Children's colour naming and a test of the linguistic relativity hypothesis
English and Ndonga-speaking Namibian children completed three tasks designed to investigate colour term usage. English children used separate terms for the focal examples of the eleven universal colour categories BLACK, WHITE, RED, GREEN, YELLOW, BLUE, BROWN, PINK, PURPLE, ORANGE and GREY (Berlin and Kay 1969). In contrast, Namibian children used separate terms for just the first six categories, in some cases these terms were extended to examples of the remaining categories but children often responded that they did not know the names of pink and purple colours. Experiments varying in the degree to which naming strategies might be useful, were conducted to test the linguistic relativity hypothesis, that differences in naming are paralleled by differences in performance on cognitive tasks. Four- to seven-year-old children participated in colour-based recognition memory, grouping, odd-one-out and visual search tasks. There was an overall similarity in children's performance, with both groups' responses relating to the perceptual similarity between stimuli. However, significant differences were found in the types of memory confusions made, the stimuli which children grouped together and odd- one-out choices,
Boyles, Samantha Keri
Children's colour naming and a test of the linguistic relativity hypothesis. English and Ndonga-speaking Namibian children completed three tasks designed to investigate colour term usage. English children used separate terms for the focal examples of the eleven universal colour categories BLACK, WHITE, RED, GREEN, YELLOW, BLUE, BROWN, PINK, PURPLE, ORANGE and GREY (Berlin and Kay 1969). In contrast, Namibian children used separate terms for just the first six categories, in some cases these terms were extended to examples of the remaining categories but children often responded that they did not know the names of pink and purple colours. Experiments varying in the degree to which naming strategies might be useful, were conducted to test the linguistic relativity hypothesis, that differences in naming are paralleled by differences in performance on cognitive tasks. Four- to seven-year-old children participated in colour-based recognition memory, grouping, odd-one-out and visual search tasks. There was an overall similarity in children's performance, with both groups' responses relating to the perceptual similarity between stimuli. However, significant differences were found in the types of memory confusions made, the stimuli which children grouped together and odd- one-out choices,
children colour name test linguistic relativity hypothesis english speaking child complete task_design investigate colour term usage english child use separate term focal example eleven universal colour category black white red green yellow blue brown grey berlin contrast child use separate term first category case term extend example remain category child often respond know name colour vary_degree name strategy might useful conducted test linguistic relativity hypothesis difference name difference performance cognitive task year_old child participate colour based recognition memory group odd out visual search task overall similarity child performance group response relate perceptual similarity stimulus however significant_difference find type memory confusion make stimuli child group together odd out choice