Author:

Keywords:

color, conceptual spaces, graded membership, semantics, vagueness, Social Sciences, Psychology, Experimental, Psychology, Vagueness, Graded membership, Color, Conceptual spaces, Semantics, CONCEPTUAL SPACES, IDENTIFICATION, CATEGORIZATION, ATTENTION, EXEMPLAR, SIMILARITY, PROTOTYPE, CLASSIFICATION, VAGUENESS, MODELS, Adult, Color Perception, Female, Humans, Male, 0801 Artificial Intelligence and Image Processing, 1701 Psychology, 1702 Cognitive Sciences, Experimental Psychology, 5201 Applied and developmental psychology, 5202 Biological psychology, 5204 Cognitive and computational psychology

Abstract:

This paper considers Kamp and Partee’s account of graded membership within a conceptual spaces framework and puts the account to the test in the domain of colors. Three experiments are reported that are meant to determine, on the one hand, the regions in color space where the typical instances of blue and green are located and, on the other hand, the degrees of blueness/greenness of various shades in the blue–green region as judged by human observers. From the locations of the typical blue and typical green regions in conjunction with Kamp and Partee’s account follow degrees of blueness/greenness for the color shades we are interested in. These predicted degrees are compared with the judged degrees, as obtained in the experiments. The results of the comparison support the account of graded membership at issue.