Project

THE ORIGIN AND IMPACT OF COLOUR CATEGORIES IN
THOUGHT AND LANGUAGE

Project acronym CATEGORIES

Researcher (PI)

Anna Franklin

Host institution
(HI)

UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX, UNITED KINGDOM

Call details

ERC-2011-StG, SH4

Summary

This proposal outlines a cutting-edge five year project which will
push the frontiers of colour category research, and will
resonate throughout the cognitive and social sciences. Humans
can discriminate millions of colours (Zeki, 1993), yet language
refers to colour using a number of discrete categories (e.g.,
red, green, blue). These colour categories are also present in
thought (e.g., in colour judgements / memory). There has been
considerable multidisciplinary research into the origin of colour
categories and how colour categories in thought and language
relate. However, major theoretical challenges remain.

The CATEGORIES project, led by Franklin, will tackle these crucial
challenges with the aim of establishing a new theoretical
framework for the field. So far, Franklin has made a major
contribution to the field by providing converging evidence that
infants categorise colour. The CATEGORIES project will
investigate new ground-breaking questions on the relationship
of these pre-linguistic colour categories to the worlds colour
lexicons, using a diverse range of methods (e.g., infant testing,
computational simulations, psychophysics).

The project also aims to resolve the long standing debate about
the impact of colour terms on perception (e.g., Whorf, 1956),
pioneering a Neuro-Whorfian approach to the debate. This
approach will use neuro-physiological methods to firmly
establish the extent to which speakers of different languages
see colour differently. The new questions, approaches, data and
theory provided by the CATEGORIES project, will lead to major
advances in colour category research. The project will also lead
to major advances on issues that are fundamental to
understanding the complexity of the human mind (e.g., the
interaction of language and thought; how the brain categorises
the visual world), having impact across multiple disciplines (e.g.,
cognitive neuroscience, linguistics, psychology), as well as
practical application.

Website (HI)

http://www.sussex.ac.uk

Max ERC funding 1.48 million Euros

Duration

60 months

Source URL:

http://erc.europa.eu/cordis_search/project_details/102219

Published on

ERC: European Research Council

(

http://erc.europa.eu

)

THE ORIGIN AND IMPACT OF COLOUR

CATEGORIES IN THOUGHT AND LANGUAGE

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