Publication Details
Title: Electrophysiological Evidence for the Left-Lateralized Effect of Language on Preattentive Categorical Perception of Color
Author: L. Mo, G. Xu, P. Kay, and L.-H. Tane
Bibliographic Information: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Vol. 108, No. 34, pp. 14026-14030. DOI:10.1073/pnas.1111860108
Date: August 2011
Research Area: AI
Type: Article in conference proceedings
PDF: http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/pubs/ai/electrophysiologicalevidence11.pdf
Overview:
Previous studies have shown that the effect of language on categorical perception of color is stronger when stimuli are presented in the right visual field than in the left. To examine whether this lateralized effect occurs preattentively at an early stage of processing, we monitored the visual mismatch negativity, which is a component of the event-related potential of the brain to an unfamiliar stimulus among a temporally presented series of stimuli. In the oddball paradigm we used, the deviant stimuli were unrelated to the explicit task. A significant interaction between color-pair type (within-category vs. between-category) and visual field (left vs. right) was found. The amplitude of the visual mismatch negativity component evoked by the within-category deviant was significantly smaller than that evoked by the between-category deviant when displayed in the right visual field, but no such difference was observed for the left visual field. This result constitutes electroencephalographic evidence that the lateralized Whorf effect per se occurs out of awareness and at an early stage of processing.
Acknowledgements:
This work was partially supported by funding provided to ICSI through National Science Foundation grant BCS:0418404 (“Universals and Variations in Cross Language Color Naming”). Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors or originators and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
Bibliographic Reference:
L. Mo, G. Xu, P. Kay, and L.-H. Tane. Electrophysiological Evidence for the Left-Lateralized Effect of Language on Preattentive Categorical Perception of Color. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Vol. 108, No. 34, pp. 14026-14030. DOI:10.1073/pnas.1111860108, August 2011
Author: L. Mo, G. Xu, P. Kay, and L.-H. Tane
Bibliographic Information: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Vol. 108, No. 34, pp. 14026-14030. DOI:10.1073/pnas.1111860108
Date: August 2011
Research Area: AI
Type: Article in conference proceedings
PDF: http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/pubs/ai/electrophysiologicalevidence11.pdf
Overview:
Previous studies have shown that the effect of language on categorical perception of color is stronger when stimuli are presented in the right visual field than in the left. To examine whether this lateralized effect occurs preattentively at an early stage of processing, we monitored the visual mismatch negativity, which is a component of the event-related potential of the brain to an unfamiliar stimulus among a temporally presented series of stimuli. In the oddball paradigm we used, the deviant stimuli were unrelated to the explicit task. A significant interaction between color-pair type (within-category vs. between-category) and visual field (left vs. right) was found. The amplitude of the visual mismatch negativity component evoked by the within-category deviant was significantly smaller than that evoked by the between-category deviant when displayed in the right visual field, but no such difference was observed for the left visual field. This result constitutes electroencephalographic evidence that the lateralized Whorf effect per se occurs out of awareness and at an early stage of processing.
Acknowledgements:
This work was partially supported by funding provided to ICSI through National Science Foundation grant BCS:0418404 (“Universals and Variations in Cross Language Color Naming”). Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors or originators and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
Bibliographic Reference:
L. Mo, G. Xu, P. Kay, and L.-H. Tane. Electrophysiological Evidence for the Left-Lateralized Effect of Language on Preattentive Categorical Perception of Color. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Vol. 108, No. 34, pp. 14026-14030. DOI:10.1073/pnas.1111860108, August 2011