Many languages have no basic color term for “blue.” Instead, they call short-wavelength stimuli “green” or “dark.” We show that this cultural, linguistic phenomenon could result from accelerated aging of the eye because of high, chronic exposure to ultraviolet-B (UV-B) in sunlight (e.g., phototoxic lens brunescence). Reviewing 203 world languages, we found a significant relationship between UV dosage and color naming: In low-UV localities, languages generally have the word “blue”; in high-UV areas, languages without “blue” prevail. Furthermore, speakers of these non-“blue” languages often show blue-yellow color vision deficiency. We tested our phototoxicity hypothesis in a color-naming experiment, using computerized, colorimetric simulations of Munsell colors as viewed through clear and brunescent lenses. As predicted, our young subjects used “blue” as in English when the simulated lens was clear, but named colors as in tropical languages when the lens was dense. Our within-subjects design precludes a cultural explanation for this result.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
BerlinB.KayP. (1991). Basic color terms: Their universality and evolution. Berkeley: University of California Press. (Original work published 1969)
2.
BornsteinM.H. (1973). Color vision and color naming: A psychophysiological hypothesis of cultural difference. Psychological Bulletin, 80, 257–285.
3.
DavidoffJ.DaviesI.RobersonD. (1999a). Colour categories in a stone-age tribe [Addendum]. Nature, 402, 604.
4.
DavidoffJ.DaviesI.RobersonD. (1999b). Colour categories in a stone-age tribe [Letter]. Nature, 398, 203–204.
5.
DaviesI.CorbettG. (1994). The basic color terms of Russian. Linguistics, 32, 65–89.
6.
DaviesI.CorbettG.MargalefJ.B. (1995). Color terms in Catalan, an investigation of 80 informants, concentrating on the purple and blue regions. Transactions of the Philological Society, 93, 17–49.
7.
DaviesI.R.L.CorbettG.G.MtenjeA.SnowdenP. (1995). The basic color terms of Chichewa. Lingua, 95, 259–278.
8.
DaviesI.R.L.LawsG.CorbettG.G.JerrettD.J. (1998). Cross-cultural differences in colour vision: Acquired “colour-blindness” in Africa. Personality and Individual Differences, 25, 1153–1162.
9.
DaviesI.R.L.MacDermidC.CorbettG.G.McGurkD.JerrettD.JerrettT.SnowdenP. (1992). Color terms in Setswana: A linguistic and perceptual approach. Linguistics, 30, 1065–1103.
10.
FairchildM.D.LennieP. (1992). Chromatic adaptation to natural and incandescent illuminants. Vision Research, 32, 2065–2076.
11.
FairchildM.D.ReniffL. (1995). Time course of chromatic adaptation for color-appearance judgments. Journal of the Optical Society of America A, 12, 824–833.
12.
FletcherR. (1980). The City University Colour Vision Test (2nd ed.). London: Keeler.
13.
GeigerL. (1880). Contributions to the history of the development of the human race. London: Trubner. (Original work published 1871)
14.
GladstoneW.E. (1877). The colour sense. The Nineteenth Century, 2, 366–388.
15.
HarwerthR.S.SperlingH.G. (1971). Prolonged color blindness induced by intense spectral lights in rhesus monkeys. Science, 174, 520–523.
16.
JamesonK.A.HighnoteS.M.WassermenL.M. (2001). Richer color experience in observers with multiple photopigment opsin genes. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 8, 244–261.
17.
JavittJ.C.TaylorH.R. (1994). Cataract and latitude. Documenta Ophthalmologica, 88, 307–325.
18.
KayP.BerlinB.MaffiL.MerrifieldW. (1997). Color naming across languages. In HardinC.L.MaffiL., (Eds.), Color categories in thought and language (pp. 21–56). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
19.
KayP.KemptonW. (1984). What is the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. American Anthropologist, 86, 65–79.
20.
KayP.MaffiL. (2000). Color appearance and the emergence and evolution of basic color lexicons. American Anthropologist, 101, 743–760.
21.
KayP.McDanielC. (1978). The linguistic significance of the meanings of basic color terms. Language, 54, 610–646.
22.
LandarH.J.ErvinS.M.HorowitzA.E. (1960). Navaho color categories. Language, 36, 368–382.
23.
MacLauryR.E. (1997). Color and cognition in Mesoamerica: Constructing categories as vantages. Austin: University of Texas Press.
24.
McCannJ.J.McKeeS.P.TaylorT.H. (1976). Quantitative studies in retinex theory: A comparison between theoretical predictions and observer responses to the “color mondrian” experiments. Vision Research, 16, 445–458.
25.
NewhallS.M.NickersonD.JuddD.B. (1943). Final report of the O.S.A. subcommittee on spacing of the Munsell colors. Journal of the Optical Society of America A, 33, 385.
26.
NussbaumJ.J.PruettR.C.DeloriF.C. (1981). Historic perspectives: Macular yellow pigment. The first 200 years. Retina, 1, 296–310.
27.
OzgenE.DaviesI.R.L. (1998). Turkish color terms: Tests of Berlin and Kay's theory of color universals and linguistic relativity. Linguistics, 36, 919–956.
28.
PastoureauM. (2000). Le bleu, histoire d'une couleur. Paris: Éditions du Seuil.
29.
PokornyJ.SmithV.C.LutzeM. (1987). Aging of the human lens. Applied Optics, 26, 1437–1440.
30.
PokornyJ.SmithV.C.VerriestG.PinckersA.J.L.G. (1979). Congenital and acquired colour vision defects. London: Grune-Stratton.
31.
RatliffF. (1976). On the psychophysiological bases of universal color terms. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 120, 311–330.
32.
RinnerO.GegenfurtnerK.R. (2000). Time course of chromatic adaptation for color appearance and discrimination. Vision Research, 40, 1813–1826.
33.
RiversW.H.R. (1901). Vision. In HaddonA.C., (Ed.), Reports on the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition of the Torres Straits: Vol. II. Physiology and psychology (pp. 1–132). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
34.
RobersonD.DaviesI.DavidoffJ. (2000). Color categories are not universal: Replications and new evidence from a stone-age culture. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 129, 369–398.
35.
SaundersB.van BrakelJ. (1997). Are there nontrivial constraints on colour categorization?Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 20, 167–228.
36.
WernerJ.S. (1982). Light, vision, and aging. Optometry and Vision Science, 67, 214–229.
37.
WernerJ.S.SteeleV.G.PfoffD.S. (1989). Loss of human photoreceptor sensitivity associated with chronic exposure to ultraviolet radiation. Ophthalmology, 96, 1552–1558.
38.
WinderickxJ.LindseyD.T.SanockiE.TellerD.Y.MotulskyA.G.DeebS.S. (1992). A polymorphism in red photopigment underlies variation in color matching. Nature, 356, 431–433.
39.
WyszeckiG.StilesW.S. (1982). Color science: Concepts and methods, quantitative data and formulae (2nd ed.). New York: Wiley.
40.
YoungR.W. (1994). The family of sunlight-related eye diseases. Optometry and Vision Science, 71, 124–144.
