Processing of color words activates color representations

Two experiments were conducted to investigate whether color representations are routinely activated when color words are processed. Congruency effects of colors and color words were observed in both directions. Lexical decisions on color words were faster when preceding colors matched the color named by the word. Color-discrimination responses were slowed down when preceding color words mismatched the test color even if no task had to be performed on these words. These findings are consistent with the experiential view of language comprehension according to which color perception and the comprehension of color words are based on overlapping representational resources.     

The objectivity of color and the color of objectivity

I am grateful to Peter King, David Lewis, George Schumm, Stewart Shapiro, Allan Silverman, William Taschek, Neil Tennant, and Mark Wilson for helpful and stimulating discussions; and especially to Diana Raffman and Michael Watkins for ongoing arguments about the importance of ongoing arguments about the ontology of color.     

On the naming of color words and color patches

Subjects can name color words faster than they can name color patches. To account for that effect, a generic model of naming is described which assumes that words access the mental lexicon directly, whereas color patches do so only indirectly via an initial imaginal or semantic representation. However, Lund (1927) reported that the naming advantage for words disappeared when all the items to be named on a page were the same (i.e., they were blocked). In the present study, three experiments are reported that were designed to provide a clearer empirical definition of Lund’s blocking effect and to ascertain the extent to which it requires a modification of the generic model. The blocked lists had 50 items arranged into 10 blocks, with each block homogeneous with respect to color. The block lengths were either all a predictable length of 5 items or they varied randomly from 1 to 9 items. The data indicated the following: (1) The blocking effect occurred even when the task required a full identification of each item, and (2) the blocking effect was confined to within-block transitions. Blocking seemed to eliminate the word advantage by allowing the subject to re-use the lexical entry used for the immediately prior item, which is consistent with the generic model.     

The event of color

When objects are illuminated, the light they reflect does not simply bounce off their surface. Rather, that light is entirely reabsorbed and then reemitted, as the result of a complex microphysical event near the surface of the object. If we are to be physicalists regarding color, then we should analyze colors in terms of that event, just as we analyze heat in terms of molecular motion, and sound in terms of vibrations. On this account, colors are not standing properties of objects, but events, or (more cautiously) properties associated with events. Accordingly, objects in the dark are no more colored than a turned-off stove is hot. Such an account requires rejecting some of what folk ordinarily say about color, but this is the most coherent version of color physicalism.

Curvature-specific color aftereffects

Adaptation to convex and concave arcs in different colored light results in curvature-specific color aftereffects when arcs are later viewed in white light. In three experiments, it was shown that these color aftereffects often are partial (restricted to limited regions of the test arcs) rather than uniform, and in addition that aftereffects induced by exposure to arcs transfer to straight-line displays of particular orientation, and vice versa. These data were interpreted as evidence that arcs are processed in the visual system in relation to the orientations of local straight line approximations instead of on a global basis. In these terms, curvature-specific color aftereffects are merely complex forms of the orientation-specific color aftereffects first described by McCollough (1965).     

Individual color functions

A total of 63 psychophysical lightness functions and 28 saturation functions of surface colors and grays were measured for 40 observers by the method of magnitude estimation. Although there is some variation in the size of the exponent from one person to another, individual functions of saturation and lightness can be described by the power law.     

Achromatic color categories

Sternheim and Boynton’s (1966) continuous judgmental color-naming technique was used to assess the elemental nature of achromatic colors. Results from three subjects indicate that the names “black” and “white” are necessary and sufficient to describe achromatic test lights associated with the name “gray.” On the basis of the criteria that establishes a color as elemental, black and white were confirmed as elemental, whereas gray was not. These findings support the assumption of various opponent processing models that there are only two elemental achromatic sensations. In addition, the results support Hering’s (1920) view that black and white differ from the paired-chromatic opponent colors in that they are not mutually exclusive.     

The influence of surface color information and color knowledge information in object recognition

In order to clarify whether the influence of color knowledge information in object recognition depends on the presence of the appropriate surface color, we designed a name-object verification task. The relationship between color and shape information provided by the name and by the object photo was manipulated in order to assess color interference independently of shape interference. We tested three different versions for each object: typically colored, black and white, and nontypically colored. The response times on the nonmatching trials were used to measure the interference between the name and the photo. We predicted that the more similar the name and the photo are, the longer it would take to respond. Overall, the color similarity effect disappeared in the black-and-white and nontypical color conditions, suggesting that the influence of color knowledge on object recognition depends on the presence of the appropriate surface color information.