Investigated the hypothesis that there are salient areas of the color space ("focal colors") which are universally the most linguistically "codable" and the most easily remembered. Exp. I used 20 English-speaking female undergraduates and 10 foreign students to complete previous location of these focal colors on the dimensions of hue, value, and saturation. In Exp. II, 23 speakers of different languages named a sample of focal and nonfocal colors. In Exp. III, 20 English speakers and 21 New Guinea Dani, speakers of a language which lacks hue names, remembered and recognized focal and nonfocal colors. In Exp. IV, 19 Dani learned names for focal and nonfocal colors in a paired-associates task. Results show that focal colors (a) were given the shortest names and named most rapidly across languages, (b) were the most accurately recognized both by English and Dani speakers, and (c) could be paired with names with fewest errors. On the basis of these findings, linguistically causal interpretations of earlier language-cognition studies using color are challenged. (20 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)