Colour

Colour is a concept describing the spectrum of wavelengths visible to humans. Non-human species perceive colours outside this spectrum.

Properties

Physical properties of colour
- Wavelengths

Visible spectrum

^{Gringer. An sRGB rendering of the spectrum of visible light (2008). Wikipedia. Image by author.}

Agents interpret these wavelengths using their visual processing system
- These systems offer an evolutionary advantage (Private), e.g., apes can differentiate fruits by colour
  - Ability to perceive certain colours develops due to their prevalence in an agent's environment

flowchart TB subgraph B[Agent] direction TB B1[Visual Processing System] end B4[Behaviour] B1--interprets-->A A--influences-->B4 B4--results in-->F subgraph F[Natural Selection] direction TB D[Survival] E[Extinction] end subgraph A[Visual information] direction LR C1[Food] C2[Predators] C3[Prey] C4[Shelter] C5[Colour of...] C5-->C1 & C2 & C3 & C4 end H[Agent] F--changes-->H

Subjective experiences of colour vary between among and across species. Old and young can see differently, males and females (in some species males have dichromatic but females can have trichromatic vision), neurologically different individuals across species.

These relationships become further complicated because different species use different portions of the spectrum to see the same place and add other senses.

Language about colour

Colour semantic studies of individual languages are often greatly concerned, some would say obsessed, with the matter of basicness. Which colour words are Basic Colour Terms (BCTs) and which are not? As with other basic vocabulary, BCTs are frequently used, in both speech and writing, and they are well known to all adult speakers of the language. English speakers all know words such as mother, arm, red and green but they are less likely to encounter and/or understand sibling, pancreas, burgundy and taupe, which suggests that the second word-set contains non-basic terms.1

Metaphor

Metaphorical usage of colour.2

Human

Footnotes

Biggam, Carole P. “Prehistoric Colour Semantics: A Contradiction in Terms.” In Colour Studies: A Broad Spectrum, edited by Wendy Anderson, Carole P. Biggam, Carole Hough, and Christian Kay, 3–28. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2014.˄
Rachael Louise Hamilton, “Colour in English: From Metonymy to Metaphor” (PhD, University of Glasgow, 2016).˄

Backlinks

Properties

Language about colour

Metaphor

Human