Language & Thought
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Transcript of Language & Thought
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Language & Thought
Dr. Yan Jing Wu
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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 pressLanguageLevels of representationOutline
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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 pressLanguageLevels of representationOutline
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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 pressLanguageLevels of representationLanguage ecology
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Experiment 1Thierry and Wu, PNAS, in pressLanguage
Levels of representationDifferences between languages
Phonology, orthography, grammar..
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Experiment 1Thierry and Wu, PNAS, in pressLanguage
Levels of representationDifferences between languages
Ways to categorize the world
Alligator or crocodile?
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Experiment 1Thierry and Wu, PNAS, in pressLanguage
Levels of representationDifferences between languages
Ways to categorize the world
Anyone speak Arabic?
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Experiment 1Thierry and Wu, PNAS, in pressLanguage
Levels of representationDifferences 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”.
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The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
Edward SapirBenjamin Lee Whorf
Language is not only for expression
but also helps organise our
thought. Diverse languages impose
different conceptual
categories on their speakers.
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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
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Carmichael, Hogan & Walter (1932) The way an ambiguous figure is described influences how it is later recalled.
The Sapir-Whorf HypothesisBehavioural evidence
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The Sapir-Whorf HypothesisCarmichael et al., 1932
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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 HypothesisBehavioural evidence
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The Sapir-Whorf HypothesisGlucksberg & Weisberg (1962)
Fix the candle onto the wall
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The Sapir-Whorf HypothesisGlucksberg & 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...’.
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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 1993Spatial reasoning skills are dependent on language characteristics.
The Sapir-Whorf HypothesisBehavioural evidence
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English- Egocentric: left, right, over there, by me- Allocentric: north, south, east, west
Tzeltal (Chiapas, Mexico)-Allocentric only: uphill, downhill, along
The Sapir-Whorf HypothesisBehavioural evidence
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“Make it the same”
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Ambiguous instructions.Answer reveals which reference
frame you are using
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The Sapir-Whorf HypothesisBrown & Levinson 1993
1. 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.
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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 HypothesisSo far so good?
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Electrophysiology of CognitionIntroducing Event-Related Potentials
TriggersResponseButtons
AuditoryStimulator
A/D Converter
VEOG
Amplifiers
Head box
Acquisition PCS R S RStimulation
PC
Visual Stimulation
The recording of overt responses is not mandatory
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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
200 400 600
-5uV
+5uV
SOT
Time (ms)
0
N1
P2
N2 N3
P1
N1
VisualERP
Auditory ERP
Electrophysiology of Cognition
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Faces
ScenesObjects
(ms)
-100 150 400 650 900
µV
0.0
-2.5
2.5
Cz
N170
P1P2
Relating ERPs to Cognition
Electrophysiology of Cognition
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Relating ERPs to Cognition
Electrophysiology of Cognition
N1
P2
SOT
P1
100 200 300 400 500 600
Time (ms)
+5
-5
0
Am
pli
tud
e (µ
V)
PO3P3
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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?
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targetdeviantstandard
Stimulus duration 200 ms Inter-stimulus duration 800 msTime
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
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green standards
blue standards
ER
P A
mp
litu
de (
µV
)
Time (ms) Time (ms)
green deviants
blue deviants
Native English Native Greek
600
3
5
4
2
1
0
-1
3
5
4
2
1
0
-1
4002000-1006004002000-100
ERP evidence for linguistic relativityWords and colour perception
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green standards
blue standards
green deviants
blue deviants
Time (ms)Time (ms)
Short-stay Long-stay
0
1.5
3
-1.5
0
1.5
3
-1.5
Am
pli
tud
e (
µV
)
10008002000 400 60010008002000 400 600
Greek-English bilingual group split by duration of stay
ERP evidence for linguistic relativityWords and colour perception
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ERP evidence for linguistic relativityWords and object perception
cupmug bowl
taza ból
English
Spanish
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3, 4 or 5
300 - 500 ms
300 ms
subject responds
ERP evidence for linguistic relativityWords and object perception
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Spanish
English
Negativity related to deviant, only for English speakers.
terminology influences early pre-attentional stages of object processing
DRN
standarddeviant
cupmug
Language-specific terminology affects object perception.
ERP evidence for linguistic relativityWords and object perception
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Toward a theory for language-thought
language produces transient modulation of ongoing perceptual processing – the label-feedback effect (Lupyan, 2012).
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Toward a theory for language-thought
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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
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mugmug
Toward a theory for language-thought
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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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Thank you for your attention