Work App: The Universality of Language

One of my past jobs involved foreign personnel escorts. When a ship came into port and a sailor from a different county, without the proper credentials for entering the United States needed to come onto land, while at port they could be escorted by an indigenous Security officer. They can go into town and acquire the necessary goods they need. These sailors were from all over the world, in the span of two years I probably escorted over 150 sailors from 17 different countries. Most of whom could not speak any English.  I thought it was interesting that even though there was a language barrier that may has well been 1000 foot brick wall, it was still relatively easy to perceive the meaning of the words through the emotions emitted by the foreigner.

When I spoke with the people that could speak broken English, I noticed that the context of what I was saying was being lost in translation due to lexical ambiguity. (Goldstein, 2011) When I would say something like, “we need to jump on that as soon as we can.” I was meaning to my coworkers that we needed to get to the next group of foreigners that needed escorted onto land as soon as we were done with the group we were currently dealing with. Some foreigners that could slightly catch some of what I was saying thought it was weird that I was telling my coworkers we needed to jump on someone, in the literal sense.

I think that this example highlights the understanding that words are influenced by the context you use them with in a sentence. These foreign individuals, although we are communicating, many of the meanings are lost in translation because the meaning of what I’m saying is based on semantic (word meanings) and syntax (rules for using words). I had a conversation with a man who was Greek and he was telling me about language barriers and he said there was an article he read in college stating a scientist made claims the language of Native Americans were too big a barrier to overcome. He believed Native Americans had different concepts for time, distance, and so on. I looked up the article and it’s based on how you think. The article stated your language shapes how you think.

It’s interesting to see how important language is to each of us, no matter what language we speak. As important as it is to understand the semantics and syntax, it’s also important to understand the emotion we put into our language.

Goldstein, E.B. (2011).  Cognitive Psychology: Connecting Mind, Research, and Everyday Experience, Third Ed. Belmont, CA. Wasdworth, Cengage Learning.

When I think of memory and after having read about flashbulb memory in the book, I’ve always been fascinated that when a traumatic or significant event takes place, those who remember it can describe in the most vivid detail all of the scene and what it was that they were doing at the time.

Early September, in Sequim, Washington, I woke up to my Grandmother telling me to come into the living room and watch the television to see what was happening. I had visit my grandparents the day before and didn’t have to work that day or the day after, so I ate a nice home-cooked dinner from my Grandmother and spent the night looking forward to one of my Grandfather’s classic omelet breakfasts in the morning. Instead of the infamous breakfast, I joined my Grandfather in the living room and witnessed in horror the World Trade Center terrorist attacks on the news. The interesting thing is, when asked to recall the actual event that I witnessed, I can only give a generic version of seeing the planes hit the towers and the rest of what unfolded. I can’t even remember which news station was broadcasting the event. However, I can tell you exactly what I was wearing, what my Grandfather was wearing, the look on his face, the smell coming from the kitchen and so on.

The term flashbulb memory is defined by Brown and Kulik as ‘memory for the circumstances surrounding hearing about shocking, highly charged events.’ (Brown, 397) I can remember so vividly my whereabouts, what I was doing, who I was with, when it was, what everyone was wearing, the surrounding smells, all of my perceptive observations, is because of Flashbulb memory. This is directly linked to emotion and there are several events in my life where I can think of being able to describe them, because of flashbulb memory. I agree with Brown and Kulik that there is a certain specific link to this type of memory and how we store these memories.

Goldstein, E. Bruce. “Everyday Memory and Memory Error.”Cognitive Psychology. Wadsworth Zengage Learning, 2008. 208-212, 397. Print.

Perceiving Size: The Space Needle

In Downtown Seattle Washington, a vast array of buildings stretch vertically to the sky, elaborately decorating a hilly waterline against the backdrop of the Cascade mountain range in the Pacific Northwest.  Sitting unaccompanied by any other structures is a building that stands out in shape from all others in the area.  This building is the space needle.  When viewed online or in books and on movies and television shows, the space needle is shown from the north dwarfing the rest of the skyline in the background.  The following is just a brief example of perceiving size and my analysis of this illustration pertaining to the perceptual system.

I grew up in Washington State and spent most of my youth there.  I lived across the water from Seattle and often took ferry rides from Bainbridge Island to the terminal downtown.  When taking this approach from the west I could clearly view the space needle and its actual size in relation to the others buildings downtown.

The space needle is the small, stand alone structure on the far left of the photo.  This view, which is almost parallel from the skyline, clearly demonstrates the actual size in comparison to the rest of the skyline.  Like I mentioned earlier, when viewed on television and in art and literature, the space needle is shot from the north.  Making it appear massive against the buildings in the background.  This is because the space needle is closer to me than the buildings in the background.

When considering the process of perceptual information, starting with an individual’s previous knowledge of a particular situation or, top-down processing; (Goldstein) when perceiving size, you have to take into account that the size of the object you’re viewing will appear to shrink when it increases in distance from your position.  An example of this being the buildings in the background of the photo above.  Though it may appear that the space needle is taller than the rest, it is actually not even in the top five of the tallest buildings in Seattle (Kendle).  In another photo, the view from this position appears to show the space needle as the same size as the largest building in the background.  These examples show how movement facilitates perception and size consistency (Goldstein).  When I approach the ferry terminal downtown, it is directly underneath the axis of the skyline.  So I am up close and able to get a great view of how big the buildings really are.  When I look north I can see how small the space needle really is.  When I travel north and turn around I see the space needle as everyone else does on television and in magazines and movies.  Mount Rainier off to the right of the picture adds even a little bit more to this perspective.

When everywhere we look we see vertical and horizontal lines, it’s no wonder why the oblique effect (Goldstein) is so prevalent in our environment.  We are constantly conditioned to these physical regularities (Goldstein) throughout life.  This experience dependant plasticity (Goldstein), for me, was shaped all my life staring at the skyline of downtown Seattle and the space needle.

Citations:

Goldstein, E. Bruce. “Perception.” Cognitive Psychology: Connecting Mind, Research, and Everyday Experience. 3rd ed. Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2011. 52-54. Print.

Kendle, Kristin. “Top 10 Tallest Buildings in Seattle.” Web. 27 June 2015. <http://seattle.about.com/od/seattle-attractions/tp/Tallest-Buildings-In-Seattle.htm>.

“Seattle Skyline – Google Search.” Seattle Skyline – Google Search. Web. 30 June 2015.