Perceptual shift in bilingualism: Brain potentials reveal plasticity in pre-attentive colour perception

Visual Mismatch Negativity and Categorization

“…A traditional test of the two possibilities involved the comparison of perceptual effects in languages with different color naming systems. Athanasopoulos et al (2010) (reported also in Thierry et al, 2009) capitalized on the difference between the Greek and English languages. In Greek, there are two words for blue: 'ble' for dark blue and 'ghalazio' for light blue.…”

“…VMMN of Greek participants with short stay in Britain was larger in the sequences with blue stimuli than in sequences of green stimuli, whereas vMMN of Greek participants with longer stay in Britain was similar to the vMMN of native English speaking participants. From Athanasopoulos et al, (2010). With the kind permission of Elsevier B.V. …”

“…In these studies, either a set of standards acquired a category and the deviants were members of another category or the vMMN effects of category-member deviants and non-member deviants were compared. Currently, the effects of color categories (Athanasopoulos et al, 2010;Clifford et al, 2010;Fonteneau and Davidoff, 2007;Mo et al 2011), symmetry (Kecskés-Kovács et al 2013, facial emotions (Astikainen and Hietanen, 2009;Chang et al, 2010;Gayle et al, 2012;Li et al, 2012;Susac et al, 2010;Zhao and Li, 2006), left/right hand and gender have been investigated. In addition to the effects of language on color-related vMMN, the effects of word meaning (Wang et al, 2013) and phonological categorization (Files et al, 2013) were also investigated.…”

Electrophysiological evidence for the left-lateralized effect of language on preattentive categorical perception of color

“…There have been several related studies in this area, however. Thierry and associates (25,26) showed in nonlateralized studies with task-irrelevant responses that Greek speakers' vMMN components, starting around 100 ms poststimulus, peaking around 200 ms, and maximal over parietooccipital scalp areas, show sensitivity to the basic lexical distinction in the Greek language between light and dark blue, whereas English speakers show no such effect. Further ERP studies have confirmed early Whorfian effects in nonlateralized paradigms (27,28).…”

“…Within each block, 70% of the trials consisted of two identical standard colors (either G2 or B1) with a "+" fixation mark (the standard condition); 10% of the trials consisted of the same two standard colors with a "○" fixation mark (the "target" condition); 10% of the trials consisted of the standard color in the RVF and a deviant color in the LVF (the LVF-deviant condition); in the remaining 10% of trials the standard color appeared in the LVF, and the same deviant in the RVF (the RVF-deviant condition). The two blocks containing each standard color were distinguished from each other by one having the within-category deviant and the other the betweencategory deviant.Earlier, nonlateralized research (25,26,28) found that crosscategory color deviants elicit a greater vMMN response than within-category deviants, revealing language-influenced unconscious change detection at early stages of processing. From the fact that linguistic categories are activated rapidly and influence early visual processing in two visual hemifields differentially, we predicted that the vMMN effect evoked by the between-category deviant would be larger than the vMMN effect evoked by the within-category deviant only or preferentially when the deviant was presented in the RVF.…”