I had an interesting conversation at work the other day with a linguistics doctoral student. He is researching second-language acquisition. In his research he is studying the implications of the gerund form's absence from German, for German-speakers learning English.

As it turns out, this is linked to the way English and German speakers observe actions in progress differently.

In an experiment, his research team showed some videos to human subjects. The videos were of actions being performed. Half of the subjects were native English speakers while the others were native German speakers.
The English speakers tended to focus more on the action as it is happening. The German speakers tended to focus more on the end result of the action instead.


I thought this was quite interesting because the Gamestudio forums have a mix of English and German speakers and the way we look at actions must certainly factor into video game design!
It seems that this sort of thing would result in some differences in the look and feel of the games we make.

Thoughts, anyone?

as a german native speaker, i can confirm that *I* show more interest in the end result.

me too, that´s why I usually avoid small talk with people I don´t know

I doubt that language has an effect on obsevation of actions.

Its more probable that he had not excluded unrelated factors
into his experiment.
(backround and education of participants)
(Asking to describe the observations/focus in two different languages)

Is there any paper on that experiement?

There probably is a paper he's written or is in the process of writing.
The only other information I know about it though, is that the research was by the University of Pittsburgh, just down the street from my own university...

well, since the language we are raised with maps a certain path in our brain, i would not say that its unrelated. there are alot of variables to consider here, true, but i would not say that the mother tongue has nothing to do with it...