Color names affect the precision of memorized hues. The effect of increased color name distinctiveness

Abstract

Color names influence the memory of a specific hue by shifting it closer to the prototypical color associated with the name. Typically, in studies regarding color naming and memory maximally seven traditional color names are used. We tested whether the distinctiveness of the color name can modify the shift of the memorized hue by introducing unique color names for all hues presented in the experiment. Specifically, we gave unique names to boundary colors, defined, based on previous experiments, as hues that are equally likely named using two traditional names. Central colors are consistently named with one of the seven traditional color names. We observed that more distinctive names were associated with a poorer color recall performance than the traditional names. We propose it can be the result of long-term memory overload caused by having to memorize new color names. At the same time, when distinctive names were provided for boundary colors, the difference in the ability to accurately recall a hue between the boundary and central colors was smaller than when only traditional names were used. Moreover, when using only the traditional color names for boundary colors, we observed a consistent shift in the recalled hue towards the direction of the color name that accompanied it. This study should be considered a preliminary one. Follow-up experiments should be conducted to assess the exact cause of the observed differences. As the next step, we propose to test whether alternate labels to Pantone would lead to similar results.