Visual Scene Description and Recall: On Differences between Korean and English Speakers

Abstract

Scientific research into the relationship between language and thought has profound implications for the understanding of second language learners and their learning process. The present study focuses on the connections between verbalization patterns and perceptual orientations. Adult monolingual speakers of Korean and English were asked to describe a set of dynamic scenes at two different presentation durations, 1.5 and 3 seconds, and then recall the focal figures and backgrounds of the depicted situations. Participants utterances were counted for comparison with their performance on the subsequent recall test. The study found that Korean speakers (KSs) mentioned more specific subjects at longer durations whereas English speakers (ESs) choice of subject referents was not significantly influenced by time. Further, in contrast to previous research, ESs produced more background details than KSs and were inclined to add more descriptions about figures at longer durations while dismissing a commensurate amount of background information. In the recall test, KSs remembered background details more accurately than ESs. This asymmetry in linguistic encoding and recall in function of presentation durations suggests that the effect of a particular language on the language speakers attentional allocation and information storing is far more intricate than was reported in earlier works.