Subfocal Color Categorization and Naming: The Role of Exposure to Language and Professional Experience

• Authors: Malinowska Monika , Haman Maciej
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

The current state of the debate on the linguistic factors in color perception and categorization is reviewed. Developmental and learning studies were hitherto almost ignored in this debate. A simple experiment is reported in which 20 Academy of Fine Arts, Faculty of Painting students' performance in color discrimination and naming tasks was compared to the performance of 20 Technical University students. Subfocal colors (different hues of red and blue) were used. While there was no difference in overall discrimination ability, AFA students had a much richer and specialized color vocabulary. Both groups also applied different strategies of discrimination and naming. However, naming system in neither group was coherent. This suggests that naming played primarily the role of markers for control processes rather than names for categories. It is concluded that up-to-date debate is too simplified and a complex model of interrelations between perceptual categorization and naming framed in the developmental context is needed rather than the search for a simple answer 'language', 'environment', or 'perceptual universals'.

Keywords

EN

COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT; COLOR CATEGORIZATION; COLOR PERCEPTION; LINGUISTIC RELATIVITY HYPOTHESIS; UNIVERSALIST HYPOTHESIS

Discipline

• PSYCHOLOGY: PSYCHOLOGY

• Publisher: Committee for Psychological Sciences, Polish Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Polish Psychological Bulletin
• Year: 2009
• Volume: 40
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 15-20
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Malinowska Monika

author

Haman Maciej

• Monika Malinowska, Uniwersytet Warszawski, Wydzial Psychologii, ul. Stawki 5/7, 00-183 Warszawa, Poland

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Identifiers

CEJSH db identifier

10PLAAAA075410

DOI

10.2478/s10059-009-0012-4