Cole Robertson

Can the language you speak change the way you plan for the future? Our new work shows it can <pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41218554/>. Listen to co-author Sean Roberts and discuss it on @becauselangpod at becauselanguage.com/130-back-to-th…

@sciencegirl Definitely an ostrich.

Apparently, if you can see a tree, you're left-brained, and if you can see two people holding hands, you're right-brained 🤔

"Low-certainty modals not future tenses cause increased psychological discounting in English relative to Dutch" 📢 New paper from: Cole Robertson (@ColebRob), Seán Roberts, Asifa Majid, Tammy Lu, Philip Wolff, & Robin Dunbar sciencedirect.com/science/articl…

So we show differences between languages change how people plan for the future and make decisions where they must weigh present costs and future rewards. But it's all about those modals impacting how risky and unknown the future feels.

It's not tense marking (e.g. will) but low-certainty modals (could, may, might) that make the difference. English obliges speakers to chose a modal verb when they make a prediction about the future. This makes them construe the future as riskier and less valuable.

Pleased to _finally_ get this work out into world. In it, we provide a valuable update to @MKeithChen's hypothesis that languages which oblige a future tense make people more likely to save for the future. authors.elsevier.com/c/1m4gJ2Hx2-9Wf

5️⃣/5️⃣ Minor clarification: the article frames this as individual usage shaping cognition — but our data show how cross-linguistic grammatical differences shape usage and cognition together. #linguistics #cognitivescience #languageandthought #behaviouraleconomics #futurethinking

4️⃣/5️⃣ We interpret this as: future tense = certainty, not temporal distance.

1️⃣/5️⃣ Pleased to see our work featured in Psychology Today! 🔗 lnkd.in/guiWVJcT

Joke from my 4yo: Her: Where did the poo go to a person? Me: Where? Her: In the poo cottage! What do you think @KidsWriteJokes ‽

We show that English grammar causes speakers to value future outcome higher than Dutch speakers. This suggests languages affect the way we make decisions about time, but undermines the mechanisms widely attributed to cause this. journals.plos.org/plosone/articl… @MKeithChen ?

The claim that GPT-4 performed at the 90th percentile on the Uniform Bar Exam appears misleading according to this new preprint. It seems more accurate to say it performs in the 63rd or 68th percentile.

Many thanks to my coauthors @JamesPCarney and Shane Truddell, and to my supervisors @asifa_majid, @aucksAdventures, and Robin Dunbar!

We show that people who struggle with anxiety and/or depression talk about the future differently to healthy controls. They are less certain even though they talk about more proximal future dates. Why? Read the paper to find out:) sciencedirect.com/science/articl…

@KricheliKatz @MKeithChen @regev_tali Super interesting work. I just checked my data. Left is within-subject SD of temporal distance ratings. Dutch is higher across the board. Right is between-subject. Dutch has significantly higher spread from one month–one year. But is this due to differences in *tense* marking?

@MKeithChen @ColebRob @regev_tali Yes. This is also how we understand the findings.

Are cross linguistic difference in future grammar all about time or all about probability? In contrast to conventional wisdom, we show the latter may be true. What do you think @MKeithChen? onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.11…

@KricheliKatz @MKeithChen @regev_tali On reflection, I agree, too. I had been conceptualising these effects as within-subject, but either could work. I actually have some potential within-subject data that could answer this question...

@MKeithChen @KricheliKatz @regev_tali But I would love to jump on a call to talk further!

@ColebRob @KricheliKatz @regev_tali We should hop on a zoom and talk at higher bandwidth, but in these experiments, the amount of future rewards is not uncertain; so there is no role for reward uncertainty

@MKeithChen @KricheliKatz @regev_tali That’s right but the precision mechanism hypothesises individual weak-FTR speakers # represent future dates less precisely. Higher variance between subjects doesn’t necessarily entail this. You’d have ask individuals the same question multiple times.

@ColebRob @KricheliKatz @regev_tali Between subjects, FTR appears to have temporal effects: weak-FTR treatments decrease temporal precision. That's the temporal-precision effect that I think the experiments support.