people’s ability to think can be understood at the levels of mind and brain. In particular, we will discuss language and the brain, and the biology of intelligence.