国外心理语言学课件5.pptVIP

* * * * * * * * * Which did Whorf believe? Hard to tell, depends which writings you look at * * * * * * * * * * The study included data collected from speakers of twenty different languages from a number of different language families. Potential problems: the data for 19 of the 20 languages were collected from bi-lingual speakers color categorizations may have been inconsistently applied (Michaels, 1977) some basic colors terms may have been omitted (Hickerson, 1971) * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Winawer, Boroditsky and others (2007) English and Russian divide up blues differently Russian makes an obligatory distinction between lighter blues (”goluboy”) and darker blues (”siniy”). Results Russian speakers were faster to discriminate two colors when they fell into different linguistic categories (one siniy and the other goluboy) than when they were from the same linguistic category (both siniy or both goluboy). English speakers tested on the identical stimuli did not show a category advantage in any of the conditions. Support for a weak version of the Whorfian hypothesis, categories in language affect performance on simple perceptual color tasks Color Terms Siok, Kay and others (2009) fMRI study Results: Lexical color information was accessed in color discrimination It also enhanced the activation of color region V2/3 Discussion: “Language, by enhancing the activation level of the visual cortex, differentially influences the discrimination of colors presented in the left and right visual hemi-fields.” Support for a weak version of the Whorfian hypothesis, categories in language affect brain activation during perceptual color tasks Color Terms Higher Cognitive Processes Color naming may not seem like a very complex cognitive process: What about more complex mental processes? Counting and other Arithmetic processes Counting Arithmetic Greenberg (1978) has identified some cultures where the only number terms correspond to one, two, many. Piraha tribe; G