Where in the World Color Survey is the support for the Hering Primaries as the basis for Color Categorization?∗

Since the 1960’s color categorization and naming has been extensively investigated from the point of view of anthropology, linguistics, psychology, philosophy, color perception studies, and computer modeling; and recently the World Color Survey (WCS ) has provided further support for a view favoring the cross–cultural universality of color categorization (Kay & Regier 2003, Kay 2005, Regier, Kay & Cook 2005). Still, there remains considerable uncertainty regarding which of the various factors thought to contribute to the universality of color categorization can be validated as essential features of color naming phenomena across both individuals and cultures. Moreover, it is unclear whether the empirical and theoretical approaches that are typically used in the area, provide an adequate treatment of the various influences contributing to color naming phenomena. The present article re–examines the widely held view that similar patterns of color categorization across cultures are a consequence of universally shared perceptual experiences across (a) individuals within an ethnolinguistic society, and (b) individuals from different ethnolinguistic societies. One central working assumption in the literature has been that both intra– and inter–cultural color naming primarily derive their structure from shared opponent–colors perceptual experience (i.e., salient Hering colors). Here an analysis of WCS results is presented which does not support the usual shared perceptual experience explanation, and suggests the alternative view that Hering color salience is not supported as different from, or privileged, compared to some non-Hering color saliences. It is argued that while perceptual discrimination unquestionably places substantial constraints on individual color categorization, clearly factors existing outside the individual must also substantially contribute to the intra– and inter–cultural color naming phenomena. A shift in the widely accepted view on this issue is needed to account for such univestigated factors.