Space
Space. The final frontier. How do we move in space? Vectors, scalars, navigation? Is spacial reasoning a cognitive instinct or a cognitive technology?
Primary Readings
Everyone should read these and be prepared to discuss:
| Pederson, E., Danziger, E., Wilkins, D., Levinson, S., Kita, S., & Senft, G. (1998) | Semantic typology and spatial conceptualization. Language, 74(3), 557-589. |
| Levinson, S., Meira, S., & The Language and Cognition Group. (2003) | ‘Natural concepts’ in the spatial topological domain-Adpositional meanings in crosslinguistic perspective. Language, 485-516. |
Secondary Readings
The presenter should read and incorporate these:
| Li, P., & Gleitman, L. (2002) | Turning the tables: Language and spatial reasoning. Cognition, 83(3), 265-294.This passage summarizes various research papers and studies that explore the effects of language on spatial organization, reasoning, and cognition. The Whorf-Sapir linguistic relativity hypothesis, which suggests that language influences thought, is discussed. The studies reviewed investigate how different languages use different spatial systems and how cultural factors can impact spatial terminology and cognitive strategies. The presence and suitability of local landmark cues are found to play a role in problem-solving strategies. The passage also mentions research on spatial reasoning in animals and prelinguistic infants, highlighting their ability to adapt spatial reasoning based on the presence of landmark cues. The authors emphasize the relationship between language and thought but note that human thought is robust to variation in linguistic usage patterns. |
| Levinson, S. C., Kita, S., Haun, D. B., & Rasch, B. H. (2002) | Returning the tables: Language affects spatial reasoning. Cognition, 84(2), 155-188.The study explores the relationship between language and spatial reasoning, arguing against a cross-cultural comparison that suggests language has a causal effect on non-linguistic thinking. The authors conduct experiments to support their hypothesis that language does not have a direct effect on cognition in the spatial domain. |
Questions under discussion
- What are the natural concepts for space?
- Are spatial concepts a cognitive universal or driven by language?
