Our view of the world

• Brown and Lenneberg (1954) - New Mexico

  • Zuni people have one word for shades of yellow and orange
  • They had difficulty recalling these words compared to the English
  • Suggests their lack of words for those colours affected their ability to distinguish between them
• Brown and Lenneberg - evaluation

  • Weakness
  • Issues with interpreting the participant's response
  • Language barrier could have affected how well Zuni people communicated their understanding of colours
• Robertson Et Al. (2000) - New Guinea

  • Berinmo people had difficulties recalling and distinguishing between a variety of colours
  • They only have five words for different colours in their language
• Robertson Et Al. - evaluation

  • Weakness
  • Researchers have found the opposite
  • Dani people have two words for colour but could still colour match
  • Suggests that their lack of words did not influence their ability to think about colour
• Hopi Tribe - Whorf

  • Hopi language does not distinguish between past, present and future
  • Hopi Indians are unable to refer to time passing
  • This influences the way they think about time
• Hopi tribe - evaluation

  • Weakness
  • Small sample size - cannot be generalised
  • Whorf only studied one individual
  • We cannot generalise the results to other people
• Carmichael Et Al. (1932)

  • Two participant groups were shown the same pictures
  • Each group heard different descriptions
  • When asked to draw the pictures, the drawn reflected the description they heard
  • Suggests that language influences our memory
• Carmichael Et Al. - evaluation

  • Weakness
  • Research was conducted a long time ago
  • If the study was replicated, there could be different results
  • Lacks temporal validity