Main content

Contributors:

Date created: 2021-11-22 10:02 PM | Last Updated: 2024-10-04 12:25 AM

Identifier: DOI 10.17605/OSF.IO/3H97T

Category: Project

Description: Calendar calculations, the process of computing the target day or month, exhibit peculiar differences across languages. In systems like English, calendar labels are largely opaque (Tuesday, August), which invites calculations to rely more heavily on verbal listing. In transparent systems, like Chinese, habitual labeling of calendar terms numerically (Tuesday = day two, August = month eight) facilitates fast numerical operations instead of verbal listing. This study examines the effects that different levels of transparency of the calendar naming system may have on calculations in the speakers’ first and second language. Chinese-English bilinguals were tested alongside English and Chinese controls. Forced-choice calendar calculations (day, month, hour, and year) and self-reported strategies were used as tasks to tap into participants’ calculation speed, accuracy, and temporal reasoning. In the calculation questions we manipulated Distance (short/long), Direction (forward/backward), Input (linguistic/numerical) and Boundary (within/across). More complex Month calculations significantly differed across groups while easier Day calculations did not. The English group reported reliance on verbal listing, while the Chinese and the bilingual groups preferred numerical reasoning. These findings bring new evidence for linguistic relativity in the form of modulations of calendar processing speed changing as a function of linguistic transparency, input type and task demand.

Citation

Components

Transparency of first language calendar terms and its impact on calendrical calculations in the first and the second language | Registered: 2021-11-23 13:44 UTC

This study investigates the effects of transparency of first language calendar terms on the speed and accuracy of calendrical calculations performed b...

Recent Activity

Loading logs...

Recent Activity

Unable to retrieve logs at this time. Please refresh the page or contact support@osf.io if the problem persists.

OSF does not support the use of Internet Explorer. For optimal performance, please switch to another browser.
Accept
This website relies on cookies to help provide a better user experience. By clicking Accept or continuing to use the site, you agree. For more information, see our Privacy Policy and information on cookie use.
Accept
×

Start managing your projects on the OSF today.

Free and easy to use, the Open Science Framework supports the entire research lifecycle: planning, execution, reporting, archiving, and discovery.