Extracommunicative functions of language: Verbal interference causes selective categorization impairments
Open accessAbstract
In addition to its communicative functions, language has been argued to have a variety of extracommunicative functions, as assessed by its causal involvement in putatively nonlinguistic tasks. In the present work, I argue that language may be critically involved in the ability of human adults to categorize objects on a specific dimension (e.g., color) while abstracting over other dimensions (e.g., size). This ability is frequently impaired in aphasic patients. The present work demonstrates that normal participants placed under conditions of verbal interference show a pattern of deficits strikingly similar to that of aphasic patients: impaired taxonomic categorization along perceptual dimensions, and preserved thematic categorization. A control experiment using a visuospatial-interference task failed to find this selective pattern of deficits. The present work has implications for understanding the online role of language in normal cognition and supports the claim that language is causally involved in nonverbal cognition.
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Verbal interference specifically affects categorization when classifying based on a single perceptual dimension while ignoring others.
“Lupyan (2009) reported specific effects of verbal interference on categorization skills in adults when they were asked to classify pictures based on a single perceptual dimension (e.g., color) while ignoring other relevant dimensions (such as shape).”
From Inner Speech: Development, Cognitive Functions, Phenomenology, and Neurobiology (2015) · cites this paper as Lupyan, 2009
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Inner Speech: Development, Cognitive Functions, Phenomenology, and Neurobiology
Alderson-Day, B., & Fernyhough, C. (2015) · Psychological Bulletin · doi:10.1037/bul0000021 · Cited by 808 · see citing works
“Using a verbal distractor task (number repetition), Lupyan (2009) reported specific effects of verbal interference on categorization skills in adults when they were asked to classify pictures based on a single perceptual dimension (e.g., color) while ignoring other relevant dimensions (such as…”
BackgroundThe Internal Representations Questionnaire: Measuring modes of thinking
Roebuck, H., & Lupyan, G. (2020) · Behavior Research Methods · doi:10.3758/s13428-020-01354-y · Cited by 56 · see citing works
Self-citationVerbal interference paradigms: a systematic review investigating the role of language in cognition
Nedergaard, J. S. K., Wallentin, M., & Lupyan, G. (2023) · Psychonomic Bulletin & Review · doi:10.3758/s13423-022-02144-7 · Cited by 56 · see citing works
Self-citationThe language network is not engaged in object categorization
Benn, Y., Ivanova, A. A., Clark, O., Mineroff, Z., Seikus, C., Silva, J. S., Varley, R., & Fedorenko, E. (2023) · Cerebral Cortex · doi:10.1093/cercor/bhad289 · Cited by 14 · see citing works
What is the interference in ‘verbal interference’?
Gerwien, J., von Stutterheim, C., & Rummel, J. (2022) · Acta Psychologica · doi:10.1016/j.actpsy.2022.103774 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
- Authors
- Lupyan, G.
- Affiliations
- University of Pennsylvania (US)
- Corresponding author
- Lupyan, Gary
- ORCID
- Lupyan, Gary
- Venue
- Psychonomic Bulletin & Review
- Published
- 2009-08
- Volume
- 16
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 711-718
- ISSN
- 1069-9384 (ISSN-L)
- 1531-5320
- OpenAlex
- W2005671931
- Cited by
- 110
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 11 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 23 · 2021: 6 · 2020: 7 · 2019: 5 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 8 · 2016: 7 · 2015: 7 · 2014: 4 · 2013: 4 · 2012: 8
- FWCI
- 6.36
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Licence
- www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
- Locations
- Psychonomic Bulletin & Review (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Categorization, perception, and language
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neurobiology of Language and Bilingualism
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Language, Metaphor, and Cognition
- Keywords
- verbal interference, taxonomic categorization, thematic classification, color classification, aphasia, nonverbal cognition, object classification
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Aphasia, Association Learning, Attention, Color Perception, Concept Formation, Discrimination Learning, Humans, Judgment, Memory, Short-Term, Orientation, Pattern Recognition, Visual, Reading, Semantics, Size Perception
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