Culture and Cognition: What is Universal about the Representation of Color Experience?

2005 ◽  
Vol 5 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 293-348 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kimberly Jameson
Keyword(s):  
Color Naming ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Alternative View ◽  
Interpoint Distance ◽  
Color Processing ◽  
Color Experience ◽  
Color Categories ◽  
Distance Model ◽  
Color Categorization ◽  
Cultural Evolutionary

AbstractExisting research in color naming and categorization primarily reflects two opposing views: A Cultural Relativist view that posits color perception is greatly shaped by culturally specific language associations and perceptual learning, and a Universalist view that emphasizes panhuman shared color processing as the basis for color naming similarities within and across cultures. Recent empirical evidence finds color processing differs both within and across cultures. This divergent color processing raises new questions about the sources of previously observed cultural coherence and cross-cultural universality. The present article evaluates the relevance of individual variation on the mainstream model of color naming. It also presents an alternate view that specifies how color naming and categorization is shaped by both panhuman cognitive universals and socio-cultural evolutionary processes. This alternative view, expressed, in part, using an Interpoint Distance Model of color categorization, is compatible with new empirical results showing divergent color processing within and across cultures. It suggests that universalities in color naming and categorization may naturally arise across cultures because color language and color categories primarily reflect culturally modal linguistic mappings, and categories are shaped by universal cognitive constructs and culturally salient features of color. Thus, a shared cultural representation of color based on widely shared cognitive dimensions may be the proper foundation for universalities of color naming and categorization. Across cultures this form of representation may result from convergent responses to similar pressures on color lexicon evolution.

The Use of Modifying Terms in the Naming and Categorization of Color Appearances in Vietnamese and English

2002 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nancy Alvarado ◽  
Kimberly Jameson
Keyword(s):  
Naming Task ◽  
Color Naming ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Color Experience ◽  
Language Groups ◽  
Color Cognition ◽  
Basic Color ◽  
Basic Color Terms ◽  
Vietnamese Speakers

AbstractCross-cultural studies of color naming show that basic terms are universally the most frequently used to name colors. However, such basic color terms are always used in the context of larger linguistic systems when specific properties of color experience are described. To investigate naturalistic naming behaviors, we examined the use of modifiers in English and Vietnamese color naming using an unconstrained naming task (Jameson & Alvarado, in press). Monolingual and bilingual subjects named a representative set of 110 color stimuli sampled from a commonly used color-order stimulus space. Results revealed greater reliance upon polylexemic naming among monolingual Vietnamese speakers and greater use of monolexemic basic hue terms and secondary terms (object glosses) among monolingual English speakers. Systematic differences across these language groups imply that widely used monolexemic naming methods may differentially impact color-naming findings in cross-cultural investigations of color cognition.

Color, Color Terms, Categorization, Cognition, Culture: An Afterword

2005 ◽  
Vol 5 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 487-495
Author(s):  
Don Dedrick
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Color Naming ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Human Language ◽  
Color Terms ◽  
Color Categories ◽  
Basic Color ◽  
Basic Color Terms

AbstractRecent work on color naming challenges the idea that there are shared perceptually salient colors or color categories that are "hardwired" into homo sapiens and provide the basis for one of the most famous cross-cultural claims of all time, Brent Berlin and Paul Kay's claim that there is a small number of "basic" color terms (eleven), and that some subset of these terms is present in every human language (Berlin & Kay, 1969; see Kay and Maffi, 1999; Kay and Reiger, 2003; and Kay 2005 for updates).

Reporting Color Experience in Grapheme-Color Synesthesia

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yasmina Jraissati
Keyword(s):  
Color Appearance ◽  
Color Experience ◽  
Color Categories ◽  
Basic Color ◽  
Color Categorization ◽  
Shed Light

This chapter examines the method for reporting color in grapheme-color synesthesia and its consequences. The Berlin and Kay basic color categories typology is sometimes used, but one should wonder whether such a simplification is justified, and whether it might not have important theoretical implications for our understanding of synesthesia. In this chapter, such implications are uncovered. A discussion opposing Simner and colleagues to Beeli and colleagues regarding the linguistic vs/color appearance bias of grapheme-color associations is taken as an illustration. Essentially, it is argued that the Berlin and Kay typology is misused, leading to dangerous tensions, and that the assumed relation between color appearance, categories, and terms is not clear. In conclusion, the chapter suggests how research in color categorization can offer alternative frameworks to understand grapheme-color synesthesia, and notes that work in synesthesia can also shed light on color categorization.

scholarly journals Color naming across languages reflects color use

2017 ◽  
Vol 114 (40) ◽  
pp. 10785-10790 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward Gibson ◽  
Richard Futrell ◽  
Julian Jara-Ettinger ◽  
Kyle Mahowald ◽  
Leon Bergen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Naming Task ◽  
Color Naming ◽  
Original Data ◽  
Spanish Speakers ◽  
Natural Images ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Methodological Issues ◽  
Information Theoretic ◽  
Color Categories ◽  
Color Categorization

What determines how languages categorize colors? We analyzed results of the World Color Survey (WCS) of 110 languages to show that despite gross differences across languages, communication of chromatic chips is always better for warm colors (yellows/reds) than cool colors (blues/greens). We present an analysis of color statistics in a large databank of natural images curated by human observers for salient objects and show that objects tend to have warm rather than cool colors. These results suggest that the cross-linguistic similarity in color-naming efficiency reflects colors of universal usefulness and provide an account of a principle (color use) that governs how color categories come about. We show that potential methodological issues with the WCS do not corrupt information-theoretic analyses, by collecting original data using two extreme versions of the color-naming task, in three groups: the Tsimane', a remote Amazonian hunter-gatherer isolate; Bolivian-Spanish speakers; and English speakers. These data also enabled us to test another prediction of the color-usefulness hypothesis: that differences in color categorization between languages are caused by differences in overall usefulness of color to a culture. In support, we found that color naming among Tsimane' had relatively low communicative efficiency, and the Tsimane' were less likely to use color terms when describing familiar objects. Color-naming among Tsimane' was boosted when naming artificially colored objects compared with natural objects, suggesting that industrialization promotes color usefulness.

From Color Naming to a Language Space: An Analysis of Data from the World Color Survey

2007 ◽  
Vol 7 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 173-199 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Bimler
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Color Naming ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Cultural Consensus ◽  
Quantitative Index ◽  
Stimulus Set ◽  
Color Categories ◽  
The World ◽  
Standard Set ◽  
Linguistic Evolution

AbstractThe World Color Survey was a large-scale cross-cultural experiment in which informants used the color lexicons of 110 non-written languages to label a standard set of stimuli. Here those data are explored with a novel analysis which focuses on the averaged location of boundaries within the stimulus set, revealing the system of color categories native to each language. A quantitative index of inter-language similarity was defined, comparing these average boundaries. Analyzing the similarities among color-naming patterns led to a 'language space', in which languages are grouped into clusters according to linguistic families (i.e., descent from common ancestors). This implies that each language's departures from the cross-cultural consensus about color categories are systematic (non-random). Given the non-unanimity about the color lexicon within languages, the persistence of these language families across the course of linguistic evolution is paradoxical.

scholarly journals Semantic and Perceptual Representations of Color: Evidence of a Shared Color-Naming Function

2005 ◽  
Vol 5 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 427-486 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bilge Sayim ◽  
Kimberly A. Jameson ◽  
Nancy Alvarado ◽  
Monika Szeszel
Keyword(s):  
Naming Task ◽  
Color Naming ◽  
Color Representation ◽  
Color Experience ◽  
Color Sensation ◽  
Color Term ◽  
Color Categories ◽  
Perceptual Representations ◽  
Similarity Judgments ◽  
Representational Models

AbstractMuch research on color representation and categorization has assumed that relations among color terms can be proxies for relations among color percepts. We test this assumption by comparing the mapping of color words with color appearances among different observer groups performing cognitive tasks: (1) an invariance of naming task; and (2) triad similarity judgments of color term and color appearance stimuli within and across color categories. Observer subgroups were defined by perceptual phenotype and photopigment opsin genotype analyses. Results suggest that individuals rely on at least two different representational models of color experience: one lexical, conforming to the culture's normative linguistic representation, and another individual perceptual representation organizing each observer's color sensation experiences. Additional observer subgroup analyses suggest that perceptual phenotype variation within a language group may play a greater role in the shared color naming system than previously thought. A reexamination of color naming data in view of these findings may reveal influences on color naming important to current theories.

What Cognitive Neurology Teaches Us about Our Experience of Color

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 252-265 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Siuda-Krzywicka ◽  
Paolo Bartolomeo
Keyword(s):  
Visual Cortex ◽  
Brain Damage ◽  
Semantic Information ◽  
Color Naming ◽  
Brain Lesions ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Color Processing ◽  
Color Experience ◽  
High Level ◽  
The Brain

Color provides valuable information about the environment, yet the exact mechanisms explaining how colors appear to us remain poorly understood. Retinal signals are processed in the visual cortex through high-level mechanisms that link color perception with top-down expectations and knowledge. Here, we review the neuroimaging evidence about color processing in the brain, and how it is affected by acquired brain lesions in humans. Evidence from patients with brain-damage suggests that high-level color processing may be divided into at least three modules: perceptual color experience, color naming, and color knowledge. These modules appear to be functionally independent but richly interconnected, and serve as cortical relays linking sensory and semantic information, with the final goal of directing object-related behavior. We argue that the relations between colors and their objects are key mechanisms to understand high-level color processing.

scholarly journals What we talk about when we talk about colors

2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (39) ◽  
pp. e2109237118
Author(s):  
Colin R. Twomey ◽  
Gareth Roberts ◽  
David H. Brainard ◽  
Joshua B. Plotkin
Keyword(s):  
Visible Light ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Color Space ◽  
Geographic Location ◽  
Color Naming ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Cultural Variation ◽  
Inference Algorithm ◽  
Color Categories ◽  
Different Color

Names for colors vary widely across languages, but color categories are remarkably consistent. Shared mechanisms of color perception help explain consistent partitions of visible light into discrete color vocabularies. But the mappings from colors to words are not identical across languages, which may reflect communicative needs—how often speakers must refer to objects of different color. Here we quantify the communicative needs of colors in 130 different languages by developing an inference algorithm for this problem. We find that communicative needs are not uniform: Some regions of color space exhibit 30-fold greater demand for communication than other regions. The regions of greatest demand correlate with the colors of salient objects, including ripe fruits in primate diets. Our analysis also reveals a hidden diversity in the communicative needs of colors across different languages, which is partly explained by differences in geographic location and the local biogeography of linguistic communities. Accounting for language-specific, nonuniform communicative needs improves predictions for how a language maps colors to words, and how these mappings vary across languages. Our account closes an important gap in the compression theory of color naming, while opening directions to study cross-cultural variation in the need to communicate different colors and its impact on the cultural evolution of color categories.

scholarly journals Music perception: No strong evidence to reject innate biases

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick E. Savage ◽  
Thomas E. Currie
Keyword(s):  
Music Perception ◽  
Cognitive Biases ◽  
Group Performance ◽  
Global Analysis ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
South American ◽  
Musical Perception ◽  
Indigenous Group ◽  
Nature And Nurture ◽  
Cultural Evolutionary

McDermott et al. (Nature 535, 547–550; 2016) used a cross-cultural experiment to show that an isolated South American indigenous group, the Tsimane', exhibit indifference to musical dissonance. The study acts as an important counterweight to common beliefs that musical preferences reflect universal, mathematically based harmonic relationships that are biologically determined by low-level perceptual mechanisms. While we applaud their cross-cultural approach, the limited number of populations studied (n=5) makes it difficult to draw strong conclusions about causal processes. In particular, the conclusion that consonance is thus "unlikely to reflect innate biases" seems too strong, as innateness does not require complete universality. Exceptions are always found in any phenomenon as complex as human music. Indeed, our own global analysis of traditional music found dozens of aspects of music that were common cross-culturally, but none that were absolutely universal without exception (Savage et al. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 112, 8987-8992; 2015). We showed a consistent tendency to avoid dissonance, yet we still found many examples of sustained dissonance in Western and non-Western music (e.g., Eastern European harvest songs, Papua New Guinean lullabies).Such trends and exceptions are not necessarily indicative of the degree of innateness of aspects of music (which, like other domains of culture, likely reflects some combination of nature and nurture). For example, humans and other animals display an innate aversion to bitter and sour foods, but these can be overridden by cultural conventions and developmental experience (Chandrashekar et al. Nature 444, 288-293; 2006). Diversity in musical perception and production could emerge in the context of weak cognitive biases or relaxation in selective pressures (such as the unusual absence of group performance among the Tsimane'). Broader cross-cultural studies of both perception and production of music and other aspects of human behavior (including cultural evolutionary and developmental frameworks) will be needed to clarify the roles of nature and nurture in shaping human diversity.

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