A person has the ability to see the world around us in a variety of colors and shades. He can admire the sunset, emerald greenery, bottomless blue sky and other beauties of nature. The perception of color and its impact on the psyche and physical condition of a person will be discussed in this article.
What is color
Color refers to the subjective perception by the human brain of visible light, the differences in its spectral structure felt by the eye. In humans, the ability to distinguish colors is better developed than in other mammals.
Light acts on the photosensitive receptors of the eye retina, and then they produce a signal transmitted to the brain. It turns out that color perception is formed in a complex way in a chain: the eye (retinal neural networks and exteroreceptors) - visual images of the brain.
Thus, color is an interpretation of the surrounding world in the human mind, resulting from the processing of signals from light-sensitive cells of the eye - cones and rods. At the same time, the former are responsible for the perception of color, while the latter are responsible for the acuity of twilight vision.
"Color Disorders"
The eye responds to three primary tones: blue, green and red. And the brain perceives colors as a combination of these three basic colors. If the retina loses the ability to distinguish any color, then the person loses it. For example, there are people who are unable to distinguish between green and red. 7% of men and 0.5% of women have such features. It is extremely rare for people to not see the colors around, which means that the receptor cells in their retina do not function. Some suffer from weak twilight vision - this means that they have weakly sensitive sticks. Such problems arise for various reasons: due to a deficiency of vitamin A or hereditary factors. However, a person can adapt to "color disorders", so without a special examination they are almost impossible to detect. People with normal vision are able to distinguish up to a thousand shades. The perception of color by a person changes depending on the conditions of the surrounding world. The same tone looks different in candlelight or in sunlight. But human vision quickly adapts to these changes and identifies a familiar color.
Perception of form
Knowing nature, a person all the time discovered new principles of the world’s structure - symmetry, rhythm, contrast, proportions. He was guided by these impressions, transforming the environment, creating his own unique world. Subsequently, the objects of reality gave rise to stable images in the human mind, accompanied by clear emotions. Perception of form, size, color is associated with individual symbolic associative values ​​of geometric shapes and lines. For example, in the absence of articulations, the vertical is perceived by a person as something infinite, incommensurable, upward, light. A thickening in the lower part or a horizontal base makes it more stable in the eyes of the individual. But the diagonal symbolizes movement and dynamics. It turns out that the composition, based on clear verticals and horizontals, tends to solemnity, static, stability, and the image based on the diagonals - to variability, instability and movement.
Double exposure
It is generally recognized that the perception of color is accompanied by a strong emotional impact. This problem was studied in detail by painters. V.V. Kandinsky noted that color has two effects on humans. First, the individual is physically exposed when the eye is either fascinated by color or annoyed by it. This impression is fleeting when it comes to familiar items. However, in an unusual context (an artist’s picture, for example), color can cause a strong emotional experience. In this case, we can talk about the second type of influence of color on the individual.
Physical effect of color
Numerous experiments by psychologists and physiologists confirm the ability of color to influence a person’s physical condition. Dr. Podolsky described the visual perception of color by a person as follows.
- Blue color - has an antiseptic effect. It is useful to watch it with suppuration and inflammation. A sensitive shade of blue helps the shade better than green. But the "overdose" of this color causes some depression and fatigue.
- Green is hypnotic and painkiller. It has a positive effect on the nervous system, relieves irritability, fatigue and insomnia, and also raises tonus and lowers blood pressure .
- Yellow color - stimulates the brain, therefore, helps with mental failure.
- Orange color - has an exciting effect and accelerates the pulse without raising blood pressure. It improves mood, raises vitality, but over time it can tire.
- Violet color - affects the lungs, blood vessels, heart and increases the endurance of body tissues.
- Red color - has a warming effect. It stimulates brain activity, eliminates melancholy, but in large doses it irritates.
Colors
The effects of color on perception can be classified in different ways. There is a theory according to which, all tones can be divided into stimulating (warm), disintegrating (cold), pastel, static, deaf, warm dark and cold dark.
Stimulating (warm) colors contribute to excitement and act as irritants:
- red - life-affirming, strong-willed;
- orange - cozy, warm;
- yellow - radiant, in contact.
Disintegrating (cold) tones muffle excitement:
- violet - heavy, in-depth;
- blue - emphasizing the distance;
- light blue - guiding, leading into space;
- blue-green - changeable, emphasizing movement.
Pastel colors muffle the effects of pure colors:
- pink - mysterious and gentle;
- lilac - isolated and closed;
- pastel green - soft, affectionate;
- gray-blue - restrained.
Static colors can balance and distract from exciting colors:
- pure green - refreshing, demanding;
- olive - softening, calming;
- yellow-green - liberating, renewing;
- purple - pretentious, refined.
Dull tones contribute to concentration (black); do not cause excitement (gray); extinguish irritation (white).
Warm dark colors (brown) cause lethargy, inertness:
- ocher - softens the growth of arousal;
- earthy brown - stabilizes;
- dark brown - reduces excitability.
Dark cold tones (black and blue, dark gray, green and blue) suppress and isolate irritation.
Color and personality
The perception of color in many respects depends on the personality characteristics of a person. This fact was proved in his works on the individual perception of color compositions by the German psychologist M. Lusher. According to his theory, an individual who is in a different emotional and mental state can react differently to the same color. Moreover, the characteristics of color perception depend on the degree of development of the personality. But even with a weak emotional sensitivity of the paint, the surrounding reality is perceived ambiguously. Warm and light colors attract the eye more than dark ones. And at the same time, clear, but poisonous colors cause concern, and a person’s eyes involuntarily seek a cool green or blue hue to relax.
Ad color
In an advertising appeal, the choice of color cannot depend solely on the taste of the designer. Indeed, bright colors can both attract the attention of a potential client and make it difficult to obtain the necessary information. Therefore, the perception of the shape and color of the individual must be taken into account when creating advertising. Decisions can be the most unexpected: for example, against a motley background of bright pictures, a person’s involuntary attention is more likely to be attracted by a strict black-and-white ad rather than a colorful inscription.
Children and colors
Children perceive color gradually. At first they distinguish only warm tones: red, orange and yellow. Then the development of mental reactions leads to the fact that the child begins to perceive blue, purple, blue and green colors. And only with age the baby becomes available all the variety of color tones and shades. At three years old, children are usually called two or three colors, and they recognize about five. Moreover, some children can hardly distinguish the basic tones even at the age of four. They poorly differentiate colors, hardly remember their names, replace intermediate shades of the spectrum with basic ones, and so on. In order for the child to learn to adequately perceive the world around him, you need to teach him to correctly distinguish colors.
Color perception development
From a very young age, you need to learn color perception. The kid is very curious by nature and needs a variety of information, but you need to enter it gradually so as not to irritate the sensitive psyche of the child. At an early age, children usually associate color with the image of an object. For example, green - herringbone, yellow - chicken, blue - sky and so on. The teacher needs to take advantage of this moment and develop color perception using natural forms.
Color, unlike size and shape, can only be seen. Therefore, in determining the tone, a major role is given to comparison by overlay. If two colors are placed side by side, each child will understand whether they are the same or different. At the same time, he still does not need to know the name of the coloration, it is enough to be able to complete tasks such as "Plant every butterfly on a flower of the same color." After the child learns to visually distinguish and compare colors, it makes sense to proceed to the selection according to the pattern, that is, to the actual development of color perception. To do this, you can use the book by G. S. Shvaiko, entitled "Games and game exercises for the development of speech." Acquaintance with the colors of the world helps children to feel reality more finely and more fully, develops thinking, observation, enriches speech.
Visual color
An interesting experiment on himself was put by one resident of Britain - Neil Harbisson. From childhood, he did not know how to distinguish colors. Doctors found in him a rare visual impairment - achromatopsia. The guy saw the surrounding reality as if in a black and white movie and considered himself a socially cut off person. Once, Neil agreed to an experiment and allowed himself to implant a special cybernetic instrument in his head that allows him to see the world in all its colorful diversity. It turns out that eye perception of color is not necessary. A chip and an antenna with a sensor were implanted in the back of the Nile's head, which pick up vibration and convert it into sound. In this case, each note corresponds to a certain color: fa - red, la - green, b - blue and so on. Now, for Harbisson, a visit to the supermarket is akin to visiting a nightclub, and the art gallery reminds him of going to the philharmonic. Technology gave Neil a hitherto unprecedented feeling in nature: visual sound. A man puts interesting experiments with his new sense, for example, comes close to different people, studies their faces and composes the music of portraits.
Conclusion
One can talk endlessly about color perception. An experiment with Neil Harbisson, for example, suggests that the human psyche is very plastic and can adapt to the most unusual conditions. In addition, it is obvious that people have a desire for beauty, expressed in the inner need to see the world in color, not monochrome. Vision is a unique and fragile instrument, the study of which will take a lot of time. Learning about it as much as possible will be useful to everyone.