PY2505.6 ~ {Language & Context}
categorical perception
phenomenon where people perceive stimuli as belingign to distinct categories [even when those stimuli vary along a continuous spectrum] e.g speech sounds like 'b' + 'p' we perceive as distinct categories even though there is a continum of sound between them
evidence about the extent to which language is affected by categorical perception
cross-cultural studies + developmental studies + infant studies
Munsell colour system
each square has a noticeable diff from the one before it, but you don't actually see it as a continum its a way of looking ar just notable diffs btwn each successive colour as you change in hue
continuum
a range or a series of things that are connected, with no clear divisions between them, something that flows smoothly without abrupt changes so transitions between diff points or stages are gradual
category boundary
the point at which a continuous spectrum of colours is divided into a distinct color cats, while the visible spectrum of light is continuous our brains tend to group colours into cats so its where one color changes into another
category boundary tests
shown a colour then shown 2 and asked to identify which one you just saw or a pic the odd one out
results showed that participants found it easier to identify the colour when the chips crossed the cat boundary than when they didn't
cat boundary [faces]
3 real protoype faces: happy + scared + angry and the others are artificially produced to becime a continuum for the experiment
linguistic relativity hypothesis
aka Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis - idea that your language is what's really important for driving the way you see things.
language we speak influences the way we think + perceive the world
earliest cross culture studies
Heider 1972 (Eleanor Rosch) - she worked with Dani community in Papua New Guniea: they only use 2 diff names for colours but their colour perception was similar to English speakers
Dani community colours
mili = dark
mola = light
knew the colour 'red' easily but maybe certain shades they might have struggled with
challenges of cross-cultural work
ethical + moral considerations [consent + payment / compensation] + methodological challenges [was it culturally appropriate + adequte translation] + cultural misconceptions [misrepresentation + potentially invalidating findings]
Perrino community work
similar to Dani community [enviro-wise] this found these people had more sophisticated colour interpretation and colour boundaries
Berinmo (Davidoff et al., 1999)
Himba vs English (Roberson et al.,2004)
in Namibia used the Munsell colour system asked participants to name each chip colour then use this to conduct memory perception + memory experiments - they have differences in distinctions in colour [dead leaves and live leaves - english its just green]
herero group [Namibia]
language also differs from english [have a green to yellow boundary that english speakers don't have+ diff in the way they see light + dark colours]
herero time stamps
testing how memory changes over time, participants shown blue colour chip [after its taken away they're shown an array of colours] tended to puck colours very similar so black / purple and then eventually blue at T6
himba time stamps results
english children at T1 chose colour randomly but by T4 theyre choosing purple a lot of the time then by T6 they all picked blue [correct]
whilst for himba children over time they're more likely to chose black over blue
infant studies [pre language]
categorical perception of colour - infant in front of computer screen and is directed to a fixation cross [they tend to look at cross when it appears then target when it appears] target is a dot which is a diff colour to the background
infant studies what are measuring
in order to direct eye moement to the target you need to have noticed that it's diff from the background and said the speed that the baby notices is the measure of perception of diff in colour
infant studies results [adults]
when adults did the task they were much quicker for the infants when the target was in the right visual field the diff was bigger which suggests there's a language effect going on [we know language is left lateralized cause of our visual system] which suggests advantage is due to language
infant studies results [infans]
for targets on the right hand side they had no advantage but on the left there was [so not a language effect] so there is categorical perception for infants + adults but driven by separate things
Franklin's take on infants and categorial perception
infants might rely on perceptual processes to make judgements so its possible that our visual system is set up in such a wat that we do see colours in categories but once toddlers actually learn colour terms, their language takes priority over simple perception