Language and Perception

Meaning of language and perception

Various factors affect how we perceive information, such as:

• Schemas; schemas are organised mental frameworks of memories and learned information that we use to make sense of the world.
• Personality: what you choose to focus on and interact with is affected by your personality and personal choices
• Language: we use language to express our thoughts and feelings to help ourselves and others understand what we are trying to communicate.

Examples of How Perception Affects Language

Language and perception involve activity from different cognitive systems that work together.

In addition, when we want to relay information regarding what we perceive, e.g. see, smell, hear, taste and touch, we need to use language to express it to others.

Perception Effects on Language Development

From the descriptions, it is clear that both language and perception are essential cognitive systems. Let's look at how perception affects language development to determine its importance.

During the early stages of development, children can make noises that are not meaningful. Over time as children develop, their cognitive processes such as perception develop, and so does their ability to communicate more complicated topics. Parents can facilitate language learning.

Research on the Language and Perception Relationship

Let's take a look at research that investigated the language and perception relationship by Carmichael, Hogan and Walter (1932).

Language and Perception Theory (Carmichael, Hogan & Walter, 1932)

The research aimed to identify whether verbal labels and images of ambiguous figures shown together affected participants' perception and how they remembered and described the pictures later on.

Language and perception: Carmichael, Hogan and Walter's (1932) procedure

The study recruited 95 college students and teachers in a lab setting. The study involved splitting participants into three groups:

• Group 1 - heard verbal labels from list one with the pictures.
• Group 2 - heard verbal labels from list two with the pictures.
• Group 3 - shown pictures only with no verbal labels (9 participants).

The study used an independent group design meaning all participants saw the same pictures (12 in total).

The study involved presenting ambiguous figures. Ambiguous figures are a form of illusion which causes people to see different things based on their perceptions. The figures could typically be either of two options, and each choice was given in each word list.

Instructions included that after seeing all 12 figures in no particular order, each figure should be drawn again from memory.

Carmichael, Hogan and Walter (1932) used ambiguous figures to identify if verbal labels affected perception, StudySmarter Original; created in Canva.

If participants could not reproduce all 12 figures, they were shown all of the images again and asked to draw each. The pictures did not have to be exact but recognisable. The experiment was repeated until they were able to do so.

Language and perception: Carmichael, Hogan and Walter's (1932) results

The table below summarises how on average, each group performed.

Language and perception: Carmichael, Hogan and Walter's (1932) conclusion

As there was a dramatic difference between the results of participants who did and did not receive a verbal label, it is safe to assume that language affects the memory of the figures.

From the results, we can derive that memory of ambiguous figures is reconstructed in context to the verbal labels. Thus, we are more likely to recall an ambiguous figure to look like how we perceive it in terms of the verbal label.

Language and perception: Carmichael, Hogan and Walter's (1932) evaluation

Let's now look at the study's strengths and weaknesses!

Strengths

The study's strength is that it was conducted in a lab setting. This advantage is that the researcher has high control of confounding variables that may affect the research and reduce its validity.

Another strength of the study was that the imitated pictures were quality checked by two researchers. If the two researchers could not decide on the quality of the pictures, then a third researcher was called in. The multiple researchers checking means that the study's results have high internal reliability.

The study also used a control group to compare the results to the experimental groups. The strength of this is that it allowed the researchers to identify how verbal labels versus no verbal labels affected perception.

Weaknesses

However, the weaknesses of the study are that as it was carried out in a lab, it lacked ecological validity. The issue with the artificial setting is that it may cause the participants to act unnaturally and lowers the study's validity.

Moreover, the study can be criticised for not being practical as the study used ambiguous figures which we do not typically see in our everyday life. Would similar results be found if the study investigated how language affected perception using common standard materials? So, how useful is this study?