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The Biological Basis of a Universal Constraint on Color Naming: Cone Contrasts and the Two-Way Categorization of Colors

Many studies have provided evidence for the existence of universal constraints on color categorization or naming in various languages, but the biological basis of these constraints is unknown. A recent study of the pattern of color categorization across numerous languages has suggested that these pa...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Xiao, Youping, Kavanau, Christopher, Bertin, Lauren, Kaplan, Ehud
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2011
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3177860/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21977226
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0024994
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author Xiao, Youping
Kavanau, Christopher
Bertin, Lauren
Kaplan, Ehud
author_facet Xiao, Youping
Kavanau, Christopher
Bertin, Lauren
Kaplan, Ehud
author_sort Xiao, Youping
collection PubMed
description Many studies have provided evidence for the existence of universal constraints on color categorization or naming in various languages, but the biological basis of these constraints is unknown. A recent study of the pattern of color categorization across numerous languages has suggested that these patterns tend to avoid straddling a region in color space at or near the border between the English composite categories of “warm” and “cool”. This fault line in color space represents a fundamental constraint on color naming. Here we report that the two-way categorization along the fault line is correlated with the sign of the L- versus M-cone contrast of a stimulus color. Moreover, we found that the sign of the L-M cone contrast also accounted for the two-way clustering of the spatially distributed neural responses in small regions of the macaque primary visual cortex, visualized with optical imaging. These small regions correspond to the hue maps, where our previous study found a spatially organized representation of stimulus hue. Altogether, these results establish a direct link between a universal constraint on color naming and the cone-specific information that is represented in the primate early visual system.
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spelling pubmed-31778602011-10-04 The Biological Basis of a Universal Constraint on Color Naming: Cone Contrasts and the Two-Way Categorization of Colors Xiao, Youping Kavanau, Christopher Bertin, Lauren Kaplan, Ehud PLoS One Research Article Many studies have provided evidence for the existence of universal constraints on color categorization or naming in various languages, but the biological basis of these constraints is unknown. A recent study of the pattern of color categorization across numerous languages has suggested that these patterns tend to avoid straddling a region in color space at or near the border between the English composite categories of “warm” and “cool”. This fault line in color space represents a fundamental constraint on color naming. Here we report that the two-way categorization along the fault line is correlated with the sign of the L- versus M-cone contrast of a stimulus color. Moreover, we found that the sign of the L-M cone contrast also accounted for the two-way clustering of the spatially distributed neural responses in small regions of the macaque primary visual cortex, visualized with optical imaging. These small regions correspond to the hue maps, where our previous study found a spatially organized representation of stimulus hue. Altogether, these results establish a direct link between a universal constraint on color naming and the cone-specific information that is represented in the primate early visual system. Public Library of Science 2011-09-21 /pmc/articles/PMC3177860/ /pubmed/21977226 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0024994 Text en Xiao et al. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Xiao, Youping
Kavanau, Christopher
Bertin, Lauren
Kaplan, Ehud
The Biological Basis of a Universal Constraint on Color Naming: Cone Contrasts and the Two-Way Categorization of Colors
title The Biological Basis of a Universal Constraint on Color Naming: Cone Contrasts and the Two-Way Categorization of Colors
title_full The Biological Basis of a Universal Constraint on Color Naming: Cone Contrasts and the Two-Way Categorization of Colors
title_fullStr The Biological Basis of a Universal Constraint on Color Naming: Cone Contrasts and the Two-Way Categorization of Colors
title_full_unstemmed The Biological Basis of a Universal Constraint on Color Naming: Cone Contrasts and the Two-Way Categorization of Colors
title_short The Biological Basis of a Universal Constraint on Color Naming: Cone Contrasts and the Two-Way Categorization of Colors
title_sort biological basis of a universal constraint on color naming: cone contrasts and the two-way categorization of colors
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3177860/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21977226
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0024994
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