Comments on: Biology of Color Preference

By: Obstreperous Applesauce

Obstreperous Applesauce — Sat, 20 Feb 2016 23:57:15 +0000

What JC said @ 14.

Let’s flip it around. I have here a book called “Evolution in Color”* (NOT color in evolution) that illustrates how slippery color is to model. On one level modern technology has helped sort things out, but even now if you go into Photoshop you are offered several models to work in.

Keeping that in mind along with the fact that color is a psychological experience and not a physical thing (and that how it’s thought of generally has as much to do with psychology and culture as anything else) makes me wonder if biology is really the first place to go to determine the basis for preferences.

Even though evolution has certainly had a hand in shaping the ranges of sensitivity of cones in the eye (and the supporting apparatus for processing that information), it is very much a general purpose system… and for good reason, no?
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* http://www.amazon.com/Evolution-Color-Frans-Gerritsen/dp/0887401430/ref=la_B001HO9KTU_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1456012410&sr=1-1

By: John Cowan

John Cowan — Sat, 20 Feb 2016 21:13:27 +0000

Any evolutionary explanation for the “girls like pink” meme falls down on the historical fact that pink was the most common color for boys’ clothes in Western culture (including the U.S.) in the early 20C. It was a lighter, more child-like form of military red (as in “redcoats”). Girls were more likely to wear light blue then: we still associate blue with femininity in the conventional dress of the Virgin Mary.

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 11:30:47 +0000

Chris: I think that is exactly correct.

By: Chris King

Chris King — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 01:05:59 +0000

Greg-Gene Hunn (UW Cognitive Anthropology) once related to me what I thought was the best explanation for the number of Mono-lexeme color terms in different cultures. This was that it might be shown that a language that is spoken for some reason over different environments would be more likely to have a proliferation of color terms so that they could communicate with each other. One of the stipulations in the color term studies was that the color should not refer to some other object. My guess, if this hypothesis is true, would be that the Efe don’t need a color green just BECAUSE it is all around. If they what to describe a green they can get very precise “Green like X plant” would do just fine.

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 14:09:33 +0000

Grey is darkish white.

By: David Marjanovi?

David Marjanovi? — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 12:37:20 +0000

What? “Brown is a form of lightish black” for you?!? If anything, I’d put gray there… ~:-|

By: Turcano

Turcano — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 20:18:13 +0000

So why do the Efe not seem to even have a word for the color green? I can think of two answers to that question. One is that they do but have not bothered to teach this to us. I spent years living with them, and there were basic, day to day things that I learned right up to the last day I was with them. Sure, linguists presumably asked them about this, but that means little considering that only a handful of linguists have actually worked with them. The other explanation is that this is a stupid question. We only think that one needs a large number of words for the color green (if you are an Efe) because we mistakingly think things like the Inuit have a hundred words for snow.

The thing is that English actually has an unusually high number (11) of basic color terms. It’s also interesting that all languages have a set hierarchy of color terms. All languages have words for black and white, and then colors are “added” in the following order:3: Red4: Either yellow or green5: The color that was passed over at (4)6: Blue7: BrownAfter this, other colors are added idiosyncratically. For example, English has grey, orange, purple, and pink. A few languages even have twelve colors; for instance, Russian distinguishes light blue from regular blue, sort of in the way we distinguish pink form red.

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 08:05:09 +0000

I should say that I’m actually pretty good at drawing, but not at art generally, and I can’t paint worth a damn. I can draw in grey and black, or with magic markers, which pretty much take care of the color issues on their own.

By: Dunc

Dunc — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 05:19:26 +0000

I am not color blind, but I am a man. Therefore I have only a few words for color.Pah! Try asking a painter. Now, what percentage of history's great artists were men? You think they didn't have many words for colours?

By: Richard Parker

Richard Parker — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 04:31:28 +0000

If you look at the Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database (ABVD) at:http://language.psy.auckland.ac.nz/austronesian/language.php?group=You will find they have recorded some 503 languages in this language phylumBut then, look up the colour word entries, at :http://language.psy.auckland.ac.nz/austronesian/word.php?c=Colorsblack 552red 544white 540yellow 515green 496(The reason for the mismatches in numbers is that some languages have been recorded twice under different names, and in others have had the same word recorded twice with different spellings).But there is a significant difference between black, red and white and yellow and green. And no blue at all – perhaps not much need for that when the sea and the sky are always there, but not much else is actually _coloured_ blue.No puce, no purple, no aggravated grape. No teal, no beige (who needs that?)But please note that the bower-birds and megapodes, from around New Guinea, who build elaborate nests, consider something coloured blue so rare and valuable that they will defend a scrap of blue margarine wrapping against all-comers.http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/bowerbird/odd.htmlCultural? Of course it is.