Greg Detre
12/9/00
imagine the colours on a real object
describe or name the colours
Brown + Lenneberg�s colour experiment
Hopi didn't have words for �tomorrow�, but they did have communicable concepts
use phrases where specialised terminology is lacking
colour is a continuous spectrum
so they thought that labels came up the spectrum arbitarily
even languages with 2 colours can tell others apart
then Heidi Roche � day/night people
memory tests on focal (more codable) colours
could she not have given them nonsense words instead of used the clan words???
when shown spectrum, do we see different colours?
same colour pigments
but different wiring
supposedly � agreement from red???
� variance for focal colours
but colour boundaries depend on number of colour boundaries
black/white �/span> light/dark
interactions between colour boundaries/labels and levels of cognitive appreciation
volumes of samples
bilingual subjects will spoil the experiment because will use primary language�s terms
Carmichael codability � showed ambiguous images and 1 of 2 descriptions
this was shown to affect their visual recall of the object
but does it affect your perception/cognition???
linguistic relativity obviously isn't going to affect consciousness
Carmichael would have been better with 3D � less ambiguous shapes � the language is simply a tag that helps you remember
is colour a valid testing-ground?
too basic and physiological to address the more abstract question
logarithmic colour coding: non-linear, colour spectrum
perhaps language affects levels of cognition (high)
can you find a situation where language affects your interpretation?
Slobin: the boy is climbing the tree
����� the boy is in the state of having climbed the tree
when shown an image of a boy climbing the tree
can someone fluent in a language use the same concepts as a native � methodological impossibility
Bloom � Chinese lack subjunctive � methodological flaws
Ao?? used idiomatic Chinese and got mixed results when he repeated the experiment
humour � sarcasm + puns don't exist so well in French (or America)
this whole topic is difficult to nail down
Emma � switch cultural modes with language
is it possible that (especially when
young) your language points you in different directions?
the languages may all be able to express any concept, but that isn't to say that the concepts currently cannot be expressed, but they haven't gestated yet within the language and need to be introduced from outside
is language a restriction on cognition?
like a Universal Turing machine missing the instructions to add two numbers
you can't translate the Japanese terms of hierarchy
instead you abstract from what you see of the environment and the language makes it easier + quicker to express this
programming languages � some things are easier to program in one language than another
languages are shortcuts to processing power
cognitive determinism
Piaget, mostly about (his own) children
babies need the cognitive concept before they can appreciate the cooresponding linguistic concept
children are better at conservation if you teach them jargon, e.g. quantity
language can't take off till you�ve passed through the preliminary cognitive stages
memory does subtly affect future cognition
language is a means of codifying past representations
seasons � even though they haven't experienced seasons, they could be explained
to what extent are early linguistic and cognitive processes driving/dependent on each other???