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Description: Taza in Spanish refers to cups and mugs in English, whereas glass refers to different glass types in Spanish (copa and vaso). It is still unclear whether such categorical distinctions induce early perceptual differences in speakers of different languages. Here, for the first time, we report symmetrical effects of terminology on pre-attentive indices of categorical perception across languages. Native speakers of English or Spanish saw arrays of cups, mugs, copas, and vasos flashed in streams. The visual Mismatch Negativity, an implicit electrophysiological correlate of perceptual change in the peripheral visual field, was modulated for categorical contrasts marked in participants’ native language, but not for objects designated by the same label. Conversely, the P3a, an index of attentional orienting, was only modulated for missing contrasts in the native language. Thus, whereas native labels influence pre-attentive perceptual encoding of objects, non-verbally encoded dissociations reorient attention at a later processing stage.