Blind And Sighted People Understand Colour Similarly

This study wonderfully illustrates that blind and sighted people share common knowledge about colour. Though the two groups differ in some domains — particularly when it comes to associative knowledge about the colour of objects (eg. bananas are yellow) — they are largely similar in their understanding of the natural occurrence and application of colours. Blind individuals are able to draw upon deep understandings of how colours function, and make inferences about totally new objects based on their category alone, in a way that closely resembles those with sight. The authors take this data to suggest that those living in the same wider societal culture, sighted or blind, develop similar intuitive theories of colour which can be applied to totally novel situations. The source of this knowledge is almost certain to be linguistic, and future research may determine at what ages this framework for colour knowledge develops in both sighted and congenitally blind individuals. – Shared understanding of color among sighted and blind adults Emma L. Barratt (@E_Barratt) is a staff writer at BPS Research Digest
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: Perception Source Type: blogs