Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T07:16:17.812Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Spatial language as a window on representations of three-dimensional space

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 October 2013

Kevin J. Holmes
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics, University of California–Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720. [email protected]://userwww.service.emory.edu/~kholme2/
Phillip Wolff
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322. [email protected]://userwww.service.emory.edu/~pwolff/CLSLab.htm

Abstract

Recent research investigating the language–thought interface in the spatial domain points to representations of the horizontal and vertical dimensions that closely resemble those posited by Jeffery et al. However, the findings suggest that such representations, rather than being tied to navigation, may instead reflect more general properties of the perception of space.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Clark, H. H. (1973) Space, time, semantics, and the child. In: Cognitive development and the acquisition of language, ed. Moore, T. E., pp. 2763. Academic Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Franklin, N. & Tversky, B. (1990) Searching imagined environments. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 119:6376.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gilbert, A. L., Regier, T., Kay, P. & Ivry, R. B. (2006) Whorf hypothesis is supported in the right visual field but not the left. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 103:489–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holmes, K. J. (2012) Language as a window into the mind: The case of space. Doctoral dissertation, Department of Psychology, Emory University.Google Scholar
Holmes, K. J. & Wolff, P. (2012) Does categorical perception in the left hemisphere depend on language? Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 141:439–43.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Holmes, K. J. & Wolff, P. (2013a) Spatial language and the psychological reality of schematization. Cognitive Processing 14:205208.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Holmes, K. J. & Wolff, P. (2013b) When is language a window into the mind? Looking beyond words to infer conceptual categories. In: Proceedings of the 35th annual conference of the Cognitive Science Society, eds. Knauff, M., Pauen, M., Sebanz, N. & Wachsmuth, I., pp. 597–602. Cognitive Science Society.Google Scholar
Kosslyn, S. M., Koenig, O., Barrett, A., Cave, C. B., Tang, J. & Gabrieli, J. D. E. (1989) Evidence for two types of spatial representations: Hemispheric specialization for categorical and coordinate relations. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 15:723–35.Google ScholarPubMed
Landau, B. & Jackendoff, R. (1993) “What” and “where” in spatial language and spatial cognition. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 16:217–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pinker, S. (2007) The stuff of thought: Language as a window into human nature. Penguin Books.Google Scholar