Peggy Li|Lila R. Gleitman
Turning the tables: language and spatial reasoning
University of Pennsylvania|University of Pennsylvania
paper investigates possible influences lexical resources individual languages spatial organization reasoning styles users powerful pervasive influences language thought thesis whorfsapir linguistic relativity hypothesis lengthy period intellectual limbo recently returned prominence anthropological linguistic psycholinguistic literatures point departure influential group crosslinguistic studies appear show spatial reasoning strongly affected spatial lexicon everyday use community eg brown p levinson c 1993 linguistic nonlinguistic coding spatial arrays explorations mayan cognition working paper 24 nijmegen cognitive anthropology research group max planck institute psycholinguistics cognitive linguistics 6 1995 33 specifically certain groups customarily use externally referenced spatialcoordinate system refer nearby directions positions north whereas english speakers usually employ viewerperspective system left prior findings interpretations effect users two types spatial system solve rotation problems different ways reasoning strategies imposed habitual use languageparticular lexicons present studies reproduce different problemsolving strategies speakers single language english manipulating landmark cues suggesting language may key causal factor choice spatial perspective prior evidence rotation problem solution infants eg acredolo lp 1979 laboratory versus home effect environment 9monthold infants choice spatial reference system developmental psychology 15 6 666667 laboratory animals eg restle f 1975 discrimination cues mazes resolution placevsresponse question psychological review 64 217228 suggests unified interpretation findings creatures approach spatial problems differently depending availability suitability local landmark cues results discussed terms current debate relation language thought particular emphasis question different cultural communities favor different perspectives talking space