[MD] From each... to each

[Arlo Bensinger]

[Craig]
Don't know yet.  Awaiting grant from NSF.

[Arlo]
In the meantime, here's something to consider 
(http://www.apa.org/monitor/dec02/perception.html).

"Color categories make the world easier to live in. Granny Smith (green) 
and Red Delicious (red) apples belong in different bins; so do violets 
(blue) and roses (red).

To most of us, those categories seem natural, but in many other languages 
the categories differ. Some African languages have five primary color words 
or fewer; Russian has as many as English, plus an additional kind of blue. 
Often the boundaries between two colors shift as one moves from one 
language community to another.

Now, a new study by researchers at the University of Surrey suggests that 
the process of learning new color categories produces subtle but 
significant changes in how people actually perceive those colors."
...

""These kinds of categorical perception effects seem to be 
language-dependent," says Davies, who has collaborated with Roberson on 
some of those studies. "If an African language doesn't mark a blue-green 
boundary, then adult speakers don't seem to show categorical perception 
across that boundary, whereas English speakers do.""

Can people be taught new categories? Yes. The same way Pirsig was able to 
"see" the green flash of the sun when pointed by a linguaculture towards 
its perception. But if you believe these categories are objective, innate 
reality, then you are firmly entrenched in SOM. Just as the African does 
not see a "blue-green" boundary, and you do, are both results of language. 
You are as enmeshed in yours, as he is in his.

Kimberely Jameson, from the University of San Diego, has written an 
interesting review article on this topic 
(http://aris.ss.uci.edu/cogsci/personnel/kjameson/CultCog8.pdf). It's a 
good read, I recommend it if you are truly interested in this. Her writing 
supports Pirsig's claims, always something I like to see. :-)

"This third view is supported by evidence that color processing mechanisms 
differ both intraculturally and cross-culturally. This divergent color 
processing undermines the physiological
basis proposed by Universalists for within-culture color-naming coherence, 
and raises new questions about the sources of observed cultural coherence 
and cross-cultural universality. A new theory proposes that universalities 
in color naming and categorization may arise because, across cultures, 
color language and color categories primarily reflect the culturally modal 
mapping of linguistic items and categories shaped by universal cognitive 
constructs and culturally salient color appearances. Thus, a shared 
cultural representation of color based on widely shared cognitive 
dimensions may be what is truly universal about color naming and color 
categorization. Across cultures this form of representation may result from 
convergent responses to similar evolutionary pressures."

Arlo