The project combines derivations of formal process measurement models with application of the models to substantive empirical research on the universality of the semantic and perceptual domain of color terms and colors. The derivations will extend previous models of cultural consensus theory to two situations for which current models do not exist: (1) continuous response variables, and (2) two or more cultures. Cultural consensus theory is a family of knowledge aggregation models for questionnaire data that permit simultaneous estimates of the culture competence or knowledge of each informant and the consensus correct answer to each question. In addition, the models will incorporate item difficulties as new parameters and provide appropriate estimation procedures. The substantive color experiments will be carried out using the eight basic chromatic colors, and their names, as previously defined by vision researchers. Preliminary results from judged similarities collected in English in the United States and in Chinese in Taiwan showed: (i) robust and reliable individual differences among subjects, (ii) striking similarities between Chinese and English structures, and (iii) the structure of color names is similar to the structure of chromatic colors. Further comparative studies will be carried out in Vietnamese where the linguistic structure for colors is different, e.g., a single color term for English blue and green.
Progress in social science requires the measurement of concepts such as cultural beliefs and social norms that are defined by social conventions. Social concepts are unlike most physical and psychophysical measurement because they have no direct outside criteria for comparison. Because of this social measurements must be inferred from the pattern of responses among informants. This research develops sophisticated measurement models for cultural beliefs and social norms. The application of these models to the perception of colors (and how they are named) in different languages and cultures will lead to understanding the relative importance of individual and cultural variations in how humans perceive the world.
