According to this view, the data were collected from native-speaking informants in each of twenty languages from a number of unrelated language families. The material used in collecting data is a color chart provided by the Munsell Color Company. The data were gathered in two stages.
First, the basic color words of the language in question were elicited from the informant. Secondly, each subject was instructed to map both the focal point and the outer boundary of each of his basic color terms on the array of the Munsell color chart.
From the result, the boundary of each color could be identified, that is, which color chips can be defined as each basic color. For instance, which color chips could be mapped in the basic color term “red.”