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Re: Color names, color discrimination



At 05:45 PM 11/1/00 -0500, Michael Edmiston wrote:
I think one problem with this question is the muddling of the
words "see" and "perceive" and "describe."

people ... might indeed use different words to
describe what they see. But that does not necessarily mean they actually
sensed different things... they might just describe it differently.

I have an ongoing argument with my wife about the color blue. She wants to
call cyan blue.

Yeah.

It's amazing how color names are used and abused.

There are person-to-person differences. There are cultural
differences. Even considering a specific person (me), there are
context-dependent differences.
1) I know what cyan is. I just checked: I was able to flip to the cyan
chip (100-0-0-0) in my Pantone process color reference in about two
seconds, without looking at the label until afterward, correct the first
time. When I'm hanging around the physics lab or the print shop, I would
feel pretty silly calling that color by any other name.
2) I have a shirt that is that color. If I wanted to ask somebody to
hand me that shirt, I would as for the blue shirt. I would fell silly
calling it a cyan shirt. In a clothing store, I would never ask the clerk
for a "cyan shirt". I haven't done the experiment, but I expect that
asking for a "cyan shirt" would just produce unhappy clerks and no shirts.

I guess it's like a foreign language. In Paris, I don't use German
color-names. In a clothing store, I don't use print-shop color names.

I suppose a latter-day Prof. Henry Higgins could tell what culture you come
from by listening to the color-names you use.

==========

A related point: If you construct a color solid on physics principles (NOT
a Munsell solid based on perception) you notice some odd things.
a) It is amazing how small is the region that non-experts are willing to
call yellow.
b) Conversely, it is amazing how large is the region that non-experts
are willing to call blue.


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At 05:45 PM 11/1/00 -0600, brian whatcott wrote:
The color charts used to elicit this information are both simple
and elegant....

Yeah. Pseudoisochromatic plates. Discussion (including examples!) at:

http://vision.psych.umn.edu/www/people/legge/nathan/nathan.htm

These plates illustrate an important principle of good experiment
design. They check whether people can discriminate color, INDEPENDENT of
what names they give to the colors. They de-muddle the muddled factors
that M.E. mentions above.

Testing for colorblindness by asking the patient to name the colors would
be a markedly inferior experiment design.