Unconscious gaps in Jackendoff 's "How language helps us think"?

Jackendoff comes to some appealing overall conclusions, but several of his assumptions and arguments are questionable. The present commentary points out the following problems: oversimplifications in the translation-based argument for the independence of language and thought; a lack of consideration of the possibility of unconscious use of internalized natural languages; insufficient consideration of possible characteristics of languages of thought (as opposed to internalized natural languages); neglect of the possibility of thinking in example-oriented and metaphorical ways; unfair bias in contrasting visual to linguistic imagery; neglect of other types of imagery; and neglect of the possibility of unconscious attentional processes.