Individual and population differences in focal colors

Webster, Michael A.; Kay, Paul

doi:10.1075/z.137.05web

In:Anthropology of Color: Interdisciplinary multilevel modeling
Edited by Robert E. MacLaury, Galina V. Paramei and Don Dedrick
[Not in series 137] 2007
► pp. 29–53

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Individual and population differences in focal colors

Michael A. Webster | Department of Psychology, University of Nevada, Reno, USA

Paul Kay | International Computer Science Institute, Berkeley, CA, and University, of California, Berkeley, USA

Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Published online: 21 November 2007

https://doi.org/10.1075/z.137.05web

Using the data of the World Color Survey, variation in the selection of focal colors both within languages and across languages was studied. The variation within languages was found to be much greater than the variation across languages. For example, for color terms in different languages that roughly translate as English ‘red’, focus placements were found to cluster to amuch greater extent across languages than within languages, although statistically significant differences in cross-language average focal choices were found. The resulting picture is one of constrained but not identical focus placements across languages and impressively greater variation in focus placements within than across languages.

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