Year: 2010
Type: article
Abstract: A major part of learning a language is learning connections between spoken words and their referents in the world.An open question concerns the consequence this learning has for cognition and perception.According to the label feedback hypothesis (Lupyan, 2007), processing a verbal label can change ongoing perceptual processing, e.g., actually hearing "chair" compared to simply thinking about a chair temporarily makes the visual system a better chair detector.Here, we test whether engaging in a non-communicative verbal act-speaking to oneself-also affects visual processing.Participants searched for common objects, sometimes being asked to speak the target's name aloud.Speaking facilitated search, but only when there was a strong association between the name and the visual target.Speaking appeared to hurt performance when there was even a slight discrepancy between the name and the target.Together these results speak to the power of words to evoke associated visual information.
Authors: Gary Lupyan, Daniel Swingley
Institution: University of Pennsylvania
Language: English
Subfield: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2767359679