In referential communication, adjectives are normally used to preempt an
ambiguity between entities of the same kind, but they are often used
redundantly. In a reference-production study, we show that English speakers
produce more redundant color adjectives than Spanish speakers (replicating
Rubio-Fernández, 2016). In three eye-tracking experiments, we tested the
hypothesis that color contrast is established across-categories in English
(pre-nominal modification: blue vs. non-blue figures) while it is
established within-categories in Spanish (post-nominal modification:
triangle blue vs. triangle red). Our results support the view that color
contrast is established incrementally, which affects both the production
and processing of color adjectives.