The sharp distinction between count nouns and mass nouns in English seems
to have prompted English speakers to make a more unequivocal distinction between
objects (including simple objects) and substances. The Japanese speakers, on the other
hand, seemed to treat the distinction as a gradient one, where complex objects like a
lemon juicer were the most typical objects and substances like sand the most typical
substances, while simple objects like the kidney-shaped object made of clay were
treated like in-between cases.
Similar results have been found when contrasting English with other
languages without a clear-cut distinction between count nouns and mass nouns, such
as the Mexican Indian language Yucatec