Whorf hypothesis is supported in the right visual field but not the left

Abstract

The question of whether language affects perception has been debated largely on the basis of cross-language data, without considering the functional organization of the brain. The nature of this neural organization predicts that, if language affects perception, it should do so more in the right visual field than in the left visual field, an idea unexamined in the debate. Here, we find support for this proposal in lateralized color discrimination tasks. Reaction times to targets in the right visual field were faster when the target and distractor colors had different names; in contrast, reaction times to targets in the left visual field were not affected by the names of the target and distractor colors. Moreover, this pattern was disrupted when participants performed a secondary task that engaged verbal working memory but not a task making comparable demands on spatial working memory. It appears that people view the right (but not the left) half of their visual world through the lens of their native language, providing an unexpected resolution to the language-and-thought debate.

Fig. 1.

Lexical categories influence perception in the RVF. (a) Print-rendered versions of the four colors used. (b) Sample display for the visual search task. Participants were required to press one of two response keys, indicating the side containing the target color. (c) In the no-interference condition, RTs were faster for the between-category pair and slower for the within-category pairs when targets appeared in the RVF compared with when they appeared in the LVF. (d) Effects were reversed with verbal interference. *, P < 0.05, two-tailed t test, df = 10; ns, nonsignificant. Values are mean ± SEM.

Fig. 2.

Modulation of color-category effects in the RVF is specific to linguistic demands of the interference task. (a) Trial events. Within a block of trials, the visual search task was interleaved with blank displays, displays containing a color word, or displays containing a spatial grid. (b and c) No-interference and verbal-interference results replicate those obtained in the first experiment. (d) For the nonverbal-interference condition, performance followed a pattern similar to that observed in the no-interference condition. *, P < 0.05, two-tailed t test, df = 10; ns, nonsignificant.

Fig. 3.

Lexical categories influence perception in the RVF of a callosotomy patient. *, P < 0.05, two-tailed t test, df = 1; ns, nonsignificant.