1. On the road to
somewhere:
Brain potentials
reflect language
effects on motion
event perception
Presented by Katie Steck
Flecken, Athanasopoulos,
Kuipers, & Thierry 2015
2. Background Information
‘‘Users of markedly different grammars are pointed by their grammars toward
different types of observations and different evaluations of externally similar
acts of observation’’
-Whorf, 1940/1956
3. Language Matters in Brain Potentials
Thierry et al. (2009):
- Greek “ghalazio” and “ble” - light and dark blue
- Greek speakers greater and faster perceptual discrimination between light blue and dark blue
Boutonnet et al. (2013):
- English “cup” and “mug” v. Spanish “taza”
- English speakers greater deviant-related negativity brain potentials than Spanish speakers
5. How would language affect motion perception?
Grammatical Aspect-
Grammatical category that expresses
how an action, event, or state (denoted by
a verb), relates to the flow of time
-Perfective - bounded, no time inference
- “I helped him”
-Imperfective - progressive (continuous, to be
verb + _ing)
- “I was helping him”
6. Verb Form Influence
Anderson, Matlock, Fausey, and Spivey (2008):
- Gave sentences either contain perfective or
imperfective past verb form.
- Using a computer mouse, participants placed
character into a scene to match the description
Perfective
Dropped character toward destination
Imperfective
Dropped character at an intermediate point
7. Aspect and Non-Aspect languages
Aspect (English, Arabic, Russian, Spanish):
Tend not to mention endpoints when not the
focus of the sentence.
- “A woman is walking” (perhaps towards
something, but it doesn’t really matter what)
Non-aspect (Afrikaans, German, Swedish):
Linguistic bias towards action goals and
motion event endpoints and dependent on
perspective of viewer
- “A woman walks towards a building”
8. Language Focus
Langacker (1987, 2008); Radden & Dirven, (2007):
Gave a scene where a person is walking along a road, with a
house at a distance, but the clip ends before the person has
gone anywhere near the house
-Describe this event
“A person is walking”
“A person walks to a house”
Focus on endpoint or the ongoing phase of event?
Aspect languages focus on process
Non-Aspect languages focus on endpoint
Verbal interference can change results
10. Experiment 1- Methods
Participants:
20 English speakers (UK)
20 German speakers (Netherlands)
Process:
Animation first (1000 ms)
Blank screen (200 ms)
Target picture (600 ms)
Blank screen between trials (800 ms)
Press a button if the picture exactly
matches the preceding animation
11. Experiment 1 - Methods
492 Total Trials
5% of animation-picture pairs full match (24 trials)
75% Full mismatch (372 trials)
10% Endpoint match (48)
10% Trajectory match (48)
12. Hypotheses- Experiment 1
1. German speakers- Larger P3 in
endpoint match than trajectory
match
2. English speakers - Similar P3 in
both endpoint and trajectory
matches
3. Larger P3 amplitudes for full
match conditions (both groups)
13. Experiment 1- Results
English - Peak at 520 ms
German- Peak at 610 ms
No significant difference in correct
button pushes (90%)
14. Experiment 1 - Initial RM ANOVA Main Effects
Endpoint Match
Complete Mismatch
PositiveP3amplitude
Full Match
Trajectory Match
p < .05 p < .05
p < .05 p < .05
p < .001
p =n.s.
English and German groups similar
pattern:
Groups were both attentive and
motivated
15. Experiment 1- German Group
Higher P3 for Full Match than all others
(p < .001)
Higher P3 for Endpoint Match than Mismatch (p
<.05)
NS P3 difference for Trajectory Match and
Mismatch (p <.05)
**Higher P3 for Endpoint Match than Trajectory
Match (p <.05)**
16. Experiment 1- English Group
Higher P3 for Full Match than all others (p < .001)
Higher P3 for both Endpoint and Trajectory
Match than Mismatch (p <.05)
**NS P3 for Endpoint Match than Trajectory
Match (p =.073)**
18. Experiment 1- Results Summary
Groups were both attentive and motivated
German larger overall peak and slope, possibly
explained by German group slower to reject partial
matches
When there was significance, it was for more focus
on the endpoint
- German group it lasted longer and
differences between the mismatch condition
only in the endpoint match condition, pointing
to language differences in perceptual
processing
19. Experiment 2- Methods
Participants:
15 English Speakers
19 German Speakers
Process:
Picture first (600 ms)
Blank Screen (200 ms)
Animation (1000 ms)
Between trial (800ms)
- Match? Press “Yes” or “No” buttons, Response time and accuracy recorded
Fully randomized
Each picture (4) preceded by each animation (4) = 16 combos
Repeated 10 times = 160 trials
All together, 40 trials each of full match, mismatch, endpoint match, trajectory match
600 800
20. Experiment 2- Accuracy Results
No interaction
No main effect for group
Main effect of condition:
Did better correctly identifying mismatch than full match
No difference between mismatch and endpoint
Slight difference between mismatch and trajectory
No difference between endpoint and trajectory
21. Experiment 2- Reaction Time Results
No interaction
No main effect for group
Main effect of condition:
Reaction times fastest for mismatch trials
No differences between critical conditions
22. Experiment 2- Correct “No” Button Results
No main effect for group
Main effect of condition:
Faster “no’s” for full mismatch than partial mismatch
Significant Interaction
German reaction times for partial mismatches slower than their reaction times
for complete mismatch
N.S. in English group
23. Experiment 2- Incorrect “Yes” Button Results
No interaction
Non significant trend for group main effect
Main effect of condition:
Accidentally pushed yes more often on partial matches than full mismatches
24. Experiment 2- Results Summary
Groups perform roughly the same in accuracy
rates and speed of processing
Performance fastest and most accurate on full
mismatch condition
Worse for both groups on the trajectory match
condition (Language-independent bias for
endpoints in motion (Slobin, 2006; Zacks &
Tversky, 2001))
German reaction times slower for the partial
mismatch than full mismatch (helps explain P3)
*Picture and motion pairing a non-verbal task*
- Online verbal encoding strategies not likely*
25. The Point
German group had greater
attention devoted to endpoints
English group had more equal
attention devoted to endpoint and
trajectory
Automatic processing for motion
perception varies based on how you
have experience coding things in
your language
26. Limitations and Future Studies
Possibility of shape labeling
-Correct in future research
Experiment 1 and 2 different people
Small sample size
Additional future research
-Real world motion events
28. Extras
-Task processing and attention
devoted to execution of task similar in
Germans and English
-English P3 peak slighly earlier and
shorter, less positive than German
-English and German similar in speed
for detecting a full match
-Germans slower at rejecting partial
matches
29. Extras
-Germans have a more positive P3 wave for
endpoint match than trajectory match
- Endpoint processed with more
attention and perceived as more
relevant or salient than trajectory when
matching animations with pictures
-English no sustained differences in P3 wave
for endpoint match vs trajectory match
- No attentional bias, both elements
similarly attended to
