The question is: is a colour seen if it doesn't have a name?
The answer is Yes, as Berkeley cognitive psychologist Eleanor Rosch in a series of studies on so-called "natural" categories in 1973-75.
However, more recent studies are finding nevertheless that language affects our categorization of perceptual continua and substantial evidence of cognitive color differences between different language communities, particularly on where the boundaries of these natural categories for colors are set, e.g.
Color categories: Evidence for the cultural relativity hypothesis (2004.10.15) - Debi Roberson, Jules Davidoff, Ian R.L. Davies and Laura R. Shapiro
Roberson, Davies, & Davidoff (2000) reported a series of experiments that set out to replicate and extend the work of Rosch Heider in the early 1970s (Heider and Olivier, 1972 and Rosch Heider, 1972). Rosch Heider's experiments had been particularly influential in promoting the view that language and cognitive experience are largely independent (in some cases, orthogonal). Investigating another traditional culture, Roberson et al. found substantial differences in perceptual judgments and memory performance between a language with eleven basic color terms and one with only five (Berinmo). These differences, unlike the data of Rosch Heider from Dani speakers, suggested that language not only facilitates memory performance, but also affects the perceived similarity of perceptual stimuli; a result also found in other cross-cultural investigations of color (Kay and Kempton, 1984 and Stefflre et al., 1966). <...> Perceptual continua such as color may thus be a special case for categorization with the consequence that the influence of culture (and language as the instrument of culture) may be strongest just for those `fuzzy' sets for which there are not obvious discontinuities in nature. Indeed, our recent developmental studies show that Himba children behave like English children in making color similarity judgments when both know no color names (Roberson et al., in press). Initially, both judge color similarity on perceptual grounds. Thereafter, the origins of the color categories in different societies might be constrained by different cultural or environmental needs (Nisbett et al., 2001, Sera et al., 2002, Wierzbicka, 1990 and Wierzbicka, 1992), but this question is beyond the scope of the present study. Whatever the origin of the observed differences between the color terminologies of different societies, linguistic categorization, in adults, appears isomorphic with cognitive representation. Perceptual space appears to be distorted at the boundaries of color categories, so that, even when two languages have the same number of terms and those terms cluster around similar points in perceptual space, speakers of those languages show significant differences in their cognitive organization of color space. Thus, when considering whether two sets of categories are effectively equivalent, the position of the category boundaries should be considered of, at least, equal importance with the category centers. [emphasis mine]
<...>
Perceptual continua such as color may thus be a special case for categorization with the consequence that the influence of culture (and language as the instrument of culture) may be strongest just for those `fuzzy' sets for which there are not obvious discontinuities in nature. Indeed, our recent developmental studies show that Himba children behave like English children in making color similarity judgments when both know no color names (Roberson et al., in press). Initially, both judge color similarity on perceptual grounds. Thereafter, the origins of the color categories in different societies might be constrained by different cultural or environmental needs (Nisbett et al., 2001, Sera et al., 2002, Wierzbicka, 1990 and Wierzbicka, 1992), but this question is beyond the scope of the present study. Whatever the origin of the observed differences between the color terminologies of different societies, linguistic categorization, in adults, appears isomorphic with cognitive representation. Perceptual space appears to be distorted at the boundaries of color categories, so that, even when two languages have the same number of terms and those terms cluster around similar points in perceptual space, speakers of those languages show significant differences in their cognitive organization of color space. Thus, when considering whether two sets of categories are effectively equivalent, the position of the category boundaries should be considered of, at least, equal importance with the category centers.
[emphasis mine]
but can one extrapolate to suggest that a lack of language (or in this case, the lack of a name or any cultural value in naming) leads to non-categorization? ;-)
To bring out the chestnut again: my father, a non-artistic accountant, could only see the difference between 3 or 4 greens on a Dulux colour paint chart (though he could identify darker and lighter greens). My 7 years art training meant that I could differentiate over a whole range of greens of similar tone. I'm guessing - but maybe by a factor of 10. My dad just couldn't see them. You can't be me, I'm taken
I shall have to look up some experiments in this field. You can't be me, I'm taken
Language Log: Sasha Aikhenvald on Inuit snow words: a clarification
The story about Inuit (or Inuktitut, or Yup'ik, or more generally, Eskimo) words for snow is completely wrong. People say that speakers of these languages have 23, or 42, or 50, or 100 words for snow --- the numbers often seem to have been picked at random. The spread of the myth was tracked in a paper by Laura Martin (American Anthropologist 88 (1986), 418-423), and publicized more widely by a later humorous embroidering of the theme by G. K. Pullum (reprinted as chapter 19 of his 1991 book of essays The Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax). But the Eskimoan language group uses an extraordinary system of multiple, recursively addable derivational suffixes for word formation called postbases. The list of snow-referring roots to stick them on isn't that long: qani- for a snowflake, api- for snow considered as stuff lying on the ground and covering things up, a root meaning "slush", a root meaning "blizzard", a root meaning "drift", and a few others -- very roughly the same number of roots as in English. Nonetheless, the number of distinct words you can derive from them is not 50, or 150, or 1500, or a million, but simply unbounded. Only stamina sets a limit.
Language and mental categories are more than vocabulary. My wife can use much more words for colors than I do, yet I don't think she actually sees more colors than me - her additional vocabulary (taken from "real world items" in the fashion of rose and orange) makes sense to me.
I'd bet there would be more success looking for vocabulary determining conceptualisation in the more abstract categories of language - Do you have a conceptual category for your maternal cousins as opposed to your paternal ones ? Many people do... Un roi sans divertissement est un homme plein de misères
I can't think of any colour neologisms on English. But someone will no doubt prove me wrong. Colour names have changed over the millennia, but that is the natural morphing/erosion of language - another process. You can't be me, I'm taken
