The Impact of Statistical Distributions of Colours on Colour Category Acquisition

Abstract

Different accounts have been proposed to explain the remarkable cross-cultural similarities of human colour categories. One of these accounts, known as empiricism, places the burden of the explanation on the statistical distribution of colours in the shared environment we live in. It has been claimed that this factor is essential for the nature of human colour categories and that it is even capable to account for the evolution of colour categories as observed in human cultures. We present a computational model to verify this hypothesis, which improves on previous work by Yendrikhovskij (2001a). Our results suggest that the chromatic environment does not fully explain the nature of human colour categories, however the distribution of colours in the environment does bias the acquisition of colour categories. We suggest how culture and specifically language might account for the observed nature of human colour categories.