Focal Colors Research Articles

TURKISH COLOR TERMS AS A LINGUISTIC CHOICE OF ALBANIAN SPEAKERS

: It has been ascertained that Turkish loanwords have an important place and status in the Albanian language. Color terms are an interesting part of this category of the Albanian lexicon, which plays an important role as a carrier of cultural and lingual inheritance. This paper studies color names and their meanings as well as their role as a linguistic choice of different varieties of the Albanian language. Lexicalization patterns of color naming in Albanian are examined with special emphasis on Turkish loanwords. The meaning, function, and role of Turkish loanwords are observed based on relevant dictionaries and the Albanian National Corpus. The attitude of Albanian speakers towards Turkish loanwords was investigated based on a survey conducted with students at the University of Prishtina. This study presents valuable data collected from different sources. Their analysis has shown that Turkish loanwords are used to name different categories of the color spectrum; they fit all lexicalization models of Indo-European languages, they can be the only term used to name the focal color category in different dialects, and the change in the meanings of these words has led to the emergence of new focal colors. Therefore, this paper argues that the existence of Turkish color terms in Albanian cannot be explained only with the universalist approach and that the relativist approach should not be ignored, due to the linguistic choice speakers make in different varieties of Albanian language.

Fruits and plants, grains and seeds, birds, precious metals, and substances, or the conceptualization of colors in Tunisian Arabic

Abstract Two opposed views dominate the color scene: Universalism and relativism. Each view has been shown to have fallen short of fully accounting for color perception and naming across languages and cultures. Beyond this controversy, the current article proposes cultural neuroscience as an alternative view to account for color naming and the conceptualization of experiences in color terms in Tunisian Arabic (TA). Cultural neuroscience accumulated massive cross-cultural empirical evidence to the effect that culture greatly impacts brain and cognition. The current article will draw on cultural neuroscience to explain the central role played by culture in shaping cognition and language. Thus, the argument will run as follows: The language in which color is cloaked owes much to experience in social cognition, which is greatly impacted by the cultural environment. This view implies that color naming is under the influence of the cultural needs of color users and cognizers in their respective cultures, with the language they speak as ancillary to culture. In TA, there are 11 color terms, with five focal colors including multiple shades and a form in mes– (–ish), reminiscent of English brownish from brown. Color naming in TA is conceptualized in terms of names of fruits (oranges, apricots, peaches, dates), plants (Jew’s mallow), aromatic plants (lavender), grains (wheat), birds (canary), seeds (pistachio), precious metals (gold), and substances (honey, coffee, chocolate, ash). Color is also manifest as a source domain in various metaphoric and metonymic expressions to conceptualize experiences and events using verbal, nominal, and adjectival derivations.

What Underlies Focal Colours?

What Underlies Focal Colours?

The PURPLE mystery: Semantic meaning of three purple terms in French speakers from Algeria, France, and Switzerland

AbstractStudies on the color category PURPLE yielded inconsistent category boundaries, focal colors, and color‐emotion associations. In French, there are at least three color terms referring to the shades of purple, potentially weighing on these inconsistencies. Thus, we tested the semantic breadth and richness in semantic meaning of violet (basic term), lilas (non‐basic), and pourpre (non‐basic). We collected free associations in 274 French speakers from Algeria, France, and Switzerland, yielding 2079 responses, of which 436 were discrete and 275 were unique. Frequency analyses and semantic coding supported the basicness status of violet in French, within a hierarchically structured semantic system. Moreover, the meaning of the three terms was not synonymous. Violet had the most abstract meaning. Lilas had the narrowest meaning, mainly referring to Natural Entities. Pourpre seemed close to RED. We found no differences between the countries. Future studies should extend this approach to other languages and other color terms.

The effect of color on short-term memory performance

Introduction. The relevance of the research topic is justified by new trends in modern education, namely, active introduction of innovative technologies and solutions to expand opportunities and improve the quality of education. In the context of educational improvements, the focus is on searching for advanced techniques that can increase the efficiency of cognitive processing of educational information and facilitate memorization of educational material. The study aims to assess the impact that various conditions of color stimulation have on short-term verbal memory indicators (capacity, memorization efficiency, trajectories and successful learning of vocabulary items). Methods. The study involved 53 participants (15 male and 38 female) aged 18-36 years (average age 20.5 years, SD = 3.59). Short-term memory indicators were measured with the help of ten-word memorization technique and a test for memorizing numerical series. The color stimuli of the experiment included the focal colors of the 27 most popular categories among Russian speakers, the coordinates of which were determined in the CIELAB system. To develop and conduct the experiment, the HTC VIVE PRO Eye virtual reality system was used, which allowed demonstrating the experimental stimuli on the helmet screens and simultaneously record eye movements. Results. Memory span averaged 5.6±1.5 and was higher among the participants who saw dark and red-violet hues and lower among those who looked at swamp green and green stimuli. The highest efficiency coefficients for memorizing words were recorded in cases with black (median = 0.87) and dark purple (median = 0.84) color stimulation. When memorizing numerical series, the maximum coefficient was for saturated hues – red, green and fuchsia (median = 0.86). Successful memorization averaged 7.7±1.8 and reached the maximum (10) in cases with exposure to primary basic colors – black, green and blue, as well as non-primary turquoise and crimson. Cluster data analysis showed that memory indicators are most similar for the stimuli that are comparable in their impact on pupil diameter, blinking frequency and dynamics of gaze direction, namely, for light warm hues; dark hues; rich stimuli from the warm part of the color spectrum; light purple hues; red and gray-green hues. Discussion. As in previous studies, certain indicators of short-term memory were higher under the influence of ‘warm’ stimuli compared to ‘cold’ ones, but the present study did not confirm the advantage of achromatic colors compared to chromatic ones. The experiment revealed that changes in memory parameters correlate not only with the tone of color stimuli but also with their other characteristics, primarily with lightness and saturation. Conclusion. The results of this study can be applied used in educational practice to develop effective ways of improving memory performance and of memorizing information using color. Further research should regard possible gender, age and cross-cultural differences.

Deep Learner System Based on Focal Color Retinal Fundus Images to Assist in Diagnosis.

Retinal diseases are a serious and widespread ophthalmic disease that seriously affects patients' vision and quality of life. With the aging of the population and the change in lifestyle, the incidence rate of retinal diseases has increased year by year. However, traditional diagnostic methods often require experienced doctors to analyze and judge fundus images, which carries the risk of subjectivity and misdiagnosis. This paper will analyze an intelligent medical system based on focal retinal image-aided diagnosis and use a convolutional neural network (CNN) to recognize, classify, and detect hard exudates (HEs) in fundus images (FIs). The research results indicate that under the same other conditions, the accuracy, recall, and precision of the system in diagnosing five types of patients with pathological changes under color retinal FIs range from 86.4% to 98.6%. Under conventional retinopathy FIs, the accuracy, recall, and accuracy of the system in diagnosing five types of patients ranged from 70.1% to 85%. The results show that the application of focus color retinal FIs in the intelligent medical system has high accuracy and reliability for the early detection and diagnosis of diabetic retinopathy and has important clinical applications.

Poster Session: Lexical effects on 3D color matches in short- and long-term memory.

We report a comprehensive within-subjects study of color memory, using 22 colors widely spaced in 3D color space. 10 observers made isomeric color matches on iPads (method of adjustment, 3D CIELAB-based color palette) when the test color was simultaneously present or after delays = 10 or 300 sec (random block design). To test for lexical effects on color memory, the same observers grouped 1625 Munsell samples before the memory experiment and provided focal colors and unconstrained color terms for the groups. They also named the remembered color after each 300-sec trial. Delay affected every measure of matching performance. Matches were more variable for 10-sec delays than in the simultaneous condition. Simultaneous matches were near the test colors (∆E=2.8), but the distance from the test color (bias) increased for 10-sec delays, generally in the direction of increased saturation, with variation across test colors. These measures increased little between 10 and 300 sec. To test for lexical effects, an "attraction score" measured how much matches were biased by the observers' unique focal colors. Attraction scores for simultaneous matches were near zero, but some colors showed substantial attraction to the focal colors at 10- and 300-sec delays. The 300-sec matches were highly significantly attracted to the focal colors of names provided after each trial. Observers' color idiolect complexity and test color codability were not impressively related to performance at any delay.

Color naming, color identification, and the focal color terms

Color naming, color identification, and the focal color terms

The effects of ecology and behavior on the evolution of coloration in Coraciiformes

Abstract What drives the evolution of plumage color in birds? Bird color is likely to be under both natural and sexual selection where natural selection may favor evolution toward crypsis or camouflage whereas sexual selection may favor evolution toward conspicuousness. The responses to selection are predicted to relate to species’ ecology, behavior, and life history. Key hypotheses have focused on habitat and light environment, breeding strategy, territoriality, and hunting behavior. We tested these potential causes of color variation in the Coraciiformes, a colorful clade of non-passerine birds, using phylogenetic comparative methods and data on chromatic and achromatic properties of plumage coloration measured from museum specimens. We found that correlates of color evolution in Coraciiformes vary across body regions and depend on the focal color property (chromatic or achromatic properties of plumage coloration). While the light environment showed widespread effects on coloration in multiple body regions for both color properties, selection pressures related to behavioral characteristics had more spatially localized effects (e.g. territoriality on achromatic properties of wing feathers and hunting strategy on chromatic properties of belly feathers). Our results reveal both general patterns that may hold across other bird clades and more nuanced effects of selection that are likely to be mediated through the visual ecology of the signaler and receiver and the behavioral characteristics of Coraciiform species.

Invariant categorical color regions across illuminant change coincide with focal colors.

Are there regions in a color space where color categories are invariant across illuminant changes? If so, what characteristics make them more stable than other regions? To address these questions, we asked observers to give a color name to 424 colored surfaces, presented one at a time, under various chromatic illuminants. Results showed a high degree of categorical color constancy, especially under illuminants that occur in the natural environment. It was also shown that surfaces selected as a focal color (the best example of a color category) are more resistant to illuminant change than nonfocal color samples. We additionally ran an asymmetric color matching experiment to quantify the shift of color appearance induced by illuminant changes using surfaces that were all named gray, thereby disentangling the appearance-based color constancy from the categorical color constancy (which are often confounded). Results suggested that the appearance of color samples largely shifted owing to illuminant changes, even though all samples were named gray; showing that the constancy of a color category is substantially more robust than the constancy of color appearance.

Florence "blues" are clothed in triple basic terms.

Psycholinguistic studies provide evidence that Italian has more than one basic color term (BCT) for “blue”: consensually, blu denotes “dark blue,” while “light-and-medium blue,” with diatopic variation, is termed either azzurro or celeste. For Tuscan speakers (predominantly from Florence), the BLUE area is argued to linguistically differentiate between azzurro “medium blue” and celeste “light blue.” We scrutinized “basicness” of the three terms. Participants (N = 31; university students/graduates born in Tuscany) named each chip of eight Munsell charts encompassing the BLUE area (5BG-5PB; N = 237) using an unconstrained color-naming method. They then indicated the “best exemplar” (focal color) of blu, azzurro and celeste. We found that frequencies of the three terms and of term derivatives were comparable. Referential meaning of blu, azzurro, and celeste was estimated in CIELAB space as L*a*b*-coordinates of the mean of focal colors and as “modal” categories, that is, dispersion around the mean. The three “blue” terms were distinct on both measures and separated along all three CIELAB dimensions but predominantly along the L*-dimension. Our results provide evidence that Tuscan speakers require all three terms for naming the BLUE area, categorically refined along the lightness dimension. Furthermore, celeste appears to be a third BCT for “blue,” along with commonly considered BCTs azzurro and blu. The “triple blues” as BCTs for Tuscan speakers are in contrast with outcomes of two “blue” basic terms estimated by using the same methodology in two other locations in Italy—azzurro and blu (Verona, Veneto region) or celeste and blu (Alghero, Sardinia).

Influence of visual background on discrimination of signal-relevant colours in zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata).

Colour signals of many animals are surrounded by a high-contrast achromatic background, but little is known about the possible function of this arrangement. For both humans and non-human animals, the background colour surrounding a colour stimulus affects the perception of that stimulus, an effect that can influence detection and discrimination of colour signals. Specifically, high colour contrast between the background and two given colour stimuli makes discrimination more difficult. However, it remains unclear how achromatic background contrast affects signal discrimination in non-human animals. Here, we test whether achromatic contrast between signal-relevant colours and an achromatic background affects the ability of zebra finches to discriminate between those colours. Using an odd-one-out paradigm and generalized linear mixed models, we found that higher achromatic contrast with the background, whether positive or negative, decreases the ability of zebra finches to discriminate between target and non-target stimuli. This effect is particularly strong when colour distances are small (less than 4 ΔS) and Michelson achromatic contrast with the background is high (greater than 0.5). We suggest that researchers should consider focal colour patches and their backgrounds as collectively comprising a signal, rather than focusing on solely the focal colour patch itself.

디지털 미디어 환경에서 KS 기본색명을 통해 인지되는 초점색의 속성 연구

Due to digital transformation, accurate color communication is required even in the digital media environment. Focal colors refer to colors of focal points in color categories, representing names of color. Therefore, the focal color can be used as a reference point for color communication even in the digital media environment. In this study, targeting 60 Korean females, focal colors that fall into KS basic color names have been investigated in digital color space and properties of those focal colors have been analyzed. The findings show that focal colors have perceptually outstanding characteristics with a high degree of chroma and lightness. In addition, the focal color derived through the digital color space showed a much higher chroma characteristic than previous studies using color swatches. There was a high level of agreement among subjects regarding hue of focal colors, while demonstrating a low level of agreement regarding chroma of focal colors. Moreover, distribution patterns of each focal color with basic color names varied in accordance with the color space of Yellow-Red, Green-Yellow, Blue-Green, and Red-Blue; in other words, each color space recognized according to basic color names showed different distribution patterns.

언어 부호화를 통한 기억색의 색채 속성 연구 - 친숙한 자연물을 대상으로

Memory color is a color that is remembered in relation to a familiar object. According to previous studies, memory colors had a higher chroma and lightness than real object colors, and tended to change in the direction of the most impressive chromatic color. The purpose of this study was to investigate the colorimetric properties of the memory colors that were different from the real object color. A preliminary experiment and two main experiment were conducted with a total of 60 women in their 20s and 30s. Through a preliminary experiment, 10 natural objects representing 13 color names, including KS basic color names and sky blue, were selected. In this first experiment, the L, a, b values of the memory colors of 10 natural objects were investigated in a digital color space using a Photoshop color picker. In the second experiment, color names of 10 natural object were investigated by freely describing color names of the objects to be investigated. As a result, the lightness and chroma of the memory colors increased, and the hue tended to reinforce the chromatic color properties. The range of memory colors was reduced compared to the range of real object colors due to the influence of cognitive activity that memorizes the core color characteristics. On the other hand, memory colors of orange, earth and sky were more widely distributed than real object colors. They had a higher response rate to descriptive color names than other objects. It can be estimated whether the difference between object colors and memory colors is due to the mediator effect of focal colors. A focal color is a typical color that best represents a certain color category.

Novel Ablation Therapy Using Endoscopic Irreversible Electroporation in the Bile Duct: A Pilot Animal Study.

Background/AimsIrreversible electroporation (IRE) is a relatively new ablation method. However, the application of IRE ablation in the treatment of biliary disease has not been attempted. A minimally invasive approach using endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) can be a novel therapeutic modality for IRE ablation. In this study, we aimed to investigate the feasibility of endoscopic IRE for the biliary tract using an animal model. MethodsA new catheter-type electrode was developed for endoscopic IRE ablation of the biliary tract. We performed ERCP and endoscopic IRE ablations in the normal common bile duct of Yorkshire pigs. The experimental setting of IRE was 500 V/cm (50 pulses, 100-µs length). The animals were sacrificed after 24 hr, and the ablated bile duct was examined. ResultsWell-demarcated focal color changes were observed on the mucosa of the common bile duct. The depth of change after IRE was confined to the mucosal and submucosal layers. Apoptotic changes in the bile duct were observed only around the IRE ablation area. Immunohistochemistry assay showed cell death in the bile duct along the electrode. ConclusionsEndoscopic IRE ablation using ERCP was successfully performed in the common bile duct. It can be a potential option for the treatment of biliary tumors.

Functional colour genes and signals of selection in colour-polymorphic salamanders.

Coloration has been associated with multiple biologically relevant traits that drive adaptation and diversification in many taxa. However, despite the great diversity of colour patterns present in amphibians the underlying molecular basis is largely unknown. Here, we use insight from a highly colour-variable lineage of the European fire salamander (Salamandra salamandra bernardezi) to identify functional associations with striking variation in colour morph and pattern. The three focal colour morphs-ancestral black-yellow striped, fully yellow and fully brown-differed in pattern, visible coloration and cellular composition. From population genomic analyses of up to 4,702 loci, we found no correlations of neutral population genetic structure with colour morph. However, we identified 21 loci with genotype-phenotype associations, several of which relate to known colour genes. Furthermore, we inferred response to selection at up to 142 loci between the colour morphs, again including several that relate to coloration genes. By transcriptomic analysis across all different combinations, we found 196 differentially expressed genes between yellow, brown and black skin, 63 of which are candidate genes involved in animal coloration. The concordance across different statistical approaches and 'omic data sets provide several lines of evidence for loci linked to functional differences between colour morphs, including TYR, CAMK1 and PMEL. We found little association between colour morph and the metabolomic profile of its toxic compounds from the skin secretions. Our research suggests that current ecological and evolutionary hypotheses for the origins and maintenance of these striking colour morphs may need to be revisited.

Irreversible electroporation of the bile duct in swine: A pilot study.

541 Background: Irreversible electroporation (IRE) is a relatively new ablative method. However, the application of IRE ablation has not been attempted for the treatment of biliary disease. Minimally invasive approach using endoscopic retrograde cholangio-pancreatography (ERCP) can be a novel therapeutic modality for IRE ablation. In this study, we investigated the feasibility and effect of endoscopic IRE for biliary tract in animal model. Methods: A new catheter electrode was developed for endoscopic IRE ablation of biliary tract. The electrode for IRE ablation has two band-shaped electrodes on catheter tip. We performed ERCP and endoscopic IRE ablations on normal common bile duct in 6 Yorkshire pigs. Experimental parameters of IRE were 500V/cm, 1000V/cm and 2000V/cm (under 50 pulses, 100 µs length). Animals were sacrificed after 24 hours and ablated bile duct were collected. H & E stain, immunohistochemistry and western blot were performed. Results: Well-demarcated focal color changes were observed on the mucosa of the common bile duct under all experimental parameters. After IRE ablation, bile duct epithelium was disappeared around ablated area and it showed fibrotic change in H&E stain. Depth of change after IRE was different between each experimental parameters. Apoptotic change of bile duct was localized around mucosa in 500V. Diffuse transmural fibrosis of bile duct was shown after IRE ablation with 2000V. TUNEL immunohistochemistry showed the cell death of bile duct mucosa and submucosa along the electrode. Within 24 hours, no complication was observed in pigs after endoscopic IRE ablation. Conclusions: Endoscopic IRE ablation using ERCP was successfully performed on common bile duct by using catheter-shaped electrode. It can be a potential therapeutic option as minimally invasive ablation for treatment of biliary tumors.

Communication efficiency of color naming across languages provides a new framework for the evolution of color terms

Languages vary in their number of color terms. A widely accepted theory proposes that languages evolve, acquiring color terms in a stereotyped sequence. This theory, by Berlin and Kay (BK), is supported by analyzing best exemplars (“focal colors”) of basic color terms in the World Color Survey (WCS) of 110 languages. But the instructions of the WCS were complex and the color chips confounded hue and saturation, which likely impacted focal-color selection. In addition, it is now known that even so-called early-stage languages nonetheless have a complete representation of color distributed across the population. These facts undermine the BK theory. Here we revisit the evolution of color terms using original color-naming data obtained with simple instructions in Tsimane’, an Amazonian culture that has limited contact with industrialized society. We also collected data in Bolivian-Spanish speakers and English speakers. We discovered that information theory analysis of color-naming data was not influenced by color-chip saturation, which motivated a new analysis of the WCS data. Embedded within a universal pattern in which warm colors (reds, oranges) are always communicated more efficiently than cool colors (blues, greens), as languages increase in overall communicative efficiency about color, some colors undergo greater increases in communication efficiency compared to others. Communication efficiency increases first for yellow, then brown, then purple. The present analyses and results provide a new framework for understanding the evolution of color terms: what varies among cultures is not whether colors are seen differently, but the extent to which color is useful.

COLOUR TERMS IN <i>SUDDEN FICTION</i>

The paper presents the analysis of colour perception and its interpretation in psychology and symbolism; it highlights colour properties and the approaches to colour studies largely in linguistics. One of the features of colours is their ability to express human emotions and feelings, either positive or negative (verbally/ nonverbally), and to create certain atmosphere in the situation abound in colours. Shades of colours can be regarded as a lexico-semantic group formed by adjectives and nouns, which can be simple, derived, and compound words. Short texts include many colour terms expressing such colour properties, as hue, saturation, tone, lightness, intensity; each of them contributes to decoding of some culture-specific features hidden in Sudden fiction. The analysis of Sudden fiction shows that short stories have specific composition, where colour terms perform different functions. Descriptive functions are mainly connected with focal colours and identify objects’ properties. Other functions, such as character-generating, associative, metaphoric, symbolic, semiotic, and culture specific are more complicated. Their identification implies additional knowledge of cultural, social, and historical planes.

The subjective metric of remembered colors: A Fisher-information analysis of the geometry of human chromatic memory.

In order to explore the metric structure of the space of remembered colors, a computer game was designed, where players with normal color vision had to store a color in memory, and later retrieve it by selecting the best match out of a continuum of alternatives. All tested subjects exhibited evidence of focal colors in their mnemonic strategy. We found no concluding evidence that the focal colors of different players tended to cluster around universal prototypes. Based on the Fisher metric, for each subject we defined a notion of distance in color space that captured the accuracy with which similar colors where discriminated or confounded when stored and retrieved from memory. The notions of distance obtained for different players were remarkably similar. Finally, for each player, we constructed a new color scale, in which colors are memorized and retrieved with uniform accuracy.