The Influence of Language on Visual Preferences

A few days ago, a hitting trainer from New York came to my softball team's practice to work with us on visual training . His goal was to teach us ways in which we could improve our hitting skills by changing the way we look at and see the ball. One of the skills he mentioned a process called scanning. During scanning, the batter scans the field behind the pitcher before the pitch comes rather than just watching the pitcher the entire time. This method is supposed to help the batter to better focus on the ball because receptors in the eyes tend to tire out when looking at the same object for too long. The trainer told us that we would be able to see the ball more clearly if we did not stare at it the entire time during our at bat. He told us that we could scan in any direction we wanted, but said that about 99% of baseball and softball players scan from left to right across the field because that is the direction in which we read.

To me this was an interesting point because several languages are read not from left to right, but right to left or top to bottom. Baseball and softball are primarily American sports, but are also popular in several foreign countries. I thought about the famous Japanese baseball player Ichiro, and wondered if he would scan the field from right to left because that is the way Japanese is often read. Can the language we use really influence our preferences for visual information? Does reading a certain way make it easier for you to look at other objects in the same manner, such as from left to right or top to bottom? Would people who read left to right be more successful than those who read right to left at certain tasks that involve vision in a left to right direction?

In an eye tracking study done at the University of North Carolina, subjects were exposed to a variety of advertisements, each consisting of different layouts. Pictures and text were rearranged in different ways in order to examine which advertisements the subjects would spend the longest amount of time looking at, and to see which objects on the advertisement caught the attention of the participants primarily. The scientists hypothesized that the information on the left side of the page would be processed first, due to the western culture background of the participants.

Although the time fixated on pictures versus the time fixated on textual information did not vary between different layout types, the actual layout did influence which information the participants fixated on first. The results demonstrated that in opposition to predictions, the information on the right side of the page was processed first. Therefore both the pictures and the text were processed primarily in different layouts providing they were on the right side of the page. The study did not reveal a solid explanation for this finding, but mentioned that the fact that most participants preferred to view the objects on the right side of the page first could have been a result of circumstances other than language. Participants may have began scanning in the middle of the page, and the pictures and text that were on the right side may have overlapped to the center of the page, causing the participants to process them first.

In his book "Being Humans", Neil Roughley demonstrated that a culture's standard of beauty and visual preference for certain physical qualities in an individual are often products of the culture's sociocultural values and ideals. Roughley used the Baule culture as evidence to support this claim. The Baule are a West African people that are democratic and egalitarian. Because they are a primarily agricultural society, they value hard work. The Baule value fertility, good health, and personal hygiene. Above all, the Baule value community and conformity. They do not strive to be different from one another but similar to one another.

Part of the Baule culture involves carving beautiful statues. During a study, when the Baule were asked to choose which statues they believed were the most beautiful, they tended to select those that had average-like qualities. The choices made by the Baule reflect their primary cultural ideal-the need to conform and be a part of society. They looked down upon being different in fear of isolation from the group.

I am not personally familiar with the Baule language, but I wonder if their words at all reflect the importance of community. We have discussed how culture shapes language and how language shapes culture. Could specific words or phrases in the Baule language have positive and negative connotations that would cause certain traits to be favored over others? In our society, we tend to see words that set a person apart like "special" or "unique" as positive characteristics. In turn, we often prefer people who are special and unique. If words in the Baule language such as "average", "same", or "ordinary" are seen in a positive light , can they in turn create a visual preference for beauty that is unique to those who speak the Baule language.

This raises the never-ending chick and egg question of what influenced what. Did culture influence language and the connotations we have with certain words, or did certain words and the meaning that they carry shape and mold culture? Or do culture and language continuously work in a dynamic way, influencing one another simultaneously?

Links:
http://www.open-video.org/papers/hughes_civr_2003.pdf

http://books.google.com/books?id=Hp8fRboVi1MC&pg=PA274&lpg=PA274&dq=western+culture+visual+preferences&source=web&ots=wI2BDVx_Uq&sig=A3L2-n2bz3HVlU6Fd3hQxHL1MZA#PPT1,M1