If I were to ask you to look around the room and name every color you see…would you have a hard time naming them all? The interface between language and color is fascinating. When I say bamboo green or florid orange are we thinking of the same colors? Probably not.
There is an interesting post at Dolores Labs “Where does “Blue” end and “Red” begin.” Using a mechanical Turk, viewers were presented a random set of ten colors and then asked to name them. These color names were then arranged in a color wheel with the name of each color in that color.
This study was based on the same design as the World Color Study that was begun in the late 70’s to explore -
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existence of universal constraints on cross language color naming
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existence of a partially fixed evolutionary progression according to which languages gain color terms over time
Have some fun today, ask a couple of friends to name the colors you are wearing and vice-versa.
