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Color Culture

Kal Cobalt
RS color thirumurugan lg.jpg

As we acquire language, color processing is moved from the right hemisphere of the brain into the language centers in the left, according to a new British/English study.

It would seem that our perceptions of color not only change as our brain develops language, but that our color perceptions are also heavily influenced by which language we speak. A previous study found differences in color perception depending on the language spoken by the subjects, specifically that Russian speakers discern more shades of blue than English speakers.

Exactly why and how color becomes codified by language is unclear, though the discovery of the connection between the two offers a tantalizing peek into the complexity of human development.

Photo by Thiru Murugan under Creative Commons license.

Comments

This is fascinating.

Submitted by sirguymanbro on Wed, 03/12/2008 - 11:47.
As a graphic designer, I'm hyper-aware of how colors appear. I've always wondered if what I call cerulean blue is the same as what someone else calls cerulean blue. I wonder how this affects people who are multilingual...

Bilingual?

Submitted by Maya Lemberg on Wed, 03/12/2008 - 13:40.
I speak both Russian and English fluently. I wonder what that means...

Over simplification of perception

Submitted by landry on Thu, 03/13/2008 - 10:27.
As a colorist, I work with color everyday and not just alone in my own workspace. I work with people in other countries, under completely different lighting environments but looking at exactly the same swatch of color cut in half. What I think they are missing is that it may not be *language* per se. It might be the natural (or possibly slight differences in the artificial) light in the place where that language is spoken and the color is being observed. It could also be the time of day that the color is looked at. I don't see color the same way at 9am as I do at 4pm and that is even under controlled circumstances. Maybe 'blue' is to Russians as 'snow' is to Eskimos. Women and men see color differently because of the evolution of our cones and rods to the tasks we were expected to do There are so many variables to this study that I haven't even touched on it seems were not even taken into consideration that it is almost useless, at least in its current form.

A Test

Submitted by Peter Deane on Thu, 03/13/2008 - 10:40.

Language I speak -- Only one, English. I see...

White – Fulfilling
Red – Temptation
Orange – Defiance
Yellow – Harmony
Green – Life
Blue – Peaceful
Violet – Innocent
Black – Inquisitive



Today is part of forever.

THEN

Submitted by FartMcNoodle on Fri, 03/14/2008 - 19:49.
we need to stop teaching children to call colors by their names. leave them nameless. no name will be needed because they are right in front of you for you to enjoy. and they wont be tainted by moving them into our left side where they are placed in restraints but left to the right where they can tickle our senses without the taste of linguistics. like week old linguini //|:|\\