Asifa Majid
Professor of Cognitive Science
- Fellow of St Hugh's College
Research summary
Humans are one species and yet we speak 7000 different, mutually unintelligible languages each hosted in distinct cultural niches. How does this diversity of language, culture, and experience affect how people think and behave? Research in my lab investigates the relationship between language, culture, and cognition by conducting studies with adults in different cultures and sub-cultures, and by tracing how concepts develop over a child’s lifetime in diverse cultural contexts. The goal is to establish which aspects of cognition are fundamentally shared, and which are language- or culture-specific. This work combines laboratory and field experiments, as well as in-depth linguistic studies and ethnographically-informed description. This coordinated approach has been used to study domains such as space, events, and perception, with a special interest in olfaction.
Recent publications
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Establishing psychological universals
Journal article
Majid A., (2023), Nature Reviews Psychology
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Reply to: Sunlight exposure cannot explain "grue" languages.
Journal article
Josserand M. et al, (2023), Sci Rep, 13
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Lack of Visual Experience Affects Multimodal Language Production: Evidence From Congenitally Blind and Sighted People.
Journal article
Mamus E. et al, (2023), Cogn Sci, 47
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Color technology is not necessary for rich and efficient color language.
Journal article
Wnuk E. et al, (2022), Cognition, 229
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The linguistics of odour in Semaq Beri and Semelai, two Austroasiatic languages of the Malay Peninsula
Journal article
Kruspe N. and Majid A., (2022), Studies in Language