Color Vision by Steven Verdile

Color Vision

Table of Contents 2 How We See In Color 4 What happens in the Eye 6 How Animals See Color 8 Claude Monet and Extrinisc Colors 10 Forbidden Colors 12 How We Feel Color 14 A Test for Color Blindness 16 Colorblind Military 18 Tetrachromatic Supervision 20 Goetheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Theory of Colours 22 Colors, a poem 24 How Color Affects Appetite 26 Color and Body Temperature 28 Georges Seurat and Pointilism 30 Color and Medicine 32 Josef Albers and Color Theory 34 Essay

How We See In Color Roses are red and violets are blue, but we only know that thanks to specialized cells in our eyes called cones. When light hits an object – say, a banana – the object absorbs some of the light and reflects the rest of it. Which wavelengths are reflected or absorbed depends on the properties of the object. For a ripe banana, wavelengths of about 570 to 580 nanometers bounce back. These are the wavelengths of yellow light. When you look at a banana, the wavelengths of reflected light determine what color you see. The light waves reflect off the banana’s peel and hit the light-sensitive retina at the back

of your eye. That’s where cones come in. Cones are one type of photoreceptor, the tiny cells in the retina that respond to light. Most of us have 6 to 7 million cones, and almost all of them are concentrated on a 0.3 millimeter spot on the retina called the fovea centralis. Not all of these cones are alike. About 64 percent of them respond most strongly to red light, while about a third are set off the most by green light. Another 2 percent respond strongest to blue light. When light from the banana hits the cones, it stimulates them to varying degrees. The resulting

signal is zapped along the optic nerve to the visual cortex of the brain, which processes the information and returns with a color: yellow. Humans, with our three cone types, are better at discerning color than most mammals, but plenty of animals beat us out in the color vision department. Many birds and fish have four types of cones, enabling them to see ultraviolet light, or light with wavelengths shorter than what the human eye can perceive. Some insects can also see in ultraviolet, which may help them see patterns on flowers that are completely invisible to us. To a bumblebee, those roses may not be so red after all.

What Happens in the Eye? The eye is often compared to a camera. But it might be more appropriate to compare it to a TV camera that is self-focusing, has a self-cleaning lens and has its images processed by a computer with millions of CPUs. When our eye sees, light from the outside world is focused by the lens onto

the retina. There, it is absorbed by pigments in light-sensitive cells, called rods and cones. Many animals have two different types of cones. (Some, like birds have five or more.) Higher primates, including humans, have three different types.

There are approximately 6 million cones in our retina, and they are sensitive to a wide range of brightness. The three different types of cones are sensitive to short, medium and long wavelengths, respectively, shown in the figure. Additionally, we have approximately 125 million rods on the retina, which are used only in dim light, and are monochromatic â&#x20AC;&#x201C; black and white. It is interesting to note that the existence of such receptors was first hypothesized by George Palmer in 1777, and more famously a few decades later by Thomas Young, but not actually discovered until the late 19th century.

This graph shows the sensitivity of the different cones to varying wavelengths. The graph shows how the response varies by wavelength for each kind of receptor.

How Animals See Color Different animals have different kinds of color vision. Some have very poor color vision and others have very good color vision. In fact some birds and bees have super color vision and see colors that humans don’t see. Dogs, cats, mice, rats and rabbits have very poor color vision In fact, they see mostly greys and some blues and yellows.

This is what humans see.

This is what dogs & cats see.

Some animals do have good color vision. Monkeys, ground squirrels, birds, insects, and many fish can see a fairly good range of color. In some cases it’s not as good as what we humans see - but it’s much better than cats and dogs. Scientists say that good color vision helps animals find food on the land or in the

water. For land animals, good color vision helps to tell the difference between ripe red fruit and unripe green fruit. Colors can also make animals more attractive to each other when they mate. Finally, the ability to see colors helps animals identify predators (other animals who may attack them). Who has super color vision? Bees and butterflies can see colors that we can’t see. Their range of color vision extends into the ultraviolet. The leaves of the flowers they pollinate have special ultraviolet patterns which guide the insects deep into the flower. Another example is how a diving bird can see under water without

goggles ... and you can’t. Owls and other nocturnal (nighttime) animals can see at night when it is too dark for us. However, we do not know what animals actually see. We do know that they have very sharp vision. Scientists recently discovered the first animal that can see some colors under very dim lighting. It’s the gecko and it can tell blue from grey! Frogs might also see some colors when it’s dark. Which animal doesn’t need eyes to see? A pit viper sees by feeling the heat in an object. Think about the last time you were sick. Did you check your forehead to see if you were had a fever? That is what gives pit vipers a different kind of vision. This is called “thermal vision.”

How do we know what colors an animal sees? Although there’s no way to truly know what nonhuman animals actually perceive, scientists can examine the cones inside the eyes and estimate what colors an animal sees. One of the techniques used to determine the color vision of fish is “microspectrophotometry.” This process analyzes the visual pigments and photo-sensitivity of cells in order to determine how and what colors a fish sees. Scientists also test for color vision with behavioral tests. In some tests, a mouse has to decide that the a third colored panel looks different from the others and receives a drop of soy milk as a reward.

Claude Monet and Extrinsic Colors Until the 19th century, color was thought to be an intrinsic property of an object, like density or melting point. Oranges were intrinsically orange and lemons were intrinsically yellow. The French Impressionists and post-Impressionists change this conception. Claude Monetâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s (1840-1926) work around 1890 demonstrates this development. Monet and his contemporaries begin to paint outdoors, as opposed to the traditional settings of a neutral studio environment. Thus, Monetâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s series of haystacks are painted under different light conditions at different times of the day. He would rise before dawn, paint the first canvas for half an hour, by which time the light would have changed. Then

he would switch to the second canvas, and so on. The next day he would repeat the process. In each painting, the color of the haystack is different because the light shining on the haystack is different. The color of the haystack is determined by the colors the haystack absorbs. The color we see is simply the colorized light that is not absorbed and that is reflected into our eyes.

Monetâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s fascination with the science behind color can be seen in this painting, Impression Sunrise (1872). When the painting is photographed in black and white, due to the perfect balance of value in the sky, the sun almost completely disappears.

Forbidden Colors Try to imagine reddish green — not the dull brown you get when you mix the two pigments together, but rather a color that is somewhat like red and somewhat like green. Or, instead, try to picture yellowish blue — not green, but a hue similar to both yellow and blue. Is your mind drawing a blank? That’s because, even though those colors exist, you’ve probably never seen them. Red-green and yellow-blue are the so-called “forbidden colors.” The limitation results from the way we perceive color in the first place. Cells in the retina called “opponent neurons” fire when stimulated by incoming red light, and this flurry of activity

tells the brain we’re looking at something red. Those same opponent neurons are inhibited by green light, and the absence of activity tells the brain we’re seeing green. Similarly, yellow light excites another set of opponent neurons, but blue light damps them. While most colors induce a mixture of effects in both sets of neurons, which our brains can decode to identify the component parts, red light exactly cancels the effect of green light (and yellow exactly cancels blue), so we can never perceive those colors coming from the same place. Almost never, that is. Scientists are finding out that these colors can be seen — you just need to know how to look for them.

The color revolution started in 1983, when a startling paper by Hewitt Crane, and his colleague Thomas Piantanida appeared in the journal Science. Titled “On Seeing Reddish Green and Yellowish Blue,” it argued that forbidden colors can be perceived. The researchers had created images in which red and green stripes (and, in separate images, blue and yellow stripes) ran adjacent to each other. They showed the images to dozens of volunteers, using an eye tracker to hold the images fixed relative to the viewers’ eyes. This ensured that light from each color stripe always entered the same retinal cells; for example, some cells always received yellow light, while other cells simultaneously received only blue light.

The observers reported seeing the borders between the stripes gradually disappear, and the colors seem to flood into each other. Amazingly, the image seemed to override their eyes’ opponency mechanism, and they said they perceived colors they’d never seen before. Wherever in the image of red and green stripes the observers looked, the color they saw was “simultaneously red and green,” Crane and Piantanida wrote in their paper. Furthermore, “some observers indicated that although they were aware that what they were viewing was a color, they were unable to name or describe the color. It seemed forbidden colors were real and glorious to behold!

Then, in 2006, Po-Jang Hsieh, then at Dartmouth College, and his colleagues conducted a variation of the 1983 experiment. This time, though, they provided study participants with a color map on a computer screen, and told them to use it to find a match for the color they saw when shown the image of alternating stripes — the color that, in Crane’s and Piantanida’s study, was indescribable. This experiment proved Crane’s wrong as participants could easily pick out the red-green mix as a muddy brown. Fortunately for all those rooting for forbidden colors, these scientists’ careers didn’t end in 2006. Billock, now a National Research Council senior associate at the

U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory, has led several experiments over the past decade that he and his colleagues believe prove the existence of forbidden colors. Billock argues that Hsieh’s study failed to generate the colors because it left out a key component of the setup: the eye trackers. You may never experience such a color in nature, or on the color wheel — a schematic diagram designed to accomodate the colors we normally perceive — but perhaps, someday, someone will invent a handheld forbidden color viewer with a built-in eye tracker. And when you peek in, it will be like seeing purple for the first time.

How We Feel Color

Best described mood of Happy People

A test for Color Blindness 14

The Ishihara test is a color perception test for red-green color deficiencies, rhe most common form of color blindness.. It was named after its designer, Dr. Shinobu Ishihara, a professor at the University of Tokyo, who first published his tests in 1917. If you can clearly distinguish the numbers in each circle, you have normal color vision

Colorblind Military Camouflage relies heavily on blending an object into the surrounding area both by mimicking the color and the patterns found around the object. Any skill at detecting problems in the coloration or pattern give the observer an immediate advantage in locating camouflaged prey or enemies. To that end, the U.S. Army discovered that colorblind men were excellent at detecting camouflaged enemy equipment and installations because their brains were more inclined to examine and match patterns (since color data wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t as reliable or accurate for them). When shown photos of locations with hidden enemies and their equipment, they were able to find them

faster and more consistently than that of their their non-colorblind miltary counterparts. Colorblindness affects roughly 8% of men versus 0.5% of females. Evolutionary biologists have argued that the ability to see camouflaged prey and hunt it more easily must have served men well enough for it to be preserved as a trait in a larger percentage of the male population.

“The U.S. Army discovered that colorblind men were excellent at detecting camouflaged enemy equipment”

Tetrachromatic ‘Super Vision’ The world is a colorful place, and scientists suspect that it’s a lot more colorful for some people than for others. Preliminary research suggests that a small percentage of people can perceive about 100 million colors, as compared with the roughly one million colors most of us can see.

cells. But along with certain other primates, most humans are “trichromats,” meaning their eyes have three kinds of cone cells. Since each cone cell is capable of perceiving about 100 different colors, the total number of colors a trichromatic person can perceive is 100^3, or one million.

Are these people super human? They’d probably like to think so, and who can blame them, but to really understand this strange phenomenon, you must first understand a bit about the colorperceiving “cone cells” that line the backs of the eyes.

Then there are “tetrachromats” like certain fish, birds, and insects, some humans are believed to be tetrachromatic, meaning their eyes have four different types of cone cells. So, do the math, and human tetrachromats should be able to see 100 million different colors.

Most animals are so-called “dichromats,” meaning their eyes contain two kinds of cone

Of course, since none of us really knows how the world looks

to everyone else, the people with this form of superhuman vision have no notion of their own special ability. “It is proven that some women have four cone types that could serve tetrachromatic color vision,” said Dr. Jay Neitz, a color vision researcher at the University of Washington in Seattle. “The frequency of these women and exactly what these women are doing with their extra cone is less clear.” Tetrachromacy would likely appear in women with sons or fathers who are colorblind. The genes for the cone cells that process red and green are found on the X chromosome, of which females have two. Tetrachromatic women are

believed to carry the genes for three normal cone cell types and one mutant type. Neitz estimated only about 2 percent of women have the genetic mutation that results in the extra retina cone, and there’s still no test to reliably predict whether someone really has “super vision” or not. But researchers are working to identify the few tetrachromats among us.

referred to only as cDa29, was able to identify subtle computergenerated color distinctions that would appear as just one tone to the common eye. “Seeing 100 million colors is probably pretty mind boggling,” Neitz said. “Men probably could not handle it. That could be why it is restricted to women.”

Dr. Gabriele Jordan, a color vision researcher at Newcastle University in England, surveyed a sample of women with a colorblind child, according to Discover. She found a doctor in northern England who became the first documented tetrachromat in history. The woman,

“As to what I have done as a poet... I take no pride in it... but that in my century I am the only person who knows the truth in the difficult science of colours – of that, I say, I am not a little proud, and here I have a consciousness of a superiority to many.” — Goethe, as recalled by Johann Eckermann, Conversations of Goethe, (tr. John Oxenford), London, 1930, p.302

Goethe’s Theory of Colours Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), a towering figure in German literature, was the author of The Theory of Colours. By the time Goethe’s Theory of Colours appeared in 1810, the wavelength theory of light and color had been firmly established. To Goethe, the theory was the result of mistaking an incidental result for an elemental principle. Far from pretending to a knowledge of physics, he insisted that such knowledge was an actual hindrance to understanding. He based his conclusions exclusively upon exhaustive personal observation of the phenomena of color. Of his own theory, Goethe was supremely confident: “From the

philosopher, we believe we merit thanks for having traced the phenomena of colours to their first sources, to the circumstances under which they appear and are, and beyond which no further explanation respecting them is possible.” Goethe’s scientific conclusions have, of course, long since been thoroughly demolished, but the intelligent reader of today may enjoy this work on quite different grounds: for the beauty and sweep of his conjectures regarding the connection between color and philosophical ideas; for an insight into early nineteenthcentury beliefs and modes of thought; and for the flavor of life in Europe just after the American and French Revolutions.

The work may also be read as an accurate guide to the study of color phenomena. Goethe’s conclusions have been repudiated, but no one quarrels with his reporting of the facts to be observed. With simple objects—vessels, prisms, lenses, and the like—the reader will be led through a demonstration course not only in subjectively produced colors, but also in the observable physical phenomena of color. By closely following Goethe’s explanations of the color phenomena, the reader may become so divorced from the wavelength theory—Goethe never even mentions it—that he may begin to think about color theory relatively unhampered by prejudice, ancient or modern.

Colors by Christina Rossetti What is pink? a rose is pink By a fountain’s brink. What is red? a poppy’s red In its barley bed. What is blue? the sky is blue Where the clouds float thro’. What is white? a swan is white Sailing in the light. What is yellow? pears are yellow, Rich and ripe and mellow. What is green? the grass is green, With small flowers between. What is violet? clouds are violet In the summer twilight. What is orange? Why, an orange, Just an orange!

How Color Affects Appetite Several years ago, the makers of M&Ms - an American candy that contains an assortment of different colored chocolate sweets -added a new color to its candy bag: Blue. Blue ? Why Blue? Although they reported that this was the result of a vote by M&M’s fans it raises a few questions. It may very well be the last color left in the bag after the novelty wears off. Of all the colors in the spectrum, blue is an appetite suppressant. Weight loss plans suggest putting your food on a blue plate. Or even better than that, put a blue light in your refrigerator and watch your munchies disappear. Or here’s another tip: Dye your food blue! A little black will make it a double whammy.

Look at the examples on the following page: toast with a blue jelly, and blue musubi with nori and spam. This is a delicacy prepared for the annual food party held at the end of the author’s color course at the University of Hawaii. It’s a “musubi” - rice in a seaweed (nori) wrapper. It’s of Japanese origin and is very popular in Hawaii in it’s natural state. In case you’re wondering what the pink stuff is, it’s spam. If you want to create your own dyed food, use only natural “food coloring” purchased in a grocery store. Other coloring agents are toxic. If you’re looking to lose weight, dramatic results can also be achieved by using a blue light bulb for your dining area.

Why is blue an unappetizing color? Blue food is a rare occurrence in nature. There are no leafy blue vegetables (blue lettuce?), no blue meats (blueburger, well-done please), and aside from blueberries and a few blue-purple potatoes from remote spots on the globe, blue just doesn’t exist in any significant quantity as a natural food color. Consequently, we don’t have an automatic appetite response to blue. Furthermore, our primal nature avoids food that are poisonous. A million years ago, when our earliest ancestors were foraging for food, blue, purple and black were “color warning signs” of potentially lethal food, giving us a reason to avoid them.

A food professional, Gary Blumenthal of International Food Strategies, has this to say: “Color and the appeal of various foods is also closely related. Just the sight of food fires neurons in the hypothalamus. Subjects presented food to eat in the dark reported a critically missing element for enjoying any cuisine: the appearance of food. For the sighted, the eyes are the first place that must be convinced before a food is even tried. This means that some food products fail in the marketplace not because of bad taste, texture, or smell but because the consumer never got that far. Colors are significant and almost universally it is difficult to get a consumer to try a blue-colored food -- though

more are being marketed for children these days. Greens, browns, reds, and several other colors are more generally acceptable, though they can vary by culture. The Japanese are renowned for their elaborate use of colorings, some that would have difficulty getting approval by the Food and Drug Administration in the United States.” To see this science come to life, toss some spaghetti with diluted blue food coloring or cook the noodles in blue colored boiling water. (Note: Use only “food coloring” purchased in a grocery stores for these recipes. Other coloring agents are toxic.) Imagine what you can do to the sauce. Don’t forget to add a few blue M&Ms for garnish.

A tip for saving money on heating

and cooling Want to save some money on heating and cooling costs? The color of a room will affect your perception of temperature. Tests document that people estimate the temperature of a room with cool colors, such as blues and greens, to be 6-10 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than the actual temperature. Warm colors, such as reds and oranges, will result in a 6-10 degrees Fahrenheit warmer estimate.

Georges Seurat and Pointillism Georges Seurat began the distinctive artistic movement that was said to combine science and art. He actualized many of the notions of the science of color first begun by scientists such as Michel Eugéne Chevreul, who found that overlapping primary colors would form a third color from a distance.

“Some say they see poetry in my paintings; I see only science.” Such a theory was further alluded to and directed towards potential artists by Charles Blanc, who was directly inspired by Chevreul’s initial findings.

Seurat himself adopted the findings and formed the style of pointillism, which portrayed scenes through the use of points of colors in close proximity to each other in order to depict a scene. Georges Seurat is credited as being a painter who entered the art world at a very important time in the Impressionist movement. When Seurat began his pointillist technique Impressionism had lost a great deal of its initial momentum. It was in dire need of a new style of painting and Seurat’s scientific take on art fit this demand perfectly. Europe was in a degree of industrial and scientific change and through his art Seurat reflected this social and economic shift.

Up close, you can see the combination of hues that make up the dark green color in the pointilist painting on the right.

A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, 1884–86, oil on canvas, 207.5 × 308.1 cm, Art Institute of Chicago

Color and Medicine The earliest pill emerged in ancient Egypt as a little round ball containing medicinal ingredients mixed with clay or bread. For the next five thousand years - up until the middle of the 20th century - pills were round and white. Color was almost non-existent. “ Over the counter” medications were only available as tablets in ghostly white or pasty pastel hues; likewise prescription medications were colorless pills encased in clear or transparent orange vials. Liquids, with the exception of Pepto-Bismol’s pink, were drab as well. It’s a different world today, thanks to advances in technology. The color transformation started in the ‘60s and accelerated in 1975 when the new

technology of “softgel” capsules made colorful medications possible for the first time. Shiny primary colors such as cherry red, lime green and tangy yellow arrived first. Today’s gel caps can be tinted to any of 80,000 color combinations. As for tablets, continuous advancements in technology consistently bring new and colorful coating products to market. But does color really matter? Aside from the obvious fact that pills are more attractive to the eye, color has indeed benefited consumers as well as the pharmaceutical companies in several very functional ways. Consider this fact: Patients respond best when color cor-

responds with the intended results of the medication. For example, calm blue for a good night’s sleep and dynamic red for speedy relief. Or consider a reverse scenario: fire red capsules for acid reflux or murky bile green for nausea. A similar benefit is rooted in the synaesthetic effects of color and specifically a color’s associations with smell and taste. Even early civilizations such as the Romans recognized that people “eat with their eyes” as well as their palates. As proof, butter has been colored yellow as far back as the 1300s. Although technically we don’t “eat” pills, we do taste and swallow them. What would a grey

pill taste and smell like? Smoky, fruity or moldy? How about a pink pill? Sour, bitter, or sweet? Which one would be easier to swallow? Furthermore, synaesthetic effects of colors also include associations with temperature. For example, a blue pill is cool, an orange pill, hot. Consequently, drug companies are leaving nothing to chance. The color and shape of the pills, and the names and imagery used to sell products are heavily researched and tested, much like the drugs themselves. Color has been elevated to a “powerhouse” status because it is the most fundamental part of a drug’s personality. As is the case with all products – from

computers to colas - purchasing decisions are not just based on what a product looks like (visual brand) but on the idea of the brand (its core brand value), how customers feel about it (emotional brand). In other words, color has the unique ability to do all three simultaneously – to create emotional appeal, to communicate functional values and benefits (such as reliable pain relief), and to distinguish the brand from others. In conclusion, color does indeed matter - 80% of visual information is related to color - and this is especially true for pharmaceutical products. Color is functional. Color subliminally and overtly communicates information to your body and mind.

Josef Albers and Color Theory Hardly anyone has accomplished more in revolutionizing the art of seeing than German-born American artist, poet, printmaker, and educator Josef Albers, as celebrated for his iconic abstract paintings as he was for his vibrant wit and spellbinding presence as a classroom performer. In 1963, he launched into the world what would become the most influential exploration of the art, science, psychology, practical application, and magic of color — an experiment, radical and brave at the time, seeking to cultivate a new way of studying and understanding color through experience and trial-and-error rather than through didactic, theoretical dogma. Half a century later, Interaction of Color (public library), with its

illuminating visual exercises and mind-bending optical illusions, remains an indispensable blueprint to the art of seeing. Albers defied the standard academic approach of “theory and practice,” focusing instead on “development of observation and articulation,” with an emphasis not only on seeing color,

but also feeling the relationships between colors. In this composition, the two smaller green squares are the same exact color, but due to the relative colors around them, the one on the right looks significantly brighter. This an example of one color appearing as two.

Another example of one color appearing as two, the two thin ‘X’ shapes are the same color but look quite different. The contrasting backgrounds bring out a different appearance in the color of the two figures, but the connecting bar on the bottom shows they’re the same. If the X’s are made increasingly thick, the illusion will gradually disappear.

This interaction, where two colors appear as one, is the opposite of the previous two. Two distinctly different colors, as seen towards the bottom, appear nearly identical when placed in the center of vastly different backgrounds. Albers made many versions of these studies to explain how color isn’t definitive but rather a relative property, and how our eyes and our color vision can be so easily fooled.

Color Vision An Essay by Steven Verdile

Imagine a world where there isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t color. Every leaf and every tree is the same tone of mundane gray. The beach is decorated with gray sand, gray shells, and a vast ocean of gray water. All of your friends and family have gray skin, and gray hair, and every animal at the zoo is just another shade of grey. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s almost impossible to comprehend such a world, but without color vision, this world would be our reality. Specialized cells in our eyes known as cones allow us to see life in color. When light hits an object, the object absorbs some of the light waves and reflects others. The properties of the object determine which waves bounce back, depending on the wavelengths of the light. When

the cones in our eyes absorb the reflected light, we interpret the color based on wavelength. For example, when our eyes absorb wavelengths of 550 nanometers, we interpret it as green light. While we have millions of cones in our eyes, most humans have three different cone types. Some humans have less, which causes them to be diagnosed as colorblind. A vast majority of colorblind people, most of who are men, has two functioning types of cones. This allows them to see most colors, but they often cannot distinguish between red and green. There are people who are colorblind to other colors, such as blue and yellow, and some who are completely colorblind, but these forms of

colorblindness are much less common. There are also recent studies that indicate there are women, although very few, with a fourth type of cone that allows them to see colors that nearly all humans cannot. The three-cone system is not found across all species, as many animals, such as cats and dogs, have less powerful color vision. Due to natural selection, many species have evolved to the point where they can distinguish between colors that are important to their safety. This could include the different colors between ripe and unripe fruit, and the colors of predators that may be hard to find. Insects are known to have superior color vision to humans, often being

able to see ultra-violet light that lets them know which flowers have already been pollinated. Colors that exist to other species but that humans cannot see are known as “forbidden” colors. Due to the abundance of genetic mutations related to color vision, it is a trait that varies greatly and is always changing. Color also plays a great role in the way our minds interpret information. It has been proven that humans feel a room is about ten degrees warmer when painted red than when painted blue. Humans also have strong associations between color and food. Food that is blue is less appealing because there are very few occurrences in nature of blue food that is safe to eat.

Some experts have recommended to those trying to lose weight that they die their food blue to reduce their appetite.

medicine when its color correlates with its intended purpose, a common instance of what is known as the placebo effect.

Color is also a telling sign of somebody’s psychological and emotional state. People have strong emotional connections with specific colors, such as yellow for happiness, blue for calmness, green for natural life, red for love, and black and gray for depression. Marketing companies target these color associations when designing their products, choosing colors that psychologically and often subconsciously appeal to their customers. Medicine companies often artificially color their pills because they’ve found people actually respond better to

Artists often study the science behind color, commonly referred to as “color theory”. Over the past few centuries, artists have worked towards understanding how color works both in natural life and in painting, often to maximize the impact of their work. One of the most valued outcomes from this research is the many methods of how colors are named, organized, and described. Ranging from Isaac Newton’s color wheel to Mayer’s color triangle and Goethe’s “Theory of Colors”, past artists and scientists made tremendous contributions towards how we

understand and discuss the topic of color today. Without them, nearly all of the information is this book would not exist. During the mid nineteenth century, the field of studying color exploded. This led to artists paying more attention to the use color in their work. At the time, photographic techniques were being invented and growing popular, creating a large industry of competition for painters. All of the available photographic methods were exclusively in black and white, so painters realized color was a valuable asset that they could use in their work to justify itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s greater cost. One artist who paid great attention to his use of color was

Claude Monet. Monet realized that color was not an intrinsic property of an item, and that under different lighting conditions, the same objects appear to be different colors. Much of his work focuses on painting the same subject in different times of day. Georges Seurat created a style known as pointillism, painting tiny dots of different colors that blend together when you look at them from far away. Later, Josef Albers, a German artist who taught at the Bauhaus, wrote his famous book, â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Interaction of Colorâ&#x20AC;?. The book used many examples of color to show how easily colors can be manipulated to appear differently based on the colors surrounding them. All of these artists and their many contribu-

tions have led to art today that greatly values color. Based on this information, I find it more disturbing now than ever to imagine a world without color. I hope that you can fully appreciate the colorful world that we live in, and our beautiful ability that is color vision.

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