318 • CHAPTER 11 Language
squares and were instructed to pick, as quickly and accurately as possible, the square
on the bottom that matched the color of the square on the top. On some trials, the
two squares on the bottom were from the same Russian category. This is shown in
Figure 11.17a, in which both bottom squares would both be called siniy. On other
trials, the two squares on the bottom were from different Russian categories. This is
shown in Figure 11.17b, in which the left square is siniy and the right one is goloboy.
● Figure 11.18 shows that the Russian-speaking participants responded
more quickly when the two bottom squares were from different catego-
ries (goloboy/siniy) than when the squares were from the same category. The
English-speaking participants did not respond more quickly when the colors
were in different Russian categories.●FIGURE 11.17 Sample stimuli from the Winawer et al.
(2007) experiment. (a) The two bottom squares are from the
same Russian category. (b) The two bottom squares are from
different Russian categories. The color names shown here were
not visible in the experiment. The participant’s task was to
indicate which of the two squares on the bottom matches the
one on the top. Russian participants made this judgment more
rapidly if the two bottom squares were in different categories,
as in (b). (Source: J. Winawer, N. Witthoft, M. C. Frank, L. Wu, A. R. Wade,
& L. Bordoditsky, “Russian Blues Reveal Effects of Language on Color
Discrimination,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104,
7780–7785, 2007, Fig. 1. Copyright © 2007 National Academy of Sciences, U.S.A.
Reprinted by permission.)siniy siniy siniy goloboy(a) Same category (b) Different categories●FIGURE 11.16 Colors ranging from light blue to dark blue. English-
speakers call all of these colors blue. Russian-speakers call the lighter colors to
the left of the line goloboy and the darker colors to the right of the line siniy.
(Source: J. Winawer, N. Witthoft, M. C. Frank, L. Wu, A. R. Wade, & L. Bordoditsky, “Russian Blues
Reveal Eff ects of Language on Color Discrimination,” Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences, 104, 7780–7785, 2007, Fig. 1. Copyright © 2007 National Academy of Sciences, U.S.A.
Reprinted by permission.)01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20“goloboy” “siniy”●FIGURE 11.18 Results of the Winawer
et al. (2007) experiment. The Russian-speaking
participants responded faster when the bottom
stimuli were from diff erent categories than when
they were from the same category (left pair of bars).
This diff erence did not occur for English-speaking
participants (right pair of bars). (Source: J. Winawer, N.
Witthoft, M. C. Frank, L. Wu, A. R. Wade, & L. Bordoditsky, “Russian
Blues Reveal Eff ects of Language on Color Discrimination,”
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104, 7780–7785,
2007, Fig. 2. Copyright © 2007 National Academy of Sciences,
U.S.A. Reprinted by permission)DD = Different categories
S = Same categoryS8001,2001,1001,000Reaction time (ms)^900DS
Russian-speakers English-speakersCopyright 2011 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part.