Linguistic categories may influence perception

Physorg.com - Scientists show that language shapes perception

This short article reported on a study done that tracked brain activity of Greek-speakers and English-speakers. The Greek language has two different words for blue, light blue (e.g. the sky) and dark blue (e.g. pen color), while the English has just blue. By tracking 'event related brain potentials' down to the millisecond, the study showed patterned differences in brain activity between the Greek-speakers and the English ones. Importantly however, these differences arose around 100 milliseconds after processing the colors, prior to the usual time that language 'invades' our thinking (200 milliseconds). Scientists concluded that linguistic categories may influence how we actually perceive objects.