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Special Issues on Cross-Cultural Studies in Color Categorization, Naming and Cognition. Part 1 Contents:
(To appear February 2005 in Cross-Cultural Research: The Journal of Comparative Social Science, 39(1).)
Dedication to Robert E. MacLaury.
Download REMdedication.pdf (124 kb).
Introductory remarks on the contents of this issue on Cognition, Culture and Color Experience.
Kimberly A. Jameson, University of California.
Download Foreword.pdf (72 kb).
(1) Singing the Russian Blues: An Argument for Culturally Basic Color Terms
Galina Paramei, Institute of Medical Psychology
Otto-von-Guericke University of Magdeburg
Magdeburg, Germany
ABSTRACT
The accepted cross-cultural universal inventory of basic color terms (BCTs) is comprised of 11 terms (Berlin & Kay, 1969). The inventory includes, in particular, a single basic term for blue denotata. Russian has two terms for blue sinij dark blue and goluboj light blue, and this exceptional feature has generated a considerable body of research. In the linguistic domain, both terms are argued to be basic; the basic status of goluboj is, however, disputed on grounds of ethnographic studies. The exceptional nature of goluboj, and its proposed status as the 12th basic color term, challenges theory stating an upper limit of BCTs. Indeed, Russian's second blue term opens the possibility of an extension of BCT theory. This article draws on arguments from lexical-semantic analyses and reviews empirical linguistic and psycholinguistic studies of the two Russian blues. The lexical-semantic analysis indicates that sinij and goluboj are used with near synonymy for naming an abstract color of medium-lightness blue; both terms are, however, used differently for a range of properties and objects, in particular artifacts; in addition, they are not interchangeable metonymically. Linguistic studies provide converging evidence that goluboj meets a criterion for a basic color term in psychological salience, as assessed by frequencies of occurrence and derivational elaborations.
Psycholinguistic findings reveal for the two blue terms circumscribed best exemplar foci, but overlapping ranges. In addition, the findings indicate that goluboj, the term commonly translated as light blue, implies dimensions other than lightness; it is also richly symbolically charged, and appears to have emerged as culturally basic in the Russian language. Counterparts of the two Russian blues in other languages, established or emerging, are also considered. Within a context beyond Russian, the potential refinement of the blue area is suggested to follow perceptual-cognitive universals; this is, however, fine-tuned by language and reinforced by culturally-specific semiotics. Finally, by drawing attention to a distinction between denotative and designative meaning, the issue of the Russian blues raises a question regarding the proper definition of a basic color term.
Download Paramei.pdf pre-publication paper (256 kb).
Note: The original copyrights owners granted permission to reproduce the figures reprinted in the Paramei.pdf manuscript. Please contact the author or the Editors for information.
(2) Color Categories are not Arbitrary
Paul Kay
, Department of Linguistics
University of California, Berkeley
ABSTRACT
Recent, well-controlled studies in cross-language color naming and cross-language tests of color memory and learning have
made important contributions to our understanding of which aspects of cross-language color naming and non-verbal response to
colors may and may not be attributed to pan-human properties of color appearance. Valuable as these results are, some studies
have led to more relativistic conclusions than their results justify. In particular these conclusions ignore the issue of
whether there exists across languages a statistical tendency basing color terminology systems on black, white, and the four
Hering opponent hues.
Download Kay.pdf pre-publication paper (208 kb).
(3) Color Categories are Culturally Diverse in Cognition as well as in Language
Debi Roberson,
Department of Psychology
University of Essex
United Kingdom
ABSTRACT
Categorization is a fundamental property of human cognition. This article presents a summary of recent research that has re-examined the nature of linguistic and non-linguistic color categories and the relationship between them. Improvements in experimental paradigms combined with a better understanding of the relationship between physiology and higher-level cognition have led to a clearer understanding of the complexities of the relationship between culture, language, cognition and perception. It is concluded that possession of linguistic color categories facilitates recognition and influences perceptual judgments, even in languages with terms that are less abstract than English. Cognitive categories for color appear to be tightly tied to the linguistic terms used to describe them.
Download Roberson.pdf pre-publication paper (135 kb).
(4) Explaining Basic Color Categories
Clyde L. Hardin
, Department of Philosophy
Syracuse University
ABSTRACT
Berlin and Kay have argued that the number of basic color terms in a language predicts what these terms will be. Although
some cross-cultural features of color naming that they have discovered can be accounted for by opponent-process theory, others
seem to depend upon perceptual saliences that are in need of further exploration.
Download Hardin.pdf pre-publication paper (120 kb).
Download HardinFigures.zip for the above article's figures as a compressed archive (4.6 mb).
Note: The original copyrights owners granted permission to reproduce the figures rep
rinted in the Hardin.pdf manuscript. Please contact the author or the Editors for information.
AFTERWORD:
On the Role of Culture in Color Naming: Remarks on the articles of Paramei, Kay, Roberson & Hardin on the topic of Cognition, Culture and Color Experience.
Kimberly A. Jameson, University of California.
Download Afterword.pdf (136 kb).
About the Authors of Issue 1...
Special Issues on Cross-Cultural Studies in Color Categorization, Naming and Cognition. Part 2 Contents:
(To appear May 2005 in Cross-Cultural Research: The Journal of Comparative Social Science, 39(2).)
Introduction.
Kimberly A. Jameson, University of California.
Download Introduction.pdf (72 kb).
(1) So-Called Brightness in Color Ethnography: Typologizing the Unknown.
Robert E. MacLaury
University of Pennsylvania
ABSTRACT
Anthropologists and Philologists interpret brightness naming far and wide and through time. The World Color Survey shows that minor and tribal languages name reputed brightness categories that span the spectrum. Different languages construe them with substantial variability. Yet the composition of these categories is unexplored, which arrests our progress toward a cross-cultural understanding of color cognition. Further, this genre of category is fast disappearing. The typology stresses our need for timely computer-assisted ethnography while the genre and the mainpulable, light-emitting stimuli are briefly contemporaneous. Color anthropology privileges hue categories. The advance would further integrate this subfield with multidisciplinaryresearch in categorization.
Download MacLaury.pdf pre-publication paper (available soon).
(2) Confidence Judgments On Color Category Best Exemplars.
Nancy Alvarado and Kimberly A. Jameson
California State University Pomona, and University of California
ABSTRACT
Basic color terms and basic color appearances have been shown to produce higher confidence ratings in a variety of naming and judgment tasks. However, with rigorous stimulus control, the specific color appearances producing higher confidence judgments vary in different ethnolinguistic cultures (Jameson & Alvarado, 2003). Further, although some items are clearly easier to name than others, they are not the same appearances as those proposed by Berlin and Kay (1969), or Boynton and colleagues. This suggests that higher confidence may emerge from other aspects of a task, such as the patterns of naming within a particular culture, the individual's ability to access that shared cultural knowledge, and the assessed goodness of fit between available names in the lexicon and the exemplars to be named. This study analyzes confidence judgment data in Vietnamese and English collected by Jameson & Alvarado (2003) to suggest a basis for naming confidence that accounts for cultural differences.
Download AlvaradoJameson.pdf pre-publication paper (152 kb).
(3) Explanation and color naming research.
Don Dedrick,
Departments of Psychology and Philosophy
University of Guelph
Guelph, Ontario, Canada
ABSTRACT
Perhaps one of the central assumptions when one comes to think about scientific explanations-an assumption made by philosophers and scientists alike-is that a causal explanation is an optimal explanation. It seems, after all, that an explanation tells us why something happens, and that to do so is to specify causes. While there is nothing wrong with causal explanation per se, many good explanations in science are not in any important sense causal. What I mean by this is that many good explanations in science are compatible with a variety of causal mechanisms and, as such, ignore the details of such mechanisms. I develop this claim in the discussion of color naming research which follows, where I distinguish between explanation types that are (more) close to cauality (Actual Sequence Explanations) and those that are (more) removed from causal details (Robust Process Explanations).
Download Dedrick.pdf pre-publication paper
(139 kb).
(4) Why GRUE? An Interpoint-Distance Model analysis of Composite Color Categories.
Kimberly A. Jameson
University of California
ABSTRACT
The present paper describes a specific application of the Interpoint-Distance Model (or "IDM") aimed at addressing composite color categories which continue to challenge existing models in the literature. Using universal cognitive principles and heuristics suggested in the IDM (Jameson accepted, Jameson & D'Andrade 1997), the present paper demonstrates that composite categories such as the Blue-Green (or "Grue") category seen in many languages is one of several natural coding configurations expected in the development of a color lexicon by a given ethnolinguistic culture for communicating about color sensations. Explained this way, this enigmatic feature of composite color categories can be intergrated into an updated conception of the psychological processing responsible for similarities seen in cross-cultural color processing. It also allows for revision of existing theories and increases our understanding of what underlies individuals' color-naming, -categorization and -concept formation.
Download Jameson.pdf pre-publication paper (available soon).
About the Authors of Issue 2...