Can Language Change What You See?

Here’s something fascinating: in Russian, there isn’t just one word for “blue”—there are two.

• синий (siniy) means dark blue

• голубой (goluboy) means light blue

These aren’t just poetic descriptions or casual terms. They’re considered entirely separate colors in Russian—much like how English speakers treat red and pink.

But does having two different words for shades of blue actually change how you see them?

In a 2007 study, researchers Jonathan Winawer and colleagues put that exact question to the test. What they discovered provides some of the most compelling evidence we have that the language you speak may shape the way you perceive the world.

Do people who speak different languages perceive colors differently because of the way their language categorizes them?

The researchers tested two groups:

• Native Russian speakers

• Native English speakers

They used a color discrimination task:
Participants saw three colored squares—one at the top (the reference color), and two below it. Their task was simple:
Pick which of the two bottom squares matched the top one.

The researchers focused on shades of blue—because Russian treats dark blue (синий / siniy) and light blue (голубой / goluboy) as completely separate colors, while English speakers usually just call both “blue.”

They designed trials where:

• The two choices were from the same category (e.g., two shades of siniy), or

• The two choices were across categories (e.g., one siniy and one goluboy)

What They Found:

• Russian speakers were faster and more accurate when the color choices crossed the goluboy/siniy boundary.

• English speakers showed no such advantage—because for them, both options were just “blue.”

This suggests that Russian speakers were visually processing the colors differently—because their language made that distinction more meaningful.

The Twist: Verbal Interference

To be sure this effect was related to language (not just general brain differences), the researchers added a clever twist:

They asked participants to do a verbal interference task (like repeating nonsense syllables) while completing the color test.

With their language systems busy, the Russian speakers lost their edge—they no longer processed the color difference faster.

This strongly suggests that language was influencing perception in real time—but only when the brain could access linguistic labels.

So What Does This Tell Us?

This study is often cited as strong evidence for linguistic relativity—the idea that the language you speak can affect how you think, perceive, and categorize the world.

In this case, having two basic words for blue didn’t just change how Russian speakers talked—it changed how they saw.
But Wait—Does Language Really Shape What We See?

The Winawer study (2007) was a huge step forward in showing how language might influence perception. But science always moves forward, and newer research has added more complexity to the story.

In 2020, cognitive neuroscientist Jasna Martinovic and colleagues published a paper titled
“Russian Blues Reveal the Limits of Language Influencing Colour Discrimination.”

Their goal? To replicate and reexamine the findings from the original Russian color study—with updated methods and brain-based measures.

What They Did Differently

Instead of relying only on behavioral tasks like reaction time, Martinovic’s team used EEG (electroencephalography) to track brain activity while participants looked at color stimuli.

They tested:

• Native Russian speakers (who distinguish goluboy and siniy)

• Native English speakers (who just say “blue”)

And they measured both:

• Behavioral responses (like Winawer did)

• Neural signals related to visual processing

What They Found

Here’s where it gets interesting:

• Russian speakers did not show the same consistent behavioral advantage in distinguishing colors across the goluboy/siniy boundary as they did in Winawer’s study.

• More importantly, their early-stage visual brain responses (via EEG) did not show strong effects of language.

In other words: while language may influence how we talk about colors or categorize them, it might not actually change our low-level perception as much as previously thought.

So What’s Going On?

Martinovic and her team don’t say Winawer was wrong—they say the story is more complicated. Language might guide our attention or affect how we categorize information, but it may not fundamentally alter our visual processing system.

They also suggest that earlier findings may have reflected task-specific effects—where language helps only in certain types of activities (like choosing a color quickly), but doesn’t reshape perception at a neurological level.

What This Means for Language Learners

Together, these studies show us two sides of the same coin:

• Language influences how we notice, categorize, and label the world—especially when we’re consciously using words.

• But our actual sensory systems (like vision) may be more stable and less language-dependent than we once thought.

So when you learn a new language, you’re not changing your eyes—but you are expanding your mental map of the world. You’re learning to draw boundaries in new places, to name shades others might miss, and to see meaning where you once saw only sameness.