On the Role of Culture in Color Naming: Remarks on the Articles of Paramei, Kay, Roberson, and Hardin on the Topic of Cognition, Culture, and Color Experience

Abstract

Comment on the preceding articles is now provided to highlight some open questions and controversies raised in this issue. The primary goal is to provide a context for examining the longaccepted views from the cross-cultural color categorization and naming literature that are presented in the articles. For this reason alone, the articles by Hardin and Kay—which present new analyses compatible with the established theory in the area— receive more comment than do those of Roberson and Paramei— which, comparatively speaking, are less concordant with the established theory and reflect more culturally specific views of color naming phenomena. In my opinion, each of the four articles in this issue contributes important perspectives on cross-cultural color naming research. Although the order of articles in this volume is Paramei, Kay, Roberson, and Hardin, the comments presented here are organized to emphasize the authors’ common view-