颜色类别知觉效应的机制：语言的作用

颜色类别知觉效应(Category Perception, CP效应)表明, 在颜色之间物理差异距离相等的前提下, 个体区分不同类别的颜色比区分同一类别的颜色更快、更准确。这一效应产生的机制成为普遍进化理论和Sapir-Whorf假设之间争论的重要证据。支持CP效应由语言驱动的学者提出了CP效应单侧化、受语言即时任务影响、跨语言研究和神经生理机制等证据, 以表明语言在CP效应中起决定性的作用; 支持CP效应具有普遍性的学者以CP效应双侧化、婴儿的CP效应、跨语言的反证等证据提出了质疑。近年来, 出现了第三种观点, 认为在颜色CP效应中语言驱动机制和普遍机制并存, 这种理论是普遍进化理论和Whorf假设的折衷观点。从支持CP效应由语言驱动的证据、支持CP效应独立于语言的证据以及支持两种机制并存的观点等三个方面入手, 可分析颜色CP效应的产生机制及语言在其中所起的作用, 未来研究可从概念系统渗入知觉系统的角度进行拓展。     

Developmental color perception.

The purpose of this research is to extend the investigation of surface color perception to several age levels. The 108-item color perception test, originally used with young children, employs six Munsell hue matrices divided into nine combinations each of low, mid, and high chroma and low, mid, and high value across two levels of hue difficulty. The pattern of error results are the same across the age groups comprising kindergartners, fifth graders, high school sophomores, nonartist adults, and professional artists: the lower the chroma and value, the higher the error rate; the higher the chroma and value, the lower the error rate. In hues, green and red are most difficult; orange and yellow are easiest. The frequency of error is linear with respect to age: the younger the group, the higher the error. The latency data differ with respect to age: adults are slowest, followed by kindergartners and fifth graders. High school sophomores are the fastest. The remaining latency results parallel the error results: the lower the chroma and value, the longer the latency and the more difficult the hue, the longer the latency. A set of surface color perception rules are generated.     

New dimensions in color perception

Colors are generally ordered in three dimensions, with hue and saturation as polar coordinates of a color circle, and brightness as the third dimension. Intuitively, lines of constant hue (but variable saturation) in such a color space should converge on an achromatic point devoid of hue. However, in new experiments by Ekroll et al. using colored patches in colored surrounds, constant hue lines converge not on 'gray' but on the surround color. This paradoxical observation suggests that the standard three-dimensional conception of perceived color is inadequate.     

The phenomenological character of color perception

When an object looks red to an observer, the visual experience of the observer has two important features. The experience visually represents the object as having a property—being red. And the experience has a phenomenological character; that is, there is something that it is like to have an experience of seeing an object as red. Let qualia be the properties that give our sensory and perceptual experiences their phenomenological character. This essay takes up two related problem for a nonreductive account of qualia. Some have argued that on such an account there is no room in a physicalist ontology for qualia. Section 1 shows how qualia might fit into a physicalist ontology. The second problem begins with the observation that there is a gap in scientific accounts of color experience; there is no explanation of why the features of the brain that determine our color experiences give those experiences their phenomenological character. Building on the results of Sect. 1, Sect. 2 develops an account of color perception that bridges this gap and shows how qualia give color perception its phenomenological character. To get a grip on the issues involved the paper begins by considering some aspects of a physicalist account of color.     

The perception of color from motion

We introduce and explore a color phenomenon which requires the prior perception of motion to produce a spread of color over a region defined by motion. We call this motion-induced spread of colordynamic color spreading. The perception of dynamic color spreading is yoked to the perception of apparent motion: As the ratings of perceived motion increase, the ratings of color spreading increase. The effect is most pronounced if the region defined by motion is near 1° of visual angle. As the luminance     

The empirical basis of color perception

Rationalizing the perceptual effects of spectral stimuli has been a major challenge in vision science for at least the last 200 years. Here we review evidence that this otherwise puzzling body of phenomenology is generated by an empirical strategy of perception in which the color an observer sees is entirely determined by the probability distribution of the possible sources of the stimulus. The rationale for this strategy in color vision, as in other visual perceptual domains, is the inherent ambiguity of the real-world origins of any spectral stimulus.     

Role of color in perception of attractiveness

In this color study females reported a favorite color significantly more often than males. Males preferred bright colors significantly more than females, with a converse finding for preference for soft colors. The 276 subjects, when asked to evaluate the attractiveness of stimulus models in photographs, gave as the reason color significantly more often than style of clothing or facial expressions. Subjects significantly concurred with expert choices of recommended and nonrecommended colors in five of the six sets of photographs. This study lends credence that wearing recommended colors makes a difference in judgments of what looks best by subjects over the age of 12.     

Neurophysiological evidence for categorical perception of color

The aim of this investigation was to examine the time course and the relative contributions of perceptual and post-perceptual processes to categorical perception (CP) of color. A visual oddball task was used with standard and deviant stimuli from same (within-category) or different (between-category) categories, with chromatic separations for within- and between-category stimuli equated in Munsell Hue. CP was found on a behavioral version of the task, with faster RTs and greater accuracy for between- compared to within-category stimuli. On a neurophysiological version of the task, event-related potentials (ERPs) showed earlier latencies for P1 and N1 components at posterior locations to between- relative to within-category deviants, providing novel evidence for early perceptual processes on color CP. Enhanced P2 and P3 waves were also found for between- compared to within-category stimuli, indicating a role for later post-perceptual processes.     

The influence of color on the perception of scene gist

In 3 experiments the authors used a new contextual bias paradigm to explore how quickly information is extracted from a scene to activate gist, whether color contributes to this activation, and how color contributes, if it does. Participants were shown a brief presentation of a scene followed by the name of a target object. The target object could be consistent or inconsistent with scene gist but was never actually present in the scene. Scene gist activation was operationalized as the degree to which participants respond "yes" to consistent versus inconsistent objects, reflecting a response bias produced by scene gist. Experiment 1 demonstrated that scene gist is activated after a 42-ms exposure and that the strength of the activation increases with longer presentation durations. Experiments 2 and 3 explored the contribution of color to the activation of scene gist. The results revealed that color has an influence across a wide variety of scenes and is directly associated with scene gist.     

The effect of Stroop interference on the categorical perception of color

In two experiments, we examined the effects of Stroop interference on the categorical perception (CP; better cross-category than within-category discrimination) of color. Using a successive two-alternative forced choice recognition paradigm (deciding which of two stimuli was identical to a previously presented target), which combined to-be-remembered colors with congruent and incongruent Stroop words, we found that congruent color words facilitated CP, whereas incongruent color words reduced CP. However, this was the case only when Stroop interference was presented together with the target color, but not when Stroop stimuli were introduced at the test stage. This suggests that target name, but not test name generation, affects CP. Target name generation may be important for CP because it acts as a category prime, which, in turn, facilitates cross-category discrimination.     

Studying speech perception in adolescent school-age children by utilizing primary color perception

Since both speech and color have perceptual ramifications in language, the present study was developed to study speech perception through color perception. With the recent advances in perception generally and color perception specifically, this nontraditional approach to studying speech perception appeared reasonable. The 12 consonants utilized in this study generated 144 pairs of nonsense CV-syllables. The consonant ensemble was selected because it accommodated a maximum number of phonological features with a minimum number of phonemes. The 46 subjects, who were in junior high school with an age range of 11 through 14 years, responded to each of the stimulus pairs by assigning (associating) to it one of the six primary colors. Because of the perceptual orderliness associated with subjects' judgments, the results indicated that color can be used to study speech perception. Specific findings included the retrieval of sameness, fronting (or place), and voicing.This study is based on a master's thesis presented to the Graduate School, Tennessee State University in Nashville. The authors gratefully acknowledge the cooperation and assistance of the Speech and Hearing Institute at the University of Texas Health Science Center-Houston.