Bbva Podcast

One day, during a talk, she conducted a simple experiment: she asked a group of scholars to close their eyes and point south-eastwards. There were fingers pointed in every posible direction. However, Lera Boroditsky knew that if she asked the same question to a girl from an Aboriginal community in Australia she would point her finger in the right direction. “Aboriginals do not use directions such as left or right, and instead everything is in cardinal directions,” says the scientist. In the world there are some 7,000 languages, with different vocabularies, sounds and alfabets. Do differences affect the way we see the world? “Language has a profound impact on our perception,” says Boroditsky.   Lera Borodistky is a cognitive scientist, psychologist and professor. Her research focuses on the complex differences in human communication. “I’m interested in how human beigns develop such a vast intelligence, how we process the information we receive from the world and how such a complex and wonderful phenomenon as