ABSTRACT
Different languages divide the color spectrum in different ways. Can such linguistic codes affect color discrimination? Results of three experiments suggest that color language can influence people’s color judgments even in conditions when all color stimuli are present at the same time and need not be stored in memory. Two experiments showed that color-discrimination performance within a language group is affected by verbal interference (and not spatial interference). The third experiment showed that color discrimination performance across a boundary that exists in one language but not another can be altered by linguistic interference only for the language group that codes that linguistic distinction.
