When colours split from objects: The disconnection of colour perception from colour language and colour knowledge

ABSTRACT

We investigated object-colour knowledge in RDS, a patient with impaired colour naming after a left occipito-temporal stroke. RDS’s colour perception, object naming and verbal colour-knowledge (the ability to verbally say the typical colour of an object) were relatively spared. RDS was also able to state if an object was appropriately coloured or not. However, he could neither match colour names to coloured objects, nor match colour patches to grey-scale objects. Thus, RDS’s colour-naming deficit was associated with an impaired ability to conceptually relate visually presented object shapes and colours. These results suggest that objects in their typical colour are processed holistically in the visual modality, and that abilities important for colour naming may also be involved in abstracting colours from visual objects. We discuss these findings in the context of developmental psychology and linguistic anthropology, and propose a model of neuro-functional organization of object-colour knowledge.

KEYWORDS:

• Colour knowledge
• colour naming
• language
• concepts
• ventral cortical visual stream

Acknowledgements

We are deeply grateful to Mr RDS for his patience and good humour during endless hours of testing. We also thank Dr Karynne Moreau, Noelia Cools and Sophie Ferrieux for patient referral and clinical follow-up, and Michel Thiebaut de Schotten for advice and discussion. The research leading to these results was promoted by the Inserm (protocol C13-41), was approved by the Ethical Committee Ile-de-France I, and has received funding from the program “Investissements d’avenir” ANR-10- IAIHU-06. K. S. K. was funded by the École des Neurosciences Paris Île de France. C. W. was supported by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft Grant “Cardinal Mechanisms of Perception” No SFB TRR and the European Research Council Advanced Grant FEEL No. 32367.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft [“Cardinal Mechanisms of Perception” No SFB TRR]; H2020 European Research Council: [Advanced Grant FEEL No. 32367]; École des Neurosciences Paris Île de France.; L’Agence Nationale de la Recherche [“Investissements d’avenir” ANR-10- IAIHU-06].