Problem 9: Language

Question 1

Whorfian (or linguistic relativity) hypothesis

Answer 1

strongest version –> language determines how we think - we are unable to do much thinking if we don’t have the relevant words available to us
–> rejected - much thought occurs outside of
language

weaker version –> the language we speak affects how we think

Question 2

Color Perception

Answer 2

–> different languages parse the spectrum of colors in dramatically divergent ways

–> all languages have a minimum of two color terms
–> the focal point of each of these color categories is largely similar across language

–> people show evidence that their perception of the different colors is influenced by the color categories used in their respective languages

Question 2

Study by Rosch Heider

Answer 2

Contrasting people who speak languages that differ in most terms of their color lexicons

–> language does not affect color perception
–> color perception and memory were largely
independent from color words in a language

Question 2

Study by Roberson et al.

Answer 2

–> there is cultural variation in the ways that people in different cultures learned and remembered colors

–> different color categories should affect people’s categorical perception of colors

Question 3

Odor Perception

Answer 3

–> speakers of European languages suffer from a paucity of oder terms

–> the Jahai has a much larger lexicon of olfaction words

Question 4

Agency Perception

Answer 4

agentive speech: Thomas made a mistake
nonagentive speech: Mistakes were made

–> less agentive speech leads to less recall of the fact –> no encoding of agency

e.g., English speakers use nonagentive speech if they wish to avoid blame for an event

Question 5

Spatial Perception

Answer 5

English speakers identify locations based on their position relative to the speaker –> left, right, front, and back
–> among industrialized cultures

Guugu Yimithirr speakers identify space in absolute terms –> cardinal points of a compass
–> common among subsistence populations

Question 6

Time Perception

Answer 6

For English speakers, time passes from one relative spatial maker (left) to another (right) and this does not change depending on the direction one is facing

Societies that use absolute spatial markers when referring to directions, see time as passing from the east to the west, tracking the sun’s movement across the sky

Question 7

Numerical Cognition

Answer 7

Our ability to reason with numbers very much reflects the experiences we have had in our cultures

–> rough quantity estimation skills might be innate whereas numerical skills beyond 2 are acquired through cultural experiences

–> people may use spatial strategies of trying to match the pattern of a set of objects to estimate quantities in the absence of numbers

–> evidence FOR the strongest version of the Whorfian hypothesis

Question 8

Dual-process theory of moral judgment

Answer 8

responses result from a competition between an automatic, emotional system that prompts a deontological response, and a slow, controlled system that favors utilitarian responses

–> foreign language use increases utilitarian responses
–> less emotional involvement
–> more cognitive processing

Question 9

Controlled processing hypothesis

Answer 9

a “muted” intuition could make the moral machinery switch from the default automatic, intuitive mode, to a controlled mode, thus forcing the attention to the harmless consequences

Question 10

Automatic-processing hypothesis

Answer 10

the moral machinery might remain on the automatic, intuitive mode, but the moral muted intuition would nevertheless promote less harsh moral judgments

Question 11

Foreign Language and Moral Judgment

Answer 11

–> the use of a foreign language elicits less harsh moral judgments for actions that violate purity, fairness, and loyalty norms, but have relatively harmless consequences

–> emotional anchors are felt less strongly in a foreign language

–> foreign language promotes less confidence in one’s moral evaluations

–> thinking in a foreign language should increase cognitive load, and thus hinder deliberate thinking

–> using a foreign language affects moral choice not through increased deliberation but by blunting emotional reactions associated with violation of deontological rules

Question 12

Foreign-language effect

Answer 12

= using a foreign language affects the contributions of intuition and deliberation

–> processing difficulty of a foreign language is used as a signal to engage in more thoughtful and deliberative processing, which reduces the effects of intuition
–> messages processed in a foreign language usually elicit a milder emotional response
–> increase in psychological distance - it may aid in taking a more objective perspective of the situation and construing the options in a more global/abstract way
–> detachment effect - people are able to discuss certain topics that they would otherwise find too aversive

Question 13

Three influences of foreign language

Answer 13

1. The language in which information is presented affects people’s treatment of losses, gains, and risk
2. Foreign-language contexts affect the way we make sense of the events we encounter in the world
3. Language affects people’s choices in morality

Question 14

Describing and remembering events

Answer 14

Linguistic differences influence how people construe what happened
–> e.g., English speakers phrase things in terms of people doing things

Language influences learning

Question 15

What shapes what? Language - Thinking or vice versa

Answer 15

–> changing how people talk changes how they think - language shapes cognition

–> bilinguals change how they see the world depending on which language they are speaking

–> the categories and distinctions that exist in particular languages are meddling in our mental lives very broadly