Mavi or lacivert?.
Would you call the color on the screen 'mavi' (blue) or 'lacivert' (navy)?
Original study
- Özgen, E., & Davies, I. R. L. (1998). Turkish color terms: Tests of Berlin and Kay's theory of color universals and linguistic relativity. Linguistics, 36(5), 919–956. Source
- Berlin, B., & Kay, P. (1969). Basic color terms: Their universality and evolution. Berkeley: University of California Press. Source
- Winawer, J., Witthoft, N., Frank, M. C., Wu, L., Wade, A. R., & Boroditsky, L. (2007). Russian blues reveal effects of language on color discrimination. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104(19), 7780–7785. Source
- Özgen, E., & Davies, I. R. L. (2002). Acquisition of categorical color perception: A perceptual learning approach to the linguistic relativity hypothesis. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 131(4), 477–493. Source
- Rätsep, K. (2018). Colour terms in Turkish, Estonian and Russian: How many basic blue terms are there? (Doktora tezi). University of Tartu. Source
- Thierry, G., Athanasopoulos, P., Wiggett, A., Dering, B., & Kuipers, J.-R. (2009). Unconscious effects of language-specific terminology on preattentive color perception. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106(11), 4567–4570. Source
- Chevreul, M. E. (1839). De la loi du contraste simultané des couleurs et de l'assortiment des objets colorés. Paris: Pitois-Levrault. Source
- Lafer-Sousa, R., Hermann, K. L., & Conway, B. R. (2015). Striking individual differences in color perception uncovered by 'the dress' photograph. Current Biology, 25(13), R545–R546. Source
Our adaptation
A naming task inspired by Özgen and Davies (1998) on the Turkish distinction between 'mavi' (blue) and 'lacivert' (dark blue). One of 9 blue shades ordered from light to dark is shown at random with equal probability on a neutral gray background; the positions of the two answer buttons are randomized. In rounds 2 and 3 all nine shades are named twice in random order; in round 4 the shade nearest the personal boundary is shown once on a light gray and once on a dark gray surround (in random order).
Differences from the original study
- Screens are not calibrated; brightness, color profile and night mode render the same color code differently.
- We measure the name given to a color, not color perception.
- The nine shades are our own design (equally spaced in OKLCH), not taken from the literature.
- In the English interface the two answer labels are translated (blue, dark blue); the stored values are always the Turkish terms.
Measured variables
The columns of the open data file. List fields are expanded into numbered columns (for example rt_60, est_3); JSON columns contain only numbers and fixed stimulus names.
| Column | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
shade | integer | Shade shown in round 1: 0 (lightest) – 8 (darkest). |
answer | mavi | lacivert | Name given in round 1: mavi (blue) | lacivert (dark blue). |
boundary | number | Personal boundary: the shade position where the probability of answering 'lacivert' crosses 50% (computed in the browser from 19 answers). |
consistency | number | Share of shades given the same name in rounds 2 and 3 (0–1). |
series | JSON | The 18 answers of rounds 2 and 3: [shade, 1 = lacivert / 0 = mavi] pairs in presentation order. |
light_shade | integer | Shade shown on the light surround in round 4 (0–8). |
light_answer | mavi | lacivert | Name given on the light surround. |
dark_shade | integer | Shade shown on the dark surround in round 4 (0–8). |
dark_answer | mavi | lacivert | Name given on the dark surround. |
Columns present in every file (14)
row_id | string | Row code. Regenerated at random in every release; it does not identify a person and cannot be matched across releases or experiments. |
experiment | string | Short name of the experiment (URL slug). |
experiment_version | integer | Version of the answer format. For experiments whose format changed, only the current format is published. |
date | YYYY-MM-DD | YYYY-Www | YYYY-MM | Day the answer was given (Istanbul time). If fewer than 5 answers share the same day, language and device, it is coarsened to the ISO week, and to the month if that is still too few. |
date_precision | day | week | month | Precision of the date column. |
lang | tr | en | (boş) | Interface language. Language recording started in the first week of October 2026; for earlier answers it is known only in experiments whose stimuli depend on the language, and empty otherwise. |
device | desktop | mobile | tablet | (boş) | Device class reported by the browser (class only; browser details are neither stored here nor published). |
source | site | embed | Where the answer came from: the balabs site or the experiment embedded on another site. The embedding site is not published. |
mode | free | daily | challenge | race | session | (boş) | Play mode in scored experiments: free play, daily round, challenge, race room, experiment session. Empty for unscored experiments and for older answers that did not store it. |
color_vision | normal | rg | by | contrast | (boş) | In color-based experiments, the color vision mode the participant chose: normal, red-green, blue-yellow or high contrast. Stimuli are generated along different axes per mode, so compare within a mode. Empty for other experiments. |
first_play | 1 | Every row is a participant’s first play of this experiment (always 1). Replays are stored only as leaderboard scores and are not part of the open data. |
seen_before | yes | no | unsure | (boş) | Participant’s own report of whether they had seen this experiment or its known answer before (in experiments that ask). |
duration_s | number | Time from the start of the experiment to submitting the answer, in seconds (measured in the browser, 0.1 s). |
play_score | number | Leaderboard score of the first play (scored experiments; defined on the method card). Empty for unscored experiments. |
Exclusion criteria
The server validates the shade position (0–8) and the name (mavi | lacivert) of the main answer; invalid answers are rejected. Values from the extra rounds are computed in the browser and only reduced to a safe form on the server.
- Only each participant's first answer to this experiment; replays are not included.
- Simulated rows, bots, banned and sample accounts are not included.
- Answers before 3 October 2026 are not included (the first day the open data notice was live).
Scoring
This experiment has no leaderboard score. The crowd boundary is the 50% point of a curve fitted to the 'lacivert' share of each shade.
Version notes
- October 2026
The interface language (lang) started being stored with each answer; for earlier answers it is known only in experiments whose stimuli depend on the language, and empty otherwise.