Seeing colour through language: Colour knowledge in the blind and sighted

Abstract

ABSTRACT We explored colour connotations in blind and sighted observers using the semantic differential technique. Participants rated colour terms on 17 semantic scales. At the group level, blind participants were similar to sighted on some scales, but had weaker colour associations on others, with significant individual differences. Two, in particular, produced ratings that were very similar to the sighted sample. We quantified individual differences amongst the blind participants by computing the difference between their ratings and the mean of the sighted participants for each colour on each scale. This “semantic similarity index” indicates how similar each blind participant was to sighted observers. The participants also rated dissimilarities between pairs of colour terms, which we subjected to multidimensional scaling. This also revealed large variability amongst the blind participants, with some producing colour spaces resembling those of the sighted. The semantic similarity index computed from the blind participants’ semantic differential data correlated strongly with the circularity of personal colour spaces derived from multidimensional scaling: observers who resembled the sighted on one measure tended to do so on the other. These observations provide strong, albeit indirect, support for the notion that semantics provide sufficient information for blind people to develop rich understandings of colour.