Universality of color categorization

Kay, Paul

doi:10.1017/cbo9781107337930.012

Cited by 14 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…The criteria for basic colour terms have been used to establish the number of basic colour terms for a large range of languages across the world. Apart from the original study of Kay (1991 [1969]), the World Colour Survey may be considered as the most prominent example, which identified the basic colour terms in 110 non-industrialised languages (Kay, 2015;Kay, Berlin, Maffi, Merrifield, & Cook, 2011; for overview see Kay, 2015;Kay & Maffi, 1999;Kay, & Regier, 2003). The notion of basic colour terms is so widely established that it features in practically every general introduction to colour categorisation (e.g.…”

Section: The Original Notion Of Basic Colour Termsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Since then the Dugum Dani are widely considered to be the only known example of a language that has only two colour terms (e.g. Kay, 2015;Roberson, Davies, & Davidoff, 2000; see also the discussion in Saunders & van Brakel, 1997). However, a recent study claimed that the Dani have colour terms for almost all colours that correspond to the prototypes of English basic colour terms, but most of those colour terms were object names (Groh, 2016).…”

Section: Colour Terms and Objectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Much of the scientific and the broader literature present the term "focal colour" as a synonym for category prototype, be it by explicit definition or by tacit assumption (e.g. Glottopedia -Discovering Linguistics, 2013;Kay, 2015;Malkoc et al, 2005;Rosch Heider, 1971;Self, 2014). However, there is a fundamental difference.…”

Section: Focal Coloursmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Cross-cultural regularities do not necessarily reflect innate, biological determinants (Kay, 2015;Lindsey et al, 2015;Roberson, 2005;Steels & Belpaeme, 2005). They may also evolve as a result of ecological factors ("visual diet"), i.e.…”

Section: Determinants Of Colour Categoriesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Misconceptions About Colour Categories

Witzel

2018

Rev.Phil.Psych.

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The origin of colour categories and their relationship to colour perception have been the prime example for testing the influence of language on perception and thought (Sapir-Whorf hypothesis) and more generally for investigating the biological, ecological and cultural determination of human cognition (nature-nurture debate). These themes are central to a broad range of disciplines, including vision research, neuroscience, cognitive psychology, developmental science, cultural anthropology, linguistics, computer science, and philosophy. Unfortunately, though, it has been tacitly taken for granted that the conceptual assumptions and methodological practices from the dawn of empirical research on colour categorisation are the gold standard for current colour category research. Here, we show that these assumptions and practices are obsolete and flawed and have led to four fundamental and widespread misconceptions about colour categorisation: 1.) that colour perception is inherently categorical; 2.) that English Basic Colour Terms correspond to universal categories that are the end point of a fixed evolutionary sequence; 3.) that the prototypes of English Basic Colour Terms are perceptually salient and qualify as focal colours; and 4.) that colour category research essentially revolves around the universalism-realism debate. State-of-theart research on colour categorisation provides new, more sophisticated approaches and allows for rectifying those four statements. At the same time, some of the questions underlying those statements are not convincingly answered yet and constitute major challenges to future research. The critical considerations on colour categorisation may be transferred to research on other kinds of perceptual categorisation to inspire new, more general research questions.

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Section: The Original Notion Of Basic Colour Termsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Colour Terms and Objectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Focal Coloursmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Determinants Of Colour Categoriesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Misconceptions About Colour Categories

Witzel

2018

Rev.Phil.Psych.

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“…The study of colour terms (e.g. Berlin, Kay 1969;Rosch 1975;Witkowski, Brown 1977;Kay, McDaniel 1978;Wierzbicka 1990;Dedrick 1998;Steinvall 2002;Kay 2015) in disciplines such as anthropology, psycholinguistics, statistics and corpus methodology has had a great impact on the research and analysis of the changes in the patterns and usages of colour-term formation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond Colour: The Evolution of Meaning Representation

Platonova¹,

Iljinska²

2017

VertStud

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The present paper is only a small part of the investigation we have performed into the evolution of how the meaning of colour is represented in contemporary LSP texts. The English language is undergoing a process of change characterized by a tendency towards the extension of the meaning of lexical units. This tendency can be observed in the semantic field of colour, which is a significant component of the cognitive models that enable both an understanding and representation of reality.Having studied multiple sources and analyzed numerous examples illustrating the historical evolution of this phenomenon, we aim to demonstrate both the complex, multifaceted nature of colour terms and their possible application in the designation of concepts and the formation of new terms. Within the scope of this paper, we have investigated the mechanisms of how contemporary colour-based terms are formed with the additional aim of broadening the perception of colour term applications.

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Color blindness and semantic knowledge: Cognition of color terms from elicited lists in dichromats and normal observers

Moreira,

Álvaro,

Lillo

2024

Color Research & Application

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Color blindness (color vision deficiency) affects ~8% of males and ~ 0.4% females worldwide. Here we use the elicited lists method to investigate their semantic knowledge regarding “basic color terms” and their relationships. Lists were obtained from color vision deficient and normal observers. 32 dichromats (15 protanopes, 17 deuteranopes) and 32 normal trichromats (17 females, 15 males) diagnosed by a battery of color tests (Ishihara, City University Test, anomaloscope) wrote monolexemic lists of colors. Psychological salience of terms (ln(CSI)), adjacency between pairs of terms (ADJ; MDS) and the presence of clusters of terms defined on the basis of the Universals and evolution hypothesis were analyzed. All four groups of participants showed the same semantic memory structure: lists started with the cardinal primaries cluster (blue, red, yellow, green), followed by the achromatic primaries cluster (black and white), or the derived cluster (brown, orange, violet, pink, purple, and gray). After the clusters (cardinals, achromatics, and derived), a highly variable number of non‐basic terms appeared. This number was higher in normal trichromats. Non‐basic terms were not part of any cognitive cluster. The similarity in the lists of trichromats and dichromats suggest that both may acquire similar semantic knowledge about color terms. Several potential explanations are considered.

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Universality of color categorization

Cited by 14 publications

References 40 publications

Misconceptions About Colour Categories

Misconceptions About Colour Categories

Beyond Colour: The Evolution of Meaning Representation

Color blindness and semantic knowledge: Cognition of color terms from elicited lists in dichromats and normal observers

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