| Peer-Reviewed

The Comparison of Object Color Knowledge Between Congenitally Blind and Sighted People

Received: 25 January 2021     Published: 4 March 2021
Views:       Downloads:
Abstract

What role does perception play in human cognition? This is an important question in the research area of psychology. The current study aimed at exploring the influence of visual perceptual experience on human color cognition, by comparing the differences in behavioral and neuropsychological responses between congenital-blind and normal-sighted participants. The current study employed a semantic-priming paradigm, and presented prime-target word pairs to the participants randomly, such as, /bai2se4/ (white) -/xue3hua1/ (snow), or /bai2se4/ (white) - /mei2tan4/ (coal). All participants were instructed to decide whether the color term and the color of the object were matched or not. Results showed that (1) congenital-blind participants had acquired some color knowledge, but they were not as good as the sighted participants. (2) Mismatched color relationships induced significant N400 effects in both of the two groups, with a left hemisphere asymmetry. (3) However, compared with the sighted group, the blind group exhibited stronger N400 effects (i.e., larger amplitude of the difference waveform) and shorter N400 peak latencies. The current study suggests that congenital blindness have induced some cognitive and neuropsychology adaptive changes in blind people, and first-hand visual perceptual experience is important to color cognition but may be not prerequisite.

Published in Science Innovation (Volume 9, Issue 1)
DOI 10.11648/j.si.20210901.13
Page(s) 12-18
Creative Commons

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.

Copyright

Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Congenital Blindness, Object Color Knowledge, Color Cognition, N400

References
[1] Barsalou, L. W., Simmons, W. K., Barbey, A. K., & Wilson, C. D. Grounding conceptual knowledge in modality-specific systems [J]. Trends in cognitive sciences, 2003, 7(2): 84-91.
[2] Kutas, M., & Hillyard, S. A. Reading senseless sentences: Brain potentials reflect semantic incongruity [J]. Science, 1980, 207(4427): 203-205.
[3] Kutas, M., & Iragui, V. The N400 in a semantic categorization task across 6 decades [J]. Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology/Evoked Potentials Section, 1998, 108(5): 456-471.
[4] Landau, B., Gleitman, L. R., & Landau, B. Language and experience: Evidence from the blind child (Vol. 8) [M]. Harvard University Press, 2009.
[5] Lau, E. F., Phillips, C., & Poeppel, D. A cortical network for semantics:(de) constructing the N400 [J]. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 2008, 9(12): 920-933.
[6] Leshinskaya, A., & Caramazza, A. For a cognitive neuroscience of concepts: Moving beyond the grounding issue [J]. Psychonomic bulletin & review, 2016, 23(4): 991-1001.
[7] Mahon, B. Z., & Caramazza, A. A critical look at the embodied cognition hypothesis and a new proposal for grounding conceptual content [J]. Journal of physiology-Paris, 2008, 102(1-3): 59-70.
[8] Marmor, G. S. Age at onset of blindness and the development of the semantics of color names [J]. Journal of experimental child psychology, 1978, 25(2): 267-278.
[9] Martin, A. GRAPES—Grounding representations in action, perception, and emotion systems: How object properties and categories are represented in the human brain [J]. Psychonomic bulletin & review, 2016, 23(4): 979-990.
[10] Mills, A. E. Language acquisition in the blind child: Normal and deficient [M]. San Diego, CA: College-Hill Press, 1983.
[11] Pérez-Pereira, M., & Conti-Ramsden, G. Language development and social interaction in blind children [M]. Psychology Press, 2013.
[12] Saysani, A., Corballis, M. C., & Corballis, P. M. Colour envisioned: Concepts of colour in the blind and sighted [J]. Visual Cognition, 2018, 26(5): 382-392.
[13] Shallice, T. Specialisation within the semantic system [J]. Cognitive neuropsychology, 1988, 5(1): 133-142.
[14] Shallice, T. Impairments of semantic processing: Multiple dissociations [J]. The cognitive neuropsychology of language, 2013, 111-128.
[15] Shepard, R. N., & Cooper, L. A. Representation of colors in the blind, color-blind, and normally sighted [J]. Psychological Science, 1992, 3(2): 97-104.
[16] Simmons, W. K., Ramjee, V., Beauchamp, M. S., McRae, K., Martin, A., & Barsalou, L. W. A common neural substrate for perceiving and knowing about color [J]. Neuropsychologia, 2007, 45(12): 2802-2810.
[17] Wang, X., Men, W., Gao, J., Caramazza, A., & Bi, Y. Two Forms of Knowledge Representations in the Human Brain [J]. bioRxiv, 2019, 691931.
[18] 时琴琴. 盲童和正常儿童对颜色认知的对比[D]. 硕士学位论文, 上海师范大学, 2011.
[19] 张积家, 党玉晓, 章玉祉, 王惠萍, & 罗观. 盲童心中的颜色概念及其组织[J]. 心理学报, 2008, 40(04): 389-401.
Cite This Article
  • APA Style

    Jie Feng, Juan Xu, Xinchun Wu. (2021). The Comparison of Object Color Knowledge Between Congenitally Blind and Sighted People. Science Innovation, 9(1), 12-18. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.si.20210901.13

    Copy | Download

    ACS Style

    Jie Feng; Juan Xu; Xinchun Wu. The Comparison of Object Color Knowledge Between Congenitally Blind and Sighted People. Sci. Innov. 2021, 9(1), 12-18. doi: 10.11648/j.si.20210901.13

    Copy | Download

    AMA Style

    Jie Feng, Juan Xu, Xinchun Wu. The Comparison of Object Color Knowledge Between Congenitally Blind and Sighted People. Sci Innov. 2021;9(1):12-18. doi: 10.11648/j.si.20210901.13

    Copy | Download

  • @article{10.11648/j.si.20210901.13,
      author = {Jie Feng and Juan Xu and Xinchun Wu},
      title = {The Comparison of Object Color Knowledge Between Congenitally Blind and Sighted People},
      journal = {Science Innovation},
      volume = {9},
      number = {1},
      pages = {12-18},
      doi = {10.11648/j.si.20210901.13},
      url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.si.20210901.13},
      eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.si.20210901.13},
      abstract = {What role does perception play in human cognition? This is an important question in the research area of psychology. The current study aimed at exploring the influence of visual perceptual experience on human color cognition, by comparing the differences in behavioral and neuropsychological responses between congenital-blind and normal-sighted participants. The current study employed a semantic-priming paradigm, and presented prime-target word pairs to the participants randomly, such as, /bai2se4/ (white) -/xue3hua1/ (snow), or /bai2se4/ (white) - /mei2tan4/ (coal). All participants were instructed to decide whether the color term and the color of the object were matched or not. Results showed that (1) congenital-blind participants had acquired some color knowledge, but they were not as good as the sighted participants. (2) Mismatched color relationships induced significant N400 effects in both of the two groups, with a left hemisphere asymmetry. (3) However, compared with the sighted group, the blind group exhibited stronger N400 effects (i.e., larger amplitude of the difference waveform) and shorter N400 peak latencies. The current study suggests that congenital blindness have induced some cognitive and neuropsychology adaptive changes in blind people, and first-hand visual perceptual experience is important to color cognition but may be not prerequisite.},
     year = {2021}
    }
    

    Copy | Download

  • TY  - JOUR
    T1  - The Comparison of Object Color Knowledge Between Congenitally Blind and Sighted People
    AU  - Jie Feng
    AU  - Juan Xu
    AU  - Xinchun Wu
    Y1  - 2021/03/04
    PY  - 2021
    N1  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.si.20210901.13
    DO  - 10.11648/j.si.20210901.13
    T2  - Science Innovation
    JF  - Science Innovation
    JO  - Science Innovation
    SP  - 12
    EP  - 18
    PB  - Science Publishing Group
    SN  - 2328-787X
    UR  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.si.20210901.13
    AB  - What role does perception play in human cognition? This is an important question in the research area of psychology. The current study aimed at exploring the influence of visual perceptual experience on human color cognition, by comparing the differences in behavioral and neuropsychological responses between congenital-blind and normal-sighted participants. The current study employed a semantic-priming paradigm, and presented prime-target word pairs to the participants randomly, such as, /bai2se4/ (white) -/xue3hua1/ (snow), or /bai2se4/ (white) - /mei2tan4/ (coal). All participants were instructed to decide whether the color term and the color of the object were matched or not. Results showed that (1) congenital-blind participants had acquired some color knowledge, but they were not as good as the sighted participants. (2) Mismatched color relationships induced significant N400 effects in both of the two groups, with a left hemisphere asymmetry. (3) However, compared with the sighted group, the blind group exhibited stronger N400 effects (i.e., larger amplitude of the difference waveform) and shorter N400 peak latencies. The current study suggests that congenital blindness have induced some cognitive and neuropsychology adaptive changes in blind people, and first-hand visual perceptual experience is important to color cognition but may be not prerequisite.
    VL  - 9
    IS  - 1
    ER  - 

    Copy | Download

Author Information
  • Beijing Electronic Science and Technology Institute, Beijing, China

  • Special Education College, Beijing Union University, Beijing, China

  • Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China

  • Sections