01.31.2006 - 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.

MSNBC - How to Think About the Mind How to Think About the MindNeuroscience shows that the 'soul' is the activity of the brain Sept. 27 issue - Every evening our eyes tell us that the sun sets, while we know that, in fact, the Earth is turning us away from it. Astronomy taught us centuries ago that common sense is not a reliable guide to reality. Today it is neuroscience that is forcing us to readjust our intuitions. Modern neuroscience has shown that there is no user. This resistance is not surprising. The disconnect between our common sense and our best science is not an academic curiosity. Prozac shouldn't be dispensed like mints, of course, but the reason is not that it undermines the will. To many, the scariest prospect is medication that can make us better than well by enhancing mood, memory and attention. In Galileo's time, the counter-intuitive discovery that the Earth moved around the sun was laden with moral danger. Pinker is the Johnstone Family Professor in the psychology department at Harvard.

Does Language Shape What We Think? My seventh-grade English teacher exhorted us to study vocabulary with the following: "We think in words. The more words you know, the more thoughts you can have." This compound notion that language allows you to have ideas otherwise un-haveable, and that by extension people who own different words live in different conceptual worlds -- called "Whorfianism" after its academic evangelist, Benjamin Lee Whorf -- is so pervasive in modern thought as to be unremarkable. Eskimos, as is commonly reported, have myriads of words for snow, affecting how they perceive frozen percipitation. For all its social success, Whorfianism has fared less well scientifically. Oh, and Eskimos don't have all that many words for snow. In fact, scientists have had so much difficulty demonstrating that language affects thought that in 1994 renown psychologist Steven Pinker called Whorfianism dead. The lack of number words had a profound and surprising effect on what the Pirahã could do. But the Pirahã can't count.

Enhancing Brains Editor’s note: In 2008, Henry T. Greely, a professor at Stanford Law School, co-authored a commentary in Nature; it concluded that “safe and effective cognitive enhancers will benefit both the individual and society.” The article inspired an impressive number of responses from readers, and the debate has continued in scholarly journals and the mainstream media in the years following publication. Here Professor Greely builds on that momentum, arguing that only some concerns about cognitive enhancements are justified and proper attention is needed to address such issues. He contends that rather than banning cognitive enhancements, as some have suggested, we should determine rules for their use. Probing that question is my ultimate aim in this article, but we will get there somewhat indirectly. Note first, though, that this is largely a hypothetical discussion, as cognitive enhancement remains largely in the future. Why Cognitive Enhancement—and What Kinds of Enhancements?

Dunning–Kruger effect Cognitive bias about one's own skill The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which people with limited competence in a particular domain overestimate their abilities. It was first described by Justin Kruger and David Dunning in 1999. Some researchers also include the opposite effect for high performers: their tendency to underestimate their skills. Numerous similar studies have been done. There is disagreement about the causes of the Dunning–Kruger effect. There is also disagreement about where the effect applies and about how strong it is, as well as about its practical consequences. The Dunning–Kruger effect is defined as the tendency of people with low ability in a specific area to give overly positive assessments of this ability. Not knowing the scope of your own ignorance is part of the human condition. David Dunning Some researchers include a metacognitive component in their definition. Measurement, analysis, and investigated tasks [edit] Practical significance