Differential coding of perception in the world’s languages

Is there a universal hierarchy of the senses, such that some senses (e.g., vision) are more accessible to consciousness and linguistic description than others (e.g., smell)? The long-standing presumption in Western thought has been that vision and audition are more objective than the other senses, s...

Full description

Saved in:

Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS Vol. 115; no. 45; pp. 11369 - 11376
Main Authors:	Majid, Asifa, Roberts, Seán G., Cilissen, Ludy, Emmorey, Karen, Nicodemus, Brenda, O’Grady, Lucinda, Woll, Bencie, LeLan, Barbara, de Sousa, Hilário, Cansler, Brian L., Shayan, Shakila, de Vos, Connie, Senft, Gunter, Enfield, N. J., Razak, Rogayah A., Fedden, Sebastian, Tufvesson, Sylvia, Dingemanse, Mark, Ozturk, Ozge, Brown, Penelope, Hill, Clair, Le Guen, Olivier, Hirtzel, Vincent, van Gijn, Rik, Sicoli, Mark A., Levinson, Stephen C.
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	United States National Academy of Sciences 06-11-2018
Subjects:	Africa Asia Auditory Perception - physiology Coding Cognitive science COLLOQUIUM PAPERS Communication Cross-cultural Cross-Cultural Comparison Cross-linguistic Cultural Diversity Domains General Language Studies and Linguistics Humaniora och konst Humanities Humanities and Social Sciences Humans Ineffability Jämförande språkvetenskap och allmän lingvistik Language Languages Languages and Literature Latin America Linguistics Olfaction Olfactory Perception - physiology Perception Phonetics Phylogeny Psycholinguistics Sackler on Pressing Questions in the Study of Psychological and Behavioral Diversity Semantics Senses Sensory perception Sensory systems Sign Language Smell Social Sciences Språk och litteratur Taste Perception - physiology Touch Perception - physiology Vision Visual Perception - physiology Asia Africa Latin America cross-linguistic language ineffability cross-cultural perception
Online Access:	Get full text
Tags:	Add Tag No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!

Description
Summary:	Is there a universal hierarchy of the senses, such that some senses (e.g., vision) are more accessible to consciousness and linguistic description than others (e.g., smell)? The long-standing presumption in Western thought has been that vision and audition are more objective than the other senses, serving as the basis of knowledge and understanding, whereas touch, taste, and smell are crude and of little value. This predicts that humans ought to be better at communicating about sight and hearing than the other senses, and decades of work based on English and related languages certainly suggests this is true. However, how well does this reflect the diversity of languages and communities worldwide? To test whether there is a universal hierarchy of the senses, stimuli from the five basic senses were used to elicit descriptions in 20 diverse languages, including 3 unrelated sign languages. We found that languages differ fundamentally in which sensory domains they linguistically code systematically, and how they do so. The tendency for better coding in some domains can be explained in part by cultural preoccupations. Although languages seem free to elaborate specific sensory domains, some general tendencies emerge: for example, with some exceptions, smell is poorly coded. The surprise is that, despite the gradual phylogenetic accumulation of the senses, and the imbalances in the neural tissue dedicated to them, no single hierarchy of the senses imposes itself upon language.
Bibliography:	ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 Author contributions: A.M. and S.C.L. designed research; A.M., L.C., K.E., B.N., L.O., B.W., B.L., H.d.S., B.L.C., S.S., C.d.V., G.S., N.J.E., R.A.R., S.F., S.T., M.D., O.O., P.B., C.H., O.L.G., V.H., R.v.G., M.A.S., and S.C.L. performed research; A.M. and S.G.R. analyzed data; and A.M., S.G.R., and S.C.L. wrote the paper. 1Present address: Department of Psychology, University of York, York YO10 5DD, United Kingdom. Edited by Douglas L. Medin, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, and approved April 12, 2018 (received for review December 19, 2017)
ISSN:	0027-8424 1091-6490 1091-6490
DOI:	10.1073/pnas.1720419115