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Ian R. L. Davies - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • acquisition of categorical color perception a perceptual learning approach to the Linguistic Relativity hypothesis
    Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 2002
    Co-Authors: Emre Ozgen, Ian R. L. Davies
    Abstract:

    Color perception can be categorical: Between-category discriminations are more accurate than equivalent within-category discriminations. The effects could be inherited, learned, or both. The authors provide evidence that supports the possibility of learned categorical perception (CP). Experiment 1 demonstrated that observers’ color discrimination is flexible and improves through repeated practice. Experiment 2 demonstrated that category learning simulates effects of “natural” color categories on color discrimination. Experiment 3 investigated the time course of acquired CP. Experiment 4 found that CP effects are acquired through hue- and lightness-based category learning and obtained interesting data on the dimensional perception of color. The data are consistent with the possibility that language may shape color perception and suggest a plausible mechanism for the Linguistic Relativity hypothesis. This article explores the nature and origin of color categorization by considering how categorical perception (CP; e.g., Harnad, 1987), Linguistic Relativity (e.g., Whorf, 1940/1956), and perceptual learning (e.g., Goldstone, 1998) are related. These three areas of inquiry overlap because, first, differences in CP across languages are one manifestation of Linguistic Relativity (e.g., Kay & Kempton, 1984), and, second, perceptual learning is a likely route through which language influences color cognition, and more specifically through which CP is induced. Our experiments explored whether adult color discrimination can be improved through training and whether CP is induced by learning novel color categories. We argue that if they can be, then this increases the plausibility that similar mechanisms may be involved during language learning, giving rise to relativistic effects. Before explicating this sketch of our argument further, we briefly review each of the three areas.

  • Acquisition of categorical color perception: A perceptual learning approach to the Linguistic Relativity hypothesis
    Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 2002
    Co-Authors: Emre Ozgen, Ian R. L. Davies
    Abstract:

    Color perception can be categorical: Between-category discriminations are more accurate than equivalent within-category discriminations. The effects could be inherited, learned, or both. The authors provide evidence that supports the possibility of learned categorical perception (CP). Experiment 1 demonstrated that observers' color discrimination is flexible and improves through repeated practice. Experiment 2 demonstrated that category learning simulates effects of "natural" color categories on color discrimination. Experiment 3 investigated the time course of acquired CP. Experiment 4 found that CP effects are acquired through hue- and lightness-based category learning and obtained interesting data on the dimensional perception of color. The data are consistent with the possibility that language may shape color perception and suggest a plausible mechanism for the Linguistic Relativity hypothesis.

  • a study of colour grouping in three languages a test of the Linguistic Relativity hypothesis
    British Journal of Psychology, 1998
    Co-Authors: Ian R. L. Davies
    Abstract:

    We report a cross-cultural study of the relationship between language and colour cognition that tests the Linguistic Relativity hypothesis. We compared speakers of English, Russian and Setswana—languages with different numbers of ‘basic’ colour terms—on a colour grouping task in order to see whether choice of colour groups reflected the differences among the colour lexicons of the three languages. Participants sorted a representative set of 65 colours into ‘N’ groups (where N ranged from 2 through to 12) based on their perceptual similarity. We assessed the similarities and differences among the choices of the three language samples, and focused in particular on two more specific questions. First, we tested the conjecture that levels of consensus over which tiles to group together should peak when N equalled the number of basic colour terms in the language. Second, we focused on possible Linguistic influences on colour grouping in the GREEN–BLUE region of colour space. Setswana uses a single term for this region (botala), whereas English uses two terms (green and blue) and Russian uses three terms (Zelenyj ‘green’, sinij ‘dark blue’ and goluboj ‘light blue’). The most striking feature of the results was the marked similarity of the groups chosen across the three language samples. In addition there were small but reliable differences in grouping associated with Linguistic differences. Specifically, maximum levels of consensus occurred at lower values of N for Setswana speakers than for the other two languages, and they were more likely to group GREEN with BLUE than speakers of the other languages. However, Russian speakers were no more likely than speakers of the other languages to form separate LIGHT BLUE and DARK BLUE groups. The results are consistent with universal perceptual processes modulated at the margin by Linguistic or cultural influences.

  • a cross cultural study of colour grouping evidence for weak Linguistic Relativity
    British Journal of Psychology, 1997
    Co-Authors: Ian R. L. Davies, Greville G Corbett
    Abstract:

    We report a cross-cultural study of colour grouping carried out as a test of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (Linguistic Relativity theory). Speakers of English, Russian and Setswana-languages that differ in their number of basic colour terms, and in how the blue-green region is categorized--were compared on a colour sorting task. Informants sorted a representative set of 65 colours into groups so that members of the groups looked similar to each other, with no restriction on the number of groups formed. If Linguistic Relativity theory is true, then there should be reliable differences between the three samples in the composition of the groups they formed associated with the differing positions of colour category boundaries in the languages. The most striking feature of the results, inconsistent with Linguistic Relativity theory, was the similarity amongst the patterns of choice of the three samples. However, there were also significant differences amongst the samples. Setswana speakers (who have a single basic term for BLUE or GREEN) were more likely to group BLUE colours with GREEN colours than either English or Russian speakers. But Russian speakers (who have two basic colour terms for BLUE) were no more likely than English speakers to group light and dark BLUE separately. In addition there were general structural differences in grouping among the samples: they differed in the level of consensus in grouping, the number of groups formed and in the distribution of the number of colours placed in a group. These structural differences may reflect differences in the availability and salience of the colour categories across the languages. Our data support perceptual universalism modulated by weaker Linguistic effects.

Emre Ozgen - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • acquisition of categorical color perception a perceptual learning approach to the Linguistic Relativity hypothesis
    Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 2002
    Co-Authors: Emre Ozgen, Ian R. L. Davies
    Abstract:

    Color perception can be categorical: Between-category discriminations are more accurate than equivalent within-category discriminations. The effects could be inherited, learned, or both. The authors provide evidence that supports the possibility of learned categorical perception (CP). Experiment 1 demonstrated that observers’ color discrimination is flexible and improves through repeated practice. Experiment 2 demonstrated that category learning simulates effects of “natural” color categories on color discrimination. Experiment 3 investigated the time course of acquired CP. Experiment 4 found that CP effects are acquired through hue- and lightness-based category learning and obtained interesting data on the dimensional perception of color. The data are consistent with the possibility that language may shape color perception and suggest a plausible mechanism for the Linguistic Relativity hypothesis. This article explores the nature and origin of color categorization by considering how categorical perception (CP; e.g., Harnad, 1987), Linguistic Relativity (e.g., Whorf, 1940/1956), and perceptual learning (e.g., Goldstone, 1998) are related. These three areas of inquiry overlap because, first, differences in CP across languages are one manifestation of Linguistic Relativity (e.g., Kay & Kempton, 1984), and, second, perceptual learning is a likely route through which language influences color cognition, and more specifically through which CP is induced. Our experiments explored whether adult color discrimination can be improved through training and whether CP is induced by learning novel color categories. We argue that if they can be, then this increases the plausibility that similar mechanisms may be involved during language learning, giving rise to relativistic effects. Before explicating this sketch of our argument further, we briefly review each of the three areas.

  • Acquisition of categorical color perception: A perceptual learning approach to the Linguistic Relativity hypothesis
    Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 2002
    Co-Authors: Emre Ozgen, Ian R. L. Davies
    Abstract:

    Color perception can be categorical: Between-category discriminations are more accurate than equivalent within-category discriminations. The effects could be inherited, learned, or both. The authors provide evidence that supports the possibility of learned categorical perception (CP). Experiment 1 demonstrated that observers' color discrimination is flexible and improves through repeated practice. Experiment 2 demonstrated that category learning simulates effects of "natural" color categories on color discrimination. Experiment 3 investigated the time course of acquired CP. Experiment 4 found that CP effects are acquired through hue- and lightness-based category learning and obtained interesting data on the dimensional perception of color. The data are consistent with the possibility that language may shape color perception and suggest a plausible mechanism for the Linguistic Relativity hypothesis.

Stephen C Levinson - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • yeli dnye and the theory of basic color terms
    Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 2000
    Co-Authors: Stephen C Levinson
    Abstract:

    The theory of basic color terms was a crucial factor in the demise of Linguistic Relativity. The theory is now once again under scrutiny and fundamental revision. This article details a case study that undermines one of the central claims of the classical theory, namely that languages universally treat color as a unitary domain, to be exhaustively named. Taken together with other cases, the study suggests that a number of languages have only an incipient color terminology, raising doubts about the Linguistic universality of such terminology.

  • rethinking Linguistic Relativity
    Current Anthropology, 1991
    Co-Authors: John J Gumperz, Stephen C Levinson
    Abstract:

    Volume 32, Number 5, December r991 1613 Javanese respond to them. That's crazy! That can't be what's going on. I'm not sure you can ever have a Ja­ vanese response to Javanese art if you're not Javanese­ maybe you can if you spend ten years there, but you can't do it by watching a wayang show. So then there's the question of annotations, and trying to figure out how to get the real stuff across. There's a lot of concern about that. RH: You've written extensively on other conceptions of sel£hood, of personhood. A few minutes ago you used the phrase seU-representation. Do you think that's what they're up to? CG: In that case, not individually, but yes-they're in­ terested in the representation of Indonesia as a collective self. RH: Do they think of it in those terms? CG: Yes, explicitly. That's what it's all about. They want to establish in foreign eyes, and also in their own, an fficial cultural identity. RH: Is the desire to have an official cultural identity something that is absorbed from Western ways of thinking? CG: I suppose to some degree it is, but it's very alive in Indonesia, because there's now a civil religion called Pancasila which is an attempt to do exactly that-to create a rather Javanized version of an all-Indonesian culture. There have been debates about this going back to the 1920S and 1930S, between extreme traditional­ ists-that the new Indonesia should be represented in terms of 2,000 years of tradition-and extreme cosmo­ politans-who want to join the world of modem socie­ ties as quickly as possible. That debate continues. Java, of course, has had a couple hundred years of colonialism, more than most places have. For the Outer Islands it's a bit less. The trouble is that there isn't one thing that they all go back to. Some Javanese would like to go back to Majapahit, but the Sumatrans are not too happy about that idea! - - . 1960. The religion of lava. Glencoe: Free Press. - - . 1963a. Peddlers and princes. Chicago: University of Chi­ cago Press. - - . 1963b. Agricultural involution. Berkeley: University of California Press. - - . Editor. 1963C. Old societies and new states. New York: Free Press. - - . 1965. The social history of an Indonesian [Own. Cam~ bridge: M.LT. Press. - - . 1966. Religion as a cultural system, in Anthropological approaches [Q the study of religion. Edited by the Conference on New Approaches in Social Anthropology, pp. 1-46. New York: Praeger. - - . 1967. The cerebral savage: On the work of Claude Levi­ Strauss. Encounter 28(4}:1.5-32. - - . 1968. Islam observed. New Haven: Yale University Press. - - . 1985. Waddling in. Times Literary Supplement, no. 4288 (June 7), pp. 23-24. - - . 1988. Works and lives: The anthropologist as author. Stanford: Stanford University Press. - - . 1989. Margaret Mead, 1901-1978. Biographical Memoirs (National Academy of Sciences) 58:329-41. GEERTZ, HILDRED. 1961. The /avanese family. New York: Free Press. HOMANS, GEORGE, AND DAVID M. SCHNEIDER. 1955. Mar­ riage, authority, and final causes. Glencoe: Free Press. LtVI-STRAUSS, CLAUDE. 1962. La pensee sauvage. Paris: PIon. - - . 1963. TQlemJsm. Translated by R. Needham. Boston: Bea­ con Press. LOWIE, ROBERT. 1937. The hiswry of ethnological theory. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. MANDELBAUM, DAVID. Editor. 1949. Selected writings of Ed­ ward Sapir in language, culture and personality. Berkeley: University of California Press. MARCUS, GEORGE. 1985. A timely rereading of Naven: Gregory Bateson as oracular essayist. Representations n:66-82. MURDOCK, GEORGE PETER. 1949. Social structure. New York: Macmillan. NEEDHAM, RODNEY. 1962. Structure and sentiment. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. PARSONS, TALCOTT. 1937. The structure of social action. ew York: McGraw-Hill. SCHNEIDER, DAVID. 1965. Some muddles in the models: or, How the system really works, in The relevance of models for social anthropology. Edited by the Conference on New Ap­ proaches in Social Anthropology, pp. 25-84. New York: Praeger. Rethinking Linguistic Relativityl JOHN J. GUMPERZ AND STEPHEN C. LEVINSON References Cited CLIffORD, JAMES. 1982. Person and myth: Maurice Leenhardt in the Melanesian world. Berkeley: University of California Press. CONFERENCE ON NEW APPROACHES IN SOCIAL ANTHRO­ POLOGY. 1965a. The relevance of models for social anthropol­ Department of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley, Calif. 94720, U.S.A. r4 VI 91 A Wenner-Gren Foundation international symposium entitled Rethinking Linguistic Relativity was held in Ocho Rios, Jamaica, May 3-n, 1991. The meeting brought together scholars from seven nations and a range of disciplines including Linguistics, anthropology, education, cognitive psychology, developmental psy­ chology, and cognitive science. The original idea of lin- I. © 1991 by The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rights reserved 0011-320419 I 13205-0004$1 .00. ogy. New York: Praeger. - - . 1965b. Political systems and the distribution of power. New York: Praeger. - - . 1966a. Anthropological approaches co the swdy of reli­ gIOn. New York: Praeger. - - . 1966b. The social anthropology of complex societies. New York: Praeger. EGGAN, FRED. 1950. Social organization of the Western Pueb­ los. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. GEERTZ, CLIffORD. 1957. Ritual and social change: A Javanese example. American Anthropologist 59:32-54.

Karl Christoph Klauer - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • Lady Liberty and Godfather Death as candidates for Linguistic Relativity? Scrutinizing the gender congruency effect on personified allegories with explicit and implicit measures.
    Quarterly journal of experimental psychology (2006), 2015
    Co-Authors: Andrea Bender, Sieghard Beller, Karl Christoph Klauer
    Abstract:

    Linguistic Relativity—the idea that language affects thought by way of its grammatical categorizations—has been controversially debated for decades. One of the contested cases is the grammatical gender of nouns, which is claimed to affect how their referents are conceptualized (i.e., as rather female or male in congruence with the grammatical gender of the noun), especially when used allegorically. But is this association strong enough to be detected in implicit measures, and, if so, can we disentangle effects of grammatical gender and allegorical association? Three experiments with native speakers of German tackled these questions. They revealed a gender congruency effect on allegorically used nouns, but this effect was stronger with an explicit measure (assignment of biological sex) than with an implicit measure (Extrinsic Affective Simon Task) and disappeared in the implicit measure when grammatical gender and allegorical associations were set into contrast. Taken together, these findings indicate that...

  • grammatical gender in german a case for Linguistic Relativity
    Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 2011
    Co-Authors: Andrea Bender, Sieghard Beller, Karl Christoph Klauer
    Abstract:

    The “principle of Linguistic Relativity” holds that, by way of grammatical categorization, language affects the conceptual representations of its speakers. Formal gender systems are a case in point, albeit a particularly controversial one: Previous studies obtained broadly diverging data, thus giving rise to conflicting conclusions. To a large extent, this incoherence is related to task differences and methodological problems. Here, a priming design is presented that avoids previous problems, as it prevents participants from employing gender information in a strategic manner. Four experiments with German native speakers show priming effects of the prime's grammatical gender on animate and nonanimate targets, an effect for the prime's biological gender on animate targets, but no effect for the prime's biological gender on nonanimate targets, and thus speak against an effect of language on thought for German gender.

N. J. Enfield - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • Linguistic Relativity from reference to agency
    Annual Review of Anthropology, 2015
    Co-Authors: N. J. Enfield
    Abstract:

    How are language, thought, and reality related? Interdisciplinary research on this question over the past two decades has made significant progress. Most of the work has been Neo-Whorfian in two senses: One, it has been driven by research questions that were articulated most explicitly and most famously by the Linguistic anthropologist Benjamin Lee Whorf, and two, it has limited the scope of inquiry to Whorf's narrow interpretations of the key terms “language,” “thought,” and “reality.” This article first reviews some of the ideas and results of Neo-Whorfian work, concentrating on the special role of Linguistic categorization in heuristic decision making. It then considers new and potential directions in work on Linguistic Relativity, taken broadly to mean the ways in which the perspective offered by a given language can affect thought (or mind) and reality. New lines of work must reconsider the idea of Linguistic Relativity by exploring the range of available interpretations of the key terms: in particul...

  • language diversity and social action a third locus of Linguistic Relativity
    Current Anthropology, 2012
    Co-Authors: Jack Sidnell, N. J. Enfield
    Abstract:

    The classic version of the Linguistic Relativity principle, formulated by Boas and developed especially in the work of Whorf, suggests that the particular lexicogrammatical patterns of a given language can influence the thought of its speakers. A second version of the argument emerged in the 1970s and shifted the focus to the indexical aspect of language: any given language includes a particular set of indexical signs, and these essentially shape the contexts produced in speaking that language. In this article, we propose a third locus of Linguistic Relativity. Our argument is based on recent work in conversation analysis that has shown how the resources of a given language provide the tools for accomplishing basic actions in interaction. To develop our argument, we consider the way in which the resources of three different languages (Caribbean English Creole, Finnish, and Lao) are deployed by speakers to agree with a prior assessment while at the same time claiming greater epistemic authority over the matter assessed. Our case study indicates that the language-specific tools used to accomplish this action (the lexicogrammatical resources) introduce collateral effects and in this way give the action a local spin or inflection. Does speaking one language rather than another have consequences for thought, and for social life more generally? Anthropologists, linguists, philosophers, and psychologists have all sought to answer this question. The enormous literature, spanning at least 200 years, encompasses everything from formal logic and analytic philosophy to naturalistic observation, psychological experiment, and work bordering on literature and fiction. Everyone from Edward Sapir to George Orwell, from Franz Boas to Toni Morrison has had a say on how the language one speaks does or does not affect one’s understanding of, and place within, the surrounding world. The question of Linguistic Relativity has been central to the anthropology of language, although the methods for answering the question and the kinds of answers given have undergone significant transformation. Below, we begin by briefly reviewing two broad conceptions of Linguistic Relativity—first, the notion that different languages can have different effects on thought (e.g., conceptual representations and inference), and second, the notion that different languages can have different effects on sociocultural context (e.g., social relations among interlocutors)—noting some recalcitrant methodological and analytic issues, before turning to the main aim of