Our View of the World: Culture, Thought & Language (AQA GCSE Psychology): Revision Note

Variation in recall of events

• This topic is directly related to the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis (SWH) which is covered here

• The SWH suggests that the language someone speaks has a direct effect on the way that they recall information

• English speakers can identify the perpetrator of accidental actions more than Spanish speakers can (based on the linguistic differences between “She broke the vase” compared to, “The vase broke” (Fausey & Boroditsky, 2011)

• Native American culture (specifically the Hopi tribe) was studied by Whorf to investigate variation in recall of events

  • Hopi language differs from languages such as English or French because it does not distinguish between time scales i.e. they have no way of expressing past, present and future as different and separate entities

  • The Hopi language has no words for hours, minutes, or days of the week and there is no concept of being ‘on time’ or ‘late’ for an event

    • Time in the Hopi world is linked to the phases of the moon and the movements of the sun

  • The Hopi refer to one full day as a ‘sleep’ and a year is known as a ‘winter’

• Research by Carmichael (1932) involved two groups of participants shown the same pictures with different descriptions

  • When participants were asked to draw them, the pictures reflected the labels they had heard which suggests that language influences recall of events (e.g. those who heard ‘eyeglasses’ drew eyeglasses)

Variation in recognition of colours

• Humans are able to see millions of colours (as variations of the colour wheel) but colour is not necessarily universal in how it is perceived across cultures

• Colour is perceived rather than seen (i.e. it is a subjective rather than a wholly objective process) and will largely depend upon environmental factors such as experience (and therefore culture)

• Brown & Lenneberg (1954) found, via their research into the Zuni tribe of New Mexico that the absence of a colour word in a specific language affects how well that colour is recognised (the Zuni had one word only to cover the various shades of yellow and orange and struggled to recall any yellow/orange shades when compared to English speakers)

• Roberson et al. (2000) studied the Berinmo people of New Guinea and found that they had difficulty recalling and distinguishing between a variety of colours as they only have five words for different colours in their own language (e.g. one name only for any yellow, orange or brown shades; one name only for white/light colours)

• The above two research findings offer support for the idea that language influences cognitive processes such as memory (as suggested by the SWH)

The Colour Wheel.

Evaluation of our view of the world: culture, thought & language

Strengths

• Culture affects many aspects of human experience (via ritual, beliefs, religion, habits) so it is highly likely to have an impact on language and thought, giving the theory good face validity

• Research into variation in recall and recognition has good real-world application, as the findings could be used to foster better understanding across cultures

Weaknesses

• Whorf's conclusions about the Hopi were based almost entirely on one individual, Nuquayouma. Other researchers have argued that Hopi recall of events, and understanding of past, present and future, is not that different from English speakers

  • This suggests Whorf's conclusions lack a firm basis in fact

• Carmichael et al.'s study used ambiguous images that could be drawn in more than one way

  • In everyday life we're rarely dealing with such ambiguous information, so the study may not generalise well to how language influences memory in the real worl

• Research into other cultures, such as the Zuni study, may lack validity

  • Participants might have been able to distinguish the colours perfectly well but failed to communicate this to researchers because of a language barrier, rather than genuinely lacking the ability to recognise them