Plasticity of human spatial cognition: Spatial language and cognition covary across cultures

Left/right and front/back in sign, speech, and co-speech gestures: What do data from Turkish Sign Language, Croatian Sign Language, American Sign Language, Turkish, Croatian, and English reveal?

“…Studies such as Levinson et al (2002), Majid et al (2004), Haun et al (2011) argued that (spoken) language can play a crucial role in restructuring spatial cognition. It could be the case that these differences are the results of the tasks at hand or the directions given to the participants (Li and Gleitman 2002;Li et al in press).…”

“…However, they differ from each other in many domains of the linguistic representations of space such as morphosyntax (Grinevald 2006), preferences for a reference frame over another in a given situation (Pederson et al 1998;Levinson and Wilkins 2006), conversion of motion event parts to linguistic event segments (Bohnemeyer et al 2007), and gestural productions accompanying spoken language descriptions of space (Levinson 2003;Kita and Özyürek 2003;Kita 2009). These differences are, arguably, reflected in nonlinguistic domains of cognition (see Levinson et al 2002;Majid et al 2004;Haun et al 2011; see also for contrary findings Li and Gleitman 2002;Li et al in press) The studies presented above focused on one of the available modalities in human communication, the audio-vocal modality. We can also benefit from investigations on the other modality, the visual-gestural modality which sign languages employ.…”

Sign-spatiality in Kata Kolok

“…A Balinese will tell you that there is a fly on the "west" side of your face." Haun, Rapold, Janzen, & Levinson 2011). For this reason, the linguistic description of a wide variety of languages is not a question of butterfly-collecting, but contributes to our understanding of the cognitive flexibility and the diversity among humans, and the role language plays in this story.…”

Referencias Espaciales Lingüísticas Y Deícticas De Niños Rurales Mapuches Y No Mapuches: Un Estudio Exploratorio Sobre La Descripción Del Trayecto en Espacios Amplios

“…Por lo tanto, las referencias y conceptos espaciales dependerían de la experiencia sociocultural y de la estructuración gramatical de las lenguas (Levinson y Wilkins, 2006). Es decir, la representación y referencia del espacio están subordinadas a la relación cognitiva con el entorno inmediato (Langacker, 1991;Haun, Rapold, Janzen y Levinson, 2011).…”