Words Affect Our Reality - On The Right

The Whorf hypothesis claims that one's native language influences perception and thought. Researchers at UC-Berkeley and U-Chicago reasoned that, since language is predominantly processed in the left hemisphere of the brain, any effect on perception should have an effect predominantly on the right visual field, which is also processed on the left. After comparing reaction times for hues of blue-green -- colors with distinct names in one language but not another -- they concluded, in a just-published paper, that the Whorf hypothesis holds for the right visual field, but not the left.

Comments

Re:The image file

[kfg]

Because their language set includes JPG, but does not include PNG or SVG.

KFG

Re:Sapir Whorf is BS

[radtea]

This would mean that you can, in fact, learn concepts like "schadenfreude" but also if concepts like "schadenfreude" are present in your language you are probably more attuned to them..

Which is so weak as to be completely uninteresting because it is completely obvious. It is only by the introduction of the strong form of the S-W hypothesis that anyone ever gets any heat in this debate, and yet at the end of the day everyone (sane) agrees that the strong form is trivially wrong.

The whole Sapir-Worf debate is nothing but one big intellectual bait-and-switch. I wish "advocates" of S-W would be honest, and preface their statements with, "I'm not defending the strong form of S-W, which everyone knows to be trivially wrong, but the weak form, which everyone knows to be trivially obvious." Then everyone can throw muffins at them for introducing a completely uninteresting topic of conversation--who wants to talk about something everyone agrees is true?