When you open your eyes, you see a colorful three-dimensional world of objects and events. Add to the mixture a panoply of sounds, smells, tastes, and bodily sensations, and you’ve got the ...

“The limits of my language mean the limits of my world,” observed philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein in 1922. We might ask, accordingly, how does language shape reality, arbitrating human experience of ...

“SHAPE: The system of shape representations in cognition, development and across languages,” encompasses the way that shape figures into the learning of 44 different languages — systematically sampled ...

This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American When Emperor Akihito stepped down from the ...

In the aftermath of the recent U.S. military strikes on Iran, one truth stands out above all: language is not just a means of communication—it is the lens through which we interpret, react to, and ...

Your mother tongue may modify your musical ability. Speaking a native language that requires tones appears to boost perception of melody, but at the cost of rhythm, researchers report April 26 in ...