713 research outputs found
Recommended from our members
First-Language Thinking for Second-Language Understanding: Mandarin and English Speakers' Conceptions of Time
Does the language you speak affect how you think about the world English and Mandarin speakers talk about time differently. Is this difference between the two languages reflected in the way their speakers think about time? The findings of two RT experiments show that different ways of talking about time lead to different ways of thinking. In Experiment 1, Mandarin-English bilinguals were compared to native English speakers. The results suggested that Mandarin speakers used a "Mandarin way of thinking" even when they were "thinking for English". In Experiment 2, native English speakers were trained to talk about time in "a Mandarin way". Results showed that even after a short training, native English speakers behaved more like Mandarin speakers than like untrained English speakers. It is concluded that language is a powerful tool in shaping thought
Grammar in Art
Jakobson (1959) reports: âThe Russian painter Repin was baffled as to why Sin had been depicted as a woman by German artists: he did not realize that âsinâ is feminine in German (die SĂŒnde), but masculine in Russian (rpex).â Does the grammatical gender of nouns in an artist's native language indeed predict the gender of personifications in art? In this paper we analyzed works in the ARTstor database (a digital art library containing over a million images) to measure this correspondence. This analysis provides a measure of artistsâ real-world behavior. Our results show a clear correspondence between grammatical gender in language and personified gender in art. Grammatical gender predicted personified gender in 78% of the cases, significantly more often than if the two factors were independent. This analysis offers a new window on an age-old question about the relationship between linguistic structure and patterns in culture and cognition
Spatialization of time in Mian
We examine representations of time among the Mianmin of Papua New Guinea. We begin by describing the patterns of spatial and temporal reference in Mian. Mian uses a system of spatial terms that derive from the orientation and direction of the Hak and Sek rivers and the surrounding landscape. We then report results from a temporal arrangement task administered to a group of Mian speakers. The results reveal evidence for a variety of temporal representations. Some participants arranged time with respect to their bodies (left to right or toward the body). Others arranged time as laid out on the landscape, roughly along the east/west axis (either east to west or west to east). This absolute pattern is consistent both with the axis of the motion of the sun and the orientation of the two rivers, which provides the basis for spatial reference in the Mian language. The results also suggest an increase in left-to-right temporal representations with increasing years of formal education (and the reverse pattern for absolute spatial representations for time). These results extend previous work on spatial representations for time to a new geographical region, physical environment, and linguistic and cultural system
Time in the mind: Using space to think about time
How do we construct abstract ideas like justice, mathematics, or time-travel? In this paper we investigate whether mental representations that result from physical experience underlie peopleâs more abstract mental representations, using the domains of space and time as a testbed. People often talk about time using spatial language (e.g., a long vacation, a short concert). Do people also think about time using spatial representations, even when they are not using language? Results of six psychophysical experiments revealed that people are unable to ignore irrelevant spatial information when making judgments about duration, but not the converse. This pattern, which is predicted by the asymmetry between space and time in linguistic metaphors, was demonstrated here in tasks that do not involve any linguistic stimuli or responses. These findings provide evidence that the metaphorical relationship between space and time observed in language also exists in our more basic representations of distance and duration. Results suggest that our mental representations of things we can never see or touch may be built, in part, out of representations of physical experiences in perception and motor action
Reversing the direction of time: Does the visibility of spatial representations of time shape temporal focus?
While people around the world mentally represent time in terms of space, there is substantial cross-cultural variability regarding which temporal constructs are mapped onto which parts in space. Do particular spatial layouts of time â as expressed through metaphors in language â shape temporal focus? We trained native English speakers to use spatiotemporal metaphors in a way such that the flow of time is reversed, representing the future behind the body (out of visible space) and the past ahead of the body (within visible space). In a task measuring perceived relevance of past events, people considered past events and present (or immediate past) events to be more relevant after using the reversed metaphors compared to a control group that used canonical metaphors spatializing the past behind and the future ahead of the body (Experiment 1). In a control measure in which temporal information was removed, this effect disappeared (Experiment 2). Taken together, these findings suggest that the degree to which people focus on the past may be shaped by the visibility of the past in spatiotemporal metaphors used in language
Surface recombination measurements on IIIâV candidate materials for nanostructure light-emitting diodes
Surface recombination is an important characteristic of an optoelectronic material. Although surface recombination is a limiting factor for very small devices it has not been studied intensively. We have investigated surface recombination velocity on the exposed surfaces of the AlGaN, InGaAs, and InGaAlP material systems by using absolute photoluminescence quantum efficiency measurements. Two of these three material systems have low enough surface recombination velocity to be usable in nanoscale photonic crystal light-emitting diodes
Constructing Agency: The Role of Language
Is agency a straightforward and universal feature of human experience? Or is the construction of agency (including attention to and memory for people involved in events) guided by patterns in culture? In this paper we focus on one aspect of cultural experience: patterns in language. We examined English and Japanese speakersâ descriptions of intentional and accidental events. English and Japanese speakers described intentional events similarly, using mostly agentive language (e.g., âShe broke the vaseâ). However, when it came to accidental events English speakers used more agentive language than did Japanese speakers. We then tested whether these different patterns found in language may also manifest in cross-cultural differences in attention and memory. Results from a non-linguistic memory task showed that English and Japanese speakers remembered the agents of intentional events equally well. However, English speakers remembered the agents of accidents better than did Japanese speakers, as predicted from patterns in language. Further, directly manipulating agency in language during another laboratory task changed peopleâs eye-witness memory, confirming a possible causal role for language. Patterns in oneâs linguistic environment may promote and support how people instantiate agency in context
Data, problems, heuristics and results in cognitive metaphor research
Cognitive metaphor research is characterised by the diversity of rival theories. Starting from this observation, the paper focuses on the problem of how the unity and diversity of cognitive theories of metaphor can be accounted for. The first part of the paper outlines a suitable metascientific approach which emerges as a modification of B. von Eckardtâs notion of research framework. In the second part, by the help of this approach, some aspects of the sophisticated relationship between Lakoff and Johnsonâs, Glucksbergâs, and Gentnerâs theories are discussed. The main finding is that the data, the problems, the heuristics and the hypotheses which have been partly shaped by the rivals contribute to the development of the particular theories to a considerable extent
Recommended from our members
Left-right mental timeline is robust to visuospatial and verbal interference
We test the robustness of American college studentsâ mentaltimeline to dual tasks that have interfered with spatial andverbal reasoning in prior work. We focus on the left-right axisfor representing sequences of events. We test Americancollege students, who read from left to right. We test forautomatic space-time mappings using two established space-time association tasks. We find that their tendency toassociate earlier events with the left side of space and laterevents with the right remains under conditions of visuospatialand verbal interference. We find this both when participantsmade time judgments about linguistic and non-linguisticstimuli. We discuss the relationship between these results andthose obtained for mental timelines that result from learningnew metaphors in language (Hendricks & Boroditsky, 2015),and the effects of the same interference tasks on number tasks(mental number-line and counting; van Dijck et al., 2009;Frank et al., 2012)
- âŠ