Event Segmentation in Language and Cognition

A hallmark of human cognition is the ability to segment streams of dynamic stimuli into discrete event units. Currently, most of the evidence about event segmentation comes from English speakers. Could cross-linguistic differences in how events are encoded affect how speakers of different languages form cognitive event units? Here, we address this question by comparing how English and Turkish speakers segment and represent motion events. We find robust differences in the way speakers of these two languages form linguistic event units when describing these events (Experiment 1). Nevertheless, these differences do not affect non-linguistic event unit formation as measured by a classic event segmentation task (Experiment 2) and an event enumeration task (Experiment 3). We conclude that conceptual and linguistic event units are related but distinct levels of event structure. These results have implications for theories of event cognition, as well as the broad relation between language and thought.