Language affects half of what we see UC Berkeley Press Release Language affects half of what we see By William Harms, University of Chicago, and Robert Sanders, UC Berkeley Media Relations | 31 January 2006 BERKELEY – The language we speak affects half of what we see, according to researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Chicago. Scholars have long debated whether our native language affects how we perceive reality - and whether speakers of different languages might therefore see the world differently. A paper published this month in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences supports the idea - but with a twist. The paper, "Whorf Hypothesis is Supported in the Right Visual Field but not in the Left," is by Aubrey Gilbert, Richard Ivry and Paul Kay at UC Berkeley and Terry Regier at the University of Chicago. This new finding is suggested by the organization of the brain, the researchers say.
Emotions as ways of knowing The traditional view claims that the emotions are more of an obstacle than a source of knowledge, but they play more a positive role in our mental lives and, without them, we would be unable to make sense of the world. Emotions as an obstacle to knowledge Emotions are an integral part of our mental lives, they influence the way we see and think about the world. -Perception: our perception of things can be colored by strong emotions, and there is some truth in sayings like ‘love is blind’ and ‘fear has many eyes’. -Reason: if you hold your beliefs with too much passion, this can prevent you being open-minded and lead to a ‘my theory right or wrong’ kind of attitude. -Language: A person in the grip of a powerful emotion is likely to use slanted and emotive language. Many times in life, emotions can undermine our ability to think clearly. Rationalisations When we are in the grip of strong emotions, we tend not to reason in an objective way but to rationalise our pre-existing prejudices.
Learn the phonetic alphabet By stretch | Thursday, December 31, 2009 at 3:18 a.m. UTC How often have you been on one end of a telephone conversation that went like this? A: "Okay, give me the MAC address." ...and so on. The phonetic alphabet is a mapping of individual letters and numbers to specially chosen words which are unlikely to be mistaken for one another (for instance, none of the words in the phonetic alphabet rhyme). About the Author Jeremy Stretch is a network engineer living in the Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina area. Comments Dedan (guest) December 31, 2009 at 3:28 a.m. I find this usually identifies the person I am talking to as a veteran. ciscomonkeyDecember 31, 2009 at 3:45 a.m. I do this by habit (former military here). haakon (guest) December 31, 2009 at 3:58 a.m. Using the NATO phonetic alphabet saved me so much frustration when doing first level helpdesk. gabrooksDecember 31, 2009 at 3:58 a.m. Being an amateur radio operator, the NATO phonetics are second nature to me now. I'll bite. Aaron: ooh!
HOW DOES OUR LANGUAGE SHAPE THE WAY WE THINK? By Lera Boroditsky Humans communicate with one another using a dazzling array of languages, each differing from the next in innumerable ways. Do the languages we speak shape the way we see the world, the way we think, and the way we live our lives? Do people who speak different languages think differently simply because they speak different languages? These questions touch on nearly all of the major controversies in the study of mind. I often start my undergraduate lectures by asking students the following question: which cognitive faculty would you most hate to lose? Most questions of whether and how language shapes thought start with the simple observation that languages differ from one another. Clearly, languages require different things of their speakers. Scholars on the other side of the debate don't find the differences in how people talk convincing. Follow me to Pormpuraaw, a small Aboriginal community on the western edge of Cape York, in northern Australia. 1 S. 3 B. 4 L. 5 D. 7 L. 8 L.
When a Pipe Is Not a Pipe: How Shifting Perspective Creates Insight, Creativity, and Mindfulness | Artful Choice Have you been to this subway station? Look again. It’s not actually real. It’s part of a miniature model, on display at the Museum of Art and Design’s Otherworldly: Optical Delusions and Small Realities exhibit (open through September 18). The exhibit focuses on art that plays with our view of reality, from miniatures of startling detail to photographs of those miniatures that are so life-like that we may be tricked into thinking them real. A change in perspective engenders mindfulness and creativity Nabokov wrote that there is something intrinsically artistic in diminishing large things – and in blowing up small ones. In a past post on optical illusions, I noted the power of framing, or comparison, in making both perceptual judgments and decisions. When pliers become a pendulum: the power of insight Most participants struggled with the pole, with an extension cord, trying their best to reach the end while holding on to the other string. The most elegant solution?