TY - JOUR
T1 - When language affects cognition and when it does not
T2 - an analysis of grammatical gender and classification.
AU - Sera, Maria D.
AU - Elieff, Chryle
AU - Forbes, James
AU - Burch, Melissa Clark
AU - Rodríguez, Wanda
AU - Dubois, Diane Poulin
PY - 2002/9/1
Y1 - 2002/9/1
N2 - The focus of this work was on the relation between grammatical gender and categorization. In one set of studies, monolingual English-, Spanish-, French-, and German-speaking children and adults assigned male and female voices to inanimate objects. Results from Spanish and French speakers indicated effects of grammatical gender on classification; results from German speakers did not. A connectionist model simulated the contradicting findings. The connectionist networks were also used to investigate which aspect of grammatical gender was responsible for the different pattern of findings. The predictions from the connectionist simulations were supported by the results from an artificial language-learning task. The results from this work demonstrate how connectionist networks can be used to identify the differences between languages that affect categorization.
AB - The focus of this work was on the relation between grammatical gender and categorization. In one set of studies, monolingual English-, Spanish-, French-, and German-speaking children and adults assigned male and female voices to inanimate objects. Results from Spanish and French speakers indicated effects of grammatical gender on classification; results from German speakers did not. A connectionist model simulated the contradicting findings. The connectionist networks were also used to investigate which aspect of grammatical gender was responsible for the different pattern of findings. The predictions from the connectionist simulations were supported by the results from an artificial language-learning task. The results from this work demonstrate how connectionist networks can be used to identify the differences between languages that affect categorization.
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M3 - Article
C2 - 12214753
SN - 0096-3445
VL - 131
SP - 377
EP - 397
JO - Journal of Experimental Psychology: General
JF - Journal of Experimental Psychology: General
IS - 3
ER -