Vagueness and Order Effects in Color Categorization

This paper proposes an experimental investigation of the use of vague predicates in dynamic sorites. We present the results of two studies in which subjects had to categorize colored squares at the borderline between two color categories (Green vs. Blue, Yellow vs. Orange). Our main aim was to probe...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of logic, language, and information Vol. 22; no. 4; pp. 391 - 420
Main Authors Egré, Paul, de Gardelle, Vincent, Ripley, David
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Dordrecht Springer 01.12.2013
Springer Netherlands
Springer Verlag
Subjects
Borderlands
Cognitive science
Colors
Education
Experimentation
Inflection points
Information Systems Applications (incl.Internet)
Logic
Mental stimulation
Phenomena
Philosophy
Predicates
Psychology
Semantics
Shade tolerance
Sorites
Strict-tolerant semantics
Vagueness
Order effects
Contradictions
Color categorization
Enhanced contrast
Borderline cases
Dynamic sorites
Hysteresis
Contextualism
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Summary:This paper proposes an experimental investigation of the use of vague predicates in dynamic sorites. We present the results of two studies in which subjects had to categorize colored squares at the borderline between two color categories (Green vs. Blue, Yellow vs. Orange). Our main aim was to probe for hysteresis in the ordered transitions between the respective colors, namely for the longer persistence of the initial category. Our main finding is a reverse phenomenon of enhanced contrast (i.e. negative hysteresis), present in two different tasks, a comparative task involving two color names, and a yes/no task involving a single color name, but not found in a corresponding color matching task. We propose an optimality-theoretic explanation of this effect in terms of the strict-tolerant framework of Cobreros et al. (J Philos Log 1–39, 2012), in which borderline cases are characterized in a dual manner in terms of overlap between tolerant extensions, and underlap between strict extensions.
ISSN:0925-8531
1572-9583
DOI:10.1007/s10849-013-9183-7