Language and Thought Essentials Flashcards

Question

What is one limitation of both Thierry et al (2009) and Winawer (2007)'s studies?

Answer 1

It could be argued that their findings are the effect of a reverse correlation - speakers were more cognisant of the difference between the colours so they created words to describe the difference they noticed

Answer 2

tested colour matching (perception and memory) in Persian speakers to see whether colour vocab makes speakers more able to process colours Found that more colour words improved colour memory but not perception Also, less naming words for a colour correlated with more errors in memory based matching tasks

Answer 3

They were able to show that colour perception and memory are differentially affected by language controlled for luminance also tested effects of matching time (didn't find anything)

Answer 4

Preferential looking study for 4-month-old English babies to see if they have colour categories Faster at detecting colours when between than within Seem to have 5 colour categories at that age aligning with world ones but seems to shift when language is learned colour discrimination exists before vocab to describe it

Answer 5

babies in Western countries may have learnt to differentiate colours through toys should be replicated and compared for children in other cultures, esp. cultures without toys etc

Answer 6

Lens Brunescence hypothesis correlation between grue languages and being nearer the equator UV-B rays cause iris yellowing which makes it harder to differentiate blue and green

Answer 7

Hardy et al. (2005) found that lens brunescence doesn't affect colour perception

Answer 8

Tested participants from Asia, Europe and southern Africa (17 langs) on colour grouping and naming African countries often had loan words for certain colours found that there was 1 factor that was relevant to grouping in all languages did not find systematic differences based on language all languages had more groups than BCTs - based on perception larger number of BCTs --> larger number of secondary terms used for groupings but inconsistent lower number of BCTs --> more random groupings/smaller groupings

Answer 9

Given that African participants were using loan words but were also aged 30-45, could compare them to older generations who would be less likely to have used these loan words give them experimental tests to see if their discrimination was better than older ones

Answer 10

asked men and women to name familiar odours max correct was 50% even with feedback never reached ceiling women better than men

Answer 11

Correlation between non-human primates who have colour vision and those that have a higher number of olfactory receptor pseudo-genes

Answer 12

That they have a basic smell vocabulary - at least 14 words smell words are verbs not source descriptors psychologically salient and common in convo

Answer 13

Tested Jahai and English speakers on colour and odour naming by asking them to freely name them English speakers (texans) showed high agreement for colour but low for smell jahai had the same level

Answer 14

Many other differences apart from language: culture, lifestyle, population, environment, biology

Answer 15

Semaq Beri (hunter gatherers) and Semelai (not HGs) both speak languages related to the Jahai

Answer 16

Semelai behaved very similarly to the English had codable colour vocab but not smell vocab suggests that the relationship might be more related to HG culture than to language

Answer 17

Compared Dutch (source words), Maniq (basic smell vocab, HG) and Thai (smell vocab) on whether they could match odours to colours Dutch and Thai were more consistent than Maniq

Answer 18

People who have more source-based languages are more likely to associate smells with colours than those with basic smell terms seems like how you talk about colours influences odour-colour associations BUT THAI DID IT EVEN THOUGH THEY HAVE BASIC SMELL TERMS - western influence or post-industrial society?

Answer 19

Speakers had to name odours and were recorded smelling them - verbal and emotional reaction smells included decay, meat, faeces Jahai named smells 6x faster than Dutch Significant correlation between facial expressions, esp negative ones suggested that smell-related emotions aren't based on language

Answer 20

facial expressions aren't that consistent a lot of the ps laughed after smelling the bad scent difficult to pick up expressions etc

Answer 21

same cheese smell considered to be more pleasant when described as cheddar cheese than when described as BO when the same thing done with clean air, same pattern found supported by fMRI which showed preferential activation of mOFC and ACC when smell was called cheddar/BO

Answer 22

ratings of scents changed based on context when no verbal info given, ps rather synthetic odours as more pleasant but when labelled they rated natural ones as more pleasant which correlated with overt attitudes towards natural and synthetic products

Answer 23

Studied 9 varied cultures with little interaction with civilisation and found that they gave odour rankings based on molecular identity (41%) and individual variation (54%)

Answer 24

tested whether accurate naming was related to memory ps were presented with scents and asked to name them and indicate whether they were new or old ps were better able to remember if scents were new/old if they named them previously

Answer 25

when participants named scents consistently, memory was correct 93% of the time, but when they named scents inconsistently, memory was correct 36%

Answer 26

Gisladottir et al. (2020) studied 10,000 Icelanders and found an association between TAAR5 gene and reduced intensity ratings for fish smell found other genes associated with enhanced intensity ratings for liquorice and cinnamon

Answer 27

English ps taught odour-label pairs with pseudo-words over a 4-day span found that when odour-label pairs were consistent during learning, people were better able to learn them and identify similarities than when they were less consistent

Answer 28

causal link between language and olfactory processing and supports a linguistic theory for improved olfactory abilities supports the argument that languages with more dedicated basic vocab for odour are more likely to have consistent smell identification

Answer 29

tested non-linguistic numerical cognition in different tasks e.g. line matching, nuts in a can That they have no consistent counting system only words for 1-3: a small number whose prototype is 1 linguistic determinism

Answer 30

cultural/environmental differences, task difficulty, population (lots of incest)

Answer 31

tested home signers and compared numerical cognition to unschooled hearing Spanish home signers had jobs, money etc held up signs with numbers and they had to report back home signers don't communicate exact numbers, more approximations

Answer 32

linguistic 1-3 = 100% 3+ = 44% time unlimited non-linguistic 1-3 = 93% 3+ = 33% lowest score was 91% for Unschooled

Answer 33

Found that not all first gen Nicaraguan's had learned to count consistently younger gen knew how to count and had conventionalised signs gave them a range of counting tests from 1-13 non-counters were worst, followed by late counters adolescents were second after hearing within culture there counting is essential to number manipulation

Answer 34

Chinese more simple counting system than English Chinese children learn to count faster than American ones Both similar at 3 but by 4, Chinese children's proficiency has doubled

Answer 35

cultural differences, attitudes to education, multilingualism

Answer 36

Compared Welsh and English speaking children from the same cultural BG Welsh counting system is more regular than the English one but Welsh numbers are longer Welsh children were better than English at reading and comparing numbers, less stutters and non-starts

Answer 37

Both comparing counting proficiency in languages with easier and more difficult counting systems this one was French and English in the same culture - Canadian and also studying preschoolers

Answer 38

women and men are more likely to apply for jobs when gender neutral language is used 20% increase in women applying when a gender neutral term is used further 20% increase when a pro-female term used

Answer 39

categorised 11 languages into genderless, natural gender, and grammatical gender controlled for geography, location, religion, gov and human development found that natural gender languages showed more gender equality than both other types

Answer 40

gave (no gender) Finnish, English and Hebrew (grammatical) images of children and other objects found that Finnish children learnt their gender slower than the other two languages gender marking can draw attention to gender and development

Answer 41

comapred indonesian (age distinction in sibling relationships) and English (gender distinction) speakers created stimuli that differentiated in age and gender tested in linguistic and non-linguistic experiments on their conception of gender

Answer 42

Found that Indonesian ps were more likely to extend a novel term to a context where the gender was different than English speakers

Answer 43

non-linguistic study indonesian ps were more likely to claim that a seniority variant (gender different, age consistent) matched than English participants (gap was smaller)

Answer 44

test of memory English speakers had more false alarms related to gender variant whereas Indonesian speakers had more related to seniority variant (bigger difference for gender)

Answer 45

collectivist cultures tend to put more emphasis on seniority so may not be a language thing should try it with languages that are more similar culturally

Answer 46

Asked Spanish and English children whether objects were masculine or feminine Spanish speakers more likely to classify based on gender than English (71% vs 52%) Follow up: asked adults and children whether certain characters should have male/female voices Spanish children assigned voices based on grammatical gender (after 2nd grade)

Answer 47

taught Spanish and German speakers obj-name associations in English apple > Patrick apple > Patricia

Answer 48

learned the association more easily when the names were consistent with grammatical gender suggests that even in a second language, gender associations from the first were relevant

Answer 49

Gave object names to participants in English and asked them to describe English ps rated them on masc/femininity adjectives were consistent with gender category of the words in the respective language

Answer 50

non-linguistic Spanish/German speakers had to say how similar a person-object pair was (1-9)

Answer 51

Greater similarity ratings between people and objects of matching grammatical gender than mis-matching

Answer 52

key > hard, jagged key > golden, intricate bridge > beautiful, elegant bridge > dangerous, strong

Answer 53

Tested Spanish and German bilinguals on the same task Found that their ratings correlated with their level of fluency in the target language

Answer 54

used verbal interference for the same task found that object-gender similarity judgements persisted under interference (so language not online)

Answer 55

Could have also looked at reaction time/speed with and without interference to see if it had an effect

Answer 56

ps were taught a fictional language called Gumbuzi and essentially it was described as having a gender distinction (without the word gender used) ps showed signs of grammatical gender on object representation through language training even under verbal interference and in a different language

Answer 57

Mickan et al. (2014) failed to replicate the findings in the adjective generation task

Answer 58

Tested Spanish and English speakers ps were given 3 pictures that were the same or different grammatical gender asked to judge whether they were semantically related and EEG responses were measured found no effect of grammatical gender on behaviour There was an N400 for grammatically incongruent sentences in both English and Spanish speakers also a LAN for Spanish speakers for grammatical gender but not English speakers

Answer 59

Priming German ps with gender fair language made them more likely to identify a gender neutral specialist as a woman (33 v 44%)

Answer 60

the gender fair language that they used is also associated with the gender equality movement so it may have made that more salient rather than gender neutrality and this may have been the cause of the effect

Answer 61

Tested Dutch and German children from 7-12 Found that when professions were presented in male and female pairs, the perception of women as successful increased (more in the eyes of the girls) and girls' interested in these roles also increased

Answer 62

When gender inclusive language was used, it worsened people's perceptions of the profession and salaries were assumed to be worse as well