Hockenbury Discovering Psychology 5th txtbk

Language and Thought291Can You Count Without Number Words? Cognitive neuroscientistEdward Gibson traveled to a remote Amazon village to confirmprevious research by anthropologist and linguist David Everett(2008, 2005) that showed the Pirahã people lacked the ability tocount and had no comprehension of numbers. Gibson found thatrather than identifying quantities by exact numbers, the Pirahãresearch participants used only relative terms like “few,” “some,”and “many.” According to Gibson, the Pirahã are capable of learningto count, but did not develop a number system because numbersare simply not useful in their culture (Frank & others, 2008).classes of colors, should perceive color differently than Englishspeakingpeople, with names for 11 basic colors.Rosch showed Dani speakers a brightly colored chip and then,30 seconds later, asked them to pick out the color they had seenfrom an array of other colors. Despite their lack of specific wordsfor the colors they had seen, the Dani did as well as Englishspeakers on the test. The Dani people used the same word tolabel red and yellow, but they still distinguished between thetwo. Rosch concluded that the Dani people perceived colors inmuch the same way as English-speaking people.Other research on color-naming in different languages hasarrived at similar conclusions: Although color names may vary,color perception does not appear to depend on the language used(Lindsey & Brown, 2004; Delgado, 2004; Kay & Regier, 2007).The bottom line? Whorf’s strong contention that languagedetermines perception and the structure of thought has notbeen supported. However, cultural and cognitive psychologiststoday are actively investigating the ways in which language caninfluence perception and thought (Frank & others, 2008; Majid& others, 2004).A striking demonstration of the influence of language comesfrom recent studies of remote indigenous peoples living in theAmazon region of Brazil (Everett, 2005, 2008). The language ofthe Pirahã people, an isolated tribe of fewer than 200 members,has no words for specific numbers (Frank & others, 2008). Theirnumber words appear to be restricted to words that stand for“few,” “more,” and “many” rather than exact quantities suchas “three,” “five,” or “twenty.” Similarly, the Mundurukú language,spoken by another small Amazon tribe, has words onlyfor quantities one through five (Pica & others, 2004). Above thatnumber, they used such expressions as “some,” “many,” or “asmall quantity.” In both cases, individuals were unable to completesimple arithmetical tasks (Gordon, 2004).Such findings do not, by any means, confirm Whorf’s beliefthat language determines thinking or perception (Gelman &Gallistel, 2004). Rather, they demonstrate how language categoriescan affect how individuals think about particular concepts.After completing the sentences, the subjects were asked to describe their mentalimagery for each sentence and to provide a first name for the person they visualized.When the word he was used, subjects were much more likely to produce a male imageand name than a female image and name. When the phrase he or she was used, subjectswere only slightly more likely to use a male rather than a female image and name.Using the masculine generic pronoun influences people to visualize a male, evenwhen they “know” that he supposedly includes both men and women (Hamilton,1988, 1991). Thus, using he to refer to both men and women in speech and writingtends to increase male bias.Animal CommunicationCan Animals Learn Language?Without question, animals communicate. Chimpanzees “chutter” to warn of snakes,“rraup” to warn of an eagle, and “chirp” to let the others know that a leopard isnearby (Marler, 1967). Each of the warning calls of the vervet monkey of East Africatriggers specific behaviors for a particular danger, such as scurrying for cover in thebushes when the warning for an airborne predator is sounded (Cheney & Seyfarth,1990). Even insects have complex communication systems. For example, honeybeesperform a “dance” to report information about the distance, location, and quality ofa pollen source to their hive mates (Riley & others, 2005).linguistic relativity hypothesisThe hypothesis that differences among languagescause differences in the thoughts oftheir speakers.