Language and perception
A few days ago I came up with a couple of long-winded posts about language and power. (First this, then this.)
Today I was thumbing through the March 2006 issue of Scientific American and came across a short article that highlights just how much language can affect our perceptions.
What You See Is What You Say
Psychologists argue over whether language influences how people think. It could, however, affect half of what they see. The view from the right eye is processed in the brain's left hemisphere, which also seems to handle language. Investigators at the University of Chicago and the University of California, Berkeley, tested how well the left and right fields of view distinguish between the colors known in English as blue and green. Most of the world's languages actually use a single word for the two, suggesting that for English speakers, language influences the discrimination between blue and green. The researchers found native English speakers were faster at distinguishing bluish squares from greener ones if the differently colored square appeared within the right visual field. This effect vanished if the volunteers had to rehearse an eight-digit number, which distracted their verbal working memory. Look for the findings in the January 10 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA
Find the article, by Charles Q. Choi, on Page 32 of "Scientific American" March, 2006
As always, reports of scientific articles are often more sensational than the articles themselves, and the idea that vision is processed by different sides of the brain goes against my (very limited) understanding of visual neurology. Also, the article is subscription-only so I can't see what the researchers actually say. Finally, the difference between science and propaganda (as the feminist author and professor Stephanie Coontz used to say) is that scientists seek evidence that their hypothesis is mistaken, and I'm unashamedly presenting this in support of mine.
Those disclaimers aside, I'd just like to suggest that if language we use can so strongly affect our perception of something as seemingly unambiguous and tangible as the colors blue and green, then our use of language certainly also affects less tangible but no less real factors such as social baselines ("women" and "men" for instance) and departures from those baselines. Which is why I think it's important so important to choose our language carefully. Especially when the desirable qualified terms we seek (e.g. *feminist* woman) represents the majority, or at least plurarlity, position or when a qualified term we wish to introduce (e.g. "slut" for healthy sexual self-determination) is actually a desired condition for the baseline.
The answer may not be clear cut in black and white, but neither is it as ambiguous as blue and green.
Fig,
I think I'd support a lot of what you say about language and power. But I have to point out some things here. Vision does in fact take place all over the brain. It's extremely complicated, vision. In fact there is a separate area in the brain, the fusiform gyrus, which turns out to be dedicated to the recognition of faces. The full and final story about vision is going to involve processing distributed all over the brain.
Second, the results you mention do not show that perception itself is affected, but only the speed with which we make certain discriminations.
While I think there may be some scientific experiments you could bring to bear in support of your ultimate point, these aren't they.
Thanks as always though for an interesting and thought-provoking read.
[I agree that, without seeing the actual article, it's hard to know what the researchers meant. I agree that the speed of discrimination is all that's affected in the report. I would argue that's significant though -- deciding which of two words to apply to the same gradient of behavior can have an impact. Complicating the definition increases the time and/or effort required. Better to pack everything you want into the baseline definition than add qualifications no matter how laudable. In the other direction I think it's better to force deviancy (e.g. "subservience") into it's own, therefore less convenient, qualifications. Does that make sense, Anon? Thanks. --fl]
Thanks for sharing that! It was very intriguing.
Hugs
Des
[You're welcome, Des. Thanks for stopping by. --fl]
This is powerful stuff, figleaf. I keep meaning to do a big link fest directing all my readers to the blogs that are making inroads into deconstructing all sorts of things. Keep you posted.
[Thank you, Darkdaughta. I especially appreciate your invitation to get into it at all last week. --fl]
Nitpick: I'm speculating, since I don't have access to a description of the test. What I'm thinking is, there might be no difference in perception of blue vs. green per se, but there would be a difference in the speed of *naming* the colors, or placing them in a particular category.
Your point about using loaded words is well taken, however.
[Yeah, the shades and tones are the same no matter what. The difference is that linguistic convention can evidently influence how those shades and tones are distinguished compared to another, equally functional convention. Which is sort of my point. For instance you're an autonomous, fully-qualified human being in the language I'm proposing we use while too many people are suggesting we should introduce distinctions so that every time we look at you we have to parse *what kind* of human being you are in order to determine your qualifications... while, at the same time, they're suggesting that by adding them all up we should see... an autonomous, fully-qualified human being. In my (evidently language-determined) eyes introducing distinctions also introduces the possibility of quibbling over whether this element or that might disqualify you instead. (Ugg, "feminist," eww "male," ick, "southern European," oof! "asexual." And yes, I did pick choices that may or may not describe your distinctions but should be irrelevant because "human being" ought to trump all others.) Hope that makes sense. Thanks, Hiromi. --fl]