scholarly journals A cross-cultural investigation of a link between color naming and the perceptual salience of hue differences across color space

2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (15) ◽  
pp. 41
Author(s):  
Prutha Deshpande ◽  
Delwin Lindsey
Keyword(s):  
Color Space ◽  
Color Naming ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Perceptual Salience

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 What we talk about when we talk about color

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin R. Twomey ◽  
Gareth Roberts ◽  
David Brainard ◽  
Joshua B. Plotkin
Keyword(s):  
Visible Light ◽  
Color Space ◽  
Color Perception ◽  
Geographic Location ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Cultural Variation ◽  
Inference Algorithm ◽  
Color Categories ◽  
New Directions ◽  
Different Color

Names for colors vary widely across languages, but color categories are remarkably consistent [1–5]. Shared mechanisms of color perception help explain consistent partitions of visible light into discrete color vocabularies [6–10]. 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 [11]. Here we quantify the communicative needs of colors in 130 different languages, using a novel inference algorithm. 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. Using the mathematics of compression we predict and empirically test how languages map colors to words, accounting for communicative needs. We also document extensive cultural variation in communicative demands on different regions of color space, which is partly explained by differences in geographic location and local biogeography. This account reconciles opposing theories for universal patterns in color vocabularies, while opening new directions to study cross-cultural variation in the need to communicate different colors.

Color Space of Normally Sighted and Color-Deficient Observers Reconstructed from Color Naming

1996 ◽  
Vol 7 (5) ◽  
pp. 311-317 ◽  
Author(s):  
Galina V. Paramei
Keyword(s):  
Color Space ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Spherical Model ◽  
Color Discrimination ◽  
Color Naming ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Color Spaces ◽  
Experimental Procedure ◽  
Additional Information ◽  
Necessary And Sufficient

An experimental procedure based on the color-naming method introduced by Boynton, Schafer, and Neun (1964) was used to study the color appearance of equiluminant spectral stimuli in observers with congenital red-green color deficiencies, as well as in normal trichromats Subjects' responses (choice of one or more labels from the set red, yellow, green, blue, and white) were converted to numeric scores, which were used to estimate subjective differences between pairs of colors Individual subjects' matrices were processed by means of multidimensional scaling As in the direct rating of color dissimilarities in normal trichromats (Sokolov & Izmatlov, 1983) and color-deficient observers (Paramei Izmatlov, & Sokolov, 1991), these indirectly obtained measures yielded a color space in which three dimensions appear to be necessary and sufficient The dimensions are interpreted as evidence for red-green, blue-yellow, and achromatic (saturation) subsystems Based on the color-naming technique, three-dimensional spaces were reconstructed for the color-deficient observers These results were compared with those obtained by Helm (1964) It is argued that retaining more than one (blue-yellow) dimension in the color spaces of such observers provides additional information indicating preservation of residual red-green discrimination accompanied by finer discrimination of chroma than in normal trichromats The spherical model of color discrimination developed for normal trichromats (Izmatlov & Sokolov, 1991) is shown to be valid for color-deficient subjects as well and may be useful as a framework for differentiating protan and deutan types of color deficiency Colornaming functions, which seem not to reveal a differentiation between protans and deutans, provide results from which this differentiation can be extracted in reconstructed color spaces

scholarly journals Delving Deeper Into Color Space

i-Perception ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 204166951879206 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yasmina Jraissati ◽  
Igor Douven
Keyword(s):  
Color Space ◽  
Color Naming ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Color Terms ◽  
Color Categories ◽  
Basic Color ◽  
Basic Color Terms

So far, color-naming studies have relied on a rather limited set of color stimuli. Most importantly, stimuli have been largely limited to highly saturated colors. Because of this, little is known about how people categorize less saturated colors and, more generally, about the structure of color categories as they extend across all dimensions of color space. This article presents the results from a large Internet-based color-naming study that involved color stimuli ranging across all available chroma levels in Munsell space. These results help answer such questions as how English speakers name a more complex color set, whether English speakers use so-called basic color terms (BCTs) more frequently for more saturated colors, how they use non-BCTs in comparison with BCTs, whether non-BCTs are highly consensual in less saturated parts of the solid, how deep inside color space basic color categories extend, or how they behave on the chroma dimension.

scholarly journals Color naming reflects optimal partitions of color space

2007 ◽  
Vol 104 (4) ◽  
pp. 1436-1441 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. Regier ◽  
P. Kay ◽  
N. Khetarpal
Keyword(s):  
Color Space ◽  
Color Naming ◽  
Optimal Partitions

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).

Considering the Prevalence of the "Stimulus Error" in Color Naming Research

2007 ◽  
Vol 7 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 119-142 ◽  
Author(s):  
Don Dedrick ◽  
David Bimler ◽  
Kimberly Jameson ◽  
Debi Roberson
Keyword(s):  
Color Naming ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Research Issues ◽  
Color Terms ◽  
Potential Problems ◽  
Basic Color ◽  
Basic Color Terms

AbstractIn "Does the Basic Color Terms discussion suffer from the Stimulus Error?" Rolf Kuehni describes a research stumbling block known as the "stimulus error," and hints at the difficulties it causes for mainstream color naming research (Kuehni, is Issue). Among the issues intrinsic to Kuehni's "stimulus error" description is the important question of what can generally be inferred from color naming behaviors based on bounded samples of empirical stimuli. Here we examine some specifics of the color naming research issues that Kuehni raises. While we share Kuehni's view regarding potential problems caused by the "stimulus error" and his concern regarding its prevalence, Kuehni's commentary seems primarily aimed at stimulating a general discussion of color naming research implications, because the articles he critiques do not actually commit the "stimulus error" in any serious sense. Based on Kuehni's comments, we further examine some of the relevant empirical and theoretical implications for cross-cultural color naming research.

scholarly journals Uncovering the geometry of color space with magnetoencephalography (MEG)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isabelle Rosenthal ◽  
Shridhar Singh ◽  
Katherine Hermann ◽  
Dimitrios Pantazis ◽  
Bevil R. Conway
Keyword(s):  
Brain Activity ◽  
Color Space ◽  
Color Naming ◽  
Neural Representation ◽  
Neural Responses ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Reverse Engineer ◽  
Direct Measurements ◽  
Similarity Relationships ◽  
The Relationship

The geometry that describes the relationship among colors is unsettled despite centuries of study. Here we present a new approach, using multivariate analyses of direct measurements of brain activity obtained with magnetoencephalography to reverse-engineer the geometry of the neural representation of color space. The analyses depend upon determining similarity relationships among the neural responses to different colors and assessing how these relationships change in time. To evaluate the approach, we relate patterns of neural activity to universal patterns in color naming. Control experiments showed that responses to color words could not decode activity elicited by color stimuli. The results suggest that three patterns of color naming can be accounted for by decoding the similarity relationships in the neural representation of color: the association of warm colors such as reds and oranges with “light” and cool colors such as blues and greens with “dark”; the greater precision among all languages in naming warm colors compared to cool colors; and the preeminence of red.

scholarly journals Efficient compression in color naming and its evolution

2018 ◽  
Vol 115 (31) ◽  
pp. 7937-7942 ◽  
Author(s):  
Noga Zaslavsky ◽  
Charles Kemp ◽  
Terry Regier ◽  
Naftali Tishby
Keyword(s):  
Structural Phase ◽  
Color Space ◽  
Language Variation ◽  
Color Naming ◽  
Color Category ◽  
Trade Off ◽  
Information Theoretic ◽  
Information Bottleneck ◽  
Single Process ◽  
Cross Language

We derive a principled information-theoretic account of cross-language semantic variation. Specifically, we argue that languages efficiently compress ideas into words by optimizing the information bottleneck (IB) trade-off between the complexity and accuracy of the lexicon. We test this proposal in the domain of color naming and show that (i) color-naming systems across languages achieve near-optimal compression; (ii) small changes in a single trade-off parameter account to a large extent for observed cross-language variation; (iii) efficient IB color-naming systems exhibit soft rather than hard category boundaries and often leave large regions of color space inconsistently named, both of which phenomena are found empirically; and (iv) these IB systems evolve through a sequence of structural phase transitions, in a single process that captures key ideas associated with different accounts of color category evolution. These results suggest that a drive for information-theoretic efficiency may shape color-naming systems across languages. This principle is not specific to color, and so it may also apply to cross-language variation in other semantic domains.

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