Language & Thought Dr. Yan Jing Wu

PSY /38 Experiment 1 1.Languages in the world 2.The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis 3.Electrophysiology of cognition 4.ERP evidence for linguistic relativity 5.Toward a theory of language-thought interaction Thierry and Wu, PNAS, in press Language Levels of representation Outline

PSY /38 Experiment 1 1.Languages in the world 2.The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis 3.Electrophysiology of cognition 4.ERP evidence for linguistic relativity 5.Toward a theory of language-thought interaction Thierry and Wu, PNAS, in press Language Levels of representation Outline

PSY /38 Experiment 1 1.Up to 7000 languages 2.From 10 major language families 3.More than half of world population are bilinguals or multilinguals 4.A language dies every two weeks Thierry and Wu, PNAS, in press Language Levels of representation Language ecology

PSY /38 Experiment 1 Thierry and Wu, PNAS, in press Language Levels of representation Differences between languages Phonology, orthography, grammar..

PSY /38 Experiment 1 Thierry and Wu, PNAS, in press Language Levels of representation Differences between languages Ways to categorize the world Alligator or crocodile?

PSY /38 Experiment 1 Thierry and Wu, PNAS, in press Language Levels of representation Differences between languages Ways to categorize the world Anyone speak Arabic?

PSY /38 Experiment 1 Thierry and Wu, PNAS, in press Language Levels of representation Differences between languages Ways to categorize the world Certain expressions are deeply engrained in the speaker’s culture. The Eskimo language has a large number of words for the word snow. ‘apun’= “snow on the ground” ‘qanikca’= “hard snow on the ground”, ‘utak’= “block of snow”.

PSY /38 The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis Edward Sapir Benjamin Lee Whorf Language is not only for expression but also helps organise our thought. Diverse languages impose different conceptual categories on their speakers.

PSY /38 1.Linguistic determinism (strong version): The language we use determines the way we view and think about the world around us. Learning a new language changes our ways of thinking. 2.Linguistic relativity (weak version): People who speak different languages perceive and experience the world differently relative to their linguistic backgrounds. The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

PSY /38 Carmichael, Hogan & Walter (1932) The way an ambiguous figure is described influences how it is later recalled. The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis Behavioural evidence

PSY /38 The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis Carmichael et al., 1932

PSY /38 Carmichael, Hogan & Walter (1932) The way an ambiguous figure is described influences how it is later recalled. Glucksberg & Weisberg (1962) The way a problem is described can influence the salience of potential solutions. The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis Behavioural evidence

PSY /38 The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis Glucksberg & Weisberg (1962) Fix the candle onto the wall

PSY /38 The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis Glucksberg & Weisberg (1962) Performance enhanced if.. Available materials described in a different and unaccustomed linguistic structure, such as ‘box and tacks’, rather than ‘box of tacks’. ‘on the table there is a candle, a box of tacks, and a book of matches...’.

PSY /38 Carmichael, Hogan & Walter (1932) The way an ambiguous figure is described influences how it is later recalled. Glucksberg & Weisberg (1962) The way a problem is described can influence the salience of potential solutions. Brown & Levinson 1993 Spatial reasoning skills are dependent on language characteristics. The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis Behavioural evidence

PSY /38 English - Egocentric: left, right, over there, by me - Allocentric: north, south, east, west Tzeltal (Chiapas, Mexico) -Allocentric only: uphill, downhill, along The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis Behavioural evidence

PSY /38 “Make it the same”

PSY /38 Ambiguous instructions. Answer reveals which reference frame you are using

PSY /38 The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis Brown & Levinson The majority (60%) of Tenejapans speakers restructured the table according to the Absolute rearrangement. 2.Only a small percent of Dutch speakers restructured the table according to the Absolute rearrangement. The majority of them restructured it relatively.

PSY /38 1.Some cognitive tasks may be affected by implicit access to the participants’ native language (hence the importance to use nonlinguistic tasks). 2.Differences in nonlinguistic tasks may be the result of ‘life-experience’ due to background difference, rather than languages. 3.Behavioural measurements only show the ‘end-product’ of cognitive processes. The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis So far so good?

PSY /38 Electrophysiology of Cognition Introducing Event-Related Potentials Triggers Response Buttons Auditory Stimulator A/D Converter VEOG Amplifiers Head box Acquisition PC SRSR Stimulation PC Visual Stimulation The recording of overt responses is not mandatory

PSY /38 ERP Components Early components strongly relate to sensory brain activation and therefore depend on the physical properties of stimuli Late components are generated by larger networks in the brain and correspond to higher processes (e.g. decision, retrieval of meaning, working memory, etc.) N stands for negative, P for positive. Numbers either indicate order of occurrence or classical latency of peak in specific experimental conditions Early Late uV +5uV SOT Time (ms) 0 N1 P2 N2 N3 P1 N1 Visual ERP Auditory ERP Electrophysiology of Cognition

PSY /38 Faces Scenes Objects (ms) µV Cz N170 P1 P2 Relating ERPs to Cognition Electrophysiology of Cognition

PSY /38 Relating ERPs to Cognition Electrophysiology of Cognition N1 P2 SOT P Time (ms) Amplitude (µV) PO3 P3

PSY /38 The Greek blue(s): ‘Ble’  dark blue ‘Ghalazio’  light blue Words and colour perception ERP evidence for linguistic relativity Does the terminology for colours affect people’s perception of them?

PSY /38 targetdeviantstandard Stimulus duration 200 ms Inter-stimulus duration 800 ms Time Block 1 Block 2 Block 3 Block 4 Respond by pressing one button when you see a ‘circle’ and another button when you see a ‘square’. Ignore their colours. ERP evidence for linguistic relativity Thierry et al., 2009 Words and colour perception

PSY /38 green standards blue standards ERP Amplitude (µV) Time (ms) green deviants blue deviants Native EnglishNative Greek ERP evidence for linguistic relativity Words and colour perception

PSY /38 green standards blue standards green deviants blue deviants Time (ms) Short-stayLong-stay Amplitude (µV) Greek-English bilingual group split by duration of stay ERP evidence for linguistic relativity Words and colour perception

PSY /38 ERP evidence for linguistic relativity Words and object perception cup mug bowl tazaból English Spanish

PSY /38 3, 4 or ms 300 ms subject responds ERP evidence for linguistic relativity Words and object perception

PSY /38 Spanish English Negativity related to deviant, only for English speakers. terminology influences early pre- attentional stages of object processing DRN standard deviant cup mug Language-specific terminology affects object perception. ERP evidence for linguistic relativity Words and object perception

PSY /38 Toward a theory for language-thought language produces transient modulation of ongoing perceptual processing – the label-feedback effect (Lupyan, 2012).

PSY /38 Toward a theory for language-thought

PSY /38 Information in the brain travels in a feedforward manner but not only. Language produces transient modulation of ongoing perceptual processing. Visual processing can be influenced by higher-level cognition Evidence that prefrontal areas can respond to stimuli before early visual cortex. Toward a theory for language-thought

PSY /38 mug Toward a theory for language-thought

PSY /38 Recommended Readings Whorf, Benjamin (1956), John B. Carroll (ed.), ed., Language, Thought, and Reality: Selected Writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf, MIT Press Athanasopoulos, Panos (2009), "Cognitive representation of colour in bilinguals: The case of Greek blues", Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 12 (1): 83–95, Also.. in Deutscher, Guy (26 August 2010), Does Your Language Shape How You Think?, New York Times Magazine, Aug 26, 2010

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