Skip to main content

Main menu

  • Home
  • Articles
    • Current
    • Special Feature Articles - Most Recent
    • Special Features
    • Colloquia
    • Collected Articles
    • PNAS Classics
    • List of Issues
  • Front Matter
    • Front Matter Portal
    • Journal Club
  • News
    • For the Press
    • This Week In PNAS
    • PNAS in the News
  • Podcasts
  • Authors
    • Information for Authors
    • Editorial and Journal Policies
    • Submission Procedures
    • Fees and Licenses
  • Submit
  • Submit
  • About
    • Editorial Board
    • PNAS Staff
    • FAQ
    • Accessibility Statement
    • Rights and Permissions
    • Site Map
  • Contact
  • Journal Club
  • Subscribe
    • Subscription Rates
    • Subscriptions FAQ
    • Open Access
    • Recommend PNAS to Your Librarian

User menu

  • Log in
  • My Cart

Search

  • Advanced search
Home
Home
  • Log in
  • My Cart

Advanced Search

  • Home
  • Articles
    • Current
    • Special Feature Articles - Most Recent
    • Special Features
    • Colloquia
    • Collected Articles
    • PNAS Classics
    • List of Issues
  • Front Matter
    • Front Matter Portal
    • Journal Club
  • News
    • For the Press
    • This Week In PNAS
    • PNAS in the News
  • Podcasts
  • Authors
    • Information for Authors
    • Editorial and Journal Policies
    • Submission Procedures
    • Fees and Licenses
  • Submit
Research Article

On the origin of the hierarchy of color names

Vittorio Loreto, Animesh Mukherjee, and Francesca Tria
  1. aDipartimento di Fisica, Sapienza Universita’ di Roma, Piazzale Aldo Moro 5, 00185 Rome, Italy;
  2. bInstitute for Scientific Interchange, Viale Settimio Severo 65, 10133 Turin, Italy; and
  3. cDepartment of Computer Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur 721302, India

See allHide authors and affiliations

PNAS May 1, 2012 109 (18) 6819-6824; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1113347109
Vittorio Loreto
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Animesh Mukherjee
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Francesca Tria
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • For correspondence: tria@isi.it
  1. Edited by Giorgio Parisi, University of Rome, Rome, Italy, and approved February 16, 2012 (received for review August 14, 2011)

  • Article
  • Figures & SI
  • Info & Metrics
  • PDF
Loading

Abstract

One of the fundamental problems in cognitive science is how humans categorize the visible color spectrum. The empirical evidence of the existence of universal or recurrent patterns in color naming across cultures is paralleled by the observation that color names begin to be used by individual cultures in a relatively fixed order. The origin of this hierarchy is largely unexplained. Here we resort to multiagent simulations, where a population of individuals, subject to a simple perceptual constraint shared by all humans, namely the human Just Noticeable Difference, categorizes and names colors through a purely cultural negotiation in the form of language games. We found that the time needed for a population to reach consensus on a color name depends on the region of the visible color spectrum. If color spectrum regions are ranked according to this criterion, a hierarchy with [red, (magenta)-red], [violet], [green/yellow], [blue], [orange], and [cyan], appearing in this order, is recovered, featuring an excellent quantitative agreement with the empirical observations of the WCS. Our results demonstrate a clear possible route to the emergence of hierarchical color categories, confirming that the theoretical modeling in this area has now attained the required maturity to make significant contributions to the ongoing debates concerning language universals.

  • color hierarchy
  • complex systems
  • computational cognitive science
  • statistical physics
  • category game

Footnotes

  • ↵1To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: tria{at}isi.it.
  • Author contributions: V.L., A.M., and F.T. designed research, performed research, contributed new reagents/analytic tools, analyzed data, and wrote the paper.

  • The authors declare no conflict of interest.

  • This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.

  • This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1113347109/-/DCSupplemental.

View Full Text
PreviousNext
Back to top
Article Alerts
Email Article

Thank you for your interest in spreading the word on PNAS.

NOTE: We only request your email address so that the person you are recommending the page to knows that you wanted them to see it, and that it is not junk mail. We do not capture any email address.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
On the origin of the hierarchy of color names
(Your Name) has sent you a message from PNAS
(Your Name) thought you would like to see the PNAS web site.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Citation Tools
On the origin of the hierarchy of color names
Vittorio Loreto, Animesh Mukherjee, Francesca Tria
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences May 2012, 109 (18) 6819-6824; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1113347109

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
Request Permissions
Share
On the origin of the hierarchy of color names
Vittorio Loreto, Animesh Mukherjee, Francesca Tria
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences May 2012, 109 (18) 6819-6824; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1113347109
del.icio.us logo Digg logo Reddit logo Twitter logo CiteULike logo Facebook logo Google logo Mendeley logo
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Mendeley logo Mendeley

Article Classifications

  • Physical Sciences
  • Applied Physical Sciences
  • Social Sciences
  • Psychological and Cognitive Sciences
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: 109 (18)
Table of Contents

Submit

Sign up for Article Alerts

Jump to section

  • Article
    • Abstract
    • The Hierarchical Category Game
    • Dynamics
    • Hierarchy of Fixation Times
    • Discussion
    • Conclusion
    • Methods
    • Acknowledgments
    • Footnotes
    • References
  • Figures & SI
  • Info & Metrics
  • PDF

You May Also be Interested in

Smoke emanates from Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant a few days after tsunami damage
Core Concept: Muography offers a new way to see inside a multitude of objects
Muons penetrate much further than X-rays, they do essentially zero damage, and they are provided for free by the cosmos.
Image credit: Science Source/Digital Globe.
Water from a faucet fills a glass.
News Feature: How “forever chemicals” might impair the immune system
Researchers are exploring whether these ubiquitous fluorinated molecules might worsen infections or hamper vaccine effectiveness.
Image credit: Shutterstock/Dmitry Naumov.
Venus flytrap captures a fly.
Journal Club: Venus flytrap mechanism could shed light on how plants sense touch
One protein seems to play a key role in touch sensitivity for flytraps and other meat-eating plants.
Image credit: Shutterstock/Kuttelvaserova Stuchelova.
Illustration of groups of people chatting
Exploring the length of human conversations
Adam Mastroianni and Daniel Gilbert explore why conversations almost never end when people want them to.
Listen
Past PodcastsSubscribe
Panda bear hanging in a tree
How horse manure helps giant pandas tolerate cold
A study finds that giant pandas roll in horse manure to increase their cold tolerance.
Image credit: Fuwen Wei.

Similar Articles

Site Logo
Powered by HighWire
  • Submit Manuscript
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • RSS Feeds
  • Email Alerts

Articles

  • Current Issue
  • Special Feature Articles – Most Recent
  • List of Issues

PNAS Portals

  • Anthropology
  • Chemistry
  • Classics
  • Front Matter
  • Physics
  • Sustainability Science
  • Teaching Resources

Information

  • Authors
  • Editorial Board
  • Reviewers
  • Subscribers
  • Librarians
  • Press
  • Cozzarelli Prize
  • Site Map
  • PNAS Updates
  • FAQs
  • Accessibility Statement
  • Rights & Permissions
  • About
  • Contact

Feedback    Privacy/Legal

Copyright © 2021 National Academy of Sciences. Online ISSN 1091-6490