Visual StudiesLinguistic Relativity and Color Vision: Effects of Lexical Color Categories of Perception
The question of language and thought has long been a subject of fascination for scientists, philosophers, and linguists. This field - that of linguistic relativity - sits at the intersection of linguistics and psychology, sometimes referred to as psycholinguistics, but important figures in its history come from many disciplines. Within linguistic relativity, color is a particularly interesting topic. Human color perception is continuous along the visible spectrum, while color terms are lexical categories. Furthermore, different languages divide the visible spectrum into differing numbers of "basic" color terms. This thesis examines evidence from across the literature, from color discrimination tasks to magnetoencephalography, to answer the question of whether ones native language fundamentally affects color perception.
This visual component is an interactive experiment, meant to temporarily alter your perception. Please feel free to use the switches at the back to change the color of the lights as you look through the window.
Advisors:
Gary Hatfield (PHIL)
John Trueswell (PSYC)