22 Mar
1996
22 Mar
'96
9:53 p.m.
Below is the abstract of a forthcoming target article about:
CONSTRAINTS ON COLOUR CATEGORIZATION
by B.A.C. Saunders & J. van Brakel
This article has been accepted for publication in Behavioral and Brain
Sciences (BBS), an international, interdisciplinary journal providing
Open Peer Commentary on important and controversial current research in
the biobehavioral and cognitive sciences.
Commentators must be current BBS Associates or nominated by a current
BBS Associate. To be considered as a commentator for this article, to
suggest other appropriate commentators, or for information about how to
become a BBS Associate, please send email to:
bbs(a)soton.ac.uk or write to:
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
Department of Psychology
University of Southampton
Highfield, Southampton
SO17 1BJ UNITED KINGDOM
http://cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/bbs.html
gopher://gopher.princeton.edu:70/11/.libraries/.pujournals
ftp://ftp.princeton.edu/pub/harnad/BBS
To help us put together a balanced list of commentators, please give
some indication of the aspects of the topic on which you would bring
your areas of expertise to bear if you were selected as a commentator.
An electronic draft of the full text is available for inspection by
anonymous ftp (or gopher or World-Wide-Web) according to the
instructions that follow after the abstract. [The archived version
will be retrievable as of Monday 25 March.]
____________________________________________________________________
ARE THERE NON-TRIVIAL CONSTRAINTS ON COLOUR CATEGORIZATION?
B.A.C. Saunders & J. van Brakel
Centre for Social and Cultural Anthropology
University of Leuven
Tiensestraat 102
3000 Leuven (Belgium)
e-mail pop00127(a)cc5.kuleuven.ac.be
Institute of Philosophy
University of Leuven
Kardinaal Mercierplein 2
3000 Leuven (Belgium)
KEYWORDS: colour, categorization, universals, unique hues,
opponent processes, linking propositions
ABSTRACT: In this target article the following hypotheses are
discussed: (1) colour is autonomous: a perceptuo-linguistic and
behavioural universal; (2) it is completely described by three
independent attributes: hue, brightness and saturation; (3)
phenomenologically and psychophysically there are four unique
hues: red, green, blue, yellow; (4) the unique hues are
underpinned by two opponent psychophysical and/or neuronal
channels: red/green, blue/yellow.
The relevant literature is reviewed. We conclude: [i]
psychophysics and neurophysiology fail to set nontrivial
constraints on colour categorization; [ii] linguistic evidence
provides no grounds for the universality of basic colour
categories; [iii] neither the opponent hues red/green,
blue/yellow nor hue, brightness and saturation are intrinsic to
a universal concept of colour; (iv) colour is not autonomous.
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To help you decide whether you would be an appropriate commentator for
this article, an electronic draft is retrievable by anonymous ftp from
ftp.princeton.edu according to the instructions below (the filename is
bbs.saunders). Please do not prepare a commentary on this draft.
Just let us know, after having inspected it, what relevant expertise
you feel you would bring to bear on what aspect of the article.
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These files are also on the World Wide Web and the easiest way to
retrieve them is with Netscape, Mosaic, gopher, archie, veronica, etc.
Here are some of the URLs you can use to get to the BBS Archive:
http://www.princeton.edu/~harnad/bbs.html
http://cogsci.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/bbs.html
gopher://gopher.princeton.edu:70/11/.libraries/.pujournals
ftp://ftp.princeton.edu/pub/harnad/BBS/bbs.saunders
ftp://cogsci.ecs.soton.ac.uk/pub/harnad/BBS/bbs.saunders
To retrieve a file by ftp from an Internet site, type either:
ftp ftp.princeton.edu
or
ftp 128.112.128.1
When you are asked for your login, type:
anonymous
Enter password as queried (your password is your actual userid:
yourlogin(a)yourhost.whatever.whatever - be sure to include the "@")
cd /pub/harnad/BBS
To show the available files, type:
ls
Next, retrieve the file you want with (for example):
get bbs.saunders
When you have the file(s) you want, type:
quit
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Where the above procedure is not available there are two fileservers:
ftpmail(a)decwrl.dec.com
and
bitftp(a)pucc.bitnet
that will do the transfer for you. To one or the
other of them, send the following one line message:
help
for instructions (which will be similar to the above, but will be in
the form of a series of lines in an email message that ftpmail or
bitftp will then execute for you).
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