Unofficial transcript from BBC Horizon episode “Do you see what I see?” (2011)

Retrieved on 17 April 2014 from

NARRATORColor vision is not something that you are automatically born with.

ANNASo newborns have got reallyreally limited color visions and their color vision develops over the first three months of life

NARRATORAs the color cells in their eyes develop over these three months, they begin to see color.

But what Anna has found is that something as simple as the words you learn might be having an impact on how your brain processes color.

ANNAPotentially, language could actually structure how the brain is structuring the visual world.

NARRATORThe first cues arose when Anna started looking at what happens to children’s brains when they learned to speak.

It was comparing the brains of children pre- and post-language, that they discovered something rather fascinating.

ANNA(TO WOMAN) Hi Claudia, thanks very much for bringing Max and Noah into the […] baby lab today. What we’re looking at today is how babies and toddlers categorize color.

NARRATORIn the English speaking world, we have 11 color categories.

What Anna is looking for is how the brain processes these categories pre- and post-language.

First in the chair is Max, who has no concept of language.

ANNAColor categories appear to be present in infants, even before they’ve learned the words for color. So, somehow, infants are also dividing up the spectrum of color into categories, even though they don’t have language to tell them how to do that.

NARRATORBy tracking Max’s eye movement, Anna is able to tell that it’s the right side of the brain which is processing the color categories.

What’s fascinating is what happens when 3-year-old Noah, who has learned his categories, does the same experiment.

ANNATheir category effect is stronger in the RIGHT visual field, and the right visual field initially projects over to the left hemisphere, which is the hemisphere that is dominant for language.

NARRATORSo inextricably linked is color to language, that it jumps across your brain as soon as you start acquiring words.

ANNAWe’re really excited about these findings, because it suggests, potentially, that learning language or learning color terms can actually change the way in which your brain is actually categorizingthe visual world,the way in which your brain is deriving structure from the world in which it is seeing.

NARRATORThis suggests the way you process color and how you learn language is connected.

But to really understand how language might help shape color, scientists began looking at a group of people with a color vocabulary as different from most of ours as possible.

Northern Namibia. A remote and barren landscape.

Home to a remarkable tribe, the Himba.

The Himba women are famous for covering themselves with ochre, which symbolizes the earth’s rich red color, and blood, which symbolizes life.

But that’s not what has brought [S] here.

He’s here because there’s something rather special about how the Himba describe the colors they see.

[S](TO MAN) What is the color of water?

MAN(Speaks in foreign language)

TRANSLATORWhite.

[S]White.Okay,and milk?

MAN(Speaks in foreign language)

TRANSLATORAlso white.

[S](TO MAN) You see, me, where I come from, we say the water is blue and the sky is blue; and you say the sky is black, the water is white, and so we have different words to talk about the same thing.

TRANSLATOR(Begins to translate into foreign language)

NARRATORWhile we have 11 words to describe color, the Himba have half the amount.

They include ZOOZU which is most dark colors, and includes reds, blues greens and purples.

VAPA which is mainly white but includes some yellow.

BOROU which includes some greens and blues.

And DUMBU which includes different greens, but also reds and browns.

They clearly describe color differently, but do they see the same way?

[S] has been running experiments to find out.

[S](TO WOMAN) Okay, now look at these; there are 12squares. One of them,again, is a different color. Which one?

NARRATORHe’s testing how long it takes them to spot a color which is different from the others.

[S](TO WOMAN) Can you do the same thing again?

NARRATORThis is what they’re looking at. For us, it’s quite hard to spot the odd one out.

[S](TO MAN) Okay, can you point one more time toward the different color?

MAN(Speaks in foreign language, points to square)

[S](TO MAN) Very good.

NARRATORBut for the Himba, it’s easy to see the green which is different.

[S]So you see, in this particular trial, this green patch looks very much like the other ones--at least to me and, I think, to most other Westerners. Whereas for the Himba, this is a different color. They have a different word for this type of green compared to the other types of green, and that allows them to more easily distinguish these two colors when they’re next to each other, whereas for us it’s very hard.So when westerners do this exact same trial, they will spend much longer and be much more likely to make a mistake than the Himba.

NARRATORThe next experiment is trickier for the Himba.

In this one, they are shown a circle of green squares, which includes one blue square.

[S](TO WOMAN) So again, twelve colors, and you point toward the one that is different than the other eleven colors.

TRANSLATOR(Speaking in foreign language)

NARRATORFor us, we have separate words for green and blue, but as the Himba have the same word for both, it takes them longer to spot the blue.

WOMAN(Speaking in foreign language)

TRANSLATORIt’s not there, I can’t see it.

[S]Okay, that was a difficult one for him. The difference between the two categories of color are very close to each other. For us, it’s quite clear the one that is different, but for them they have to look very hard. We measure the time they take to give the response, as well as errors, and what we find is that the Himba will take much longer to find the different color in this version of the experiment, with blue and green.

NARRATORThe Himba, with their five words, do in some ways see the world slightly different than us.