The interaction between surface color and color knowledge: Behavioral and electrophysiological evidence

Abstract

In this study, we used event-related potentials (ERPs) to evaluate the contribution of surface color and color knowledge information in object identification. We constructed two color-object verification tasks - a surface and a knowledge verification task - using high color diagnostic objects; both typical and atypical color versions of the same object were presented. Continuous electroencephalogram was recorded from 26 subjects. A cluster randomization procedure was used to explore the differences between typical and atypical color objects in each task. In the color knowledge task, we found two significant clusters that were consistent with the N350 and late positive complex (LPC) effects. Atypical color objects elicited more negative ERPs compared to typical color objects. The color effect found in the N350 time window suggests that surface color is an important cue that facilitates the selection of a stored object representation from long-term memory. Moreover, the observed LPC effect suggests that surface color activates associated semantic knowledge about the object, including color knowledge representations. We did not find any significant differences between typical and atypical color objects in the surface color verification task, which indicates that there is little contribution of color knowledge to resolve the surface color verification. Our main results suggest that surface color is an important visual cue that triggers color knowledge, thereby facilitating object identification.

Electrophysiological evidence for colour effects on the naming of colour diagnostic and noncolour diagnostic objects

“…Lu and collaborators (Lu et al, 2010) found that black-and-white and atypically colored objects were associated with more negative amplitudes in this time window compared with typical color objects. In a previous color knowledge verification study, we also found a similar result: atypically colored objects generated a more negative N300 component than typically colored objects on the frontal sites, suggesting that the typical color presentation is better recognized and categorized than the atypical color presentation (Bramão et al, 2012). In the present study, we did not analyze the color effects in this time window because we did not find a clear N300 component in our ERPs waves.…”

“…However, and beyond the facilitation that color information confers to the initial visual stages, our results showed a color effect in the later stages of object recognition for color diagnostic objects. At the later visual processing stages, color information might trigger the selection of the structural object description from long-term visual memory, which is matched to the perceptual input (Bramão et al, 2012). Additionally, the N400 color effect observed in this study suggests that color information might activate a more extensive object semantic network.…”

The use of conceptual components in language production: an ERP study

“…In a verification task involving HCD and LCD objects, in which participants had to indicate whether a written color name (e.g., “ red ”) matched the typical color of the target picture (e.g., “ strawberry ”), Bramão et al (2011a) found an effect of color knowledge in this time-window (N350). According to Bramão et al (2011a), their results suggest that this time-window is crucial for the integration of shape and color information, which can then be used to access structural representations of the object in long-term memory. Bramão et al (2011a) also point to previous literature showing that the N350 is “related to the selection of a stored structural description model to match against the perceptual input” (p. 35; citing Schendan and Kutas, 2003).…”

“…According to Bramão et al (2011a), their results suggest that this time-window is crucial for the integration of shape and color information, which can then be used to access structural representations of the object in long-term memory. Bramão et al (2011a) also point to previous literature showing that the N350 is “related to the selection of a stored structural description model to match against the perceptual input” (p. 35; citing Schendan and Kutas, 2003). Bramão et al, (2012) suggest that the additional color information might be used to narrow down the number of possible structural features used to identify the object.…”

Long-term repetition priming and semantic interference in a lexical-semantic matching task: tapping the links between object names and colors

“…Moreover, if we directly compare priming across Experiments 1 and 2, there is a three-way interaction, F (2, 328) = 3.84, p = 0.022, η p 2 = 0.02, which provides strong evidence for the claim that names are better at activating color knowledge than shapes. Note, we are not suggesting that object-color knowledge cannot be used at a visual level of analysis, as there is convincing evidence for mappings between object shape and visual object-color information (e.g., Price and Humphreys, 1989; Bramão et al, 2012; Lloyd-Jones et al, 2012). Rather, we are proposing that object shape does not provide an effective retrieval cue in the lexical-semantic matching task.…”