> You take it all in as a sort of dry list of facts?
"dry list" was your description, not mine. But also, no. Take the common example;
For sale: baby shoes, never worn.
You don't have to imagine a picture of shoes, nor of a for sale sign to go... "oh, shit...".
Or even even that's too far to grasp... consider the melody of happy song, or a sad song. I assume you don't imagine a piano to figure out which it is?
Yes, I was trying to figure out how that would work, describing how I imagined it as a starting point. Not saying that’s how you experience it (hence the question mark)
I don’t have to imagibe baby shoes to understand what they are, or what happened, but if I read ‘baby shoes’ there’s definitely an image of small shoes appearing in my mind (constantly morphing, because the description doesn’t give me anything to go off).
If I read ‘sad song’, some variation of a sad song will play in my mind.
Of course often you read many of those things in sequence, and the mental scene constructs itself as you learn more.
If you read quickly it’s a bit vague, not enough time to truly think about it, but it’s there. At least for me.
"dry list" was your description, not mine. But also, no. Take the common example;
For sale: baby shoes, never worn.
You don't have to imagine a picture of shoes, nor of a for sale sign to go... "oh, shit...".
Or even even that's too far to grasp... consider the melody of happy song, or a sad song. I assume you don't imagine a piano to figure out which it is?