Interactions Between Language and Mental Representations

Abstract

It has long been recognized that language interacts with visual and spatial processes. However, the nature and extent of these interactions are widely debated. The goal of this article is to review empirical findings across several domains to understand whether language affects the way speakers conceptualize the world even when they are not speaking or understanding speech. A second goal of the present review is to shed light on the mechanisms through which effects of language are transmitted. Across domains, there is growing support for the idea that although language does not lead to long‐lasting changes in mental representations, it exerts powerful influences during momentary mental computations by either modulating attention or augmenting representational power.

Relations Between Language and Cognition: Evidentiality and Sources of Knowledge

“…On the other hand, these findings cohere with a broader position about the role of language in cognition, according to which the effects of language are computed online, in the moment of performing cognitive computations and do not alter conceptual structure (cf. also Gleitman & Papafragou, , ; Ünal & Papafragou, , for evidence from other domains).…”

“…A second issue for theories attempting to account for how cognition interfaces with language is that natural languages vary in their lexical‐structural resources. For instance, languages have different means for encoding space, motion, number, and objects (see Bowerman & Levison, ; Gentner & Goldin‐Meadow, ; Gleitman & Papafragou, ; Ünal & Papafragou, , for reviews). These cross‐linguistic differences raise the question whether the underlying conceptual representations might also vary in the minds of speakers of different languages.…”

“…On this view, conceptual representations of information sources are shared among speakers of different languages and any language‐driven effects on cognition should be malleable and ephemeral in nature (cf. Gleitman & Papafragou, ; Landau, Dessalegn, & Goldberg, ; Ünal & Papafragou, ).…”

Whorfian potential in child language

“…Bowerman's concept of "guidance" is a developmental principle which operates during the construction of mental representations. In a recent review of the relationship between language and mental representation, Ünal and Papafragou (2016) proposed that, "When language is available as a means of encoding the perceptual world, then it offers an additional way of representing the information in the world. This additional medium can create enhanced representations that go beyond the visual or spatial representations alone, thus augmenting representational power" (p. 571).…”

The relation between language and mental state reasoning

“…These questions have been of interest to several researchers who have studied language with the goal of uncovering the inner workings of the human mind. For recent reviews, see Gentner & Goldin-Meadow (2003), Gleitman & Papafragou (2005, 2012, Gumperz & Levinson (1996), Landau, Dessalegn & Goldberg (2010), Levinson (2003), Ünal & Papafragou (2016a), and Wolff & Holmes (2011).…”