Population heterogeneity and color stimulus heterogeneity in agent-based color categorization.

Full Abstract

Investigating the interactions between universal and culturally specific influences on color categorization across individuals and cultures has proven to be a challenge for human color categorization and naming research. The present article simulates the evolution of color lexicons to evaluate the role of two realistic constraints found in the human phenomenon:
(i) heterogeneous observer populations and (ii) heterogeneous color stimuli. Such constraints, idealized and implemented as agent categorization and communication games, produce interesting and unexpected consequences for stable categorization solutions evolved and shared by agent populations. We find that the presence of a small fraction of color deficient agents in a population, or the presence of a "region of increased salience" in the color stimulus space, break rotational symmetry in population categorization solutions, and confine color category boundaries to a subset of available locations. Further, these heterogeneities, each in a different, predictable, way, might lead to a change of category number and size. In addition, the concurrent presence of both types of heterogeneity gives rise to novel constrained solutions which optimize the success rate of categorization and communication games. Implications of these agent-based results for psychological theories of color categorization and the evolution of color naming systems in human societies are discussed.

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Author information

Author/s: Komarova, Natalia L (NL); Jameson, Kimberly A (KA);

Affiliation: Department of Mathematics, University of California, Irvine, CA, USA. komarova(-atsign-)math.uci.edu

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't; Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

Journal: Journal of theoretical biology (J Theor Biol), published in Netherlands. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2008-Aug; vol 253 (issue 4) : pp 680-700

Dates: Created 2008/08/01; Completed 2008/09/24;

PMID: 18534626, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 11/6/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

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