
Mandela was right: the Foreign Language Effect - bane
http://mappingignorance.org/2014/02/03/mandela-was-right-the-foreign-language-effect/
======
yongjik
Out of curiosity, just checked the referenced paper[1] and there is no
Korean/Japanese/French version of the questionnaire they used.

It's disappointing. We all know these kinds of polls can be easily gamed by
subtle (or not-so-subtle) phrasing, and without the questions actually used, I
have no way of knowing if the "Foreign Language Effect" actually exists or if
their choice of words in the translation affected the outcome.

[1]
[http://psychology.uchicago.edu/people/faculty/foreignLanguae...](http://psychology.uchicago.edu/people/faculty/foreignLanguaeEffect.pdf)

~~~
colechristensen
Psychology studies are (in my general opinion) notoriously poor science to the
point that the vast majority of them are worthless fluff useful only for
sensational headlines.

~~~
tedks
As someone with personal experience inside academic psychology and academic
computer science, it's my impression that psychology is far stronger as a
field, having a much more rigorous community dedicated to scientific truth,
and exhaustive standards of review and experimental design.

But, I'm sure that your general opinion is well-informed as well, or you
wouldn't make such strong claims about a very broad field. What's your
background in psychology, and what makes you say the things you do about it?

~~~
adrianbye
Perhaps your experience inside psychology is limited?

Nobel prize winner Daniel Kahneman[1] would disagree with you, along with
social psychologist Jonathan Haidt[2].

[1] [http://www.nature.com/news/nobel-laureate-challenges-
psychol...](http://www.nature.com/news/nobel-laureate-challenges-
psychologists-to-clean-up-their-act-1.11535)

[2]
[http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/08/science/08tier.html](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/08/science/08tier.html)

~~~
btilly
This point is critical. A study can have a good methodology. But if nobody
tries to replicate it, you have no chance of finding out that you are missing
something critical. And with something as complex as people, "missing
something critical" is something that we need to figure out.

And this isn't exactly a new problem for psychology. Feynman somewhat famously
questioned a lot of classic research with
[http://neurotheory.columbia.edu/~ken/cargo_cult.html](http://neurotheory.columbia.edu/~ken/cargo_cult.html).
I say somewhat famously because people in areas like physics have all read
that essay. But in my experience psychologists are a little less inclined to
read the criticism.

Even at the best of times, replication of results in a complex system is hard.
See, for instance,
[http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fj...](http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.0020124)
for evidence that most published medical research is wrong.

But with psychology it is even worse. We lump people together by symptom, not
by root cause. It is like lumping together people with migraines, head
injuries, and caffeine headaches together. Then you find out that coffee beats
a placebo for helping headaches, and give them all coffee!

You think I'm exaggerating? Read
[http://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/director/2013/transforming-
dia...](http://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/director/2013/transforming-
diagnosis.shtml) for verification that the NIH considers it a high priority
research item to come up with classifications based on root causes, so that we
have a chance of even being able to do useful research!

Yes, psychology has a lot of well-meaning people, and they stumble across a
lot of interesting stuff. But it should be read with a critical eye, because
the field as a whole does not perform reliably enough to compel our trust.

~~~
thaumasiotes
> But with psychology it is even worse. We lump people together by symptom,
> not by root cause. It is like lumping together people with migraines, head
> injuries, and caffeine headaches together. Then you find out that coffee
> beats a placebo for helping headaches, and give them all coffee!

This happens (in medicine, not just psychology), and there's definitely room
for hypothetical improvement. But in many cases, it's hard to blame people,
because there's no way to do better without doing an unknown but gargantuan
amount of research. For example, lupus is (or was when I had the discussion
with my mother) defined as exhibiting X of a list of Y symptoms, where Y > X.
This leads to situations like the following:

1\. You, the patient, present with X-1 symptoms of lupus. By definition, you
don't have lupus, and treatment for lupus is not warranted.

2\. Time passes.

3\. You, the patient, come back to your doctor with one additional symptom of
lupus. Medical doctrine now states that you have lupus (not so interesting)
and that, more interestingly, those X-1 earlier symptoms are symptoms of lupus
(which you didn't have when you developed those symptoms), not of some other
yet-undiagnosed problem. You can now be treated for lupus.

Obviously, that satisfies no one and is crying out for a more "reality-based"
definition. The problem is that no one has a candidate for the actual physical
causes of lupus. The best anyone's ever been able to do is recognize that the
same set of treatments are broadly effective against a constellation of
symptoms, which may seem to be related to each other or not, but which co-
occur to some degree in people who respond to these treatments.

 _Of course_ it's a high priority to learn what the root causes of symptoms
are, but that doesn't mean it's easy or even, in the general case, possible.
You have to start somewhere.

------
glymor
It's worth noting here that they demonstrated this effect with language
learners i.e. it's very likely that the students had to labouriously work out
the foreign language questions.

Basically they've demonstrated that if people spend a lot more time on a
question they answer less emotionally (which seems like it would be true
independent of the language).

If they can demonstrate the effect still holds with 2nd language speakers with
native level proficiency then this would be a lot more interesting result.

~~~
bemmu
It would be interesting to present the question in ROT13, have participants
work out the question and then answer it.

------
emilga
It's the same thing with foreign units of measurement (in, ft, F, stones,
etc.).

Although I _know_ there is a one-to-one mapping between meters and feet, I
only grok a measurement given in meters.

There's probably some conditioning behind this: every day you are reminded
that a pack of salami is 200g, while a pack of flour is 1kg, and so on ... so
that for each measurement you just access your library of memories that relate
the number to some previous experience.

Since a similar dictionary does not exist for the foreign units you learned in
an artificial setting, and since your brain does not auto-update all your past
memories based on the new info that 1m=3+3/8ft, you are left with words that
are all understanding and no emotion.

~~~
enra
Coming from the metric systems, I've been starting to learn the US
measurements, eg. I have memories and know how much is "a pound of meat".

I still don't get cups or the fluid measurements though, except that 12 oz a
beer bottle and 16 oz is a medium soda bottle (medium in European terms).

~~~
pandler
Some imperial measurements are pretty random (1 mile = 1720 yards, 1 yard = 3
feet?), but many of the commonly used ones are just based on fractions or
convenient values instead of everything being base 10.

Maybe this will help with the fluids. Looking at a table of fluid
measurements, it is easy to see it is just a base 2 system.

2^-1 oz = .5 oz = 1 tablespoon

2^0 oz = 1 oz = 1 oz (2 tablespoons)

2^1 oz = 2 oz = 1/4 cup (4 tablespoons)

2^2 oz = 4 oz = 1/2 cup (8 tablespoons)

2^3 oz = 8 oz = 1 cup (16 tablespoons)

2^4 oz = 16 oz = 1 pint (2 cups)

2^5 oz = 32 oz = 1 quart (4 cups)

2^6 oz = 62 oz = 1/2 gallon (8 cups)

2^7 oz = 128oz = 1 gallon (16 cups)

I think it is quite beautiful in a way. That doesn't explain why we have 12 oz
beers though.

~~~
clamprecht
You have a bit flipped in 2^6, it should be 2^6 oz = 64 oz

------
gommm
The problem is that in the example given, the two problems framed in term of
loss and in term of gain are not equivalent. Depending on how much time the
student has to consider the question, he might not see from: \- If you choose
Medicine A, 400,000 people will die. If you choose Medicine B, there is a
33.3% chance that no one will die and a 66.6% chance that 600,000 will die.

That in the case of medecine B, there's a 66% that the result (600,000 people
dying) is equivalent to the result of not taking any medicine.

Whereas when the problem is framed in term of gain, it's quite clear by the
phrasing "66.6% chance that no one will be saved.".

That's the problem with this kind of questionnaire, and it's compounded by the
fact that they do not provide the Korean/Japanese/French version of the
questionnaire they used.

------
ivarv
Not really relevant to the point of the article, but worth mentioning:

The article's commentary on the _Asian Disease_ problem which states "the
number of certain deaths is the same in both versions of the problem.." is
incorrect. In case A, the number of certain deaths is 400,000, in case B it's
0.

Or am I reading it incorrectly ?

~~~
emiliobumachar
You are correct, it's the expected number that is the same.

~~~
spuz
As I understand it, there is not enough information to determine the expected
number of deaths. In the first situation, the expected number of deaths of
choosing medicine A must be greater than or equal to 400k and in the second
situation (again choosing medicine A) the expected number of deaths must be
less than or equal to 400k.

My interpretation was that in the first situation, there is a possibility that
everyone dies if you choose medicine A, therefore B was the right choice.
Similarly, in the second situation, there is a possibility that everyone lives
if you choose medicine A, therefore A was the right choice. Maybe I'm
misunderstanding but there does not appear to be enough information in the
question to determine the exact probabilities.

~~~
cortesoft
I think you are misunderstanding.

Medicine A will always save 200,000 people, with 400,000 dying.

Medicine B will save all 600,000 people 33.3% of the time, but everyone will
die 66% of the time.

The expected number of deaths (the 'expected value' in game theory) is the
same for both cases (200,000). Medicine A is easy to calculate (200,000 * 1.00
= 200,000). For Medicine B, the calculation is 600,000 * 0.33 + 0 * 0.66 =
200,000.

The idea is that the average number of deaths is the same for both cases; you
are just trading the certainty of Medicine A (where you know you will save
exactly 200,000) vs the chance to save everyone, but the risk of losing
everyone.

~~~
spuz
I understand that the wording and the numbers chosen by the experimenters are
intended to create two equivelent sitations, but the fact is, they do not. The
sentence:

"If you choose Medicine A, 400,000 people will die."

Tells you that 400k people will die if you choose medicine A. It says nothing
about what will happen to the remaining 200k. I believe it is illogical to
assume that the sentence implies the remaining 200k live. Note that if you
were to ask me in real life, I'd probably be happy to make that assumption but
that doesn't change the fact that it is an assumption based on missing
information.

~~~
cortesoft
I understand your point in terms of formal logic (that saying 400k people will
die does not necessitate that the other 200k can't also die). However, the
initial sentence that starts the experiment is "Recently, a dangerous new
disease has been going around. Without medicine, 600,000 people will die from
it. In order to save these people, two types of medicine are being made."

When you follow that by saying "If you choose Medicine A, 400,000 people will
die", it is not illogical to assume that they don't mean "oh yeah, the other
200k will also die, too" This isn't a Mitch Hedberg joke.

In these scenarios, we are expected to make many basic assumptions that aren't
included in the scenario. We are safe to assume that there isn't an
unmentioned side effect of Medicine B that will leave everyone paralyzed, or
that Medicine A won't turn the survivors into zombies.

~~~
bittercynic
Are you referring to this? "I used to do drugs. I still do, but I used to,
too." (It's a lot funnier when delivered with good timing than when you read
it.)

His comedy was very hit-and-miss, but some of it was spectacularly funny.

~~~
cortesoft
Yes, yes I was.

------
rytis
So just extrapolating on this example - would the best results in any
negotiations be achieved when both parties speak a language that is foreign to
both of them? In that case both are taking more rational decisions, ignoring
the emotional "burden" than their native language puts on them.

~~~
newswhence
As a non-native English speaking person who uses English daily basis, losing
emotional burden seems one (possibly) positive side effect of a second
language, whereas there probably are many negative ones for the decision
making. In my experience, reduced working memory seems one important negative
outcome of second language, which significantly affects problem solving. More
chance of misunderstanding sometimes precludes good decision making. These
negative aspects would be able to offset the benefit discussed here.

------
crypt1d
As someone who has been living as an immigrant for past two and a half years,
I can only agree to this. Getting emotional distance from a problem comes easy
for me, if I'm thinking about it in English (its not my native language). On
the other hand, getting into relationships can be quite difficult. Its not so
easy to get emotionally involved with someone that doesn't speak your
language. Not sure if the language is the problem though, or maybe just
cultural differences.

------
rumcajz
Irresepctive of the language, what's scary is how many people would accept
high chance (2/3) of total extinction for relatively slight chance (1/3) of
total success. It gets extra scary when you consider that politicians are
presumably thinking this way about war, including nuclear war.

~~~
xux
They do, and they should. Truman made the gamble that using nuclear weapon
would end the war early, and he was right.

Millions more Japanese would have died defending their homeland if there were
a land invasion.

~~~
joaorico
Freeman Dyson: "I changed my mind about an important historical question: did
the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki bring World War Two to an end?
Until this year I used to say, perhaps. Now, because of new facts, I say no.
This question is important, because the myth of the nuclear bombs bringing the
war to an end is widely believed. To demolish this myth may be a useful first
step toward ridding the world of nuclear weapons."

[http://www.edge.org/response-detail/11732](http://www.edge.org/response-
detail/11732)

------
poulsbohemian
It's certainly possible that this research shows correlation between less
emotional thinking and language use, but it seems to me like Mandela's quote
in the article is really a reframing of Goethe's observation that "The border
of our world is the border of our language." It's no different really than the
Romans and various "barbarian" tribes exchanging youth to grow up in each
other's culture - know your "enemy," speak his language, etc. That explains
more about Mandela's cognizant motivations in this case, though the vignette
makes for a nice article.

~~~
urubu
I think you mean Wittgenstein, not Goethe ("Die Grenzen meiner Sprache
bedeuten die Grenzen meiner Welt" Tractatus logico-philosophicus 5.6).

------
exue
The example they used basically paints taking more risk as 'cooler, more
rational option' which seems a bit odd to me. Humans are well known not to
have a linear utility function for a lot of things (loss aversion) because
doing so can be useful and can be argued as rational - especially when applied
to money for instance, people will trade off higher average returns for lower
risk which probably makes sense for survival. It's like saying a greater
amount of change, or a greater amount of risk, is strictly better, whereas in
any given situation it may be better or may be worse.

------
terranstyler
Unfortunately others listening in their language implies you speaking in their
language.

To gain a benefit from this scenario, you would need to prove that "learning a
language for X years" increases the chances of "listener response is more
emotional".

This, however, is much more unlikely since accent and language proficiency
come into play.

So no HN-style hack yourself goal can be derived (which I kinda hoped to find
here)

------
zby
"engaging in a foreign language increases psychological distance and promotes
deliberation"

Wasn't Latin a great invention? It was foreign to everybody (I mean after the
fall of Rome) - looks like ideal for a language of diplomacy and science.

------
wobbleblob
I know this is not really the point of the article, but what language other
than Afrikaans could Mandela and de Klerk have used? Xosha? I doubt de Klerk
knew more than a few words of it at the time. Neither of the two spoke English
natively.

~~~
mikeash
Presumably they could have used an interpreter, with each person speaking in
their native language.

------
thenerdfiles
The double entendre of "goes to his head" in that quotation is pretty amazing
— it has both descriptive meaning as something of which _intellectualizing_
occurs and also contrasts the heart and the ego, suggesting that the ego sits
in the intellect.

Very good.

What I'm getting at here is that this idea of Mandela's also applies to
samewise monolingual speakers — as we each have our own idiolect, so far as
descriptivist linguists are concerned.

Double very good.

------
tesmar2
> Nelson Mandela was an extraordinary man

Apartheid should have ended without violence.

Mandela was a radical communist who committed 156 acts of terrorism and never
denounced violence. The economy and currency of South Africa crashed under
Mandela. Unemployment went up and income went down. Apartheid was a terrible
system but more people have been murdered every year since Mandela's
presidency than before. There's more but you get the idea.

