Learning to talk changes how we perceive color

By at 7:23 am Wednesday, Mar 5

A new British study suggests that our perception of color changes when we acquire language (and the ability to linguistically categorize colors):
"As an adult, color categorization is influenced by linguistic categories. It differs as the language differs," said Kay, who is renowned for his studies on the ways that different cultures classify colors. He cited recent research on the ability of Russian speakers to detect shades of blue [pdf] that English speakers classify as a single color.

How does the switch to a language-bound perception of color take place?

"That's the $64,000 question," said Kay. "We have every reason to believe that learning a language has a lot to do with it -- but [as for] how that works, it's early."

Link (via Kottke)

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Cory Doctorow

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