From an article on the psychological effects of bi-lingualism. For our real translators. And pynchon.

[Mark Kohut]

Simple psychology experiments. Meta-analysis beyond me.
See The Guardian article if more interested. Should lead to the study.

On Mon, Feb 8, 2016 at 10:27 AM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:

>  I wonder if those biases that mislead are really emotional /affective in
> origin or are they a tendency to be swayed by a system of belief and an
> unrealistic confidence in that system: the stock market is now trending
> up…, this analyst has a great record…, when tech stocks rise then….. It
> might seem a subtle distinction, but i think there is an important
> difference here. Could it be that the left brain tendency to believe in
> it’s ability to “crack the code” of a random system is more of a natural
> tendency within one’s native language which comes not just as a usable
> linguistic code but a  culturally patterned system of biases guided by its
> own intrinsic precepts.
>
> Here I re-post an earlier description of a hemisheric brain experiment
> which seems highly relevant: An  example of one experiment is given of a
> person with impairment to the right hemisphere, and a person with left
> hemisphere impairment facing the same task. They were to guess which color,
> red or green, would be displayed next from a bi-colored light. The pattern
> was randomly changed but there were always 4 greens for every red. The
> persons with intact right brains saw the overall pattern and always guessed
> green to get 80% correct. The person with an intact left brain tried to
> figure out the actual random pattern and guessed green 4 times more than
> red but with far more incorrect guesses. In accord with other experimental
> data, the left brainers continued, despite a lower percent, to be  sure
> they could crack the pattern. Later the experimenters started to provide
> whatever color the left brainer guessed. The left brainers were then sure
> they had figured out the pattern and went to lengths to explain their
> system. Obviously their theories were wrong. There seems to be, in the left
> brain a greater need for certainty and to be right and a confidence in the
> systems it has created, despite slim or impossible chances of success.
>
> I am not writing this to one-up the reasonable interpretation of the
> writer, but because it was so obvious from the experiments I am reading
> about that there is another possible interpretaion of the reasons behind
> risky guesses. Unreasonable self confidence may not be so much an emotion
> as a result of intrinsic left-hemisphere processing and decision-making
> biases.
>
>
> > On Feb 8, 2016, at 5:23 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > People self-report that they feel like a different person when using
> their different languages and that expressing certain emotions carries
> different emotional resonance depending on the language they are using.
> >
> > When judging risk, bilinguals also tend to make more rational economic
> decisions in a second language. In contrast to one’s first language, it
> tends to lack the deep-seated, misleading affective biases that unduly
> influence how risks and benefits are perceived. So the language you speak
> in really can affect the way you think.
> >
>
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>
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