IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0178083.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Does optimal partitioning of color space account for universal color categorization?

Author

Listed:
  • Yasmina Jraissati
  • Igor Douven

Abstract

A 2007 study by Regier, Kay, and Khetarpal purports to show that universal categories emerge as a result of optimal partitioning of color space. Regier, Kay, and Khetarpal only consider color categorizations of up to six categories. However, in most industrialized societies eleven color categories are observed. This paper shows that when applied to the case of eleven categories, Regier, Kay, and Khetarpal’s optimality criterion yields unsatisfactory results. Applications of the criterion to the intermediate cases of seven, eight, nine, and ten color categories are also briefly considered and are shown to yield mixed results. We consider a number of possible explanations of the failure of the criterion in the case of eleven categories, and suggest that, as color categorizations get more complex, further criteria come to play a role, alongside Regier, Kay, and Khetarpal’s optimality criterion.

Suggested Citation

  • Yasmina Jraissati & Igor Douven, 2017. "Does optimal partitioning of color space account for universal color categorization?," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(6), pages 1-19, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0178083
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0178083
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0178083
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0178083&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0178083?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jules Davidoff & Ian Davies & Debi Roberson, 1999. "Colour categories in a stone-age tribe," Nature, Nature, vol. 398(6724), pages 203-204, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Dimitris Mylonas & Serge Caparos & Jules Davidoff, 2022. "Augmenting a colour lexicon," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 9(1), pages 1-12, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Youping Xiao & Christopher Kavanau & Lauren Bertin & Ehud Kaplan, 2011. "The Biological Basis of a Universal Constraint on Color Naming: Cone Contrasts and the Two-Way Categorization of Colors," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 6(9), pages 1-11, September.
    2. Dimitris Mylonas & Serge Caparos & Jules Davidoff, 2022. "Augmenting a colour lexicon," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 9(1), pages 1-12, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0178083. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.