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Language & Thought

Cognitive Psychology. Language & Thought. Dr. Yan Jing Wu. Experiment 1. Language Levels of representation. Outline. Thierry and Wu, PNAS, in press. Languages in the world The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis Electrophysiology of cognition ERP evidence for linguistic relativity

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Language & Thought

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  1. Cognitive Psychology Language & Thought Dr. Yan Jing Wu

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

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

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

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

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

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

  8. Experiment 1 Language Levels of representation Differences between languages Thierry and Wu, PNAS, in press 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”.

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

  10. The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis 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. Linguistic relativity (weak version): People who speak different languages perceive and experience the world differently relative to their linguistic backgrounds.

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

  12. The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis Carmichael et al., 1932

  13. The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis Behavioural evidence 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.

  14. The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis • Glucksberg & Weisberg (1962) Fix the candle onto the wall

  15. 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...’.

  16. The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis Behavioural evidence 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.

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

  18. “Make it the same”

  19. Ambiguous instructions. Answer reveals which reference frame you are using

  20. The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis Brown & Levinson 1993 The majority (60%) of Tenejapans speakers restructured the table according to the Absolute rearrangement. Only a small percent of Dutch speakers restructured the table according to the Absolute rearrangement. The majority of them restructured it relatively.

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

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

  23. N stands for negative, P for positive. Numbers either indicate order of occurrence or classical latency of peak in specific experimental conditions Early Late P1 P2 +5uV Early components strongly relate to sensory brain activation and therefore depend on the physical properties of stimuli 0 N3 N2 Late components are generated by larger networks in the brain and correspond to higher processes (e.g. decision, retrieval of meaning, working memory, etc.) -5uV Time (ms) N1 N1 SOT 200 400 600 Electrophysiology of Cognition ERP Components Visual ERP Auditory ERP

  24. P2 P1 µV Cz -2.5 Faces 0.0 Objects Scenes 2.5 (ms) -100 150 400 650 900 N170 Electrophysiology of Cognition Relating ERPs to Cognition

  25. +5 Amplitude (µV) 0 -5 Time (ms) 100 200 300 400 500 600 Electrophysiology of Cognition Relating ERPs to Cognition P3 PO3 P2 P1 SOT N1

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

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

  28. ERP evidence for linguistic relativity Words and colour perception Native English Native Greek green standards 5 5 blue standards 4 4 green deviants 3 3 blue deviants 2 2 ERP Amplitude (µV) 1 1 0 0 -1 -1 Time (ms) Time (ms) -100 0 200 400 600 -100 0 200 400 600

  29. 0 0 200 200 400 400 600 600 800 800 1000 1000 ERP evidence for linguistic relativity Words and colour perception Greek-English bilingual group split by duration of stay Short-stay Long-stay 3 3 green standards blue standards green deviants 1.5 1.5 blue deviants Amplitude (µV) 0 0 -1.5 -1.5 Time (ms) Time (ms)

  30. ERP evidence for linguistic relativity Words and object perception English mug cup bowl Spanish taza ból

  31. ERP evidence for linguistic relativity Words and object perception 300 ms 300 - 500 ms 3, 4 or 5 subject responds

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

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

  34. Toward a theory for language-thought

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

  36. Toward a theory for language-thought mug

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

  38. Thank you for your attention

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