p198

Footnote 19 Sapir-Whorf thesis addendum

Although this thesis asserts that the human cognition is determined by language and consequently by culture and society. There is no doubt about the existence of some linguistic effects, but you cannot talk black into white. Indeed, there are experiments verifying the linguistic effects on color perception [for example, A. L. Gilbert, T. Regier, P. Kay and R. B. Ivry, “Whorf hypothesis is supported in the right visual field but not the left,” Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci.,  103 , 489 (2006); J. Winawe, N. Witthoft, M. C. Frank, L. Wu, A. R. Wade and L. Boroditsky, “Russian blues reveal effects of language on color discrimination,” Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci.,  104 , 7780 (2007)], but non-linguisitic effects are still very large: cf., G. V. Drivonikou, P. Kay, T. Regier, R. B. Ivry, A. L. Gilbert, A. Franklin and I. R. L. Davies, “Further evidence that Whorfian effects are stronger in the right visual field than the left,” Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci.,  104 , 1097 (2007). They found that the Whorfian effects on color were stronger for stimuli in the right visual field than in the left visual field, but that there were significant category effects in the left visual field as well. The latter might be due to non-linguistic universal categorical distinctions.

 A well-balanced review is

Terry Regier and Paul Kay, “Language, thought, and color: Whorf was half right,” Trends Cognitive Sci  13 , 439 (2009)

*In the semantic domain of colors the Whorf hypothesis is half right, in two different ways: 

(1) language influences color perception primarily in half the visual field,

(2) color naming across languages is shaped by both universal and language-specific forces.

*Out standing questions are: What becomes of prelinguistic color categories in the right

hemisphere, and by what mechanism? Are linguistic color categories elaborations of prelinguistic categories? 

Human spatial cognition is also related to language. The paper quoted below is, however, about sign language.

Language and spatial cognition

Jennie E. Pyers, Anna Shusterman, Ann Senghas, Elizabeth S. Spelke, and Karen Emmorey

Evidence from an emerging sign language reveals that language supports spatial cognition

Proc Natl Acad Sci  107 12116 (2010)

*Mature human spatial cognition depends on the acquisition of specific aspects of spatial language. Human spatial cognition is modulated by the acquisition of a rich language.