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The linguistic relativist's position (Sapir-Whorf hypothesis) is specifically that people with different color words perceive colors differently. It's mostly d

by SamBam 10y ago

The linguistic relativist's position (Sapir-Whorf hypothesis) is specifically that people with different color words perceive colors differently. It's mostly discredited now, but that's exactly the position being discussed in the article.

tetromino_ 10y ago
> It's mostly discredited now Unjustly so. There is experimental evidence that at least in for some languages and some colors, language affects the ability to distinguish colors. Here is one example: http://www.pnas.org/content/104/19/7780.short http://www.pnas.org/content/104/19/7780.short > English and Russian color terms divide the color spectrum differently. Unlike English, Russian makes an obligatory distinction between lighter blues (“goluboy”) and darker blues (“siniy”). We investigated whether this linguistic difference leads to differences in color discrimination. We tested English and Russian speakers in a speeded color discrimination task using blue stimuli that spanned the siniy/goluboy border. We found that Russian speakers were faster to discriminate two colors when they fell into different linguistic categories in Russian (one siniy and the other goluboy) than when they were from the same linguistic category (both siniy or both goluboy). Moreover, this category advantage was eliminated by a verbal, but not a spatial, dual task. These effects were stronger for difficult discriminations (i.e., when the colors were perceptually close) than for easy discriminations (i.e., when the colors were further apart). English speakers tested on the identical stimuli did not show a category advantage in any of the conditions. These results demonstrate that (i) categories in language affect performance on simple perceptual color tasks and (ii) the effect of language is online (and can be disrupted by verbal interference).
int_19h 10y ago
Not quite. The position being discussed in the article is a more nuanced revival, in that not having a distinct word doesn't prevent one from distinguishing the color, but having the word does affect behavior (speed of distinction, grouping of colors where it's called for, association of colors with other things etc).

by SamBam 10y ago

tetromino_ 10y ago

> It's mostly discredited now Unjustly so. There is experimental evidence that at least in for some languages and some colors, language affects the ability to distinguish colors. Here is one example: http://www.pnas.org/content/104/19/7780.short http://www.pnas.org/content/104/19/7780.short > English and Russian color terms divide the color spectrum differently. Unlike English, Russian makes an obligatory distinction between lighter blues (“goluboy”) and darker blues (“siniy”). We investigated whether this linguistic difference leads to differences in color discrimination. We tested English and Russian speakers in a speeded color discrimination task using blue stimuli that spanned the siniy/goluboy border. We found that Russian speakers were faster to discriminate two colors when they fell into different linguistic categories in Russian (one siniy and the other goluboy) than when they were from the same linguistic category (both siniy or both goluboy). Moreover, this category advantage was eliminated by a verbal, but not a spatial, dual task. These effects were stronger for difficult discriminations (i.e., when the colors were perceptually close) than for easy discriminations (i.e., when the colors were further apart). English speakers tested on the identical stimuli did not show a category advantage in any of the conditions. These results demonstrate that (i) categories in language affect performance on simple perceptual color tasks and (ii) the effect of language is online (and can be disrupted by verbal interference).

int_19h 10y ago

Not quite. The position being discussed in the article is a more nuanced revival, in that not having a distinct word doesn't prevent one from distinguishing the color, but having the word does affect behavior (speed of distinction, grouping of colors where it's called for, association of colors with other things etc).