Cover not available

In:Progress in Colour Studies: Cognition, language and beyond
Edited by Lindsay W. MacDonald, Carole P. Biggam and Galina V. Paramei
[Not in series 217] 2018
► pp. 54–71

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload Book PDF
authorization required

Chapter 3
The role of saturation in colour naming and colour appearance

 | Justus-Liebig-Universität Giessen, Germany
Published online: 26 November 2018
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/z.217.03wit
Abstract
Saturation is an integral part of colour perception. Yet, this aspect of colour vision has been widely neglected in research on colour naming and colour appearance. Fundamental questions about colour naming and colour appearance need to be reconsidered in the light of the important role of saturation. These questions concern the variation of measurements across studies, the relationship between category prototypes and unique hues, cross-cultural regularities in colour categorization, focal colours and the salience of category prototypes, and the role of unique hues in colour appearance.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Measuring categories and unique hues
  • 3.Universality of colour categories
  • 4.Salience of “focal colours”
  • 5.The uniqueness of intermediate hues
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
References (49)
References
Abramov, Israel, and James Gordon. 1994. “Color Appearance: On Seeing Red – or Yellow, or Green, or Blue.” Annual Review of Psychology 45: 451–485. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2005. “Seeing Unique Hues.” Journal of the Optical Society of America A 22: 2143–2153. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Berlin, Brent, and Paul Kay. 1969. Basic Color Terms: Their Universality and Evolution. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brown, Roger W., and Eric H. Lenneberg. 1954. “A Study in Language and Cognition.” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 49: 454–462. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Buck, Steven L., and Tanner DeLawyer. 2014. “Dark versus Bright Equilibrium Hues: Rod and Cone Biases.” Journal of the Optical Society of America A 31: A75–A81. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Collier, Georg A. 1973. “ Review of “Basic Color Terms: Their Universality and Evolution ”. Language 49: 245–248. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
De Valois, Russell L., Karen K. De Valois, Eugene Switkes, and Luke Mahon. 1997. “Hue Scaling of Isoluminant and Cone-Specific Lights.” Vision Research 37: 885–897. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fairchild, Mark D. 2013. Color Appearance Models. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Foote, Katharina G., and Steven L. Buck. 2014. “Rod Hue Biases for Foveal Stimuli on CRT Displays.” Journal of the Optical Society of America A 31: A23–A26. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fuld, Kenneth, John S. Werner, and Bill R. Wooten. 1983. “The Possible Elemental Nature of Brown.” Vision Research 23: 631–637. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hansen, Thorsten, and Karl R. Gegenfurtner. 2006. “Color Scaling of Discs and Natural Objects at Different Luminance Levels.” Visual Neuroscience 23: 603–610. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hurvich, Leo M., and Dorothea Jameson. 1955. “Some Quantitative Aspects of an Opponent-Colors Theory. II. Brightness, Saturation, and Hue in Normal and Dichromatic Vision.” Journal of the Optical Society of America 45: 602–616. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jameson, Kimberly A. 2010. “Where in the World Color Survey is the Support for the Hering Primaries as the Basis for Color Categorization?” In Color Ontology and Color Science, ed. by Jonathan Cohen and Mohan Matthen, 179–202. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jameson, Kimberly A., and Roy G. D’Andrade. 1997. “It’s Not Really Red, Green, Yellow, Blue: An Inquiry into Perceptual Color Space.” In Color Categories in Thought and Language, ed. by Clyde N. Hardin and Luisa Maffi, 295–319. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kay, Paul, and Chad K. McDaniel. 1978. “The Linguistic Significance of the Meanings of Basic Color Terms.” Language 54: 610–646. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kuehni, Rolf G. 2001. “Focal Colors and Unique Hues.” Color Research & Application 26: 171–172. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2005. “Focal Color Variability and Unique Hue Stimulus Variability.” Journal of Cognition and Culture 5: 409–426. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2014. “Unique Hues and Their Stimuli – State of the Art.” Color Research & Application 39: 279–287. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kuehni, Rolf G., Renzo Shamey, Mara Mathews, and Brandi Keene. 2010. “Perceptual Prominence of Hering’s Chromatic Primaries.” Journal of the Optical Society of America A 27: 159–165. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kulp, Thomas D., and Kenneth Fuld. 1995. “The Prediction of Hue and Saturation for Non-Spectral Lights.” Vision Research 35: 2967–2983. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lindsey, Delwin T., and Angela M. Brown. 2009. “World Color Survey Color Naming Reveals Universal Motifs and their Within-Language Diversity.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the U.S.A. 106: 19785–19790. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lindsey, Delwin T., Angela M. Brown, David H. Brainard, and Coren L. Apicella. 2015. “Hunter-Gatherer Color Naming Provides New Insight into the Evolution of Color Terms.” Current Biology 25: 2441–2446. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2016. “Hadza Color Terms Are Sparse, Diverse, and Distributed, and Presage the Universal Color Categories Found in Other World Languages.” i-Perception 7: 6. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mollon, John D. 2009. “A Neural Basis for Unique Hues?” Current Biology 19: R441–R442. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Munsell, Albert H. 1912. “A Pigment Color System and Notation.” The American Journal of Psychology 23: 236–244. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Olkkonen, Maria K., Christoph Witzel, Thorsten Hansen, and Karl R. Gegenfurtner. 2010. “Categorical Color Constancy for Real Surfaces.” Journal of Vision 10: 9. 1–22. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ovenston, Clara A. 1998. The Scaling and Discrimination of Contrast Colours. Cambridge, UK: University of Cambridge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Philipona, David L., and J. Kevin O’Regan. 2006. “Color Naming, Unique Hues, and Hue Cancellation Predicted from Singularities in Reflection Properties.” Visual Neuroscience 23: 331–339. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Quinn, Paul C., J. L. Rosano, and Bill R. Wooten. 1988. “Evidence that Brown is Not an Elemental Color.” Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics 43: 156–164. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Regier, Terry, Paul Kay, and Richard S. Cook. 2005. “Focal Colors are Universal After All.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the U.S.A. 102: 8386–8391. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Regier, Terry, Paul Kay, and Naveen Khetarpal. 2007. “Color Naming Reflects Optimal Partitions of Color Space.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the U.S.A. 104: 1436–1441. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rosch Heider, Eleanor. 1972. “Universals in Color Naming and Memory.” Journal of Experimental Psychology 93: 10–20. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sternheim, Charles E., and Robert M. Boynton. 1966. “Uniqueness of Perceived Hues Investigated with a Continuous Judgmental Technique.” Journal of Experimental Psychology 72: 770–776. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stoughton, Cleo M., and Bevil R. Conway. 2008. “Neural Basis for Unique Hues.” Current Biology 18: R698–R699. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sturges, Julia, and T. W. Allan Whitfield. 1997. “Salient Features of Munsell Colour Space as a Function of Monolexemic Naming and Response Latencies.” Vision Research 37: 307–313. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Valberg, Arne. 2001. “Unique Hues: An Old Problem for a New Generation.” Vision Research 41: 1645–1657. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Vazquez-Corral, Javier, J. Kevin O’Regan, Maria Vanrell, and Graham D. Finlayson. 2012. “A New Spectrally Sharpened Sensor Basis to Predict Color Naming, Unique Hues, and Hue Cancellation.” Journal of Vision 12: 6. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Weiss, David, Christoph Witzel, and Karl R. Gegenfurtner. 2017. “Determinants of Colour Constancy and the Blue Bias.” i-Perception 8: 6. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Witzel, Christoph. 2016. “New Insights Into the Evolution of Color Terms or an Effect of Saturation?” i-Perception 7: 5. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Witzel, C. hristoph (2018). “Misconceptions about colour categories.” Review of Philosophy and Psychology. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Witzel, Christoph, François Cinotti, and J. Kevin O’Regan. 2015. “What Determines the Relationship Between Color Naming, Unique Hues, and Sensory Singularities: Illuminations, Surfaces, or Photoreceptors?” Journal of Vision 15: 8. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Witzel, Christoph, and Anna Franklin. 2014. “Do Focal Colors Look Particularly “Colorful”?” Journal of the Optical Society of America A 31: A365–A374. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Witzel, Christoph, and Karl R. Gegenfurtner. 2013. “Categorical Sensitivity to Color Differences.” Journal of Vision 13: 7. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Witzel, Christoph, & Karl R. Gegenfurtner. 2018a. “Color Perception: Objects, Constancy and Categories.” Annual Review of Vision Science 4: 475–499. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2018b. “Are Red, Yellow, Green, and Blue Perceptual Categories?” Vision Research. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Witzel, Christoph, and Juliana Hammermeister. “Saturation Affects Unique and Typical Hue Choices.” (under revision).
Witzel, Christoph, John Maule, and Anna Franklin. “Are Red, Yellow, Green and Blue Particularly “Colorful”?” (under revision).
Witzel, Christoph, Carlijn van Alphen, Christoph Godau, and J. Kevin O’Regan. 2016. “Uncertainty of Sensory Signal Explains Variation of Color Constancy.” Journal of Vision 16: 15. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wuerger, Sophie M., and Kaida Xiao. 2016. “Color Vision, Opponent Theory.” In Encyclopedia of Color Science and Technology, ed. by Ronnier Luo, 413–418. New York: Springer. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (5)

Cited by five other publications

Morimoto, Takuma, Yasuki Yamauchi & Keiji Uchikawa
2023. Invariant categorical color regions across illuminant change coincide with focal colors. Journal of Vision 23:2 ► pp. 7 ff. DOI logo
Mylonas, Dimitris, Serge Caparos & Jules Davidoff
2022. Augmenting a colour lexicon. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications 9:1 DOI logo
Witzel, Christoph
2019. Misconceptions About Colour Categories. Review of Philosophy and Psychology 10:3 ► pp. 499 ff. DOI logo
Witzel, Christoph
2019. Variation of Saturation Across Hue Affects Unique and Typical Hue Choices. i-Perception 10:5 DOI logo
Witzel, Christoph, John Maule & Anna Franklin
2019. Red, yellow, green, and blue are not particularly colorful. Journal of Vision 19:14 ► pp. 27 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 24 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue