PSY 3136 Lecture Notes - Lecture 17: Language Of Thought Hypothesis, Object Permanence, Higher-Order Thinking
Document Summary
Saphir-whorf hypothesis: different languages yield different patterns of thought. Language effects your word view, language is your world view, and you perceive the world through the language you cognitively process in. Certain ways of thinking wouldn"t exist if you hadn"t had exposure to them through language. For example: some languages have 50 words for snow depending on it"s consistency. Linguistic determinism: that if a word doesn"t exist in your language it doesn"t exist in your worldview. Linguistic relativity: softer version, you might lack concepts or not have your attention drawn to certain concepts if the term doesn"t exist in your language. If you change the meaning of words then you change an entire society. If you eliminate the word freedom then people will not have a concept of it. Research in linguistic determinism/relativity: colours: perception of colours differs dramatically between languages. The next most common colours are green and blue, then purple, pink, orange, grey.