All posts; Tags Include "Linguistics"
- September 9, 2010
- 12:00 PM
- 30 views
Social Sensitivity Hypothesis and Migration
by Sean Roberts in A Replicated Typo 2.0
Given findings that certain genetic variants will make a person more reliant on social contact under stress, the social sensitivity hypothesis proposes that certain genetic variants ‘fit’ better with certain social structures. In support of this idea, Way and Lieberman (2010) find a correlation between the prevalence of this variant and the level of collectivism (as opposed to individualism) in a society. This post looks at how this effect might interact with migration patterns.... Read more »
Way, B., & Lieberman, M. (2010) Is there a genetic contribution to cultural differences? Collectivism, individualism and genetic markers of social sensitivity. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 5(2-3), 203-211. DOI: 10.1093/scan/nsq059
Caspi, A., Karen Sugden,, Terrie E. Moffitt,, Alan Taylor,, Ian W. Craig,, HonaLee Harrington,, Joseph McClay,, Jonathan Mill,, Judy Martin,, Antony Braithwaite,.... (2003) Influence of Life Stress on Depression: Moderation by a Polymorphism in the 5-HTT Gene. Science, 301(5631), 386-389. DOI: 10.1126/science.1083968
- September 9, 2010
- 11:54 AM
- 23 views
More on The Social Sensitivity Hypothesis
by Sean Roberts in A Replicated Typo 2.0
In a recent post, James wrote about the Social Sensitivity hypothesis. Given findings that certain genetic variants will make a person more sensitive to social contact and more reliant on social contact under stress, it proposes that certain genetic variants ‘fit’ better with certain social structures. In support of this idea, Way and Lieberman (2010) find . . . → Read More: More on The Social Sensitivity Hypothesis... Read more »
Way, B., & Lieberman, M. (2010) Is there a genetic contribution to cultural differences? Collectivism, individualism and genetic markers of social sensitivity. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 5(2-3), 203-211. DOI: 10.1093/scan/nsq059
Caspi, A., Karen Sugden,, Terrie E. Moffitt,, Alan Taylor,, Ian W. Craig,, HonaLee Harrington,, Joseph McClay,, Jonathan Mill,, Judy Martin,, Antony Braithwaite,.... (2003) Influence of Life Stress on Depression: Moderation by a Polymorphism in the 5-HTT Gene. Science, 301(5631), 386-389. DOI: 10.1126/science.1083968
- September 7, 2010
- 08:41 PM
- 30 views
Review: Brain damage and ordering of panels in comic strips
by Neil Cohn in The Visual Linguist
I recently reviewed an older study of brain damaged individual's comprehension of final-panel jokes in comic strips. Here's another paper that explores brain damage and the ordering of panels in sequences.Participants were asked to arrange scrambled parts of a story into their accurate order, and the authors compared the abilities of numerous types of brain damaged patients. Participants ... Read more »
Huber W, & Gleber J. (1982) Linguistic and nonlinguistic processing of narratives in aphasia. Brain and language, 16(1), 1-18. PMID: 7104674
- September 6, 2010
- 01:49 PM
- 78 views
More on Phoneme Inventory Size and Demography
by Wintz in A Replicated Typo 2.0
On the basis of Sean’s comment, about using a regression to look at how phoneme inventory size improved as geographic spread was incorporated along with population size, I decided to look at the stats a bit more closely (original post is here). It’s fairly easy to perform multiple regression in R, which, in the case of . . . → Read More: More on Phoneme Inventory Size and Demography... Read more »
John Fox. (2005) Nonparametric Regression. Encyclopedia of Statistics in Behavioral Science. DOI: 10.1002/0470013192.bsa446
- September 4, 2010
- 08:33 AM
- 58 views
the original Whorf
by Chris in The Lousy Linguist
Guy Deutcher's NYT's article on how language affects thought continues to get buzz, as surely his book Through The Language Glass will when people read it (it was just released 3 days ago and is currently #234 on Amazon's book rank). One common reaction amongst bloggers is that Deutscher gives Whorf himself unfairly harsh treatment, and ultimately mis-represents Whorf's own opinions.For example, Kathryn Woolard, SLA President, says "Whorf’s own statements of his theory look little like the car........ Read more »
Benjamin Lee Whorf. (1940) Science and Linguistics. MIT Technology Review, 42(6). info:other/
- September 1, 2010
- 07:33 AM
- 42 views
the largest whorfian study EVER! (and why it matters)
by Chris in The Lousy Linguist
Let me take the ball Mark Liberman threw on Monday and run with it a bit. Liberman posted a thorough discussion of Fausey and Broditsky's neo-Whorfian English and Spanish speakers remember causal agents differently. Specifically, he invited readers to carefully examine the methodology of the experiments themselves, and not just focus on the conclusions. It turns out that a few years ago another set of neo-Whorfians, Jürgen Bohnemeyer and company, published a paper that addressed similar me........ Read more »
Jürgen Bohnemeyer, Sonja Eisenbeiss, & Bhuvana Narasimhan. (2006) Ways to go: Methodological considerations in Whorfian studies on motion events. ESSEX RESEARCH REPORTS IN LINGUISTICS, 1-19. info:other/
- August 31, 2010
- 01:16 AM
- 79 views
The new linguistic relativism: Guy Deutscher in the NYTimes
by gregdowney in Neuroanthropology
How does language affect thought and perception? It’s a question we’ve looked at here at Neuroanthropology.net on a number of occasions, but Prof. Guy Deutscher, offers a nice general survey of the current state of play in the research over at The New York Times in ‘Does Your Language Shape How You Think?’ Posts on [...]... Read more »
Casasanto, Daniel. (2005) Crying "Whorf". Science, 307(5716), 1721-1722. DOI: 10.1126/science.307.5716.1721
Casasanto, D. (2008) Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Whorf? Crosslinguistic Differences in Temporal Language and Thought. Language Learning, 63-79. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9922.2008.00462.x
- August 30, 2010
- 01:11 PM
- 51 views
Phoneme Inventory Size and Demography
by Wintz in A Replicated Typo 2.0
It’s long since been established that demography drives evolutionary processes (see Hawks, 2008 for a good overview). Similar attempts are also being made to describe cultural (Shennan, 2000; Henrich, 2004; Richerson & Boyd, 2009) and linguistic (Nettle, 1999a; Wichmann & Homan, 2009; Vogt, 2009) processes by considering the effects of population size and other . . . → Read More: Phoneme Inventory Size and Demography... Read more »
Hay, J., & Bauer, L. (2007) Phoneme inventory size and population size. Language, 83(2), 388-400. DOI: 10.1353/lan.2007.0071
Lupyan G, & Dale R. (2010) Language structure is partly determined by social structure. PloS one, 5(1). PMID: 20098492
Lycett, S., & Norton, C. (2010) A demographic model for Palaeolithic technological evolution: The case of East Asia and the Movius Line. Quaternary International, 211(1-2), 55-65. DOI: 10.1016/j.quaint.2008.12.001
Trudgill, P. (2004) Linguistic and social typology: The Austronesian migrations and phoneme inventories. Linguistic Typology, 8(3), 305-320. DOI: 10.1515/lity.2004.8.3.305
- August 26, 2010
- 11:22 PM
- 84 views
Bad faith migration programs
by Ingrid Piller in Language on the Move
In the past couple of years, I have been a passenger in Sydney taxis driven, inter alia, by an agricultural engineer from India, a civil engineer from Somalia, a surgeon from Vietnam, an MBA graduate from Pakistan, an architect from … Continue reading →... Read more »
Creese, G., & Wiebe, B. (2009) ‘Survival Employment’: Gender and Deskilling among African Immigrants in Canada. International Migration. DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2435.2009.00531.x
- August 26, 2010
- 04:26 AM
- 59 views
Universal Patterns in Colour Terms are not Evidence for Innate Constraints
by Sean Roberts in A Replicated Typo 2.0
In a series of posts, I've been discussing constraints on the evolution of colour terms. Here, I discuss the role of drift and argue that universal patterns are not necessarily good evidence for innate constraints.... Read more »
Steels, L., & Belpaeme, T. (2005) Coordinating perceptually grounded categories through language: A case study for colour. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 28(04). DOI: 10.1017/S0140525X05000087
Belpaeme, T. (2005) Explaining Universal Color Categories Through a Constrained Acquisition Process. Adaptive Behavior, 13(4), 293-310. DOI: 10.1177/105971230501300404
Kirby, S., Dowman, M., & Griffiths, T. (2007) Innateness and culture in the evolution of language. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104(12), 5241-5245. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0608222104
- August 25, 2010
- 05:26 AM
- 58 views
Niche Construction in Colour Term Evolution
by Sean Roberts in A Replicated Typo 2.0
Language’s influence on perception can be regarded as a form of Niche Construction. The words we have for colours affects the way in which we co-operate with others to change the world. Therefore, not only does language become better at describing the environment, but the environment becomes better suited to being described by language.... Read more »
Laland, K., Odling-Smee, J., & Feldman, M. (2000) Niche construction, biological evolution, and cultural change. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 23(1), 131-146. DOI: 10.1017/S0140525X00002417
Hansen, T., Olkkonen, M., Walter, S., & Gegenfurtner, K. (2006) Memory modulates color appearance. Nature Neuroscience, 9(11), 1367-1368. DOI: 10.1038/nn1794
Heslop-Harrison, J., & Schwarzacher, T. (2007) Domestication, Genomics and the Future for Banana. Annals of Botany, 100(5), 1073-1084. DOI: 10.1093/aob/mcm191
Griffin, L. (2004) Optimality of the Basic Colours Categories. Journal of Vision, 4(8), 309-309. DOI: 10.1167/4.8.309
- August 24, 2010
- 06:42 PM
- 53 views
Neuroimaging of language: Why hasn't a clearer picture emerged?
by Greg Hickok in Talking Brains
This is the question raised in a paper by Evelina Fedorenko and Nancy Kanwisher published last year in Language and Linguistics Compass. The main point that they want to make is that language neuroimagers need to stop doing group studies and start doing functional localization in individual subjects, like the vision folks do. I don't disagree at all; e.g., see this post. In fact, we have used individual subject analyses in several of our papers (e.g., Okada & Hickok, 2006; Okada et al., in pr........ Read more »
Fedorenko, E., & Kanwisher, N. (2009) Neuroimaging of Language: Why Hasn't a Clearer Picture Emerged?. Language and Linguistics Compass, 3(4), 839-865. DOI: 10.1111/j.1749-818X.2009.00143.x
- August 24, 2010
- 09:49 AM
- 57 views
Going Nuclear: Closing the Gap Between Radiation and Reason
by Matthew C. Nisbet in Age of Engagement
In a series of posts over at Scientific American's blog CrossCheck, John Horgan describes how several recent articles and books have prompted him to re-evaluate his views on nuclear energy. He specifically recommends Gynweth Craven's Power to Save the World, discusses John Mueller's Atomic Obsession, and describes how Wade Allison's Between Radiation and Reason has challenged his views about the risks of radiation exposure. Horgan's seminal End of Science partly inspired my research focus in gra........ Read more »
Nisbet, M. (2009) Communicating Climate Change: Why Frames Matter for Public Engagement. Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development, 51(2), 12-23. DOI: 10.3200/ENVT.51.2.12-23
- August 24, 2010
- 07:35 AM
- 78 views
Perceptual Warping of Colour
by Sean Roberts in The Adventures of Auck
There is evidence that categorisations can influence perception, which has been identified as a crucial argument for Relativism. In this post, the idea of perceptual warping is explained and applied to colour categorisation.... Read more »
DEBOER, B. (2000) Self-organization in vowel systems. Journal of Phonetics, 28(4), 441-465. DOI: 10.1006/jpho.2000.0125
Goldstone, R. (1994) Influences of categorization on perceptual discrimination. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 123(2), 178-200. DOI: 10.1037//0096-3445.123.2.178
Kuhl, P. (1994) Learning and representation in speech and language. Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 4(6), 812-822. DOI: 10.1016/0959-4388(94)90128-7
Miyawaki, K., Strange, W., Verbrugge, R. R., Liberman, A. M., Jenkins, J. J., & Fujimura, O. (1975) An effect of linguistic experience: The discrimination of (r) and (l) by native speakers of Japanese and English . Perception and Psychophysics, 331-340. info:/
KUHL, P. (1983) Perception of auditory equivalence classes for speech in early infancy. Infant Behavior and Development, 6(2-3), 263-285. DOI: 10.1016/S0163-6383(83)80036-8
Lupyan G. (2008) From chair to "chair": a representational shift account of object labeling effects on memory. Journal of experimental psychology. General, 137(2), 348-69. PMID: 18473663
Buchsbaum, G. (2002) Color categories revealed by non-negative matrix factorization of Munsell color spectra. Vision Research, 42(5), 559-563. DOI: 10.1016/S0042-6989(01)00303-0
Connell, L., & Lynott, D. (2009) Is a bear white in the woods? Parallel representation of implied object color during language comprehension. Psychonomic Bulletin , 16(3), 573-577. DOI: 10.3758/PBR.16.3.573
- August 24, 2010
- 05:00 AM
- 59 views
Evolution of Colour Terms: 8 Embodied Relationships
by Sean Roberts in A Replicated Typo 2.0
In a series of posts, I’ve been discussing constraints on the evolution of colour terms. In the last post, I discussed Perceptual Warping. Here, a further adjustment to the assumptions about perceptual space is suggested.
The assumption that all perceptual spaces are the same may be unrealistic and may favour Universalism (see Levinson, 2000). To begin with, . . . → Read More: Evolution of Colour Terms: 8 Embodied Relationships... Read more »
Levinson, S. (2000) Yeli Dnye and the Theory of Basic Color Terms. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 10(1), 3-55. DOI: 10.1525/jlin.2000.10.1.3
Bornstein, M., Kessen, W., & Weiskopf, S. (1976) Color vision and hue categorization in young human infants. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 2(1), 115-129. DOI: 10.1037/0096-1523.2.1.115
Roberson, D., Davidoff, J., Davies, I., & Shapiro, L. (2004) The Development of Color Categories in Two Languages: A Longitudinal Study. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 133(4), 554-571. DOI: 10.1037/0096-3445.133.4.554
- August 22, 2010
- 06:00 AM
- 58 views
Evolution of Colour Terms: 6 Categorisation Constraints
by Sean Roberts in A Replicated Typo 2.0
Continuing my series on the Evolution of Colour terms, this post reviews evidence for categorisation constraints on colour perception. For the full dissertation and for references, go here.
This section reviews the conflicting evidence for ability of linguistic categories to affect perception, which is crucial for the Cultural implication. Studies of Embodied Cognition which found evidence . . . → Read More: Evolution of Colour Terms: 6 Categorisation Constraints... Read more »
Aginsky, Michael, V., & Tarr, M. J. (2000) How Are Different Properties of a Scene Encoded in Visual Memory?. Visual Cognition, 7(1-3), 147-162. DOI: 10.1080/135062800394739
Kay, P., & Kempton, W. (1984) What Is the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis?. American Anthropologist, 86(1), 65-79. DOI: 10.1525/aa.1984.86.1.02a00050
Zwaan, R., Stanfield, R., & Yaxley, R. (2002) Language Comprehenders Mentally Represent the Shapes of Objects. Psychological Science, 13(2), 168-171. DOI: 10.1111/1467-9280.00430
Olkkonen, M., Hansen, T., & Gegenfurtner, K. (2010) The structure of color space is largely invariant under illuminant changes. Journal of Vision, 8(6), 574-574. DOI: 10.1167/8.6.574
Connell, L., & Lynott, D. (2009) Is a bear white in the woods? Parallel representation of implied object color during language comprehension. Psychonomic Bulletin , 16(3), 573-577. DOI: 10.3758/PBR.16.3.573
SPALEK, K., & THOMPSONSCHILL, S. (2008) Task-dependent semantic interference in language production: An fMRI study☆. Brain and Language, 107(3), 220-228. DOI: 10.1016/j.bandl.2008.05.005
Hansen, T., Olkkonen, M., Walter, S., & Gegenfurtner, K. (2006) Memory modulates color appearance. Nature Neuroscience, 9(11), 1367-1368. DOI: 10.1038/nn1794
Claidière, N., Jraissati, Y., & Chevallier, C. (2008) A Colour Sorting Task Reveals the Limits of the Universalist/Relativist Dichotomy: Colour Categories Can Be Both Language Specific and Perceptual. Journal of Cognition and Culture, 8(3), 211-233. DOI: 10.1163/156853708X358155
Winawer, J., Witthoft, N., Frank, M., Wu, L., Wade, A., & Boroditsky, L. (2007) Russian blues reveal effects of language on color discrimination. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104(19), 7780-7785. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0701644104
- August 21, 2010
- 01:56 PM
- 97 views
Evolution of Colour Terms: 5 Cultural Constraints
by Sean Roberts in A Replicated Typo 2.0
Continuing my series on the Evolution of Colour terms, this post reviews studies of cultural constraints on colour naming. For the full dissertation and for references, go here.
This section reviews evidence of cultural constraints on colour terms. Modelling has shown that cultural transmission can cause individual categorisations of colour space to converge on shared categories, . . . → Read More: Evolution of Colour Terms: 5 Cultural Constraints... Read more »
Steels, L., & Belpaeme, T. (2005) Coordinating perceptually grounded categories through language: A case study for colour. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 28(04). DOI: 10.1017/S0140525X05000087
Belpaeme, T., & Bleys, J. (2005) Explaining Universal Color Categories Through a Constrained Acquisition Process. Adaptive Behavior, 13(4), 293-310. DOI: 10.1177/105971230501300404
Kirby, S., Cornish, H., & Smith, K. (2008) Cumulative cultural evolution in the laboratory: An experimental approach to the origins of structure in human language. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105(31), 10681-10686. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0707835105
Kirby, S., Dowman, M., & Griffiths, T. (2007) Innateness and culture in the evolution of language. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104(12), 5241-5245. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0608222104
KOMAROVA, N., JAMESON, K., & NARENS, L. (2007) Evolutionary models of color categorization based on discrimination. Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 51(6), 359-382. DOI: 10.1016/j.jmp.2007.06.001
- August 20, 2010
- 04:16 PM
- 67 views
Conduction aphasia, speech repetition, and the left parietal lobe
by Greg Hickok in Talking Brains
Julius Fridriksson has been featured on this blog before and now his team has just published another noteworthy paper in J. Neuroscience. This paper sought to identify the neural correlate of repetition disorder in aphasia. Repetition deficits are characteristic of conduction aphasia although they are not exclusive to conduction aphasia nor is repetition the only deficit in conduction aphasia. Some historical background is useful, if for no other reason than most people get it wrong in one wa........ Read more »
Baldo JV, Klostermann EC, & Dronkers NF. (2008) It's either a cook or a baker: patients with conduction aphasia get the gist but lose the trace. Brain and language, 105(2), 134-40. PMID: 18243294
Fridriksson J, Kjartansson O, Morgan PS, Hjaltason H, Magnusdottir S, Bonilha L, & Rorden C. (2010) Impaired speech repetition and left parietal lobe damage. The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 30(33), 11057-61. PMID: 20720112
Hickok, G., Buchsbaum, B., Humphries, C., & Muftuler, T. (2003) Auditory-Motor Interaction Revealed by fMRI: Speech, Music, and Working Memory in Area Spt. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 15(5), 673-682. DOI: 10.1162/jocn.2003.15.5.673
Hickok G, Okada K, & Serences JT. (2009) Area Spt in the human planum temporale supports sensory-motor integration for speech processing. Journal of neurophysiology, 101(5), 2725-32. PMID: 19225172
- August 20, 2010
- 12:32 PM
- 42 views
Study: In Communicating about Nano and GMOs, Do the Frames or the Facts Matter?
by Matthew C. Nisbet in Age of Engagement
When attempting to communicate effectively with the public about a science-related debate, which is more important, framing the message or conveying science-based facts about the topic? A forthcoming study (Word) at the Journal of Communication by Northwestern University researchers James Druckman and Toby Bolsen sheds new light on this long standing question.
As I will be highlighting at this blog, previous research consistently finds that the public typically form opinions in the absence........ Read more »
Maibach, E., Nisbet, M., Baldwin, P., Akerlof, K., & Diao, G. (2010) Reframing climate change as a public health issue: an exploratory study of public reactions. BMC Public Health, 10(1), 299. DOI: 10.1186/1471-2458-10-299
- August 20, 2010
- 06:00 AM
- 54 views
Evolution of Colour Terms: 4 Learning Constraints
by Sean Roberts in A Replicated Typo 2.0
Continuing my series on the Evolution of Colour terms, this post reviews how learning constrains colour naming. For the full dissertation and for references, go here.
Memory and learning mechanisms are necessary to acquire colour categories (Komarova, Jameson & Narens, 2007). Models have shown that individual learning alone does not lead to categorisations that are shared . . . → Read More: Evolution of Colour Terms: 4 Learning Constraints... Read more »
KOMAROVA, N., JAMESON, K., & NARENS, L. (2007) Evolutionary models of color categorization based on discrimination. Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 51(6), 359-382. DOI: 10.1016/j.jmp.2007.06.001
Steels, L., & Belpaeme, T. (2005) Coordinating perceptually grounded categories through language: A case study for colour. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 28(04). DOI: 10.1017/S0140525X05000087
Lupyan G, & Dale R. (2010) Language structure is partly determined by social structure. PloS one, 5(1). PMID: 20098492
Roberson, D., Davies, I., Corbett, G., & Vandervyver, M. (2005) Free-Sorting of Colors Across Cultures: Are there Universal Grounds for Grouping?. Journal of Cognition and Culture, 5(3), 349-386. DOI: 10.1163/156853705774648536
topics
join us!
Do you write about peer-reviewed research in your blog? Use ResearchBlogging.org to make it easy for your readers — and others from around the world — to find your serious posts about academic research.
If you don't have a blog, you can still use our site to learn about fascinating developments in cutting-edge research from around the world.
