The magic spell of language: linguistic categories and their perceptual consequences.
Language is a tool that directs attention to different aspects of reality. Using participants from the same linguistic community, the authors demonstrate in 4 studies that metasemantic features of linguistic categories influence basic perceptual processes. More specifically, the hypothesis that abstract versus concrete language leads to a more global versus local perceptual focus was supported across 4 experiments, in which participants used (Experiment 1) or were primed either supraliminally (Experiments 2 and 3) or subliminally (Experiment 4) with abstract (adjectives) or concrete (verbs) terms. Participants were shown to display a global versus specific perceptual focus (Experiments 1 and 4), more versus less inclusiveness of categorization (Experiments 2 and 3), and incorporation of more rather than less contextual information (Experiment 3). The implications of this new perspective toward the language-perception interface are discussed in the context of the general linguistic relativity debate.
Stapel
Deiderik A
DA
Tilburg Institute for Behavioral Economics Research, Tilburg University, Tilburg, Netherlands. d.a.stapel@uvt.nl
Semin
Gün
G
D001288:Attention; D001364:Awareness; D003071:Cognition; D032882:Comprehension; D006801:Humans; D007092:Imagination; D007802:Language; D008273:Magic; D009039:Motion Perception; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D010551:Personality; D011578:Psycholinguistics; D011932:Reading; D012660:Semantics; D013360:Subliminal Stimulation