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The Unique Role of Language in Reshaping Perception: Enhanced Neuronal Distinction

Poster Session D - Monday, March 9, 2026, 8:00 – 10:00 am PDT, Fairview/Kitsilano Ballroom

Tally McCormick Miller^1,2 (), Friedemann Pulvermüller^1,2,3; ¹Freie Universität Berlin, ²School of Mind and Brain, Humbold Universität zu Berlin, ³Einstein Center for Neuroscience Berlin

Language shapes perception through measurable neurobiological mechanisms. This research demonstrates that verbal labels causally enhance perceptual discrimination through a novel mechanism termed Enhanced Neuronal Distinction (END). Across three controlled experiments, participants learned to associate novel pseudowords with initially indistinguishable tactile vibration patterns delivered to the fingertip. Discrimination accuracy improved significantly only when tactile patterns were paired with consistent verbal labels, not with inconsistent labels or matched non-verbal auditory stimuli such as musical tone sequences. Functional MRI revealed that this behavioral enhancement corresponded with strengthened connectivity between auditory and somatosensory cortices, providing direct neural evidence for language-driven perceptual reorganization. END theory explains these findings through Hebbian learning principles: when similar percepts activate largely overlapping neural populations, verbal labels recruit distinct phonological networks from perisylvian language areas. This creates enlarged cross-modal cell assemblies that reduce proportional overlap between perceptual representations, enabling discrimination of previously confusable stimuli. The specificity of verbal labels over non-verbal auditory controls reveals language as a unique neuroplastic agent, not through semantic content, but through integration within pre-established linguistic networks developed during language acquisition. Musical tones, despite being equally distinct and learnable, lack access to these extensive neural infrastructures, resulting in smaller, less effective assemblies. These findings establish language as a powerful driver of neuroplasticity and perceptual change, offering the first integrated framework bridging behavioral demonstrations of linguistic relativity with biologically plausible neural mechanisms. Implications extend to cognitive neuroscience, learning biology, and theories of language-thought interaction.

Topic Area: LANGUAGE: Other