A psychophysical analysis of the discernible palette for colour names

Abstract

A laboratory-based experiment with a colour-calibrated display was used to collect examples of colours that participants associate with each of 9 colour names. The gamut volumes for each of the clusters of colours in CIELAB space were calculated and a computational method was used to estimate how any distinct colours could be placed within each of these volumes. In the case of one of the colour names (pink), an unconstrained web-based experiment was carried out and the gamut volume for pink was similar to the gamut volume derived from the laboratory experiment. It was assumed that colours separated by more than 1 CIELAB unit would be visually distinguishable. The study gave estimates for the number of discernible colours for each of the 9 colour names. The work suggests that although focal colours may exist for each of the colour names used in the study, these colour names are generally not precise communicators of colour and different people might have quite different ideas, for example, about what is being communicated when people use specific colour names.