The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis and Probabilistic Inference: Evidence from the Domain of Color

Emily Cibelli,Joseph L. Austerweil,Terry Regier,Yang Xu,Thomas L. Griffiths,Daniel Osorio

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0158725

Abstract

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis holds that our thoughts are shaped by our native language, and that speakers of different languages therefore think differently. This hypothesis is controversial in part because it appears to deny the possibility of a universal groundwork for human cognition, and in part because some findings taken to support it have not reliably replicated. We argue that considering this hypothesis through the lens of probabilistic inference has the potential to resolve both issues, at least with respect to certain prominent findings in the domain of color cognition. We explore a probabilistic model that is grounded in a presumed universal perceptual color space and in language-specific categories over that space. The model predicts that categories will most clearly affect color memory when perceptual information is uncertain. In line with earlier studies, we show that this model accounts for language-consistent biases in color reconstruction from memory in English speakers, modulated by uncertainty. We also show, to our knowledge for the first time, that such a model accounts for influential existing data on cross-language differences in color discrimination from memory, both within and across categories. We suggest that these ideas may help to clarify the debate over the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.

Highlights

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis [1, 2] holds that our thoughts are shaped by our native language, and that speakers of different languages think about the world in different ways
In a classic early study of the effect of language on color cognition, Kay and Kempton [7] interpret Whorf [2] as follows: Whorf [. . .] suggests that he conceives of experience as having two tiers: one, a kind of rock bottom, inescapable seeing-things-as-they-are
Kay and Kempton argue that color cognition involves an interaction between these two tiers

Summary

Introduction

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis [1, 2] holds that our thoughts are shaped by our native language, and that speakers of different languages think about the world in different ways. Bae et al [20] extensively documented bias in color memory in English speakers, modeled those results with a category-adjustment computational model, and did manipulate uncertainty—but did not explore these ideas relative to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, or to data from different languages. In attempting to account for these data, we considered again the English, Berinmo, and Himba variants of the 2-category model first used in Study 2, and retained from that study the parameter value corresponding to the uncertainty of the fine-grained perceptual representation, in the case of native-language models.

Conclusions

Findings

Materials and Methods