Color sorting and color term evolution.

When participants sort color samples into piles, Boster showed that their color groupings can resemble the "stages" of Kay & McDaniel's model of color term evolution. Boster concluded that both the unfolding of color piles in a sequential color sorting task and the unfolding of color terms according to Kay & McDaniel's model reveal how human beings understand color. If this is correct, then: (1) pile sorts should be reasonably robust across variations in the palette of colors to be sorted, as long as the palette contains good examples of Berlin & Kay's universal color categories, and (2) pile-sorting should be more related to lexical effects and less related to perceptual processes governed by similarity judgments alone.

Vision-related quality of life in adults with severe peripheral vision loss: a qualitative interview study.

Background: Existing patient-reported outcome (PRO) measures may not be relevant to the full range of functional and vision-related quality of life (VR-QOL) concerns of individuals with vision impairment due to severe peripheral field loss (PFL). Measurement of VR-QOL in severe PFL is important in order to determine the effectiveness of vision rehabilitation interventions for this population. The purpose of this study was to characterize the impact of severe PFL due to retinitis pigmentosa (RP) and glaucoma on VR-QOL as the initial phase in the development of a novel PRO measure.

Testing the Cross-Cultural Generality of Hering's Theory of Color Appearance.

This study examines the cross-cultural generality of Hering's (1878/1964) color-opponent theory of color appearance. English-speaking and Somali-speaking observers performed variants of two paradigms classically used to study color-opponency. First, both groups identified similar red, green, blue, and yellow unique hues.

Does feature integration affect resolution of multiple simultaneous forms of ambiguity?

Ambiguity resolution, perceptual grouping, and feature integration all occur seamlessly and subconsciously. When multiple regions of an image share ambiguous features, perceptual grouping can yield an integrated object percept rather than one of multiple objects, each with its individual features. Here, perceptual resolution and grouping of chromatically rivalrous Necker cubes were investigated in three experiments to determine the principles that underlie these coherent percepts.

The modern Japanese color lexicon.

Despite numerous prior studies, important questions about the Japanese color lexicon persist, particularly about the number of Japanese basic color terms and their deployment across color space. Here, 57 native Japanese speakers provided monolexemic terms for 320 chromatic and 10 achromatic Munsell color samples. Through k-means cluster analysis we revealed 16 statistically distinct Japanese chromatic categories.

Differential effects of light and feeding on circadian organization of peripheral clocks in a forebrain Bmal1 mutant.

In order to assess the contribution of a central clock in the hypothalamic suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) to circadian behavior and the organization of peripheral clocks, we generated forebrain/SCN-specific Bmal1 knockout mice by using floxed Bmal1 and pan-neuronal Cre lines. The forebrain knockout mice showed >90% deletion of BMAL1 in the SCN and exhibited an immediate and complete loss of circadian behavior in constant conditions. Circadian rhythms in peripheral tissues persisted but became desynchronized and damped in constant darkness.

Evaluation of eight plasma proteins as candidate blood-based biomarkers for malignant gliomas.

Eight brain-derived proteins were evaluated regarding their potential for further development as a blood-based biomarker for malignant gliomas. Plasma levels for glial fibrillary acidic protein, neurogranin, brain-derived neurotrophic factor, intracellular adhesion molecule 5, metallothionein-3, beta-synuclein, S100 and neuron specific enolase were tested in plasma of 23 patients with high-grade gliomas (WHO grade IV), 11 low-grade gliomas (WHO grade II), and 15 healthy subjects. Compared to the healthy controls, none of the proteins appeared to be specific for glioblastomas.