Language boosts invisible objects into visual awareness

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New research suggests that language can both enhance and diminish the sensitivity of our vision.

This article is from theguardian.com by Mo Costandi.

wittgenstein_brothers_ludwigThe philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein famously said that, “the limits of my language mean the limits of my world,” meaning that we can only understand the world through the language we use, and that if our language does not include words for some particular idea or concept, then that concept cannot exist for us. The relationship between language and thought is complex, which researchers continue to debate. Some, like Wittgenstein, argue that thought is dependent on language. Others point out that thought can occur in the absence of language, deaf people being an important case in point. Read more →

Be a user, not a consumer: how capitalism has changed our language

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Capitalism is altering our language – and Raymond Williams saw it coming more than 50 years ago.

This article is from theguardian.com by Owen Hatherley.

books-008According to a report by researchers at the University of California Los Angeles, English has become a peculiarly capitalist language – though they don’t quite put it like that. They used the somewhat blunt instrument of feeding 1.5m English-language books into Ngram Viewer, a tool that catalogues phrase usage, in order to count the frequency that words were used. The results proved that over the last 200 years there has been an ever-increasing use of particularly acquisitive words: “get”, “unique”, “individual”, “self”, “choose”; while over the same period “give” and “obliged” decreased. The pattern was only broken briefly in the relatively egalitarian years between the 40s and 70s. For the researchers, this shows the results of the English-speaking countries moving from “a predominantly rural, low-tech society to a predominantly urban, hi-tech society”. Read more →

Talking robot takes off for International Space Station

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Robot known as Kirobo is designed to be companion for astronaut Koichi Wakata.

This article is from theguardian.com by Maev Kennedy.

Kirobo-the-talking-robot--011When the Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata arrives at the International Space Station in November, a companion will be waiting for him whose eyes will light up in recognition – literally.

Kirobo, the world’s first talking humanoid space robot, has already taken off – in the nattiest red Wellingtons since Paddington Bear – and should arrive at the space station by 9 August to await Wakata’s arrival. It knows he is coming: it has been programmed to recognise his face, and greet him warmly in Japanese.

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