颜色范畴知觉效应发生在大脑两半球：来自纳西族和汉族的证据

采用色环搜索单任务和双任务范式, 考察语言中区分蓝、绿的汉族和语言中蓝、绿混用的纳西族对蓝色和绿色的辨别是否存在颜色范畴知觉效应(Categorical perception, 以下简称为CP效应)。结果发现：(1)纳西族对蓝色和绿色的区分比汉族困难, 体现了语言的作用; (2)语言中蓝、绿混用的纳西族与语言中区分蓝、绿的汉族都出现显著的蓝绿CP效应; (3)两个民族被试的左视野的CP效应受到图形记忆次任务的显著干扰, 说明左视野的CP效应与右脑激活有关。整个研究表明, 颜色CP效应既存在普遍的知觉机制, 也存在语言驱动机制, 语言的作用存在直接效应。研究结果支持颜色词与颜色认知的相互作用理论。

Categorical perception of color is significant both in the right visual field and the left: Evidence from Naxi speakers and Mandarin speakers

Categorical perception (CP) effect indicates that people are faster and more accurately at discriminating between two colors from different categories than two colors from the same category, even when between- and within-category chromatic separation sizes are equated. CP effect is an important evidence for the controversy between Sapir-Whorf hypothesis and the Universal Evolution theory (UE). The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis holds that CP is language-driven. They found that CP is left-lateralized and is disrupted by verbal, but not by nonverbal interference task. Moreover, the language-driven CP also got support from cross-language researches and neurophysiological studies. However, the Universal Evolution theory (UE) holds that CP effect results from universal focal colors and is independent from language. The current study presented three experiments that replicated and extended the earlier studies by using the same task but different participants. We compared green-blue discrimination of Chinese Naxi ethnic who speaks Naxi language and Chinese Han ethnic who speaks Mandarin. The two ethnics have different semantic boundaries of green-blue.