Keywords
color perception, whorfianism, philosophy of psychology, cognitive differences
Abstract
This paper discusses, from the point of view of the philosophy of psychology, recent behavioral and brain studies showing effects of the diversity of language vocabulary on color perception. I examine the alternative between two different interpretations of these so-called whorfian effects, namely habitual or deep whorfianism, and shallow whorfianism. I argue that at the moment the evidence underdetermines both interpretations and the question is open. I also clarify that shallow whorfianism is not a synonym for ‘trivial whorfianism’, as some authors have suggested, but rather makes a case for the online and situated nature of human cognition.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Lalumera, Elisabetta
(2014)
"Whorfian Effects in Color Perception: Deep or Shallow?,"
Baltic International Yearbook of Cognition, Logic and Communication:
Vol. 9.
https://doi.org/10.4148/1944-3676.1086
References
Tuborg, J. 2008. “The evolutionary role of shame”, BioScience 24:715-22. [In-Text: (Tuborg 2008, 20) or (Tuborg 2008)]
Athanasopoulos P., Wiggett A., Dering B., Kuipers J.-R., Thierry G. (2009). “The Whorfian mind: electrophysiological evidence that language shapes perception”. Commun. Integr. Biol. 2: 332–334.
Barsalou, L. W. (2012). “The human conceptual system”. The Cambridge handbook of psycholinguistics, 239-258.
Berlin, B. e Kay, P. (1969) Basic color terms: their universality and evolution. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Black, S. (2004). “Review of semantic satiation”. Advances in Psychology Research, 26: 63–74.
Casasanto, D., & Lupyan, G. (2011). “Ad hoc cognition”. Proceedings of the 33rd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society: 826.
Cook, R.S. et al. (2005). The World Color Survey database: History and use. Handbook of Categorization in Cognitive Science (Cohen, H. and Lefebvre, C., eds):. 223–242, Amsterdam, Elsevier.
Davidoff, J., Davies, I. & Roberson, D. (1999) “Colour categories of a stone-age tribe”. Nature 398: 203-204 & 402-404.
Drivonikou GV, et al. (2007). “Further evidence that Whorfian effects are stronger in the right visual field than the left.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Science U.S.A. 104:1097–1102.
Gendron, M., Lindquist, K.A., Barsalou, L.W., & Barrett, L.F. (2012) “Emotion words shape emotion percepts”. Emotion, 12: 314-325.
Gilbert A. L., Regier T., Kay P., Ivry R. B. (2006). “Whorf hypothesis is supported in the right visual field but not the left”. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 103: 489–494.
Gilbert A.L., Regier T., Kay P., Ivry R.B. (2008) “Support for lateralization of the Whorf effect beyond the realm of color discrimination”. Brain and Language 105:91–98.
Gilbert C. D., Sigman M. (2007). “Brain states: top-down influences in sensory processing”. Neuron 54, 677–696.
Heider, E.R. & Olivier, D.C. (1972) “The structure of the color space in naming and memory for two languages”. Cognitive Psychology 3: 337-354.
Holmes, K. J., & Wolff, P. (2012). “Does categorical perception in the left hemisphere depend on language?” Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 141: 439-443
Kay, P. and Regier, T. (2007) “Color naming universals: The case of Berinmo”. Cognition 102: 289–298.
Lindsey, D.T. and Brown, A.G. (2006) “Universality of color names.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 103:16609–16613.
Lupyan, G. (2012). “Linguistically modulated perception and cognition: the label-feedback hypothesis.” Frontiers in psychology, 3.
Mazzone, M., & Lalumera, E. (2010). “Concepts: stored or created?” Minds and machines, 20(1): 47-68.
Pinker S. (1994) The Language Instinct. New York: Morrow
Regier, T., & Kay, P. (2009). “Language, thought, and color: Whorf was half right”. Trends in cognitive sciences, 13(10): 439-446.
Reines, M. F. and Prinz, J., (2009) “Reviving Whorf: The Return of Linguistic Relativity”. Philosophy Compass 4, vol. 6, 2009: 1022-1032.
Roberson D, Pak HS, Hanley JR (2008). “Categorical perception of colour in the left and right visual field is verbally mediated: Evidence from Korean”. Cognition 107:752–762.
Roberson D., Davidoff J., Davies I. R. L., Shapiro L. R. (2005). “Color categories: evidence for the cultural relativity hypothesis”. Cognitive Psychology 50: 378–411.
Roberson, D. & Davidoff, J. (2000) “The categorical perception of colours and facial expressions: The effect of verbal interference”. Memory & Cognition, 28: 977-986.
Roberson, D., Davies I. & Davidoff, J. (2000) “Colour categories are not universal: Replications and new evidence from a Stone-age culture”. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 129: 369-398.
Rosch Heider, E. (1972) “Universals in color naming and memory”. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 93, 10-20.
Slobin, D.L. (1996) “From ‘thought and language’ to ‘thinking for speaking’”. In J.J. Gumperz and S.C. Levinson (Eds.), Rethinking linguistic relativity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Whorf, B. L. (1956/1970) Language, Thought and Reality. Selected Writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf, B. Carroll, ed., Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Wolff, P., & Holmes, K. J. (2011). “Linguistic relativity”. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science 2: 253–265.