A Light Theory with Heavy Burdens

In “ A Light Theory of Color”, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong and David Sparrow argue that color is neither a primary quality of objects, nor a disposition that objects have, nor a property of our visual fields. Rather, according to the view they present, color is a property of light. The present paper aims to show, first, that the light theory is vulnerable to many of the very same objections that Sinnott-Armstrong and Sparrow raise against rival views. Second, the paper argues that the strategies that Sinnott-Armstrong and Sparrow use to avoid certain objections are also available to proponents of rival accounts. This might only seem to show that the light theory is in the same shaky boat as other theories: suffering from the same problems but having the same tools for solving them. The paper concludes with a suggestion as to why this is not the case, but why the existence of the light theory is nevertheless likely to bring increased clarity to the debate about color realism.     

The Relativity Of Color

C. L. Hardin led a recent development in the philosophical literature on color in which research from visual science is used to argue that colors are not properties of physical objects, but rather are mental processes. I defend J. J. C. Smart's physicalism, which claims that colors are physical properties of objects, against this attack. Assuming that every object has a single veridical (that is, nonillusory) color, it seems that physicalism must give a specification of veridical color in terms natural to physics, independently of our interests. Hardin argues that since physicalism doesn't give us any such specification of veridical color, this view is false. However, this argument assumes a mistaken account of veridical color. I show physicalism can appeal to an alternative account, according to which veridical color is characterized in terms of favored conditions of perceptual access, independently of any specification of the physical nature of color.     

Colors without circles?

Realists about color, be they dispositionalists or physicalists, agree on the truth of the following claim: (R) x is red iff x is disposed to look red under standard conditions. The disagreement is only about whether to identify the colors with the relevant dispositions, or with their categorical bases. This is a question about the representational content of color experience: What kind of properties do color experiences ascribe to objects? It has been argued (for instance by Boghossian and Velleman, 1991) that truths like (R) cannot be used in an account of the colors as they would result in ‚circular’, and therefore empty, contents. It has also been argued (for instance by Harman, 1996) that switching to an account of color in terms of a functional account of color sensations would result in a circular, and therefore empty, account. In this paper, I defend a realist account of color in terms of a (non-reductive) functional account of color sensations. Such an account of sensations has been suggested by Pagin (2000), and it can be applied to color sensations without the resulting account of the colors themselves being circular or empty. I argue that the so-called transparency of experience does not provide any argument against such an account. I also argue that on such an account, the issue of physicalism vs. dispositionalism boils down to the question of the modal profile of the color concepts.     

Competitive Fighting between Mice with Different Hereditary Backgrounds

It was hypothesized that Piaget's argument on behalf of the reorganization of cognitive processes would gain empirical support from a color/form, matching similar objects problem for 52 (29 boys, 23 girls) 6-year-olds from a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds. The instrument had 32 frames, each of which had three red or blue objects, some of regular and some of irregular shape. After color or form dominance for each child was established, frames were presented in which the dominant dimension could be chosen only through cognitive reorganization. Indications of cognitive reorganization for form-processing children included switching to color choices when all three objects were of identical shape, taking significantly (p < .05) greater time to make a choice for irregularly shaped objects, and having judges find indications of the use of parts of irregularly shaped objects for matches in verbal explanations by each child.     

Color preferences change after experience with liked/disliked colored objects

How are color preferences formed, and can they be changed by affective experiences with correspondingly colored objects? We examined these questions by testing whether affectively polarized experiences with images of colored objects would cause changes in color preferences. Such changes are implied by the ecological valence theory (EVT), which posits that color preferences are determined by people’s average affective responses to correspondingly colored objects (Palmer & Schloss, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107, 8877–8882, 2010). Seeing images of strongly liked (and disliked) red and green objects, therefore, should lead to increased (and decreased) preferences for correspondingly colored red and green color patches. Experiment 1 showed that this crossover interaction did occur, but only if participants were required to evaluate their preferences for the colored objects when they saw them. Experiment 2 showed that these overall changes decreased substantially over a 24-h delay, but the degree to which the effect lasted for individuals covaried with the magnitude of the effects immediately after object exposure. Experiment 3 demonstrated a similar, but weaker, effect of affectively biased changes in color preferences when participants did not see, but only imagined, the colored objects. The overall pattern of results indicated that color preferences are not fixed, but rather are shaped by affective experiences with colored objects. Possible explanations for the observed changes in color preferences were considered in terms of associative learning through evaluative conditioning and/or priming of prior knowledge in memory.     

Moral paternalism,virtue, and autonomy

According to colour irrealism, material objects do not have colour; they only appear to have colour. The appeal of this view, prominent among philosophers and scientists alike, stems in large part from the conviction that scientific explanations of colour facts do not ascribe colour to material objects. To explain why objects appear to have colour, for instance, we need only appeal to surface reflectance properties, properties of light, the neurophysiology of observers, etc.

Typically attending colour irrealism is the error theory of ordinary colour judgement: ordinary judgements in which colour is ascribed to a material object are, strictly speaking, false. In this paper, I claim that colour irrealists who endorse the error theory cannot explain how we acquire colour concepts (yellow, green, etc.), concepts they must acknowledge we do possess. Our basic colour concepts, I argue, could not be phenomenal concepts that we acquire by attending to the colour properties of our experience. And, I explain, all other plausible explanations render colour concepts such that our ordinary colour judgements involving them are often true. Given the explanatory considerations upon which the irrealist's position is based, this is a severe problem for colour irrealism.     

Seasonal Variations in Color Preference

We investigated how color preferences vary according to season and whether those changes could be explained by the ecological valence theory (EVT). To do so, we assessed the same participants’ preferences for the same colors during fall, winter, spring, and summer in the northeastern United States, where there are large seasonal changes in environmental colors. Seasonal differences were most pronounced between fall and the other three seasons. Participants liked fall‐associated dark‐warm colors—for example, dark‐red, dark‐orange (brown), dark‐yellow (olive), and dark‐chartreuse—more during fall than other seasons. The EVT could explain these changes with a modified version of Palmer and Schloss’ (2010) weighted affective valence estimate (WAVE) procedure that added an activation term to the WAVE equation. The results indicate that color preferences change according to season, as color‐associated objects become more/less activated in the observer. These seasonal changes in color preferences could not be characterized by overall shifts in weights along cone‐contrast axes.     

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.

Why Colour Primitivism?

Primitivism is the view that colors are sui generis properties of physical objects. The basic insight underlying primitivism is that colours are as we see them, i.e. they are categorical properties of physical objects—simple, monadic, constant, etc.—just like shapes. As such, they determine the content of colour experience. Accepting the premise that colours are sui generis properties of physical objects, this paper seeks to show that ascribing primitive properties to objects is, ipso facto, ascribing to objects irreducible dispositions to look coloured, and that anything that primitive redness can do, the non-reductive disposition to look red can do just as well. What makes primitivism suspect is not the commitment to sui generis properties, but instead the claim that colours are more than dispositions. Since, as I show, whatever primitivism appeals to for the purpose of arguing that colours are more than dispositions—objectivity, explanation, causation, phenomenology, constancy, etc.—can also be invoked by non-reductive dispositionalism, the feature that purportedly renders colours more than dispositions remains mysterious.     

The role of color information on object recognition: a review and meta-analysis

In this study, we systematically review the scientific literature on the effect of color on object recognition. Thirty-five independent experiments, comprising 1535 participants, were included in a meta-analysis. We found a moderate effect of color on object recognition (d = 0.28). Specific effects of moderator variables were analyzed and we found that color diagnosticity is the factor with the greatest moderator effect on the influence of color in object recognition; studies using color diagnostic objects showed a significant color effect (d = 0.43), whereas a marginal color effect was found in studies that used non-color diagnostic objects (d = 0.18). The present study did not permit the drawing of specific conclusions about the moderator effect of the object recognition task; while the meta-analytic review showed that color information improves object recognition mainly in studies using naming tasks (d = 0.36), the literature review revealed a large body of evidence showing positive effects of color information on object recognition in studies using a large variety of visual recognition tasks. We also found that color is important for the ability to recognize artifacts and natural objects, to recognize objects presented as types (line-drawings) or as tokens (photographs), and to recognize objects that are presented without surface details, such as texture or shadow. Taken together, the results of the meta-analysis strongly support the contention that color plays a role in object recognition. This suggests that the role of color should be taken into account in models of visual object recognition.     

Color primitivism

The typical kind of color realism is reductive: the color properties are identified with properties specified in other terms (as ways of altering light, for instance). If no reductive analysis is available – if the colors are primitive sui generis properties – this is often taken to be a convincing argument for eliminativism. That is, realist primitivism is usually thought to be untenable. The realist preference for reductive theories of color over the last few decades is particularly striking in light of the generally anti-reductionist mood of recent philosophy of mind. The parallels between the mind–body problem and the case of color are substantial enough that the difference in trajectory is surprising. While dualism and non-reductive physicalism are staples, realist primitivism is by and large a recent addition to the color literature. And it remains a minority position, although one that is perhaps gaining support. In this paper, we investigate whether it should be accepted, and conclude it should not be.     

物体颜色与质地相似度对幼儿归纳推理的影响

设计了3个实验任务,探讨物体颜色相似度与质地相似度对140名4~6岁幼儿和40名成年人的归纳推理的影响。结果发现,在任务1中,当靶物体质地保持不变时,幼儿和成年人在归纳推理中倾向于选择与靶物体在颜色上更相似的物体;在任务2中,当靶物体颜色不变时,幼儿和成年人倾向于选择与靶物体在质地上更相似的物体;在任务3中,当测试物体在颜色相似度和质地相似度上发生相反变化时,4岁幼儿显著地依赖于质地相似度进行归纳,颜色相似度在5~6岁时的重要性明显提高,但仍略低于质地相似性,差异不显著,这表明颜色相似度和质地相似度在幼儿的归纳推理中具有不同程度的重要性。对成年人而言,颜色相似度虽然看起来比质地相似度相对更重要性,但差异不显著。     

Recalibrating color categories using world knowledge

ABSTRACT— When the perceptual system uses color to facilitate object recognition, it must solve the color-constancy problem: The light an object reflects to an observer's eyes confounds properties of the source of the illumination with the surface reflectance of the object. Information from the visual scene ( bottom-up information) is insufficient to solve this problem. We show that observers use world knowledge about objects and their prototypical colors as a source of top-down information to improve color constancy. Specifically, observers use world knowledge to recalibrate their color categories. Our results also suggest that similar effects previously observed in language perception are the consequence of a general perceptual process.     

Color,Relativism, and Realism

It is plausible to think that some animals perceive the world as coloreddifferently from the way humans perceive it. I argue that the best way ofaccommodating this fact is to adopt perceiver-relativism, the view that colorpredicates express relations between objects and types of perceivers.Perceiver-relativism makes no claim as to the identity of color properties;it is compatible with both physicalism and dispositionalism. I arguehowever for a response-dependence version of it according to which an object counts as red (for a type of perceiver) iff it standardly looks red to normal perceivers (of that type). Finally, I develop a notion of minimal realism on which this account counts as realist despite its subjectivist elements, in that it is committed to the objectivityof truth.     

颜色知觉恒常理论的回顾

本文对早期颜色恒常理论、系数理论、计算理论和 Octant模型作了简要回顾 ,并结合已有的研究成果进行评述。对影响颜色恒常性机制的主要因素进行了探讨。强调了知觉经验、记忆、认知决策等高级意识活动对颜色恒常知觉的作用 ,并尝试性地提出了描述颜色恒常知觉过程的一般参照框架。     

Young Children's Sensitivity to Speaker Gender When Learning From Others

This research explores whether young children are sensitive to speaker gender when learning novel information from others. Four- and 6-year-olds (N = 144) chose between conflicting statements from a male versus a female speaker (Studies 1 and 3) or decided which speaker (male or female) they would ask (Study 2) when learning about the functions of novel objects. Some objects were in gender-typing colors (light pink or navy blue), and some were in a gender-ambiguous color (yellow). The results indicated that children did use speaker gender to guide their learning, by either consistently choosing to agree with the speakers of their own gender or making choices that are associated with gender stereotypes about color. The findings are discussed in relation to how in-group preference and stereotype attributions might influence children's learning from others.     

ON THE DUAL REFERENT APPROACH TO COLOUR THEORY

A dual referent approach to colour theory maintains that colour names have two intended, equally legitimate referents. For example, one might argue that 'red' refers both to red appearances or qualia, and also to the way red objects reflect light, the spectral surface reflectance properties of red things. I argue that normal cases of perceptual relativity can be used to support a dual referent approach, yielding an understanding of colour whose natural extension includes abnormal cases of perceptual relativity. This contrasts with Peacocke's multi-referent view, according to which such abnormal cases force us to introduce a wholly distinct kind of colour experience. I also argue that the two uses of colour names, arising from their two referents, have different extensions, even in normal perceptual circumstances, a consequence which conflicts with the heart of Rosenthal's dual referent view.     

Is meaning implicated in illusory conjunctions?

According to feature-integration theory, when attention is diverted from a display, features from different objects in that display may be wrongly recombined, giving rise to "illusory conjunctions" (Treisman & Schmidt, 1982). Two experiments are reported that examine the nature of these illusory conjunctions. In displays that contain color names and adjectives printed in colored ink, subjects made two kinds of interesting and previously unreported errors. Consider, for example, a display that included the word BROWN in red ink and the word HEAVY in green ink. Subjects would sometimes incorrectly report that the word RED or the ink color brown had appeared in the display (e.g., RED in green ink or HEAVY in brown ink). It appears that subjects extract semantic representations from input and are sometimes confused about whether a particular representation has been extracted from a word or a color patch. Contrary to feature-integration theory, these findings suggest that illusory conjunctions may occur with high-level codes as well as with perceptual features.     

材料类型和颜色典型性影响颜色-物体Stroop效应

通过两个实验考查材料类型和颜色典型性对颜色-物体Stroop效应的影响。实验1,考查颜色-物体（图片）Stroop效应。结果颜色典型性差异显著,命名图片的颜色和图片的名称都产生显著的颜色-物体Stroop效应。实验2,考查颜色-物体（词语）Stroop效应。结果颜色典型性差异显著,命名词语的颜色产生颜色-物体Stroop效应,命名词语的名称未产生颜色-物体Stroop效应。结论,材料类型和颜色典型性影响颜色-物体Stroop效应。