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Swift and Enormous Compared to the Slow, Periential Sameness Based on Sameness of Physiology Would Slight Yellowing of the Lens BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1999) 22, 923–989 Printed in the United States of America Color, consciousness, and the isomorphism constraint Stephen E. Palmer Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720-1650 [email protected] socrates.berkeley.edu/~plab Abstract: The relations among consciousness, brain, behavior, and scientific explanation are explored in the domain of color perception. Current scientific knowledge about color similarity, color composition, dimensional structure, unique colors, and color categories is used to assess Locke’s “inverted spectrum argument” about the undetectability of color transformations. A symmetry analysis of color space shows that the literal interpretation of this argument – reversing the experience of a rainbow – would not work. Three other color-to- color transformations might work, however, depending on the relevance of certain color categories. The approach is then generalized to examine behavioral detection of arbitrary differences in color experiences, leading to the formulation of a principled distinction, called the “isomorphism constraint,” between what can and cannot be determined about the nature of color experience by objective behavioral means. Finally, the prospects for achieving a biologically based explanation of color experience below the level of isomorphism are con- sidered in light of the limitations of behavioral methods. Within-subject designs using biological interventions hold the greatest promise for scientific progress on consciousness, but objective knowledge of another person’s experience appears impossible. The implications of these arguments for functionalism are discussed. Keywords: basic color terms; color; consciousness; functionalism; inverted spectrum; isomorphism; qualia; subjectivity; symmetry In this target article I discuss the relations among mind, 1. Detecting transformations of color experience brain, behavior, and science in the particular domain of color perception. My reasons for approaching these diffi- The basic intuition that underlies Locke’s (1690/1987) in- cult issues from the perspective of color experience are verted spectrum argument is that other people might have twofold. First, there is a long philosophical tradition of de- the same overall set of color experiences you do but they bating the nature of internal experiences of color, dating might be differently connected to objects in the external from John Locke’s (1690/1987) discussion of the so-called world. When you and I look at the same red apple under inverted spectrum argument. This intuitively compelling the same lighting conditions, for example, do we have the argument will be an important historical backdrop for much same internal experience of redness, or might I have the ex- of this target article. Second, from a scientific standpoint, perience you call greenness, or yellowness, or some other color is perhaps the most tractable, best understood aspect color? The issue is perhaps most clearly captured by the sit- of mental life. It demonstrates better than any other topic uation of looking at a rainbow. You perceive a particular or- how a mental phenomenon can be more fully understood dering of chromatic experiences from red at the top to vio- by integrating knowledge from many different disciplines let at the bottom, but I might perceive exactly the reverse (Kay & McDaniel 1978; Palmer 1999; Thompson 1995). In of your experiences, with violet at the top and red at the bot- this target article I turn once more to color for new insights tom. We would both name the color at the top “red” and the into how conscious experience can be studied and under- one at the bottom “violet,” of course, because that is what stood scientifically. I begin with a brief description of the inverted spectrum problem as posed in classical philosophical terms and then Stephen E. Palmer is Professor of Psychology, Di- discuss how empirical constraints on the answer can be rector of the Institute of Cognitive Studies, and Direc- brought to bear in terms of the structure of human color ex- tor of the undergraduate major in Cognitive Science at perience as it is currently understood scientifically. This the University of California at Berkeley. He is the au- discussion ultimately leads to a principled distinction, thor of over 60 scientific publications in the area of vi- called the isomorphism constraint, between what can and sual perception, including his new textbook Vision sci- ence: Photons to phenomenology (1999, MIT Press), cannot be determined about the nature of experience by which provides an introduction to all aspects of vision objective behavioral means. Finally, I consider the from an interdisciplinary perspective. He is a member prospects for achieving a biologically based explanation of of the Society of Experimental Psychologists, a Fellow color experience, ending with some speculation about lim- of both the American Psychological Association and the itations on what science can achieve with respect to under- American Psychological Society, and a member of the standing color experience and other forms of conscious- Governing Board of the Psychonomic Society. ness. © 1999 Cambridge University Press 0140-525X/99 $12.50 923 Palmer: Color and consciousness we have all been taught. Color naming is presumably me- can be recast into the simple question of whether an em- diated by internal color experiences, but it is only the soci- pirically accurate model of human color experience con- olinguistically sanctioned stimulus-response associations tains any symmetries. that matter in our ability to communicate about colors. The fact that we name the same objects and lights with the same 1.1. Color similarities. In scientific discussions, color expe- color terms is hence insufficient to determine whether our rience is usually described in terms of spatial models. Per- internal chromatic experiences are the same. haps the simplest and best known is the color circle devised The rainbow-reversal interpretation of the inverted spec- by Newton (1704), by now familiar to artists and much of trum argument is quite literal in the sense that we have sup- the general public (see Fig. 1). It is an example of a color posed that my experiences of the spectrally pure (mono- space: a multidimensional spatial representation (or model) chromatic) colors are simply the “inverse” of yours about in which different color experiences correspond to differ- the spectral midpoint. Notice that the “inverted spectrum ent points in the model. The locations of points represent- argument” is actually something of a misnomer: It is not the ing colors are chosen so that the degree of psychological spectrum that is inverted – that is, nothing has happened to similarity between pairs of colors corresponds to the dis- the rainbow itself – but the inner experiences in response tance between the corresponding points in the model. In to the spectrum. It would therefore be more accurate to call the color circle, the spectral colors of the rainbow are posi- this the “inverted color argument.” And because Locke’s es- tioned in order along most of the circle’s perimeter, and the sential point is not limited to literal inversion, but could ap- nonspectral colors, including many reds, all magentas, and ply equally well to any possible mapping of color experi- most purples, are located along the perimeter between the ences in one observer (e.g., you) to the same set of color blue-violet and orange-red limits of the visible spectrum, as experiences in another observer (e.g., me), we will call it the indicated in Figure 1 by the location of the color names out- “transformed color argument.” The problem it poses is side the circle. whether any such color-to-color transformation (excluding The color circle is a useful model of many aspects of color the identity mapping) could accurately describe the rela- experience because it is easy to comprehend yet manages tion between our color experiences without the differences to capture an immense number of facts about the relations being objectively detectable. Because we do not have direct among color experiences in a highly economical fashion. access to each other’s internal experiences, the question The fact that red is perceived as more similar to orange than boils down to whether any such color-to-color transforma- to green, for example, is reflected in the fact that the point tion could exist without being detectable through system- representing red is closer to the point representing orange atic differences in our behavior. than it is to the point representing green. Corresponding Notice that the transformed color argument as formu- lated above presupposes two important conditions: (1) that the two observers (canonically referred to as “you” and “me”) have experiences in response to different spectra of electromagnetic energy, and (2) that their overall sets of color experiences are the same. Dropping one or both of these assumptions leads to different versions of the more general “color problem.” Relaxing condition (2) suggests the possibility that you and I both have experiences in re- sponse to different light spectra but that one or both of us has at least some experiences the other does not. Our ex- periences might overlap to some degree, or they might even be completely disjoint, so that all my chromatic experiences in response to light spectra are qualitatively different from all of yours. Relaxing condition (1) suggests that I might have no experiences of color whatsoever in response to dif- ferent light spectra and yet behave as you do with respect to them. I would be a “color zombie,” able to name colors properly and produce standard data in various color dis- crimination and matching experiments, but without having any corresponding experiences at all. These possibilities will come to the fore later in this target article, but for now we will concentrate on the standard form of the problem in which it is assumed that both you and I have the same set of color experiences, whatever those might be, and ask Figure 1.
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