Speakers of different languages remember visual scenes differently.

ABSTRACT: Language can have a powerful effect on how people experience events. Here, we examine how the languages people speak guide attention and influence what they remember from a visual scene. When hearing a word, listeners activate other similar-sounding words before settling on the correct target. We tested whether this linguistic coactivation during a visual search task changes memory for objects. Bilinguals and monolinguals remembered English competitor words that overlapped phonologically with a spoken English target better than control objects without name overlap. High Spanish proficiency also enhanced memory for Spanish competitors that overlapped across languages. We conclude that linguistic diversity partly accounts for differences in higher cognitive functions such as memory, with mul

SUBMITTER: Fernandez-Duque M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10431704 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature