From LOJBAN%CUVMB.BITNET@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU Wed Nov 29 16:43:57 1995 Received: from VMS.DC.LSOFT.COM (vms.dc.lsoft.com [205.186.43.2]) by locke.ccil.org (8.6.9/8.6.10) with ESMTP id QAA16244 for ; Wed, 29 Nov 1995 16:43:49 -0500 Message-Id: <199511292143.QAA16244@locke.ccil.org> Received: from PEACH.EASE.LSOFT.COM (205.186.43.4) by VMS.DC.LSOFT.COM (LSMTP for OpenVMS v1.0a) with SMTP id C043C1E8 ; Wed, 29 Nov 1995 16:32:34 -0500 Date: Wed, 29 Nov 1995 16:28:09 -0500 Reply-To: "Robert J. Chassell" Sender: Lojban list From: "Robert J. Chassell" Subject: Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis color test X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: John Cowan Status: OR Here are extracts from the message that was sent to the Lojban list on 2 Mar 1994 regarding the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis color test. Note the second and last paragraphs, especially. Willett Kempton said: I'm a coauthor of the Kay and Kempton study ... ... our primary experiment was simple: Present three color chips (call them A, B, C) to speakers of two languages, such that colors A and B are slightly more different in terms of (universal) human visual discriminability, whereas B and C have a linguistic boundary separating them in one language (English) but not the other (Tarahumara, a Uto-Aztecan language). As noted earlier, the English speakers chose C as most different, whereas the Tarahumara chose A or split evenly (there were actually eight chips and four sets of relevant triads). I'll add a couple of points of interest ... First, as the speaker of a language subject to this perceptual effect, I would like to report that it is dramatic, even shocking. I administered the tests to informants in Chihuahua. I was so bewildered by their responses that I had trouble continuing the first few tests, and I had no idea whether or not they were answering randomly. In subsequent analysis it was clear that they were answering exactly as would be predicted by human visual discriminability, but quite unlike the English informants. An informal, and unreported, check of our results was more subjective: I showed some of the crucial triads to other English speakers, including some who had major commitments in print to not finding Whorfian effects for color ... All reported seeing the same effects. ... Our second experiment... difficult to use the lexical categories. And we got visual discrimination-based results, even from English speakers. So there are ways to overcome our linguistic blinders. (Which we knew already, ... I didn't expect to find this. ... I believed the literature ... The experiment was going to be dropped from the field research, saved by a conversation at a wine party with a "naive" sociologist (Paul Attewell) who had read Whorf but not the later refutations. I'll email the full message to anyone who asks; if more than a few ask, I'll post the whole to the list, but I'm trying to save virtual space.... Robert J. Chassell bob@gnu.ai.mit.edu 25 Rattlesnake Mountain Road bob@rattlesnake.com Stockbridge, MA 01262-0693 USA (413) 298-4725