A developmental study of the acquisition of colour terms in Setswana

A Preliminary Standardisation of the Bohnen et al. Version of the Stroop Color-Word Test for Setswana-Speaking University Students

The objective of this study was to undertake a preliminary standardisation of the Bohnen, Jolles, and Twijnstra (1992) version of the Stroop Color-Word Test for Setswana-speaking university students. The Bohnen et al. (1992) version (Bohnen Stroop), which is a modified version of the original Stroop Color-Word Test, is traditionally considered a neuropsychological measure of selective attention, otherwise known as concentration. In the present study, a computerised version of the Bohnen Stroop was administered to 102 Setswana-speaking university subjects between the ages of 18 and 30 years. Tests for normality indicated that, except for Subtask III and Interference Measure III-II, the distributions were not normal. Mann-Whitney test analysis indicated that age and gender significantly affected test performance, specifically: (a) although the 22–30 year-old group was (significantly) slower than the 18–21 year-old one on Subtask I (i.e. word reading) and Subtask II (i.e. colour naming), this same (i.e. older) group was faster — and thereby displaying reduced interference — on Interference Measure III-II (i.e. standard interference); and (b) the female group performed faster on Subtask II (i.e., colour-naming). Preliminary normative data, including z-scores and cut-off scores, were established. Furthermore, Cronbach's alpha calculations for the subtasks and interference measures yielded values ranging from .78 (Subtask III) to .88 (Subtask IV), thereby demonstrating acceptable internal consistency. Ultimately, however, the normative data are based on non-normal distributions and, therefore, a complete standardisation of the Bohnen Stroop is recommended.

Is the acquisition of basic-colour terms in young children constrained?

We investigated whether the learning of colour terms in childhood is constrained by a developmental order of acquisition as predicted by Berlin and Kay [1969 Basic Color Terms (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press)]. Forty-three children, aged between 2 and 5 years and grouped according to language ability, were given two tasks testing colour conceptualisation. Colour comprehension was assessed in a spoken-word-to-colour-matching task in which a target colour was presented in conjunction with two distractor colours. Colour naming was measured in an explicit naming task in which colours were presented individually for oral naming. Results showed that children's knowledge of basic-colour terms varied across tasks and language age, providing little support for a systematic developmental order. In addition, we found only limited support for an advantage for the conceptualisation of primary (red, green, blue, yellow, black, white) compared to non-primary colour terms across tasks and language age. Instead, our data suggest that children acquire reliable knowledge of nine basic colours within a 3-month period (35.6 to 39.5 months) after which there is a considerable lag of up to 9 months before accurate knowledge of the final two colours (brown and grey) is acquired. We propose that children acquire colour term knowledge in two distinct time frames that reflect the establishment of, first, the exterior (yellow, blue, black, green, white, pink, orange, red, and purple) and, second, the interior structure (brown and grey) of conceptual colour space. These results fail to provide significant support for the order predicted by Berlin and Kay, and suggest, instead, that the development of colour term knowledge is largely unconstrained.

Salient features of Munsell colour space as a function of monolexemic naming and response latencies

This study provides a replication of Boynton and Olson's (1990) work (Vision Research, 30, pp. 1311-1317), but using a more extensive model of colour space--Munsell as distinct from OSA-UCS. It involved 20 subjects in a total of 17,840 observations of 446 colours, in which monolexemic naming and response times were recorded. The results clearly differentiate between basic and non,basic colour categories using measures of consistency, consensus and response time. While the results are equivocal in distinguishing between the so-called "landmark" and "other basic colours", they are unequivocal in confirming the salience of the eleven basic colour categories initially proposed by Berlin and Kay [(1969) Basic colour terms: their universality and evolution, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press], and, in so doing, reinforce their perceptual significance and probable physiological basis. The results also reveal differences in non-basic colour naming that further confirm the special status of the basic colour categories and their role in categorical colour perception.