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Speakers of different languages remember visual scenes differently

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Re: Speakers of different languages remember visual scenes differently

#101

Post by atdrummond »

Lamad123 wrote: post #90
psychphysic wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of mindfulness practices, having a word for it, and linking that word to a trip to the Maldives is likely what makes it so intensely memorable.

Very "intensely memorable" feelings/things don't have names!! The smell of old grass or barnes or rain on dry soil or kinds of breeze at certain temperature and level of humidity.. Many of these random things without names are still there and don't require words.

Smell of rain on soil does have a name, though - petrichor.

Re: Speakers of different languages remember visual scenes differently

#102

Post by ethanbond »

atdrummond wrote: post #101
Lamad123 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very "intensely memorable" feelings/things don't have names!! The smell of old grass or barnes or rain on dry soil or kinds of breeze at certain temperature and level of humidity.. Many of these random things without names are still there and don't require words.

Smell of rain on soil does have a name, though - petrichor.

And is a good example of "if you know the name, it makes the sensation stand out even more."

Re: Speakers of different languages remember visual scenes differently

#103

Post by magicalhippo »

Tryffel wrote: post #93
magicalhippo wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My dad taught our native language to immigrants. I mentioned to him I'd read about a research paper where they'd conducted an experiment which indicated that toddlers recalled events using the words they knew at the time of the event. That is, if they had played with a ball before they learned the word for ball, they would not use the word ball when they were later asked to recall the play session. My dad responded t…

This is super interesting! Got any resources or articles about what your was talking about?

After some digging I did indeed find what I believe is the article. As mentioned I read about in American Scientist (IIRC), but based on the abstract this must be it. From the abstract:

By the time of the test, children of all ages had acquired most of the vocabulary necessary to describe the target event. Despite this, they did not translate preverbal aspects of their memory into language during the test. In no instance did a child verbally report information about the event that was not part of his or her productive vocabulary at the time of encoding. We conclude that language development plays a pivotal role in childhood amnesia.

I also found this follow-up study by someone else[2], again from the abstract:

This research suggests that children cannot independently translate preverbal memories into words even with extensive task support. Therefore, language acquisition may indeed play an important role in the offset of childhood amnesia.

However this[3] recent paper argues that this effect might only be relevant for strategic recall, where the kid is asked to recall the memory, but not spontaneous recall which happens involuntarily.

Of course, I imagine spontaneous recall isn't very useful for recalling what you've studied in your home country...

[1]: https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9280.00442 Breaking the Barrier? Children Fail to Translate Their Preverbal Memories into Language

[2]: https://repository.lib.ncsu.edu/handle/1840.16/1427 The Sound Barrier: Two-Year-Old Children's Use of Newly Acquired Words to Describe Preverbal Memories

[3]: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dr.2022.101050 Spontaneous verbal recall: A new look at the mechanisms involved in episodic memory retrieval in young children

Re: Speakers of different languages remember visual scenes differently

#104

Post by yencabulator »

Swizec wrote: post #17
retrac wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This claim has always been very odd to me. My own thinking is, rather obviously, both . I have an inner monologue but it's not entirely word-based. There are mental visual images, and I often gesture with my hands reorganizing imaginary collections of objects while arguing with myself. There's also words going on too. There is also thinking through proprioception. The sense of awareness of the relative placement of t…

Visual Thinking is a great book that goes more into this. Yes it’s a spectrum and different modes of thinking are better for different tasks. The author of Visual Thinking describes 3 types: linear language thinking, abstract visualizer thinking (common to engineers, mathematicians etc), and object visualizer thinking (common to artists, machinists, etc). Most people can do all 3 with different levels of proficiency/…

> abstract visualizer thinking (common to engineers, mathematicians etc), and object visualizer thinking (common to artists, machinists, etc)

Thank you for mentioning this! This explains a lot of myself to me.

I can imagine an abstract space (like Einstein's gravity as a well thing), and then rotate it to look at it from different angles etc -- but I can't hold a realistic image of a vase in my head, only the shape.

Re: Speakers of different languages remember visual scenes differently

#105

Post by yencabulator »

alganet wrote: post #18
Swizec wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Visual Thinking is a great book that goes more into this. Yes it’s a spectrum and different modes of thinking are better for different tasks. The author of Visual Thinking describes 3 types: linear language thinking, abstract visualizer thinking (common to engineers, mathematicians etc), and object visualizer thinking (common to artists, machinists, etc). Most people can do all 3 with different levels of proficiency/…

To me, this section of the article deserves more attention: > They confessed they had thought it was a fictional concept made up as a narrative device in the TV show Dexter I imagine a person saying "I have an internal narrator", and other person thinking "shit, I don't hear stuff like TV shows, that person is different". A misunderstanding. I can bet that if the expression "internal narrator" was changed to "an inte…

I think you're just emphasizing that you're a language thinker and can't imagine the other side... I can "sound out something" in my head but 1) that's a conscious effort that never happens out of the blue 2) I don't use/need it for things like emotional reactions, understanding the world, thinking what I should say next, or so on. It's a tool I only use if I'm for example having trouble coming up with e.g. prose that rhymes, or solving crossword or Wordle puzzles -- language problems!

Re: Speakers of different languages remember visual scenes differently

#106

Post by yencabulator »

tekla wrote: post #13
Swizec wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's pretty difficult to have a thought without using language You get to be today’s 10,000! (xkcd reference) Not everyone has an internal monologue ! 50% to 60% people experience their thoughts completely nonverbally. There isn’t a voice constantly narrating their lives. Some people don’t even process words as words but add pictures instead. Best part: the two groups don’t realize the other group even exists. We a…

Being unable to debate with yourself in your head must really suck.

Being unable to comprehend complex spatial structures without trying to describe them in words must really suck.

Re: Speakers of different languages remember visual scenes differently

#107

Post by yencabulator »

passion__desire wrote: post #27
LordGrey wrote: post #24

I wonder how a group of aphantasics would affect the results. Everyones' mechanisms for remembering things is undoubtedly different, but aphantasia means you don't have mental imagery to consult. Does this mean that aphantasics rely more on linguistic cues and connections?

I think using a language is like constructing a scene graph (computer graphics). Using language i.e. a scene graph representaiton to manipulate ideas and thoughts is far more efficient and faster. Just a guess. Different languages based on primitives might construct different scene graphs.

> Using language i.e. a scene graph representaiton to manipulate ideas and thoughts is far more efficient and faster.

This sounds like language thinker bias, or your definition of language is more abstract (like in Computer Science) than human languages. I can "construct a scene graph" just fine, and while I have to use words to describe the scenes to you, no words played a part in coming up with these examples or thinking about them:

- imagine a rope running through several wooden blocks on a table and pick up various blocks, how do the rest of them behave?

- imagine wooden discs of various sizes with holes, stack them on a pole, does it happen to be a valid solution for Tower of Hanoi?

- imagine a toy car, start lifting one end, at what point does it tip over?

I for sure am not using a human language for that.

> Different languages based on primitives might construct different scene graphs.

This is probably very much true in the same style as your native language biases your perception of color boundaries.

For example: Finnish has just one word for "leg", not separate words for "leg" and "foot", so I view the abstract concept of the whole limb as one thing, not separated into two parts at the ankle. In using language, I may accidentally say in English "I hurt my leg" after kicking my foot into something; they're the same.

For the reverse, Finnish has separate words for the front and back parts of the neck -- and I don't mean just throat, which is just the trachea area, I mean the whole frontal part of it. So, the thought of e.g. dirt on the back of my neck is separate from the though of dirt on the front of my neck. (No, I don't use the words in the thought.)

Re: Speakers of different languages remember visual scenes differently

#108

Post by yencabulator »

azernik wrote: post #83
gumballindie wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Details are subjective, and that can be influenced by culture and language. For instance if in my culture it's more important to know the colour of your pants then i will remember that. If in your culture the colour of your hat is more important you will remember that. But a person's culture changes, and that person can still speak a particular language but memories be influenced by a different pattern. Correlation a…

The evidence from dual language speakers (primed language changing the task performance) suggests it is in fact about the language spoken - these are actual controlled experiments. Small effect sizes and not super interesting effects IMO unless you're doing deep neuroscience stuff on memory and attention, but it's pretty clear language plays a role.

Of course the language/culture you're currently using influences things, that just plain makes sense. In English I have to remember & share the gender of the person I am talking about, in my native language I have no need for that. So when I'm using English, I'll probably be more influenced by gender biases.

Re: Speakers of different languages remember visual scenes differently

#109

Post by wilg »

godelski wrote: post #80
wilg wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do languages have limits? I mean, the poster explained the situation in English. How much does terseness matter I wonder?

> Do languages have limits? Yes. Language is itself compression of thoughts. Thoughts themselves are compression of something larger (observations, experiences, combinations of other thoughts, etc). It seems that there is more than one very famous mathematical proof that dictates that systems such as these cannot be complete, or even consistent.

I meant different human languages. Is there something that cannot be expressed in one vs another in any way, even if it's long? I doubt it. Seems like there is something similar to Turing-completeness in effect.
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