ABSTRACT

Colour-concept associations influence fundamental processes in cognition and perception, including object recognition and visual reasoning. To understand these effects, it is necessary to understand how colour-concept associations are formed. It is assumed that colour-concept associations are learned through experiences, but questions remain concerning how association formation is influenced by properties of the input and cognitive factors. We addressed these questions by first exposing participants to colour-concept co-occurrences for novel concepts (“Filk” and “Slub” alien species) using a category learning task. We then assessed colour-concept associations using an association rating task. During alien category learning, colour was a noisy cue and shape was 100% diagnostic of category membership, so participants could ignore colour to complete the task. Nonetheless, participants learned systematic colour-concept associations for “seen” colours during alien category learning and generalized to “unseen” colours as a function of colour distance from the seen colours (Experiment 1). Association formation not only depended on colour-concept co-occurrences during alien category learning, but also on cognitive structure of colour categories (e.g., degree to which an observed red colour is typical of the colour category “red”) (Experiment 2). Thus, environmental and cognitive factors combine to influence colour-concept associations formed from experiences in the world.

摘要

颜色-概念关联影响认知和感知的基本过程，包括对象识别和视觉推理。要了解这些影响，有必要了解颜色概念关联是如何形成的。假设颜色-概念关联是通过经验学习的，但关于关联形成如何受输入和认知因素的属性影响的问题仍然存在。我们通过使用类别学习任务首先让参与者接触新概念（“Filk”和“Slub”外来物种）的颜色概念共现来解决这些问题。然后，我们使用关联评级任务评估颜色概念关联。在外星人类别学习期间，颜色是一个嘈杂的提示，形状是类别成员的 100% 诊断，因此参与者可以忽略颜色来完成任务。尽管如此，参与者在外星类别学习期间学习了“看到”颜色的系统颜色概念关联，并将“未看到”颜色作为与看到颜色的颜色距离的函数泛化为“未看到”颜色（实验 1）。关联的形成不仅取决于外来类别学习期间的颜色概念共现，还取决于颜色类别的认知结构（例如，观察到的红色在多大程度上是颜色类别“红色”的典型）（实验 2）。因此，环境和认知因素结合起来影响由世界经验形成的颜色概念关联。参与者在外星类别学习期间学习了“看到”颜色的系统颜色概念关联，并将“未看到”颜色概括为与看到颜色的颜色距离的函数（实验 1）。关联的形成不仅取决于外来类别学习期间的颜色概念共现，还取决于颜色类别的认知结构（例如，观察到的红色在多大程度上是颜色类别“红色”的典型）（实验 2）。因此，环境和认知因素结合起来影响由世界经验形成的颜色概念关联。参与者在外星类别学习期间学习了“看到”颜色的系统颜色概念关联，并将“未看到”颜色概括为与看到颜色的颜色距离的函数（实验 1）。关联的形成不仅取决于外来类别学习期间的颜色概念共现，还取决于颜色类别的认知结构（例如，观察到的红色在多大程度上是颜色类别“红色”的典型）（实验 2）。因此，环境和认知因素结合起来影响由世界经验形成的颜色概念关联。观察到的红色在多大程度上是颜色类别“红色”的典型）（实验 2）。因此，环境和认知因素结合起来影响由世界经验形成的颜色概念关联。观察到的红色在多大程度上是颜色类别“红色”的典型）（实验 2）。因此，环境和认知因素结合起来影响由世界经验形成的颜色概念关联。