Chapter 6. A Color Inference Framework

As people interact with the world, they form associations between colors and concepts. These color-concept associations are dynamic: they continually update with new experiences, and they vary in relevance depending on contextual cues. In this chapter, I present the Color Inference Framework, a functional system, to describe how people form conceptual inferences from color information (color inferences) and how those inferences influence people's judgements about the world. Within the Color Inference Framework, I define three kinds of cognitive operations - pooling, transmitting, and assigning - that act on the same mental representation (color-concept association network) to produce different kinds of evaluative and interpretive judgements. I also discuss empirical evidence in support of the Color Inference Framework.