Abstract: The relation between color terms and color cognition is a basic issue in cognitive psychology and psycholinguistics as it concerns the relationship between language and cognition. So far, this issue has been discussed by three distinct theories: the Theory of Color Term Evolution, Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis and a compromised view between the two theories. Zhang Jijia et al. (2012)put forward a new theory named the Interaction Theory of color and color cognition. The theory assumes that six factors (physics, physiology, cognition, intelligence, culture and language) can be divided into three different levels in the whole theory system. All the six factors interact with each other and finally form the color cognition together. In the present study, the Interaction Theory of color term and color cognition has been examined. Taiwan is famous for its religions, in which the Buddhism, Christianity, and Taoism are of the three most famous religions sharing Asian culture and Chinese language. 211 Buddhists, 212 Christians, and 210 Taoists from Taiwan took part in this research. Eleven Chinese basic color terms (black, white, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, brown, gray and pink) are used as the experimental materials. The participants were asked to classify the 11 color terms according to their own criteria and then explain the reason why they sort the color terms as so. The responses were analyzed using the multi- dimensional scaling method. The results show that Buddhists, Christians and Taoists in Taiwan are consistent in their classification of basic color terms in general. There are two dimensions in conceptual structure of the three religions and the average classification category is four. However, the two dimensions and the four sub categories are sort of different. For the Buddhists, the sub-category can be religious color, brown, cool color and neutral color, while for the Taoists, the cool color is replaced by the warm color, and other sub categories are the same as the Buddhists. And for the Christians, the sub category can be religion color, brown, cool color and warm color. What’s more, they all share the dimension “religious/unreligious color”, and the other dimension is “cool/warm color”, “colorful/neutral” and “cool/warm color” for Buddhists, Taoists and Christians respectively. In order to probe into the relationship of the three religions, the Spearman grade correlation was used. As a result, in dimension 1 the value of the correlation coefficients are all over 0.95, and ps<0.05; in dimension 2, the value are all over 0.85, and up to the significance too. Mostly, the number of each category is different among the three religions. The conclusion can be that although differences result from the religious culture do exist in terms of the number and content of the categories, they share the consistency in dimensions. The consistency and differences reflect the co-effects of Asian culture and the sub-culture of religions on color cognition. On the other hand, color as a symbol affects the cognition of the religious disciples by the imagistic transmission. During the imagistic transmission, some religious culture or religious traditions gradually affect the cognition of their disciples, especially the cognition of colors. To some extent, this makes the color cognition full of unconscious religion culture. In conclusion these results support the interaction theory of color and color cognition that people in the same culture system and place share the same dimension of the color term category. Key words　Buddhist; Taoist; Christian; color terms; classification; the Interaction Theory of color and color cognition

Key words: Buddhist, Taoist, Christian, color terms, classification, the Interaction Theory of color and color cognition

摘要： 采用自然分类法，考察台湾佛教徒、道教徒和基督徒的基本颜色词分类，并做多维标度分析和聚类分析。实验结果表明：台湾三大宗教信徒对11种基本颜色词的分类既有共性，也有差异。台湾三大宗教信徒对基本颜色词分类的共性反映了汉语言和汉文化的影响，对基本颜色词分类的差异反映了作为亚文化的宗教对颜色认知的影响。颜色通过意象式的传播方式影响宗教徒的认知。研究的结果支持颜色词与颜色词认知的相互作用理论。

关键词: 佛教, 道教, 基督教, 基本颜色词, 颜色认知, 颜色与颜色认知的相互作用理论