Talk:Image schema

Not notable
Could someone clarify why this page has things that are not notable? 19:02, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Citation not found
The page says that Rudolf Arnheim explains the term Image Schema in his book, Visual Thinking. However, the google books version of the book doesn't contain the text "image schema." (ColleenLewis52 (talk) 15:50, 5 January 2012 (UTC))

Scientific status of concept
What is the scientific status of the concept "image schema"?

Are there falsifiable predictions made by this theory? Or are we just talking about abstract constructs akin to Freud's id, ego and super-ego?

The lead begins by telling us that: An image schema is a recurring structure within our cognitive processes which establishes patterns of understanding and reasoning.

Now since "our cognitive processes" are not embodied in a specific physical structure inside the central nervous system (CNS), say in the pre-frontal cortex in the brain, I think it safe to infer that the "structure" mentioned is not going to be found, upon dissection or PET scanning, as a physical structure, say a neuron or ganglion or neuro-transmitter molecule or whatever. So we must be talking about a metaphorical structure, right? Not only that, but it's "recurring", which means it lives and dies in a repeating cycle, sometimes existing and sometimes not. Guess you'd have to be lucky to find it at home ...

Looking at the second half of the quote makes it even harder to track down this thing, this "image schema". This will-o-the-wisp "establishes patterns of understanding". Oh, good; now that we've established a "pattern of understanding", please point it out to me; lay it on the table; I want to dissect it and submit it to chemical and isotope analysis. Not possible? Why ever not? Because it's not a demonstrable reality at all. It's not a material entity. Go on, admit it, it's just a theoretical construct, a Platonic ideal like Democritus' atom, isn't it? It's just another way of trying to explain how things work, by postulating (yet more) things we can never see, or hold, or weigh.

It's all theory - at this point in the article.

Does it get any better as the article proceeds? Not really, no. We learn that the "image schema" is modelled on earlier philosophical and linguistic work, going back as far as "Kant's account of schemas in categorization". So, that's pretty much conjectural.

But what about evidence? Ah! The lead gives us a clue; here we are: Evidence for image schemata is drawn from a number of related disciplines, including work on cross-modal cognition in psychology, from spatial cognition in both linguistics and psychology, and from neuroscience. So there's some hope for evidence-based science backing up the notion of the "image schema", then! Yet nowhere else in the article do we see any of this supposed evidence; why not? Nor is there any citation given to back up this important claim.

Don't get me wrong; I just adore philosophy - especially when it has a few facts, and maybe some well-designed experiments, to back up its imaginative claims. Perhaps the evidence does exist; if so, this article owes it to the reader to present a summary of the evidence in lay terms. Instead, at present it merely expects the reader to take its assertions on trust.

Also, I'm indebted to the authors of this article for providing me with the highlights of several books I can't make time to read, and summarising the thrust of the work done by several scholars in the field. It's a great basis for an article on the topic.

But at present, its references are only very general; it lacks inline citations; and it gives no references whatsoever for the evidence to back the scholars' claims. In short, it's not yet encyclopaedic. yoyo (talk) 19:19, 3 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Criticism of the scientific status of the concept should be done in scientific context, e.g. a journal of cognitive psychology or equivalent. Since this concept is quite well established and use in many contexts, any insight you could provide would probably be of much interest. I do agree with you on the article - it needs to be better formatted and needs references. I added some. Wikikrax (talk) 08:48, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Help with references
I added some references with the new editor, but apparently the old references are added in some other format. Can somebody who knows how they work help me fix the references to display correctly? Wikikrax (talk) 08:43, 22 August 2013 (UTC) Figured it out. Now the in text -references are shown correctly. Wikikrax (talk) 10:31, 22 August 2013 (UTC)