生物谷報道：香港大學4月7日公布，該校“腦與認知科學國家重點實驗室”首次從人類腦部活動模式證明語言與顏色認知有直接關系,。
香港大學研究人員去年向17名研究對象展示多對涂有顏色的方格,，要求他們回答每對方格內的顏色是否相同,。方格內的顏色有紅,、藍等“容易命名”的,，也有“難以命名”的,。
進行問答的同時,，研究人員利用磁共振影像掃描器對研究對象進行大腦掃描。
研究結果顯示,，研究對象就兩類顏色進行辨認時,，均引發(fā)腦皮層主管辨認顏色部位的活動，但在辨認“容易命名”的顏色時,，比辨認“難以命名”的顏色更明顯和強烈地激發(fā)腦部主管詞匯檢索部位的活動,。換言之，某種顏色在某種語言中是否有獨立命名,，與語言檢索和顏色認知有密切關聯(lián),。
語言可能影響思維和認知的假設最先由語言學家沃爾夫在1956年提出，卻一直未有確切證據證實或否定,。香港大學語言學教授譚力海表示,，這項研究結果是一項重大突破，為“沃爾夫假說”提供了神經機理的實質證據,。
這項研究結果3月份發(fā)表在美國《國家科學院院刊》（PNAS）上,。（生物谷援引新華網）
生物谷推薦原始出處：
Published online on March 3, 2008, 10.1073/pnas.0800055105
PNAS | March 11, 2008 | vol. 105 | no. 10 | 4004-4009
SOCIAL SCIENCES / BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES / PSYCHOLOGY / NEUROSCIENCE
Language affects patterns of brain activation associated with perceptual decision
Li Hai Tan,, Alice H. D. Chan,, Paul Kay,¶,||, Pek-Lan Khong,, Lawrance K. C. Yip, and Kang-Kwong Luke,,
Department of Linguistics, State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, and Department of Diagnostic Radiology, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong; ¶Department of Linguistics, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720; ||International Computer Science Institute, 1947 Center Street, Berkeley, CA 94704; and Department of Radiology, Queen Mary Hospital, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong
Contributed by Paul Kay, January 23, 2008 (received for review November 5, 2007)
Well over half a century ago, Benjamin Lee Whorf [Carroll JB (1956) Language, Thought, and Reality: Selected Writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf (MIT Press, Cambridge, MA)] proposed that language affects perception and thought and is used to segment nature, a hypothesis that has since been tested by linguistic and behavioral studies. Although clear Whorfian effects have been found, it has not yet been demonstrated that language influences brain activity associated with perception and/or immediate postperceptual processes (referred hereafter as "perceptual decision"). Here, by using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we show that brain regions mediating language processes participate in neural networks activated by perceptual decision. When subjects performed a perceptual discrimination task on easy-to-name and hard-to-name colored squares, largely overlapping cortical regions were identified, which included areas of the occipital cortex critical for color vision and regions in the bilateral frontal gyrus. Crucially, however, in comparison with hard-to-name colored squares, perceptual discrimination of easy-to-name colors evoked stronger activation in the left posterior superior temporal gyrus and inferior parietal lobule, two regions responsible for word-finding processes, as demonstrated by a localizer experiment that uses an explicit color patch naming task. This finding suggests that the language-processing areas of the brain are directly involved in visual perceptual decision, thus providing neuroimaging support for the Whorf hypothesis.
color | neuroimaging | linguistic relativity | lateralization | Whorf
