A STUDY OF COLOR GROUPING IN 3 LANGUAGES - A TEST OF THE LINGUISTIC RELATIVITY HYPOTHESIS

We report a cross-cultural study of the relationship between language and colour cognition that tests the Linguistic relativity hypothesis. We compared speakers of English, Russian and Setswana-languages with d ifferent numbers of 'basic' colour terms-on a colour grouping task in order to see whether choice of colour groups reflected the differences among the colour lexicons of the three languages. Participants sorted a representative set of 65 colours into 'N' groups (where N ranged fr om 2 through to 12) based on their perceptual similarity. We assessed the similarities and differences among the choices of the three langua ge samples, and focused in particular on two more specific questions. First, we tested the conjecture that levels of consensus over which ti les to group together should peak when N equalled the number of basic colour terms in the language. Second, we focused on possible linguisti c influences on colour grouping in the GREEN-BLUE region of colour spa ce. Setswana uses a single term for this region (botala), whereas Engl ish uses two terms (green and blue) and Russian uses three terms (zele nyi 'green', sinij 'dark blue' and goluboj 'light blue'). The most str iking feature of the results was the marked similarity of the groups c hosen across the three language samples. In addition there were small but reliable differences in grouping associated with linguistic differ ences. Specifically, maximum levels of consensus occurred at lower val ues of N for Setswana speakers than for the other two languages, and t hey were more Likely to group GREEN With BLUE than speakers of the oth er languages. However, Russian speakers were no more likely than speak ers of the other languages to form separate LIGHT BLUE and DARK BLUE g roups. The results are consistent with universal perceptual processes modulated at the margin by linguistic or cultural influences.