FLICKR, LOVELORN POETSLanguage helps the human brain perceive obscured objects, according to a study published today (August 12) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. While some scientists have argued that vision is independent from outside factors, such as sounds or the brain’s accumulated knowledge, the study indicates that language influences perception at its most basic level.
“What the data shows is that language comprehension does benefit visual processing, when the language you hear concords with what you're looking at or trying to see,” Lotte Meteyard, who researches language processing at the University of Reading in the U.K. but was not involved in the study, told The Scientist in an e-mail.
“I think [the study] makes a really important contribution to the field of visual perception and cognition in general,” said Michael Spivey, a cognitive scientist at University of California, Merced, who also did not participate in the research.
Psychology professor Gary Lupyan of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a colleague tested the effects of language on perception by either saying or not saying a word and showing study participants either an ...
