h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Arnie - not exactly red specific receptors (see my earlier post). Also, there is a strong case that language affects our perceptions of colour. The debate about it is still unresolved, but if you're interested in the case for linguistic relativism, you might try:[Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]"Abstract: Categorization is a fundamental property of human cognition. This article presents a summary of recent research that has re-examined the nature of linguistic and nonlinguistic color categories and the relationship between them. Improvements in experimental paradigms combined with a better understanding of the relationship between physiology and higher-level cognition have led to a clearer understanding of the complexities of the relationship between culture, language, cognition and perception. It is concluded that possession of linguistic color categories facilitates recognition and influences perceptual judgments, even in languages with terms that are less abstract than English. Cognitive categories for color appear to be tightly tied to the linguistic terms used to describe them."Mu Beta,"Also, the language of colours always evolves the same way. Black and white are always the first words developed, followed by red, green, blue and brown."This is Berlin and Kay's 1969 "Basic Color Terms, their Universality and Evolution", which you can read about at:http://www.putlearningfirst.com/language/research/colour_words.htmlIt's still hotly debated...

Oh I meant to add:Even stranger, there is some evidence that language might affect perception of colours in the right hand side of the visual field, but not in the left.[Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]

Dogster - it'd be nice to see some links that work. However, I'll take your word for it. I can't remember where I read it in the first place.

"Black comes from Germanic mean 'burn'. As in pots, presumably."

Is it just my default font that made that look unexpectedly rude?

B

Jeez they really made a hash of that post - why did they put it all into one paragraph I wonder? I'm not sure why they considered these links to be broken or unsuitable, so here they are again, including how you can find them in case they decide to bizarrely censor them again:

The Berlin and Kay link should be:

http://www.putlearningfirst.com/language/research/colour_words.html

The linguistic relativism one to Arnie is:

http://www.essex.ac.uk/psychology/psy/PEOPLE/roberson/Color%20Categories.pdf

Which is just this paper:

Roberson, D. (2005) Color categories are culturally diverse in cognition as well as in language. Cross-Cultural Research, 39, 56-71

Which you can find on this page:

http://www.essex.ac.uk/psychology/psy/PEOPLE/roberson/roberson.html

In my second post I posted this link:

http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/~kay/brain2.pdf

to this paper:

Further evidence that Whorfian effects are stronger in the right visual field than the left. G. V. Drivonikou, P. Kay, T. Regier, R. B. Ivry, A. L. Gilbert, A. Franklin, and I. R. L. Davies. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 104, 1097-1102. (2007).

Available at this page:

http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/~kay/