Research Design Connection: Ways of Discussing Colors

by Sally Augustin, Ph.D. | April 17th, 2017

Think the ways cultures discuss colors don’t change? Or that all cultures speak about the color spectrum in the same way? Think again. An article in the Journal of Vision reports that an analysis of color terms used by modern Japanese speakers determined that they utilized “the 11 basic color categories common to most modern industrialized cultures (red, green, blue, yellow, purple, pink, brown, orange, white, gray and black)…[as well as] mizu (“water”)/light blue, hada (“skin tone”)/peach, matcha (“ceremonial green tea”)/yellow-green, oudo (“mud”)/mustard, enji/maroon, yamabuki (“goldflower”)/gold and cream…30 years ago, a study of Japanese color categories…did not reveal mizu as a basic color category…[and found] that kusa (“grass”) was a very popular term for yellow-green…kusa has been largely replaced with matcha…there is one tradition that has not changed over the past millennium: the mixed use of green and blue.” A study of poems written prior to the 10th century indicates …