Psychology of Language Exam 3 Flashcards
What is thought?
The systematic manipulation of information; deducing new information from old information
How might language affect thought?
People may think using their language; if there is no language, there is no thought
Strong Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
Having language makes certain thoughts possible. If you don’t have the language for a concept, there is no way for you to comprehend that concept (ex. Piraha cannot think of the concept of “two” because they have no word for it)
Weak Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
Having language makes certain thoughts more probable, but just because your language might not have the words for a certain concept does not mean you cannot comprehend that concept; language makes certain concepts more easily accessible (ex. Spanish speakers omit the subject in a sentence but that doesn’t mean they lack the concept of responsibility, it might just take them longer to think of it)
What is the medium of thought?
The way in which people think; in language or in mentalese
Language as the medium of thought
Thinking in terms of your spoken language (ex. “I love you,” or “Te amo” as a thought)
Mentalese as the medium of thought
Thinking in terms of representations of information that your brain makes that are not linguistic; this means that people can have the same thought regardless of their language, represented in some other terms; you do not necessarily need language to think
Evidence of mentalese from the representation of numbers by infants and nonhumans
Show an infant a curtain and show them one person going behind, then another, and then lift the curtain; if there is anything other than 2 people behind the curtain, infants are surprised (shown by looking time)
Preverbal infants can add and subtract, they do not need language for that
Evidence of mentalese from mental rotation
Mental rotation: determining the degree of rotation from the 1st object to the 2nd; the larger the rotation, the longer it takes people to judge it
As the rotation angle increases, the response is slower
Making those judgments may take more than linguistic thoughts, i.e., you’re literally moving it in your mind (thinking using visual imagery)
Do English and Berinmo have different words for colors?
Yes
Do speakers of English and Berinmo sort colors differently?
Yes
English speakers differentiate between green and blue, but Berinmo speakers do not
Berinmo speakers differentiate between shades of green, but English speakers do not
When presented with a comparison of colors, English speakers can sort greens and blue into different categories and Berinmo speakers cannot, but Berinmo speakers can sort shades of green into different categories and English speakers cannot
Why do English speakers and Berinmo speakers sort colors differently?
Having 2 different words for colors should make the comparison between them easy, and colors that are named by the same name will be judged more similar
Berinmo are not incapable of PERCEIVING certain colors, they just cannot differentiate between certain colors because they don’t have the names for them
These judgements vary depending on the language
What is the linguistic difference in how Japanese and English speakers depict accidental events?
Japanese speakers tend to omit the actor when they talk about accidents, and misremember the individual involved (affects memory)
Does the difference in how Japanese and English speakers depict accidental events affect memory?
Yes; when English speakers learned to omit the actor when talking about an accidental event, the tended to misremember the individual involved in the event
Is the effect of linguistic differences on memory between English and Japanese speakers due to language or culture?
Language; when English speakers were trained to omit the actor in an accidental even (like Japanese speakers), it was seen that they too misremembered the individual involved in the event
Describe the number words in Piraha
There are no words for precise numbers; there are words for ‘roughly one,’ ‘roughly two,’ and ‘many’
There are also no plural markers (e.g., ‘s’)
Describe number cognition by the Piraha
Numeric cognition is highly limited; there is some capacity for 1-2, but larger numbers are simply a “guestimate”
3 systems of number cognition
Object files, analog magnitude, and recursive number
Object files
Number system that is precise but limited to small numbers (1-3), and ratios do not matter; found in animals, infants, and some adults
Analogue magnitude
Number system that applies to small and large numbers, is imprecise, allows for estimates, and discrimination between the number of objects depends on ratio; found in animals, infants, and some adults
Recursive number
Number system that is precise (irrespective of size), infinite, and recursive (one hundred million and one, and so on); found only after number words have been acquired
Which number system is missing in Piraha?
Recursive number; the Piraha do not have number words
How do the object files and analogue magnitude number systems explain the performance of the Piraha on numeric cognition tasks?
Numerical cognition task: see array of nuts that are then put in an opaque can, remove nuts one at a time, tell me when the can is empty
Piraha show perfect accuracy with zero variance when there are 1-2 nuts in the can, but their performance is imprecise when there are more than 3 nuts
Object files supports this because it allows for precision with 1-3 objects, but no more
Analogue magnitude supports this because it depends on ratios
Can the findings from the Piraha numeric cognition task be explained by cultural effects?
It could be; the lack of recursive number is due to the lack of need for number words in Piraha culture
It’s more likely that language is what influences thought: the lack of recursive number is caused by the lack of number words
