Study Of The Lateralization Of Color Category Effect

Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis claims that linguistic categories and usage influence thought and certain kinds of non-linguistic behavior. Color category effect (CE) is regarded as a result of language. The newly found phenomenon that the color category effect appears stronger in right visual field (RVF) than in left visual field (LVF) is considered as a strong support to Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis. However, the studies of the lateralized category effect (LCE) of color are still full of controversy and far from a consistent conclusion.Our study picked out34participants from100volunteers, to make sure that the participants identify "green" and "blue" by the same standard as the experiments required. The first experiment adapted the "color-discrimination-task" used by Gilbert, the discoverer of LCE. CE of color was confirmed, but LCE was not found.In the second experiment we observed that how does CE and LCE change with different durations of a color. By manipulating the visual stimuli duration, we found that CE was stable under all the durations. More importantly, the CE size in LVF was significantly higher than which in RVF. It should be paid attention that there was only LVF showing the LCE when the stimuli duration was16ms. This might indicate that the right hemisphere is more sensitive to the color categories.The third experiment employed the half-visual field color matching task. By manipulating ISI, we found that CE was always stable under different variable levels. And the CE size in LVF was also higher than which in RVF.Conclusions:(1) CE exists stably in both LVF and RVF;(2) generally speaking, CE in LVF is significantly higher than which in RVF. These conclusions undermine the hypothesis that language affects color discrimination, and imply that the right hemisphere is more sensitive to color categories.