COMPLETE DEPENDENCE OF COLOR IDENTIFICATION UPON COLOR LOCALIZATION IN A SINGLE-ITEM TASK

The available experimental evidence on the relation between color localization and color identification is contradictory. One possible reason is that the experimental paradigms used up to now are very complex. Therefore, we assessed the relation between color identification and color localization in two single-item experiments with percentage correct as the dependent variable. In both experiments four colors were used that differed in hue but were equal in lightness and saturation. The data in Experiment 1 indicated a partial independence of the process of color identification upon color localization. A further analysis of the data strongly indicated that this independence was spurious, resulting from a sophisticated guessing strategy. To eliminate this guessing, in Experiment 2 another set of colors was used. There was no genuine color identification without color localization, i.e., complete dependence of color identification upon localization was found. A further analysis of the data showed that not only perfect color recognition, but also approximate color identification depended completely upon color localization.