Sean Roberts

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  • August 21, 2010
  • 01:56 PM
  • 2,292 views

Evolution of Colour Terms: 5 Cultural Constraints

by Sean Roberts in A Replicated Typo 2.0

Continuing my series on the Evolution of Colour terms, this post reviews studies of cultural constraints on colour naming. For the full dissertation and for references, go here.

This section reviews evidence of cultural constraints on colour terms.  Modelling has shown that cultural transmission can cause individual categorisations of colour space to converge on shared categories, . . . → Read More: Evolution of Colour Terms: 5 Cultural Constraints... Read more »

Steels, L., & Belpaeme, T. (2005) Coordinating perceptually grounded categories through language: A case study for colour. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 28(04). DOI: 10.1017/S0140525X05000087  

Belpaeme, T., & Bleys, J. (2005) Explaining Universal Color Categories Through a Constrained Acquisition Process. Adaptive Behavior, 13(4), 293-310. DOI: 10.1177/105971230501300404  

Kirby, S., Cornish, H., & Smith, K. (2008) Cumulative cultural evolution in the laboratory: An experimental approach to the origins of structure in human language. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105(31), 10681-10686. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0707835105  

Kirby, S., Dowman, M., & Griffiths, T. (2007) Innateness and culture in the evolution of language. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104(12), 5241-5245. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0608222104  

KOMAROVA, N., JAMESON, K., & NARENS, L. (2007) Evolutionary models of color categorization based on discrimination. Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 51(6), 359-382. DOI: 10.1016/j.jmp.2007.06.001  

  • August 19, 2010
  • 06:00 AM
  • 1,094 views

Evolution of Colour Terms: 3 Perceptual Constraints

by Sean Roberts in A Replicated Typo 2.0

Continuing my series on the Evolution of Colour terms, this post reviews evidence for perceptual constraints on colour terms. For the full dissertation and for references, go here.

The perceptual space that results from the processing of opponent colours is non-uniform (see Figure below), meaning that there are optimal ways to describe it (Jameson & D’Andrade, . . . → Read More: Evolution of Colour Terms: 3 Perceptual Constraints... Read more »

Jameson, K., & D'Andrade, R.G. (1997) It's not really Red, Green, Yellow, Blue: An Inquiry into cognitive color space. Color Categories in Thought and Language. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511519819.014  

Regier, T., Kay, P., & Khetarpal, N. (2007) Color naming reflects optimal partitions of color space. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104(4), 1436-1441. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0610341104  

Liljencrants, J., Lindblom, B., & Lindblom, B. (1972) Numerical Simulation of Vowel Quality Systems: The Role of Perceptual Contrast. Language, 48(4), 839. DOI: 10.2307/411991  

DEBOER, B. (2000) Self-organization in vowel systems. Journal of Phonetics, 28(4), 441-465. DOI: 10.1006/jpho.2000.0125  

Buchsbaum, G. (2002) Color categories revealed by non-negative matrix factorization of Munsell color spectra. Vision Research, 42(5), 559-563. DOI: 10.1016/S0042-6989(01)00303-0  

  • August 25, 2010
  • 05:26 AM
  • 1,084 views

Niche Construction in Colour Term Evolution

by Sean Roberts in A Replicated Typo 2.0

Language’s influence on perception can be regarded as a form of Niche Construction. The words we have for colours affects the way in which we co-operate with others to change the world. Therefore, not only does language become better at describing the environment, but the environment becomes better suited to being described by language.... Read more »

Laland, K., Odling-Smee, J., & Feldman, M. (2000) Niche construction, biological evolution, and cultural change. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 23(1), 131-146. DOI: 10.1017/S0140525X00002417  

Hansen, T., Olkkonen, M., Walter, S., & Gegenfurtner, K. (2006) Memory modulates color appearance. Nature Neuroscience, 9(11), 1367-1368. DOI: 10.1038/nn1794  

Heslop-Harrison, J., & Schwarzacher, T. (2007) Domestication, Genomics and the Future for Banana. Annals of Botany, 100(5), 1073-1084. DOI: 10.1093/aob/mcm191  

Griffin, L. (2004) Optimality of the Basic Colours Categories. Journal of Vision, 4(8), 309-309. DOI: 10.1167/4.8.309  

  • September 24, 2010
  • 07:39 AM
  • 1,056 views

Alcohol Consumption affects Morphological Complexity

by Sean Roberts in A Replicated Typo 2.0

Recent research suggests that language adapts to the balance between declarative and procedural memory users. Since alcohol consumption affects procedural but not declarative memory (Smith & Smith, 2003), we might expect to see communities that have a high alcohol consumption using less complex morphology...... Read more »

Smith C, & Smith D. (2003) Ingestion of ethanol just prior to sleep onset impairs memory for procedural but not declarative tasks. Sleep, 26(2), 185-91. PMID: 12683478  

  • August 16, 2010
  • 10:26 AM
  • 954 views

The Evolution of Colour terms

by Sean Roberts in A Replicated Typo 2.0

In a series of posts, I’ll review the current state of the field of the Evolution of Colour Categories. It has been argued that universals in colour naming across cultures can be traced back to constraints from many domains including genetic, perceptual and environmental. I’ll review these arguments and show that if our perception is affected by our language, then many conflicts can be resolved.... Read more »

Mollon, J. (1999) Color vision: Opsins and options. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 96(9), 4743-4745. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.96.9.4743  

Bornstein, M. (1973) Color vision and color naming: A psychophysiological hypothesis of cultural difference. Psychological Bulletin, 80(4), 257-285. DOI: 10.1037/h0034837  

Jameson, K., & D'Andrade, R.G. (1997) It's not really Red, Green, Yellow, Blue: An Inquiry into cognitive color space. Color Categories in Thought and Language. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511519819.014  

Regier, T., Kay, P., & Khetarpal, N. (2007) Color naming reflects optimal partitions of color space. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104(4), 1436-1441. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0610341104  

Griffin, L. (2004) Optimality of the Basic Colours Categories. Journal of Vision, 4(8), 309-309. DOI: 10.1167/4.8.309  

Ember, M. (1978) Size of Color Lexicon: Interaction of Cultural and Biological Factors. American Anthropologist, 80(2), 364-367. DOI: 10.1525/aa.1978.80.2.02a00100  

Lindsey, D., & Brown, A. (2002) Color Naming and the Phototoxic Effects of Sunlight on the Eye. Psychological Science, 13(6), 506-512. DOI: 10.1111/1467-9280.00489  

Regier T, & Kay P. (2004) Color naming and sunlight: commentary on Lindsey and Brown (2002). Psychological science : a journal of the American Psychological Society / APS, 15(4), 289. PMID: 15043652  

Kuhl PK. (1991) Human adults and human infants show a "perceptual magnet effect" for the prototypes of speech categories, monkeys do not. Perception , 50(2), 93-107. PMID: 1945741  

Iverson P, & Kuhl PK. (1995) Mapping the perceptual magnet effect for speech using signal detection theory and multidimensional scaling. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 97(1), 553-62. PMID: 7860832  

  • November 19, 2010
  • 06:04 AM
  • 938 views

Mutual Exclusivity in the Naming Game

by Sean Roberts in A Replicated Typo 2.0

The Naming Game looks at how communication systems evolve in populations of agents. In this post I’ll show that the algorithms used have implicit mutual exclusivity biases, which favour monolingual viewpoints. I’ll also show that this bias is not necessary and obscures some interesting insights into evolutionary dynamics of langauge.... Read more »

Andrea Baronchelli. (2010) Do you agree? Role of feedback and broadcasting in the Naming Game. ArXiv e-prints. arXiv: 1009.4798v1

Vittorio Loreto, Andrea Baronchelli, & Andrea Puglisi. (2009) Mathematical Modeling of Language Games . Evolution of Communication and Language in Embodied Agents. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-01250-1_15  

  • March 18, 2011
  • 08:27 AM
  • 938 views

Emergence of linguistic diversity in the lab

by Sean Roberts in A Replicated Typo 2.0

I propose an experiment based on a theory from Nettle (1999) and an experimental paradigm by Roberts (2010) to look at the emergence of stable bilingualism.... Read more »

Roberts, G. (2010) An experimental study of social selection and frequency of interaction in linguistic diversity. Interaction Studies, 11(1), 138-159. DOI: 10.1075/is.11.1.06rob  

  • August 26, 2010
  • 04:26 AM
  • 924 views

Universal Patterns in Colour Terms are not Evidence for Innate Constraints

by Sean Roberts in A Replicated Typo 2.0

In a series of posts, I've been discussing constraints on the evolution of colour terms. Here, I discuss the role of drift and argue that universal patterns are not necessarily good evidence for innate constraints.... Read more »

Steels, L., & Belpaeme, T. (2005) Coordinating perceptually grounded categories through language: A case study for colour. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 28(04). DOI: 10.1017/S0140525X05000087  

Belpaeme, T. (2005) Explaining Universal Color Categories Through a Constrained Acquisition Process. Adaptive Behavior, 13(4), 293-310. DOI: 10.1177/105971230501300404  

Kirby, S., Dowman, M., & Griffiths, T. (2007) Innateness and culture in the evolution of language. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104(12), 5241-5245. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0608222104  

  • August 24, 2010
  • 05:00 AM
  • 881 views

Evolution of Colour Terms: 8 Embodied Relationships

by Sean Roberts in A Replicated Typo 2.0

In a series of  posts, I’ve been discussing constraints on the evolution of colour terms.  In the last post, I discussed Perceptual Warping.  Here, a further adjustment to the assumptions about perceptual space is suggested.
The assumption that all perceptual spaces are the same may be unrealistic and may favour Universalism (see Levinson, 2000).  To begin with, . . . → Read More: Evolution of Colour Terms: 8 Embodied Relationships... Read more »

Levinson, S. (2000) Yeli Dnye and the Theory of Basic Color Terms. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 10(1), 3-55. DOI: 10.1525/jlin.2000.10.1.3  

Bornstein, M., Kessen, W., & Weiskopf, S. (1976) Color vision and hue categorization in young human infants. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 2(1), 115-129. DOI: 10.1037/0096-1523.2.1.115  

Roberson, D., Davidoff, J., Davies, I., & Shapiro, L. (2004) The Development of Color Categories in Two Languages: A Longitudinal Study. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 133(4), 554-571. DOI: 10.1037/0096-3445.133.4.554  

  • August 24, 2010
  • 07:35 AM
  • 826 views

Perceptual Warping of Colour

by Sean Roberts in The Adventures of Auck

There is evidence that categorisations can influence perception, which has been identified as a crucial argument for Relativism. In this post, the idea of perceptual warping is explained and applied to colour categorisation.... Read more »

DEBOER, B. (2000) Self-organization in vowel systems. Journal of Phonetics, 28(4), 441-465. DOI: 10.1006/jpho.2000.0125  

Goldstone, R. (1994) Influences of categorization on perceptual discrimination. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 123(2), 178-200. DOI: 10.1037//0096-3445.123.2.178  

Kuhl, P. (1994) Learning and representation in speech and language. Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 4(6), 812-822. DOI: 10.1016/0959-4388(94)90128-7  

Miyawaki, K., Strange, W., Verbrugge, R. R., Liberman, A. M., Jenkins, J. J., & Fujimura, O. (1975) An effect of linguistic experience: The discrimination of (r) and (l) by native speakers of Japanese and English . Perception and Psychophysics, 331-340. info:/

KUHL, P. (1983) Perception of auditory equivalence classes for speech in early infancy. Infant Behavior and Development, 6(2-3), 263-285. DOI: 10.1016/S0163-6383(83)80036-8  

Lupyan G. (2008) From chair to "chair": a representational shift account of object labeling effects on memory. Journal of experimental psychology. General, 137(2), 348-69. PMID: 18473663  

Buchsbaum, G. (2002) Color categories revealed by non-negative matrix factorization of Munsell color spectra. Vision Research, 42(5), 559-563. DOI: 10.1016/S0042-6989(01)00303-0  

Connell, L., & Lynott, D. (2009) Is a bear white in the woods? Parallel representation of implied object color during language comprehension. Psychonomic Bulletin , 16(3), 573-577. DOI: 10.3758/PBR.16.3.573  

  • August 18, 2010
  • 01:07 PM
  • 766 views

Metroculturalism

by Sean Roberts in A Replicated Typo 2.0

Recent activity in academia and the blogosphere has been encouraging scientists and everyday people to get out of the mono-mindset. Is monolingualism a legitimate abstraction for scientists or is bilingualism a fundamental part of language?... Read more »

Piller, I. (2010) The bilingual edge: why, when, and how to teach your child a second language. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 13(1), 115-118. DOI: 10.1080/13670050802645942  

Otsuji, E., & Pennycook, A. (2010) Metrolingualism: fixity, fluidity and language in flux. International Journal of Multilingualism, 7(3), 240-254. DOI: 10.1080/14790710903414331  

  • January 13, 2011
  • 07:49 AM
  • 737 views

Dog exhibits mutual exclusivity bias

by Sean Roberts in A Replicated Typo 2.0


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Pilley & Reid (2010) describe an experiment where a border collie was trained to learn proper nouns for objects.  After 3 years of training, the dog had learned over 1,000 proper names and showed no sign of slowing.  Experiments were run to test whether the dog understood the difference between nouns and commands and whether the . . . → Read More: Dog exhibits mutual exclusivity bias... Read more »

Pilley JW, & Reid AK. (2010) Border collie comprehends object names as verbal referents. Behavioural processes. PMID: 21145379  

  • July 26, 2010
  • 09:50 AM
  • 733 views

Learning Multiple languages from Multiple teachers

by Sean Roberts in A Replicated Typo 2.0

As Niyogi & Berwick (2009) point out, there is a tendency in modelling of Linguistic Evolution to assume chains of single learners inheriting single grammars from single teachers.   This is, of course, not realistic – we learn language from many people and people can speak more than one language.  However, Niyogi & Berwick suggest deeper objections.

First, . . . → Read More: Learning Multiple languages from Multiple teachers... Read more »

David Burkett,, & Tom Griffiths. (2010) Iterated Learning of Multiple Languaged from Multiple Teachers. The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of EvoLang 2010. info:/

Niyogi P, & Berwick RC. (2009) The proper treatment of language acquisition and change in a population setting. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 106(25), 10124-9. PMID: 19497883  

  • August 20, 2010
  • 06:00 AM
  • 732 views

Evolution of Colour Terms: 4 Learning Constraints

by Sean Roberts in A Replicated Typo 2.0

Continuing my series on the Evolution of Colour terms, this post reviews how learning constrains colour naming. For the full dissertation and for references, go here.

Memory and learning mechanisms are necessary to acquire colour categories (Komarova, Jameson & Narens, 2007).  Models have shown that individual learning alone does not lead to categorisations that are shared . . . → Read More: Evolution of Colour Terms: 4 Learning Constraints... Read more »

KOMAROVA, N., JAMESON, K., & NARENS, L. (2007) Evolutionary models of color categorization based on discrimination. Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 51(6), 359-382. DOI: 10.1016/j.jmp.2007.06.001  

Steels, L., & Belpaeme, T. (2005) Coordinating perceptually grounded categories through language: A case study for colour. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 28(04). DOI: 10.1017/S0140525X05000087  

Lupyan G, & Dale R. (2010) Language structure is partly determined by social structure. PloS one, 5(1). PMID: 20098492  

Roberson, D., Davies, I., Corbett, G., & Vandervyver, M. (2005) Free-Sorting of Colors Across Cultures: Are there Universal Grounds for Grouping?. Journal of Cognition and Culture, 5(3), 349-386. DOI: 10.1163/156853705774648536  

  • September 21, 2010
  • 10:14 AM
  • 724 views

Memory, Social Structure and Language: Why Siestas affect Morphological Complexity

by Sean Roberts in A Replicated Typo 2.0

Why are children better than adults at learning second languages? Hypotheses suggest that it's easier to learn some parts of language with procedural memory, which atrophies in adults. But why has language evolved to be like this? I suggest that the answer lies in social structure and explain why taking siesta can affect the morphological complexity of your language.... Read more »

L. Kirk Hagen. (2008) The bilingual brain: Human evolution and second language acquisition. Evolutionary Psychology, 43-63. info:/

Lupyan G, & Dale R. (2010) Language structure is partly determined by social structure. PloS one, 5(1). PMID: 20098492  

Christiansen, M., & Chater, N. (2008) Language as shaped by the brain. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 31(05). DOI: 10.1017/S0140525X08004998  

Hartshorne JK, & Ullman MT. (2006) Why girls say 'holded' more than boys. Developmental science, 9(1), 21-32. PMID: 16445392  

BACKHAUS, J., & JUNGHANNS, K. (2006) Daytime naps improve procedural motor memory. Sleep Medicine, 7(6), 508-512. DOI: 10.1016/j.sleep.2006.04.002  

  • July 26, 2010
  • 10:06 AM
  • 715 views

Bayesian Bilingualism

by Sean Roberts in A Replicated Typo 2.0

Recently, David Burkett and Tom Griffiths have looked at iterated learning of multiple languages from multiple teachers (Burkett & Griffiths 2010, see my post here).  Here, I’ll describe a simpler model which allows bilingualism.  I show that, counter-intuitively, bilingualism may be more stable than monolingualism.

Model Definition
In my model, Learners receive data which is ‘tagged’ with the . . . → Read More: Bayesian Bilingualism... Read more »

David Burkett,, & Tom Griffiths. (2010) Iterated Learning of Multiple Languaged from Multiple Teachers. The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of EvoLang 2010. info:/

  • August 13, 2010
  • 06:48 AM
  • 712 views

Language Evolution and Language Acquisition

by Sean Roberts in A Replicated Typo 2.0

The way children learn language sets the adaptive landscape on which languages evolve. This is acknowledged by many, but there are few connections between models of language acquisition and models of language Evolution. Here I review previous models of Language Acquisition and a recent model by Fazly et al.... Read more »

Nick Chater, & Morten H. Christiansen. (2010) Language Acquisition Meets Language Evolution. Cognitive Science. info:/

Fazly, A., Alishahi, A., & Stevenson, S. (2010) A Probabilistic Computational Model of Cross-Situational Word Learning. Cognitive Science, 34(6), 1017-1063. DOI: 10.1111/j.1551-6709.2010.01104.x  

Frank MC, Goodman ND, & Tenenbaum JB. (2009) Using speakers' referential intentions to model early cross-situational word learning. Psychological science : a journal of the American Psychological Society / APS, 20(5), 578-85. PMID: 19389131  

Siskind, J. (1996) A computational study of cross-situational techniques for learning word-to-meaning mappings. Cognition, 61(1-2), 39-91. DOI: 10.1016/S0010-0277(96)00728-7  

Yu, C., Ballard, D., & Aslin, R. (2005) The Role of Embodied Intention in Early Lexical Acquisition. Cognitive Science, 29(6), 961-1005. DOI: 10.1207/s15516709cog0000_40  

  • May 6, 2011
  • 04:38 AM
  • 708 views

Bayesian phylogenetic analysis of Japonic languages

by Sean Roberts in A Replicated Typo 2.0

Lee & Hasagawa (2011) use phylogenetic methods to trace the origins of Japonic languages and dialects.... Read more »

Lee S, & Hasegawa T. (2011) Bayesian phylogenetic analysis supports an agricultural origin of Japonic languages. Proceedings. Biological sciences / The Royal Society. PMID: 21543358  

Gray, R., Drummond, A., & Greenhill, S. (2009) Language Phylogenies Reveal Expansion Pulses and Pauses in Pacific Settlement. Science, 323(5913), 479-483. DOI: 10.1126/science.1166858  

  • June 26, 2011
  • 04:50 PM
  • 707 views

A random walk model of linguistic complexity

by Sean Roberts in A Replicated Typo 2.0

Large-scale statistical analyses of linguistic typologies (e.g. Lupyan & Dale, 2010) have poor temporal resolution. A correlation between two variables that exists now may be an accident of more complex dynamics. I discuss a random walk model that tries to estimate the probability that a current correlation is dynamically unstable.... Read more »

Lupyan G, & Dale R. (2010) Language structure is partly determined by social structure. PloS one, 5(1). PMID: 20098492  

Hay, J., & Bauer, L. (2007) Phoneme inventory size and population size. Language, 83(2), 388-400. DOI: 10.1353/lan.2007.0071  

Atkinson QD. (2011) Phonemic diversity supports a serial founder effect model of language expansion from Africa. Science (New York, N.Y.), 332(6027), 346-9. PMID: 21493858  

  • August 18, 2010
  • 06:15 AM
  • 701 views

Environmental Constraints on Colour Term Evolution

by Sean Roberts in A Replicated Typo 2.0

Continuing my series on the Evolution of Colour terms, this post reviews evidence for environmental constraints on colour perception.... Read more »

Regan, B., Julliot, C., Simmen, B., Vienot, F., Charles-Dominique, P., & Mollon, J. (2001) Fruits, foliage and the evolution of primate colour vision. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 356(1407), 229-283. DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2000.0773  

Clarke, B.C. (1979) The evolution of genetic diversity. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B, 453-474. info:/

Mollon, J., Bowmaker, J., & Jacobs, G. (1984) Variations of Colour Vision in a New World Primate Can be Explained by Polymorphism of Retinal Photopigments. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 222(1228), 373-399. DOI: 10.1098/rspb.1984.0071  

Webster, M., Webster, S., Bharadwaj, S., Verma, R., Jaikumar, J., Madan, G., & Vaithilingham, E. (2002) Variations in normal color vision. III. Unique hues in Indian and United States observers. Journal of the Optical Society of America A, 19(10), 1951. DOI: 10.1364/JOSAA.19.001951  

LAENG, B., BRENNEN, T., ELDEN, A., GAAREPAULSEN, H., BANERJEE, A., & LIPTON, R. (2007) Latitude-of-birth and season-of-birth effects on human color vision in the Arctic. Vision Research, 47(12), 1595-1607. DOI: 10.1016/j.visres.2007.03.011  

Dowman, M. (2007) Explaining Color Term Typology With an Evolutionary Model. Cognitive Science: A Multidisciplinary Journal, 30(1), 99-132. DOI: 10.1207/s15516709cog3101_4  

Griffin LD. (2006) Optimality of the basic colour categories for classification. Journal of the Royal Society, Interface / the Royal Society, 3(6), 71-85. PMID: 16849219  

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