C Color Category Learning in Naming- Game Simulations

Color categories are inextricably linked to language as color categories are typically, though not necessarily, associated with color terms. It is believed that the acquisition of categories, including color categories, is influenced by language [1]. Prelinguistic infants do seem to have a set of color categories, which are then either consolidated or modified through observing or engaging in linguistic interactions about color. Language has been shown to have an influence on a range of modalities, such as time, space, and color. This phenomenon, known as linguistic relativism, shows how the language one uses, and by extension the culture one lives in, has an impact on perception and cognition. It has also been shown that language has an influence on color perception: having a particular color word speeds up spotting a chip of that color among distracting color chips [2, 3]. What is not entirely clear is how language influences the acquisition of color categories. As data on color category acquisition in infants is hard to come by, we can resort to computer simulations to learn more about how language impacts the acquisition of color categories. A language is a communication system that is shared within a group of language users. As such, a language can be seen as an agreement between all language users on the words and rules of a language, and their meaning. Color words are also subject to this agreement: in the English language speakers agree to use “red” for, among others, the chromatic perception of a ripe tomato, blood, and a light with dominant spectral wavelength of 780 nm. There is no central authority insisting on this: language users themselves agree on this convention. When a new language user, such as a newborn child, enters a linguistic community, it will to varying degrees adopt this convention. If language is a convention that is agreed upon by a linguistic community, and if language impacts category acquisition, then it follows that categories are to a certain extent also agreed upon by the community. Computer simulations can help us understand how a community can arrive at an agreement on linguistic conventions and how language shapes concepts and categories.