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Language and Cognition

Language and Cognition

Language serves as a bridge between ideas and communication, influencing how individuals perceive and interact with the world. Psychologists have long debated whether language shapes thought or vice versa. This discussion gained grip with Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf in the 1940s, who proposed that language determines thought, a concept known as linguistic determinism. They suggested that the vocabulary and structure of a language influence how its speakers think and perceive reality.

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Apr 19, 2026

Examining Online Syntactic Processing of Spoken Complex Sentences in Chinese Using Dual-Modal Interference Tasks

Examining Online Syntactic Processing of Spoken Complex Sentences in Chinese Using Dual-Modal Interference Tasks

Published on: September 5, 2019

Cross-codal bridging information processing by L1 Chinese speakers: An ERP study.

Chenyi Zhang¹, Ianthi Maria Tsimpli¹

¹Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages and Linguistics, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom.

Brain and Language

|April 17, 2026

Summary

Chinese readers efficiently process picture-text shifts in stories, showing no extra cognitive load. This indicates specialized early processing and a unified later conceptual system for multimodal narratives.

Keywords:

Briding information Chinese Cross-codal processing Event-related potential Visual narratives

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Last Updated: Apr 19, 2026

Examining Online Syntactic Processing of Spoken Complex Sentences in Chinese Using Dual-Modal Interference Tasks

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Published on: September 5, 2019

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Published on: June 29, 2021

Comparing the Frequency Effect Between the Lexical Decision and Naming Tasks in Chinese

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Published on: April 1, 2016

Area of Science:

Cognitive Psychology
Neuroscience
Linguistics

Background:

Understanding how readers process multimodal narratives is crucial for cognitive science.
Previous research has explored visual and textual processing separately, but less is known about their integration during reading.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate how Chinese first-language readers process codality switches in narrative comprehension.
To examine the cognitive load associated with switching between pictorial and textual information.
To explore the underlying neural and cognitive mechanisms of cross-codal processing.

Main Methods:

Employed a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) paradigm with 28 Chinese participants.
Participants read 160 four-segment stories in four conditions: picture-unswitched, picture-switched, text-unswitched, and text-switched.
Measured behavioral accuracy and electroencephalography (ERP) amplitudes.

Main Results:

Codality switching did not significantly increase cognitive load during narrative processing.
Evidence for codality-specific processing in early visual feature stages and a shared conceptual system in later stages.
Visuospatial working memory and visual language fluency influenced accuracy but not ERP amplitudes.

Conclusions:

Codality switching in narrative comprehension is efficient and does not impose an additional cognitive burden.
Supports the Multimodal Parallel Architecture model, highlighting distinct perceptual processing and a unified conceptual representation.
Individual cognitive abilities play a role in behavioral outcomes of cross-codal narrative processing.