The Acquisition of Color Terms
Presenter Sayaka Abe
Overview
I. Acquisition of word meanings
II. The Developmental Acquisition of Basic
Colour Terms (by Nicola J Pitchford &
Kathy T. Mullen)
I. Acquisition of word meanings
• Children starts learning individual words
around 1 year old.
mama, do (‘dog’), choo-choo (‘train’)
• However, structure of words are not quite
like adults
Example 1 ‘apple’
1st ‘apple’
not “apple”
2nd ‘apple’
not “apple”
“apple”
“apple”
not “apple”
“apple”
not “apple”
not “apple”
an apple = round, medium-sized thing.
I can eat it, it tastes good, it has black small seeds,
it is typically red but sometimes green
OVEREXTENSION
Example 2 ‘moon’
1st ‘moon’
“moon”
not “moon”
“moon”
not “moon”
“moon” = round, yellowish
thing in the sky. The one in my
book has a face. Sometimes it
not “moon”
does not have to look round.
not “moon”
“moon” = round, bright yellow thing with a face.
“moon” = round, yellowish thing in the sky.
The one in my book has a face.
UNDEREXTENSION
So,
• Learning a single word is not as simple as
it appears, and it takes some time and
many encounters with actual instances.
II. How about color terms?
(Pitchford and Mullen 2006)
• Previous findings:
Color terms are learned much later than
everyday objects.
i.e. Color concepts appear to be even
more complex than everyday objects
6 features of color term acquisition
(Bornstein 1985)
(1) Children can perceive (discriminate, match and
categorize) colour from early infancy, well before
they learn colour names.
(2) Children answer questions about colour with colour
ability colour
to see color
use of color terms
words prior to accurate
term acquisition.
(3) Children acquire different colour terms before they
have referential meaning
(4) Colour terms are applied erroneously in a
haphazard manner
(5) Colour terms are acquired relatively late, at around
four years of age
(6) Girls tend to acquire colur terms at an earlier age
than boys.
A. Seeing colors (languageindependent)
By 4 months of age,
• infants can distinguish between colours. (e.g.
Maurer & Adams 1987; Teller 1998; Teller and
Bornstein 1985)
• sensitivity to colour contrasts develops alongside
sensitivity to differences in luminance. (Allen,
Banks & Norcia 1993; Teller 1998)
• Basic colour categories are perceived
(Bornstein, Kessen & Weiskopf 1976;
Catherwood, Crassini & Freilberg 1989;
FGranklin & Davies 2004)
B. Using language of color
• A lower age limit by which children
develop accurate colour naming is around
4 years of age.
• Sometimes children have been shown to
require hundreds of presentations of
colour term paired with a colour sample
before the appropriate term is learned.
• The tardiness of colour term acquisition is
contrasting with other types of word
learning such as everyday objects, which
suggests, colour is a harder concept than
others.
However…
• It is not appropriate to compare colour
terms and terms of familiar object since
colour is a perceptual property of object,
but not an object per se. So it might be
more appropriate to compare the lexical
acquisition of colour terms to that of other
perceptual attributes.
Previous suggestions
• Children may initially conceptualize object
shape, as it is relatively more informative
about the function of an object than is
colour (Au & Markman 1987; Macario
1991; Soja 1994)
Three questions
1. Are colour terms acquired late?
2. Are basic colour terms acquired in a
fixed developmental order?
3. What factors help shape the
developmental acquisition of basic colour
terms?
Question 1
Are colour terms acquired late?
Children tested 2 – 5 years
• colours (red and green)
• sizes (big and small)
• speeds (fast and slow, side to side)
• shapes (T an O)
a. Comprehension task
• Present two stimuli:
a big, red T moving slowly
vs.
a big green T moving slowly
• Ask “which is green?”
1-b. Naming task
• Present stimuli like above (with voice over
saying “green” or “red”)
• Ask “What’s this one?”
Results of 1a and 1b
• Both comprehension and naming tasks
show that there is no difference in
children’s ability to either comprehend or
name colour compared to the other visual
attributes by children of any age.
c. Matching task
• Present: one of the stimuli like above.
“See this?”
• Present several stimuli including only one
that matches the first stimulus. “Can you
find another one?”
Results of 1c
• 3 years old: colour was a salient object
property (55%) (shape 26%, speed 9%,
size 10%)
• 4+ years old: shape became the most
salient attributes on which to make
perceptual groupings (90%) (colour 7%,
speed 1%, size 2%)
• Shift in perceptual saliency from colour to shape
between 3 and 4 years old (Consistent with
Brian & Goodenough 1929; Kagan & Lemkin
1961; Suchman & Trabasso 1966; Miller 1977;
Baldwin 1989)
• Reflecting an awareness of object shape as
more indicative of category membership than
object colour (Baldwin 1989; Landau, Smith &
Jones 1988)
Question 2
Are basic colour terms acquired
in a fixed developmental order?
PRIMARY COLOURS
SECONDARY COLOURS
Miller and Johnson-Laird (1976)
Prediction
• Children will learn the six primary colour
terms at earlier developmental stage than
the five non-primary colour terms.
Previous findings
• Advantage for naming primary over non-primary
colour terms has been found in some studies on
English (Heider 1977, Johnson 1977, Cruse
1977) and other lgs. (Davies, Corbett, McGurk &
Jarrett 1994)
• Some studies report that such an advantage is
not found in non-production tasks.
 Issue of methodology
Tasks
• Colour comprehension
“Point to the red overalls.” (no verbal response
required)
No advantage for the primary colours.
• Colour naming (production)
“What’s the colour of my overalls?”
Significant advantage for primary over non-primary
colour terms on the colour-naming task, but only
for children with a language-age of three years.
Developmental order?
• Children acquired an accurate knowledge of the
basic colour terms in two distinct temporal
periods
Stage 1: Acquire knowledge of 9 terms yellow,
blue, black, green, white, pink, orange, red and
purple (36 to 40 months). The order is
unconstrained.
Stage 2: brown and grey
• The finding is consistent with recent crosscultural studies (Davidoff, Davies % Roberson
1999; Roberson, Davies and Davidoff 2000),
and questions the assertion of Berlin and Kay
(1969)
• i.e. It questions the assertions of Berlin and Kay
that the development order of colour term
acquisition is constrained by visual
neurophysiology.
 Then other factors?
Question 3
What factors help shape the
developmental acquisition of basic
colour terms?
3 sub-questions:
(1) Perception: Does perception limit the
acquisition of the terms brown and grey?
(2) Environment: Does linguistic input shape
colour term acquisition?
(3) Preference: Does colour preference
influence colour term acquisition?
(1) Perception  Language
Does perception limit the acquisition of the
terms brown and grey?
Previous findings
Children frequently mistake brown for gray
and vice versa
Findings
• Colour discrimination task
Children’s ability to discriminate all the
basic colours was flawless.
• Colour comprehension tasks
 Children’s comprehension of brown and
grey was significantly poorer than their
comprehension of the other nine basic
colour terms
(cont’d)
• Matching task (blue vs. green, pink vs. purple,
and brown and grey’) shows a similar number of
colour-based matches across all three
conditions.
- blue vs. green = 47%
- pink vs. purple = 47%
- brown vs. grey = 51%
the colour stimuli did not influence children’s
decisions to use colour as the basis for
perceptual grouping
brown and grey do not appear to be any less
salient as colours to preschool children than the
nine basic categories that are conceptualized
earlier.
(2) Environmental Factor
Does linguistic input shape colour term
acquisition?
- books for pre-school children (374 books)
- mother’s spoken interactions with children
(2-3 years) (CHILDES database, 34 hours)
Findings
• Supported previous claims: advantage for
primary over primary colour terms, but
• primary colours are acquired at the same
time as the non-primaries, orange, pink
and purple
• Linguistic frequency may, however,
contribute to the late acquisition of the
colour terms brown and grey
(3) Preference Effect
Does colour preference influence colour term
acquisition?
Previous studies:
- Children might focus their attention toward
colours the prefer in their environment, which
may, in term make these colours more
memorable (Zentner 2001)
- Differences in colour preference might reflect
underlying differences in the biological
meaningfulness of particular colours, which may
in tern, colour term learning.
Findings
- Task of colour preference (by having children indicate the
colour they like the best, and reduce one by one, etc.)
- Task of colour naming
Named brown and grey significantly less than others
 So, colour preference and colour naming are
developmentally linked
They disliked brown and grey irrespective of whether or not
they could name brown and grey accurately.
 Differences in colour preference are established before
accurate knowledge of colour terms is acquired
Summary
1. Though colour terms are acquired later than
other objects due to differences in functional
significance, no delays are found when
compared with terms used to describe other
visual attributes.
2. Little advantage in the acquisition of primary
over non-primary colour terms.
Instead, the difference between brown + grey
vs. other 9 terms
3. Perception did not appear to limit colour
conceptualization, but linguistic input, colour
preference and colour naming are
developmentally linked.