Electrophysiological markers of categorical perception of color in 7-month old infants

Abstract

The origin of color categories has been debated by psychologists, linguists and cognitive scientists for many decades. Here, we present the first electrophysiological evidence for categorical responding to color before color terms are acquired. Event-related potentials were recorded on a visual oddball task in 7-month old infants. Infants were shown frequent presentations of one color (standard) interspersed with infrequent presentations of a color that was either from the same category (within-category deviant) or from a different category (between-category deviant) to the standard. Differences in the event-related potentials elicited by the stimuli were found that were related to the categorical relationship of the standard and the deviant stimuli. The data are discussed in relation to the processes that underlie categorical responding in infancy, as well as the debate about the origin of color categories in language and cognition. © 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.