Segregation of basic colors in an information display

Abstract

Determined the extent to which optimal examples of basic colors segregate in an information display in experiments with 3 Ss. An optimal basic color code established from extensive surface-color-naming data yielded excellent segregation in a visual search task. The time required to find a critical target of a cued color increased marginally as up to 9 groups of different colors were added to the display. Significant color differences in this task triggered a 2nd experiment that examined the detectability of the critical target feature in the periphery. In a 3rd experiment, Ss counted the number of targets of the cued color. The colors again segregated well. In Exp 4, when 7 basic colors were pitted against 7 equally discriminable nonbasic ones in a modified version of the visual search task, no significant differences were found between groups. Thus, basic colors segregate well because they are well-separated in color space. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)