Examining Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis as One of the Main Views on the Relationship Between Language and Thought

One of those features that set human societies apart from animal societies is the use of language. Language is a vital part of every human culture and is a powerful social tool that we master at an early age. A second feature of humans is our ability to solve complex problems. For centuries philosophers have questioned whether these two abilities are related and, if so, what the nature of the relationship between language and thought is. At the beginning of the last century psychologists joined this debate and it is a topic that is currently generating a lot of research. Another factor in the study of language and thought is the role of culture. When we study a language from another country we see that it is not just the words and grammar that are different but the customs and traditions as well. Even the ideas of that culture and the way of dealing with life can be different. There are a number of views on the nature of the relationship between language and thought. But here we are going to explore one of those views, the linguistic relativity hypothesis (LRH), concerning that the language a speaker uses influences the way the speaker thinks.     

Returning the tables: language affects spatial reasoning

Li and Gleitman (Turning the tables: language and spatial reasoning. Cognition, in press) seek to undermine a large-scale cross-cultural comparison of spatial language and cognition which claims to have demonstrated that language and conceptual coding in the spatial domain covary (see, for example, Space in language and cognition: explorations in linguistic diversity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, in press; Language 74 (1998) 557): the most plausible interpretation is that different languages induce distinct conceptual codings. Arguing against this, Li and Gleitman attempt to show that in an American student population they can obtain any of the relevant conceptual codings just by varying spatial cues, holding language constant. They then argue that our findings are better interpreted in terms of ecologically-induced distinct cognitive styles reflected in language. Linguistic coding, they argue, has no causal effects on non-linguistic thinking--it simply reflects antecedently existing conceptual distinctions. We here show that Li and Gleitman did not make a crucial distinction between frames of spatial reference relevant to our line of research. We report a series of experiments designed to show that they have, as a consequence, misinterpreted the results of their own experiments, which are in fact in line with our hypothesis. Their attempts to reinterpret the large cross-cultural study, and to enlist support from animal and infant studies, fail for the same reasons. We further try to discern exactly what theory drives their presumption that language can have no cognitive efficacy, and conclude that their position is undermined by a wide range of considerations.     

The role of language in memory for actions

Languages differ with respect to how aspects of motion events tend to be lexicalized. English typically conflates MOTION with MANNER, but Japanese and Spanish typically do not. We report a set of experiments that assessed the effect of this cross-linguistic difference on participants' decisions in a similarity-judgment task about scenes containing novel animations as stimuli. In Experiment 1, which required participants to encode the stimuli briefly into memory, we observed a language effect; in Experiment 2, which required participants to analyze the same stimuli, but not remember them, the language effect disappeared. Hence, these experiments reveal a task-dependent effect, which, we argue, points to working memory as the source of the language effect observed in Experiment 1 and, potentially, other experiments that have shown a linguistic relativity effect.     

Light as a Solution to Puzzles AboutLight

Light is puzzling in modern physics–witness wave-particle duality, the two-slit experiment, and the invariant speed of light. These puzzles are not intrinsic to light but arise from overly narrow views of light. Disregarding the expansive, unitary nature of light that informs everyday experience, modern physics treats light as if it were self-bounded and separable. Further, physics assumes that light is not complicit with observations of light, that the two are separable. By likening light to light-illuminated entities, these attitudes set the stage for puzzles. When,however, conceptions of light are aligned with visual experience, those puzzles become occasions of understanding.This is because visual experience already embodies that aspect of light which physics finds so anomalous: nonseparability. Light's interactive vastness shows up wherever light shows up, and because no observer can back away from light or step outside its integrative embrace, different parts of light (photons) cannot be lifted out ofthe observation as distinct – i.e., distinctly-observed – entities. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

风险投资中的短视效应及理论解释

“投资者难以长远地将多重投资看作整体,而更倾向于分割成单一决策进而表现出每次决策风险规避的现象”被称为风险投资中的短视效应.短视/远视风险投资常通过单一决策/重复决策范式予以研究.大多数的研究发现,在单一决策条件下,投资者接受投资的人数比例或者投资金额低于重复决策条件.短视效应的调节机制有反馈频率、投资灵活性、选择组块、风险状况等.研究者分别提出短视损失厌恶（myopic loss aversion,简称MLA）理论和短视预期理论（myopic prospect theory,MPT）对短视现象进行解释;但这些理论受到基于齐当别理论（equate-to-differentiate theory）研究的挑战.文章在总结短视效应已有相关研究的基础上指出今后有必要深入探索的方向.     

儿童信念─愿望推理的研究：争鸣与展望

儿童的信念─愿望推理是心理理论研究的主要内容。多年来,研究者对儿童信念─愿望推理的发展特征及其心理机制进行了大量研究,取得了一系列富有意义的结论。但迄今为止仍有许多问题存在争议,如：儿童究竟何时开始具有信念─愿望推理的能力？儿童在错误信念任务上从不正确到正确反应的转换机制是什么？儿童如何进行信念─愿望推理的加工？该文回顾与探讨了上述存在争鸣的问题,并在此基础上对该领域未来研究方向做了展望。     

Framing and Risky Choice as Influenced by Comparison of One's Achievements with Others: The Case of Investment in the Stock Exchange

Based on social comparison theory and equity theory, the first aim of this study was to examine the hypothesis that framing is affected not only by previous success or failure, but also by comparisons with relevant others' outcomes as well. The second aim of the study was to examine prospect theory propositions that people are risk aversive for gains and risk seeking for losses. A total of 220 students were administered scenarios that described outcomes of their stock investments (gains or losses). In addition, they were provided with information about their close friends' outcomes investing in similar stocks. Generally, the hypothesis regarding the influence of others' outcomes on framing was confirmed. However, results showed that, in contradiction to prospect theory, gain framing rather than loss framing was related to risk seeking behavior. Specifically, in the gain framing situation, the readiness to take risks was highest when the others' outcomes were equal to those of the participants. The limitations of prospect theory are discussed.     

Grammatical gender and inferences about biological properties in german-speaking children

In German, nouns are assigned to one of the three gender classes. For most animal names, however, the assignment is independent of the referent's biological sex. We examined whether German-speaking children understand this independence of grammar from semantics or whether they assume that grammatical gender is mapped onto biological sex when drawing inferences about sex-specific biological properties of animals. Two cross-linguistic studies comparing German-speaking and Japanese-speaking preschoolers were conducted. The results suggest that German-speaking children utilize grammatical gender as a cue for inferences about sex-specific properties of animals. Further, we found that Japanese- and German-speaking children recruit different resources when drawing inferences about sex-specific properties: Whereas Japanese children paralleled their pattern of inference about properties common to all animals, German children relied on the grammatical gender class of the animal. Implications of these findings for studying the relation between language and thought are discussed.     

社会偏好中的框架效应

社会偏好中的框架效应是指, 个体在决策中受到选择方案框架形式的影响而表现出合作、互惠及利他行为及倾向改变的现象, 是框架效应在社会偏好领域的运用。预期理论、错误知觉说、心理动力模型、情绪维护理论以及解释水平理论分别从价值函数、知觉偏差、内部心理动力、情绪及认知表征角度解释了社会偏好中的框架效应, 心理距离、价值取向、人格特质和文化等因素对社会偏好中的框架效应具有重要影响。未来的研究需要从社会偏好中的框架效应的心理机制与神经机制、研究范式及外部效度改进等方面作进一步探讨。     

决策的三参照点理论:从原理到应用

三参照点理论(Tri-Reference Point Theory,Wang,2008a; Wang& Johnson,2012)以底线、现状和目标为参照点,将决策结果空间划分为失败、损失、获益和成功4个功能区域.根据3个参照点的心理权重的排序:底线＞目标＞现状,该模型继而推导出跨越不同区域的以现状为分界的双S-型的价值函数,以及据此产生的对于跨越不同参照点的预期结果的偏好转换、和损失-获益及失败-成功的两种不对称性.总之,风险决策的基本任务在于,在使得达到目标的可能性最大化的同时使底线不保的可能性最小化.三参照点理论将统计学和金融学中的均值与方差(均差)分析与行为决策研究中的参照点效应有机地结合在一起;在面对不同的风险选项时,通过分析各个预期结果的均差分布与3个参照点之间的关系作出适应性的决策.本文介绍了三参照点理论的基本推论、运行原则、实证检验、以及它与期望效用理论和前景理论相比较的异同之处.同时我们也探讨了三参照点理论对实践中管理决策的指导意义和多重启示.