The time it takes you to distinguish between similar shades and colors may depend on the words you use to describe them.
Studies have repeatedly shown that speakers of languages with significantly different concepts distinguish between colours and shades – such as the Russian words siny And Subscribe for light blue and dark blue – can distinguish these shades more quickly than languages that use many adjectives.
However, it remains unclear whether this effect is malleable and whether engaging the brain with the right language might speed things up or simply hinder and slow them down.
A new study from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) and the University of Oslo in Norway has found evidence that the language our brains use to process our environment at a given moment influences the way other cognitive activities build a sense of perception.
“This supports the idea that the language we use can influence our perception of color – and that this connection is very dynamic and depends on activation in the brain,” says Mila Vulchanova, a linguist at NTNU.
For this study, a group of 106 volunteers consisting of Lithuanian speakers, Norwegian speakers and Lithuanians with good Norwegian skills were subjected to a series of tests.
All three groups took part in two tests that measured the time it took to distinguish between pairs of chips with different shades of blue. One test was conducted in relative silence, the other required memorizing a series of eight digits. Those who were bilingual heard the numbers first in Lithuanian and then in Norwegian.
This was followed by a third test in which the time it took the participants to recognize a single color was measured.
As in Russian, Lithuanian has two words for blue (zydra for light blue and melyn for dark blue), while Norwegian has only one – blue. As previous studies had shown, the bilingual volunteers were able to distinguish color chips with different shades of blue more quickly in Lithuanian than in Norwegian. Monolingual Lithuanians also noticed color differences more quickly than monolingual Norwegians.
When the brain was busy remembering a sequence of numbers spoken in Lithuanian, bilingual speakers continued to have a speed advantage that was not present when hearing the numbers in Norwegian.
“Research shows that the language actively used by bilingual people can significantly influence their color perception,” says Akvilė Sinkevičiūtė, formerly at NTNU and now a computer scientist at Northeastern University London in the UK.
“The results show that the language you use can influence your perception of the world, right down to basic color perception.”
Although color perception comes naturally to many of us because our brains process everything in an instant, the ability to distinguish between colors is hugely important – from the red of a warning sign to the black of a moldy banana.
This color perception can be influenced in many ways, including by the sense of smell. The results reported here expand our knowledge of language and cognition and how we can train the brain through the way we speak.
“Our research and that of others shows that it is a two-way process,” says Vulchanova. “This means that language can activate and influence cognitive categories and, conversely, cognitive mechanisms and categories influence language.”
The study was published in Learn languages.
