Color and language in Somali and US observers

Ohio State University, The, Columbus OH

Investigators

Abstract

This research aims to understand the interaction of language and culture on the perception of color. The Standard Model of color vision asserts that the visual system of all humans with normal color vision is organized around six fundamental sensations in a color-opponent fashion: red vs. green, blue vs. yellow, and black vs. white. Yet most of the world languages do not have a specific term for the colors that English speakers call "blue." Some speakers use a word meaning black, others use the term gray to mean blue, and still others use a single word that means green-or-blue. In what sense, then, is the mental representation of color in these individuals "color-opponent" if identical names are given to two sensations that fall on two presumptively independent color dimensions? How do the language differences affect how people think about color? To answer this, color naming studies will examine in detail the structures of the named color categories in monolingual American English speakers and a group of recent immigrants from Somalia who now live in Columbus, OH. The Somalis, who do not yet speak English, do not use a specific word for blue. Experiments based on color sorting and similarity, which do not require a color name response, will examine the possibility that classical color-opponency is observable in their non-language representation of color. Control studies of spectral sensitivity and discrimination will test for the possible interplay between cultural and sensory factors (including congenital and acquired impairments in color vision) in shaping an individual's mental representation of color. This research will contribute to understanding the foundational processes by which innate and cultural factors shape an individual's understanding of their world. In addition, it will bring the Somalis, who came to the US as refugees from political upheaval, into a research environment in a university and will give students a better understanding of people from a vastly different culture.