M.A. Santin Schulz

The result of using language: A cross-linguistic study on the cognitive representation of change-of-state events

We are used to perceive change and interactions between objects, people and living beings in a temporal continuum. To make sense of it, we segment this stream, discover patterns, make associations and integrate these elements into meaningful units called events. Several studies have found that the use of language enhances the salience of agents, objects, manner of motion and goals. However, little is known about how language may influence the salience of change of state in objects. Our research aims to examine the impact of being used to describe changes of state by means of language-specific material on the perception and mental representation of such events. To investigate this, we will test how attention, memory, categorization and segmentation processes of people from different linguistic background may vary in function of language-specific preferences for using a particular linguistic means to encode the change of state underwent by an object. Mandarin, Dutch, English, Greek and Spanish are the languages at the focus point of our research.