Do our culture and language shape the way we think? A new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, by Caren Walker at the University of California at San Diego, Alex Carstensen at Stanford and their colleagues, tried to answer this ancient question. The researchers discovered that very young Chinese and American toddlers start out thinking about the world in similar ways. But by the time they are 3 years old, they are already showing differences based on their cultures.

Dr. Walker’s research took off from...