Two languages, two minds : flexible cognitive processing driven by language of operation
(2015) In Psychological Science 26(4). p.518-526- Abstract
- People make sense of objects and events around them by classifying them into identifiable categories. The extent to which language affects this process has been the focus of a long-standing debate: Do different languages cause their speakers to behave differently? Here, we show that fluent German-English bilinguals categorize motion events according to the grammatical constraints of the language in which they operate. First, as predicted from cross-linguistic differences in motion encoding, bilingual participants functioning in a German testing context prefer to match events on the basis of motion completion to a greater extent than do bilingual participants in an English context. Second, when bilingual participants experience verbal... (More)
- People make sense of objects and events around them by classifying them into identifiable categories. The extent to which language affects this process has been the focus of a long-standing debate: Do different languages cause their speakers to behave differently? Here, we show that fluent German-English bilinguals categorize motion events according to the grammatical constraints of the language in which they operate. First, as predicted from cross-linguistic differences in motion encoding, bilingual participants functioning in a German testing context prefer to match events on the basis of motion completion to a greater extent than do bilingual participants in an English context. Second, when bilingual participants experience verbal interference in English, their categorization behavior is congruent with that predicted for German; when bilingual participants experience verbal interference in German, their categorization becomes congruent with that predicted for English. These findings show that language effects on cognition are context-bound and transient, revealing unprecedented levels of malleability in human cognition. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/2ad12741-1ea5-4ba9-93ca-9fde2b5a29ff
- author
- Athanasopoulos, Panos LU ; Bylund, Emanuel ; Montero-Melis, Guillermo ; Damjanovic, Ljubica LU ; Schartner, Alina ; Kibbe, Alexandra ; Riches, Nick and Thierry, Guillaume
- publishing date
- 2015
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- keywords
- bilingualism, cognition(s), cognitive processes, language, psycholinguistics
- in
- Psychological Science
- volume
- 26
- issue
- 4
- pages
- 518 - 526
- publisher
- SAGE Publications
- external identifiers
-
- scopus:84927633922
- ISSN
- 0956-7976
- DOI
- 10.1177/0956797614567509
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- no
- id
- 2ad12741-1ea5-4ba9-93ca-9fde2b5a29ff
- date added to LUP
- 2024-04-04 14:53:34
- date last changed
- 2024-04-05 04:00:59
@article{2ad12741-1ea5-4ba9-93ca-9fde2b5a29ff,
abstract = {{People make sense of objects and events around them by classifying them into identifiable categories. The extent to which language affects this process has been the focus of a long-standing debate: Do different languages cause their speakers to behave differently? Here, we show that fluent German-English bilinguals categorize motion events according to the grammatical constraints of the language in which they operate. First, as predicted from cross-linguistic differences in motion encoding, bilingual participants functioning in a German testing context prefer to match events on the basis of motion completion to a greater extent than do bilingual participants in an English context. Second, when bilingual participants experience verbal interference in English, their categorization behavior is congruent with that predicted for German; when bilingual participants experience verbal interference in German, their categorization becomes congruent with that predicted for English. These findings show that language effects on cognition are context-bound and transient, revealing unprecedented levels of malleability in human cognition.}},
author = {{Athanasopoulos, Panos and Bylund, Emanuel and Montero-Melis, Guillermo and Damjanovic, Ljubica and Schartner, Alina and Kibbe, Alexandra and Riches, Nick and Thierry, Guillaume}},
issn = {{0956-7976}},
keywords = {{bilingualism; cognition(s); cognitive processes; language; psycholinguistics}},
language = {{eng}},
number = {{4}},
pages = {{518--526}},
publisher = {{SAGE Publications}},
series = {{Psychological Science}},
title = {{Two languages, two minds : flexible cognitive processing driven by language of operation}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0956797614567509}},
doi = {{10.1177/0956797614567509}},
volume = {{26}},
year = {{2015}},
}