Electrophysiological Evidence for a Whorfian Double Dissociation of Categorical Perception Across Two Languages

Abstract

Taza in Spanish refers to cups and mugs in English, whereas glass refers to different glass types in Spanish: copa and vaso. It is still unclear whether such categorical distinctions induce early perceptual differences in speakers of different languages. In this study, for the first time, we report symmetrical effects of terminology on preattentive indices of categorical perception across languages. Native speakers of English or Spanish saw arrays of cups, mugs, copas, and vasos flashed in streams. Visual mismatch negativity, an implicit electrophysiological correlate of perceptual change in the peripheral visual field, was modulated for categorical contrasts marked in the participants’ native language but not for objects designated by the same label. Conversely, P3a, an index of attentional orienting, was modulated only for missing contrasts in the participants’ native language. Thus, whereas native labels influenced participants’ preattentive perceptual encoding of objects, nonverbally encoded dissociations reoriented their attention at a later processing stage.

Active Language Modulates Color Perception in Bilinguals

“…For instance, Boutonnet et al (2013) investigated the effects of linguistic labels on visual object perception, specifically examining the distinction between cups and mugs in English (two words) versus Spanish (one word, taza), through an experimental manipulation involving an oddball paradigm with pictures of cups and mugs. The English participants exhibited greater vMMN modulation in response to deviant stimuli compared to their Spanish counterparts (see also Casaponsa et al, 2024). Together, these studies demonstrated the influence of language-specific color or object labeling on early stages of perceptual processing in monolinguals and bilinguals.…”