A reference volume and playful devotional object based on the author's research into color theory informed by psychology, mysticism, and early modernism. The Color-Word Value Index has 44 word pairings; 10 colors; 5 suits; and values of positive, negative, and neutral"--Women's Studio Workshop website, viewed December 14, 2021.

An exposition of Kripke's unpublished critique of dispositionalism about color, followed by a review of some recent defenses of dispositionalism and a sketch of some objections that could be made to these defenses from a broadly Kripkean perspective.

To process information selectively and to continuously fine-tune selectivity of information processing are important abilities for successful goal-directed behavior. One phenomenon thought to represent this fine-tuning are conflict adaptation effects in interference tasks, i.e. reduction of interference after an incompatible trial and when incompatible trials are frequent. The neurocognitive mechanisms of these effects are currently only partly understood and results from brainimaging studies so far are mixed. In our study we validate and extend recent findings by examining adaption to recent (...) conflict in the classical Stroop task using functional magnetic resonance imaging. Consistent with previous research we found increased activity in a fronto-parietal network comprising the medial prefrontal cortex, ventro-lateral prefrontal cortex, and posterior parietal cortex when contrasting incompatible with compatible trials. These areas have been associated with attentional processes and might reflect increased cognitive conflict and resolution thereof during incompatible trials. While carefully controlling for non-attentional sequential effects we found smaller Stroop interference after an incompatible trial (conflict adaptation effect). These behavioral conflict adaptation effects were accompanied by changes in activity in visual color-selective areas (V4, V4α), while there was no modulation by previous trial compatibility in a visual word-selective area (VWFA). Our results provide further evidence for the notion, that adaptation to recent conflict seems to be based mainly on enhancement of processing of the task-relevant information. (shrink)

When asked to identify objects having unique shapes and colors among other objects, English speakers often produce redundant color modifiers (“the red circle”) while Spanish speakers produce them less often (“el circulo (rojo)”). This cross‐linguistic difference has been attributed to a difference in word order between the two languages, under the incremental efficiency hypothesis (Rubio‐Fernández, Mollica, & Jara‐Ettinger, 2020). However, previous studies leave open the possibility that broad language differences between English and Spanish may explain this cross‐linguistic difference (...) such that English speakers may generally produce more modifiers than Spanish speakers, including redundant ones, irrespective of word order. Here, we test the incremental efficiency hypothesis in a language production task crossing language (English, Spanish) with modifier type (color, number). Critically, number words occur on the same side of the noun in both English and Spanish. If broad language differences are responsible for the higher rate of color word production in English compared to Spanish, then the same effect should hold for number words. In contrast, the incremental efficiency hypothesis predicts an interaction between language and modifier type, due to different ordering for color words but identical ordering for number words. Our pre‐registered analyses offer strong support for the incremental efficiency hypothesis, demonstrating how seemingly small differences in language can cause us to describe the world in surprisingly different ways. (shrink)

A neighbor who strikes it rich evokes both admiration and envy, and a similar mix of emotions must be aroused in many neighborhoods of cognitive science when the residents look at the results of research in color perception. It provides what is probably the most widely acknowledged success story of any domain of scientific psychology: the success, against all expectation, of the opponent process theory of color perception. Initially proposed by a Ewald Hering, a nineteenth century physiologist, it (...) drew its inspiration from the existence of opposing muscle groups. Hering thought that analogous opposing processes could explain some aspects of color perception, but the resulting theory was more complicated and less intuitive than that proposed by the great Hermann von Helmholtz. Helmholtz carried his day, but in the long run Hering turned out to be right. (shrink)

In two experiments, we examined the impact of color on cognitive performance by asking participants to categorize stimuli presented in three different colors: red, green, and gray (baseline). Participants were either asked to categorize the meaning of words as related to the concepts of “go” or “stop” (Experiment 1) or to indicate if a neutral verbal stimulus was a word or not (lexical decision task, Experiment 2). Overall, we observed performance facilitation in response to go stimuli presented in (...) green (vs. red or gray) and performance inhibition in response to go stimuli presented in red. The opposite pattern was observed for stop‐related stimuli. Importantly, results also indicated that color might also be used to categorize neutral stimuli. Overall, these findings provide support to the green‐go and red‐stop color associations and test the potential functional autonomy acquired by these colors and the boundary conditions to their effects on stimuli categorization. (shrink)

Image data serves as a valuable resource for investigating relationships between colors and emotions. This study conducts an image-based visual corpus analysis on the color associations of 100 Chinese emotion words, aiming to uncover the pivotal roles of colors in understanding emotional concepts. The study addresses two primary objectives: (i) examining the interrelations among four affective properties (valence, arousal, prototypicality, and emotionality) and four image-based color attributes (Jz: a dimension depicting black–white color distinction, Az: a dimension for (...) green-red, Bz: a dimension for blue–yellow, and color variability) associated with these emotion words; and (ii) assessing the efficacy of image-based color information in profiling affective (dis)similarities among different emotion words. The empirical results reveal (i) significant positive correlations between color variability and arousal, Jz and valence, Az and arousal, Bz and valence, as well as a negative correlation between Jz and prototypicality; (ii) the effectiveness of image-based color information in depicting the valence-dominated affective (dis)similarities among the 100 Chinese emotion words. This study contributes image-based empirical support to complement existing research on color-emotion mappings. Moreover, it advances methodological approaches by advocating for the utilisation of image data to address theoretical inquiries in cognitive science. (shrink)

In their article ‘In defense of incompatibility, objectivism, and veridicality about color’ P. Roberts and K. Schmidtke offer the results of an experiment supposed to show that if selection of colored samples representing unique hues for subjects has a greater inter-subject variability than identification of sample pairs with no perceptual difference between them the result provides support for the philosophical concept of color realism. On examining the results in detail, we find that, according to standard statistical methodology, the (...) relative magnitude of inter-subject variability in the matching experiment is for both tested colors larger than that in the naming experiment, thus invalidating their claims. In addition, we point out several serious shortcomings in the experiment. (shrink)

Since the publication of Brent Berlin and Paul Kay's Basic color terms in 1969 there has been continuing debate as to whether or not there are linguistic universals in the restricted domain of color naming. In this paper I am primarily concerned with the attempt to explain the existence of basic color terms in languages. That project utilizes psychological and ultimately physiological generalizations in the explanation of linguistic regularities. The main problem with this strategy is that it (...) cannot account for a particular subset of basic color words: words that the Berlin-Kay tradition calls “composite”. The existence of such words does not compromise the claim that there are basic color words. It does suggest that such words—and basic terms in general—require a more complex type of explanatory strategy than much contemporary work on color naming supposes. It is my main contention that the central problems with the Berlin-Kay tradition arise from the difficulty of linking conceptually and empirically disparate domains: linguistic, psychological, physiological. What is needed is not an attempt to reduce color naming to biology or to culture but, rather, an adequate conceptual account of how people may come to have and use basic color terms—an account which stands between the biological and the cultural. (shrink)

The words “content” and “character” in my title refer to the representational content and phenomenal character of color experiences. So my topic concerns the nature of our experience of color. But I will, of course, be talking about colors as well as color experience. Let me set the stage by mentioning some things, some more controversial than others, that I will be taking for granted. I assume, to begin with, that objects in the world have colors, and (...) have them independently of being perceived to have them, and independently even of there being creatures capable of perceiving them. I think, and this of course sets me apart from the many color irrealists among philosophers and color scientists, that any reasonable semantics for color terms, and any reasonable account of the reference of color concepts, should yield the result that colors are properties of external things that are realized in certain of their physical properties, namely those responsible for their reflecting or emitting the light whose impact on our retinas is involved in causing our color perceptions. This brings me to a further assumption that I shall be making, namely the truth of physicalism. I take physicalism to be the thesis that all properties of things either are or are realized in basic physical properties, where basic physical properties are the properties that underlie the behavior and causal powers of inanimate things. There are two ways in which the commitment to physicalism will figure in my discussion. First, I assume that colors are physically realized properties. Second, I assume that color experiences are physically realized. These two commitments frame the problem I am discussing – how can colors be properties realized in the microphysical properties of things, and how can color experience be so realized? I don’t think there is any generally accepted account of what it is for a property to be “realized in” other properties. For those who think, as I do, that properties are individuated by their causal features, it should seem plausible to say that property P realizes property Q just in case the forward looking causal features of Q are a subset of the forward looking causal features of P, and the backward looking.... (shrink)

The idea that an utterance of a basic (nondeviant) declarative sentence expresses a single true-or-false proposition has dominated philosophical discussions of meaning in this century. Refinements aside, this idea is less of a substantive theses than it is a background assumption against which particular theories of meaning are evaluated. But there are phenomena (noted by Frege, Strawson, and Grice) that threaten at least the completeness of classical theories of meaning, which associate with an utterance of a simple sentence a truth-condition, (...) a Russellian proposition, or a Fregean thought. And it may well be the case that a framework within which utterances express sequences of propositions provides much of what is needed to account for the relevant phenomena, a better overall picture of the way language works, and an enticingly uniform perspective on a variety of semantic problems. I do not myself take to theories that multiply propositions by appealing to propositions “presupposed” or to pairs of Fregean and Russellian propositions, or theories that show no respect for a distinction between semantics and pragmatics— where the former is the study of propositions whose general form and character is determined by word meaning and syntax—or for theories that blithely abandon general principles of composition and semantic innocence. I would like to sketch a package based on four interconnected ideas: (i) the meaning of an individual word is a sequence of instructions for generating a sequence of propositions (in conjunction with compositional instructions (syntax) and elements of context); (ii) utterances themselves are not bearers of truth or falsity; (iii) judgements of truth, falsity, commitment, and conflict are shaped, in part, by the weights attached to individual 1 propositions that occur in sequences expressed by utterances, weights that may be set (and reset) by contextual considerations; (iv) Fregean senses are superfluous; propositions might as well be Russellian (Mont Blanc and all its snow fields will do as well as any mode of presentation).. (shrink)

Do English-speakers think about anger as “red” and sadness as “blue”? Some theories of emotion suggests that color(s) - like other biologically-derived signals- should be reliably paired with an emotion, and that colors should differentiate across emotions. We assessed consistency and specificity for color-emotion pairings among English-speaking adults. In study 1, participants (n = 73) completed an online survey in which they could select up to three colors from 23 colored swatches (varying hue, saturation, and light) for each (...) of ten emotion words. In study 2, different participants (n = 52) completed a similar online survey except that we added additional emotions and colors (which better sampled color space). Participants in both studies indicated the strength of the relationship between a selected color(s) and the emotion. In study 1, four of the ten emotions showed consistency, and about one-third of the colors showed specificity, yet agreement was low-to-moderate among raters even in these cases. When we resampled our data, however, none of these effects were likely to replicate with statistical confidence. In study 2, only two of twenty emotions showed consistency, and three colors showed specificity. As with the first study, no color-emotion pairings were both specific and consistent. In addition, in study 2, we found that saturation and lightness, and to a lesser extent hue, predicted color-emotion agreement rather than perceived color. The results suggest that previous studies which report emotion-color pairings are likely best thought of experiment-specific. The results are discussed with respect to constructionist theories of emotion. (shrink)

El color en la historia -- El color en la historia de México -- Teorías y visión del color -- Gramática del color -- El color en las religiones -- El color en la literatura -- El color en la poesía -- El color en la pintura -- El color en la música -- El color en la política -- El color en la moda -- El color en (...) la publicidad -- El color y sus extensiones simbólicas. (shrink)

Three experiments investigated two timed implicit tests of memory—word reading and color naming. Using the study–test procedure, Experiments 1 and 2 showed that studied words caused reliable facilitation in word reading but no interference in color naming relative to unstudied words. Indeed, there was a small amount of facilitation in color naming as well. Experiment 3 further explored the color naming task by alternating shorter study and test intervals and adding control trials consisting of (...) letter strings. Although both studied and unstudied words showed interference relative to the control letter strings, the amounts of interference they showed did not differ. Overall, word reading consistently displayed facilitation whereas color naming never exhibited increased interference due to word priming. Priming appears to be process-specific: It is restricted to facilitating repetition of processing previously applied to a stimulus and does not extend to influencing performance on a different task involving the same studied materials. (shrink)

red and round. According to common sense, the red, round thing we see is the tomato itself. When we have a hallucinatory vision of a tomato, however, there may be present to us no red and round phys- ical object. Still, we use the words 'red' and 'round' to describe that situation as well, this time applying them to the visual experience itself. We say that we have a red, round visual image, or a visual experience of a red disk, (...) or some such. Because we see physical objects far more often than we hallucinate, we apply terms for color and shape to physical objects far more often than to visual experiences. Moreover, different theories of perception explain in different ways the applications such terms have to physical objects and to visual experiences. But whatever their frequency and explanation, it seems clear that both sorts of application occur. (shrink)

Conceptual metaphors crucially shape how people understand and represent abstract concepts like love. Numerous Chinese linguistic metaphors associate love (beginning/continuing a romantic relationship) with red (e.g. 红豆相思) and lovelorn (breakup/end of a romantic relationship) with gray (e.g. 万念俱灰). However, empirical evidence supporting these color metaphors for love concepts is lacking. This study investigated the red-gray color metaphor for love concepts in Chinese. Experiment 1 used a Stroop test where participants categorized love/lovelorn words in red/gray fonts. Results showed significantly (...) faster latencies for love words in red versus gray fonts, but no difference for lovelorn words. Experiment 2 used an implicit association test (IAT), where the compatible block paired red squares with love words and gray squares with lovelorn words, and vice versa in the incompatible block. Results showed that participants implicitly associated love words with red colors and lovelorn words with gray colors. Together, these experiments provide novel empirical evidence that native Chinese speakers activate metaphorical red-gray color mappings for love concepts, contributing insights into how abstract love concepts are grounded in embodied experiences. Future research could explore color-love metaphors across cultures, paradigms, and gender-balanced samples. (shrink)

The sensory colors that figure in visual perceptual experience are either properties of the object of consciousness (naïve realism, sense-data theory), or properties of the subject of consciousness (adverbialism) (Section 1). I consider an argument suggested by the work of A. D. Smith that the existence of certain kinds of perceptual constancies shows that adverbialism is correct, for only adverbialism can account for such constancies (Section 3). I respond on behalf of the naïve realist that naïve realism is compatible with (...) the existence of such constancies, so long as naïve realism adopts the view that sensory colors are relational properties of physical objects, not intrinsic properties (Section 4). In other words, the naïve realist should adopt the theory of appearing (Section 5). (shrink)

The study of color expanded rapidly in the 20th century. With this expansion came fragmentation, as philosophers, physicists, physiologists, psychologists, and others explored the subject in vastly different ways. There are at least two ways in which the study of color became contentious. The first was with regard to the definitional question: what is color? The second was with the location question: are colors inside the head or out in the world? In this chapter, we summarize the (...) most prominent answers that color scientists and philosophers gave to the definitional and location questions in the 20th century. We identify some of the different points at which their work intersected, as well as the most prominent schisms between them. One overarching theme of the chapter is the surprising proliferation of different views on color. Whereas some assume that progress in science must take the form of convergence, the 20th century history of color exhibited a marked divergence in views. This chapter leaves it an open question whether an ultimate unification of views is possible, or whether the only thing that ties together the study of “color” is the shared inheritance of a word. (shrink)

You may speak of a chain, or if you please, a net. An analogy is of little aid. Each cause brings about future events. Without each the future would not be the same. Each is proximate in the sense it is essential. But that is not what we mean by the word. Nor on the other hand do we mean sole cause. There is no such thing.