For One Artist, Colorblindness Opened Up A World Of Black And White November 16, 2014 8:07 AM ET
NPR ANGELA EVANCIE
In 1962, Pop Art was taking off in a frenzy of color: Andy Warhol debuted the Marilyn Monroe and Campbell's soup
can silkscreens that would revolutionize the art world, and Roy Lichtenstein was at work on his giant paintings in the
mode of comic strips. That same year, artist Peter Milton, then 32, went to get his eyes tested.At the time, Milton was
teaching at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, and he'd had a show of some of his paintings. "It got
reviewed, and someone referred to how warm and sort of pinky the landscapes were," he says, "and I was
horrified."i
Pink was not what Milton thought he'd been laying down on the canvas. So he made an appointment at Johns
Hopkins University. "It was a brutal test because what they do is they give you 25 — I think that's the number — 25
discs."
Each disc was a different color of the spectrum, from red to violet, and Milton had to put them in order. So he did,
and he thought it was fine — until the lab technician started correcting his work."She started moving all the pieces
around and substituting, putting some farther down the scale and others up," he says. "It was a massive
redoing."The diagnosis: red-green colorblindness, or deuteranopia. That was on top of the nearsightedness that
Milton had known about since he was a kid."Peter Milton does not have total colorblindness, but it's fairly severe,"
says Michael Marmor, a professor of ophthalmology at Stanford University and co-author with James Ravin of The
Artist's Eyes: Vision and the History of Art. "We see color because we have three types of cone cells, or receptors, in
the retina, one of which is mainly blue sensitive, one is red sensitive and one is green sensitive. Some people are born
with abnormal red or green sensors. If they're somewhat abnormal, a person doesn't quite discriminate colors on the
red-green end of the spectrum as well, but they may see them if they're bright."For Milton, greens look more like a
neutral gray with some yellow, and the color maroon looks like mud.
Colorblindness isn't that uncommon — about 1 in 10 men has some form of it — but Milton was a painter. He studied
art at Yale under Josef Albers, who wrote the book on color. Literally. It's called Interaction of Color."I was told at one
point ... that he thought very highly of my work," Milton says. "And this is very bizarre because I'm the colorblind
person, he's the color guru."Milton wasn't going to abandon art, but he did feel he had to abandon color. And so he
embraced black and white. In 1969, he and his family moved to a big yellow house in Francestown, N.H., and in the
four decades since, Milton has been making extraordinarily intricate black-and-white prints. You almost need a
magnifying glass to take them in: ballerinas, dogs, children and men on bicycles float in and out of ornate train
stations and cafes. They're visual puzzles in which past and present seem to merge, but looking closely won't yield an
answer. Milton says it's all about invoking a sense of mystery and a mood.Take the engraving called Mary's Turn. It
was inspired by a 1908 photograph by artist Gertrude Kasebier that shows a woman lining up a billiard shot. In
Milton's version, the woman is the painter Mary Cassatt, and the billiard balls are floating in the air.i
"She's playing this magical game, and characters from her paintings have all assembled and come and watched her
play the game," he says. The painter Edgar Degas, who had a fraught relationship with Cassatt, is also looking on with
a puzzled expression. The whole thing has a sort of graininess to it, almost like an old black-and-white photograph.
"It's really an examination ... of not having color anymore," Milton says, "of using tonal and texture as your medium.
Black and white is almost more elegant; maybe it's fully more elegant than color, unless color is used ... with great
elegance in itself."
iOf course, Milton isn't the first artist to have worked through eye problems. The two subjects of Mary's Turn, Degas
and Cassatt, also had compromised vision.
"Degas probably had a congenital retinal problem," says Stanford's Michael Marmor, "and he had progressive visual
loss spanning about 40 years. Mary Cassatt had a different problem: She developed cataracts fairly late in her
life."Claude Monet also had cataracts, eventually losing his ability to tell colors apart. And the 19th-century artist
Charles Meryon, who was famous for his etchings of Paris, was colorblind. You might have heard the theory that
Vincent van Gogh was colorblind — that one's actually not true."He used vibrant greens in many paintings," Marmor
says, "and green is a dangerous color for a colorblind person because it lies right between yellow and blue, and to
their perception it actually grays out — it loses color."Marmor says that, like Milton, most artists who found out they
were colorblind just switched to printmaking or sculpture. And Milton says his diagnosis kind of took a weight off his
shoulders: "I don't miss color. It helps to have a disability — I use that word; it's a strong word — but it helps to have
a disability, because when you can do anything, which of all the things you can do are you gonna choose? So
something has to help you make the choice."Or, as Degas put it, "I am convinced that these differences in vision are
of no importance. One sees as one wishes to see. It's false, and it is that falsity that constitutes art."
The Color Of Politics: How Did Red And Blue States Come To Be? November 13, 2014 5:00 PM ET
RON ELVING
iAmericans grow up knowing their colors are red, white and blue. It's right there in the flag, right there in the World
Series bunting and on those floats every fourth of July.So when did we become a nation of red states and blue states?
And what do they mean when they say a state is turning purple?Painting whole states with a broad brush bothers a
lot of people, and if you're one of them you may want to blame the media. We've been using these designations
rather vigorously for the last half-dozen election cycles or so as a quick way to describe the vote in given state in a
given election, or its partisan tendencies over a longer period.It got started on TV, the original electronic visual, when
NBC, the first all-color network, unveiled an illuminated map — snazzy for its time — in 1976. John Chancellor was the
NBC election night anchor who explained how states were going to be blue if they voted for incumbent Republican
Gerald Ford, red if they voted for Democratic challenger Jimmy Carter.That arrangement was consistent with the
habit of many texts and reference books, which tended to use blue for Republicans in part because blue was the
color of the Union in the Civil War. Blue is also typically associated with the more conservative parties in Europe and
elsewhere.As the other TV operations went to full color, they too added vivid maps to their election night
extravaganzas. But they didn't agree on a color scheme, so viewers switching between channels might see Ronald
Reagan's landslide turning the landscape blue on NBC and CBS but red on ABC.
The confusion persisted until 2000, when the coloring of states for one party of the other dragged on well past
election night. As people were more interested in the red-blue maps than ever, the need for consistency across media
outlets became paramount. And as the conversation about the disputed election continued, referring to states that
voted for George W. Bush as "red states" rather than "Republican states" (and those voting for Democrat Al Gore as
"blue states") seemed increasingly natural.And it never went away. Instead, it became a staple of political discourse,
not just in the media but in academic circles and popular conversation as well.By the next presidential election, the
red-blue language was so common as to be a metaphor for partisanship. That provided a convenient target for the
most memorable speech of that election cycle, the 2004 keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in
Boston, delivered by a young senatorial candidate from Illinois named Barack Obama."The pundits, the pundits like to
slice and dice our country into red states and blue states," he said. "Red states for Republicans, blue states for
Democrats. But I've got news for them, too — we worship an awesome God in the blue states and we don't like
federal agents poking around in our libraries in the red states."Of course, that did not stop "the pundits" or anyone
else from using these catchy labels. If anything, the practice has become more universal.Not a few Americans see this
as a symptom of a real disease in the body politic, an imbalance in favor of conflict that makes compromise more
difficult.Painting whole states with an ideologically broad brush is also offensive to many. No liberal in Idaho needs to
be told that state leans conservative, just as conservatives in Minnesota are fully aware theirs was the only
state not tinted for Ronald Reagan in 1984.But being on the minor-fraction side of the party balance does not make
these citizens less Idahoan or less Minnesotan. On the contrary, they may be among the fiercest loyalists of either
state.No one thinks the red or blue designation makes a state politically single-minded. But the message sent by such
media-driven characterizations is not without consequence.Bill Bishop, the Texas-based writer who co-authored the
influential book The Big Sort in 2004, says political affiliation is a powerful part of the allure certain communities have
for Americans seeking a compatible home."All of this is a shorthand, right? So a 'blue community' is a shorthand not
only for politics but for a way of life ..." says Bishop.
And for many people, that way of life includes a sorting out by political affinity."We thought at first that this was all
lifestyle, but the more I talked to people, the more I talked to people who said it was a conscious decision to go to a
Democratic area or a Republican area."Which may mean the red and blue labels will be even harder for the media to
resist using in the years ahead.
How Kodak's Shirley Cards Set Photography's Skin-Tone Standard November 13, 2014 3:45 AM
MANDALIT DEL BARCO
Jersson Garcia works at Richard Photo Lab in Hollywood. He's 31 years old, and he's got a total crush on
Shirley."Beautiful skin tones, beautiful eyes, great hair," he sighs. "She's gorgeous."Garcia is holding a 4-by-6-inch
photo of an ivory-faced brunette wearing a lacy, white, off-the-shoulders top. She has red lipstick and silver earrings,
and the photo appears to have been taken sometime in the 1970s or '80s.For many years, this "Shirley" card —
named for the original model, who was an employee of Kodak — was used by photo labs to calibrate skin tones,
shadows and light during the printing process."She was the standard," Garcia says, "so whenever we printed
anything, we had to pull Shirley in. If Shirley looked good, everything else was OK. If Shirley didn't look so hot that
day, we had to tweak something — something was wrong."Shirley cards go back to the mid-1950s, a time when
Kodak sold almost all of the color film used in the U.S. After a customer used the film, he or she would bring the roll
to a Kodak store to be printed. In 1954, the federal government stepped in to break up Kodak's monopoly."Kodak
consented to take the price of processing and printing the film out, and that meant that we needed to develop a
printer that was small enough to go into small finishing labs," says Ray DeMoulin, who ran the company's photo tech
division at the time.Under DeMoulin's direction, Kodak came up with its S5 printer for independent photo labs. And
to make sure the colors and densities of the prints were calibrated correctly, Kodak sent a kit with color prints and
original unexposed negatives "so that when they processed their negative, they could match their print with our
print," DeMoulin says. "It was almost a foolproof operation."Each color print was an original shot of Shirley Page,
who worked as a studio model for Kodak's new products."They would take hundreds of pictures. And, of course, she
had to have her eyes open and be smiling," DeMoulin recalls. "It was days in the studio, and sometimes we'd have to
take a day off to give the model an eye rest."The Shirley cards were used all over the world, wherever the Kodak
printers were used. "It didn't make any difference which model came in later to do it," he says. "It was still called 'The
Shirley.' "DeMoulin eventually became a vice president of Kodak. He says he lost track of the original Shirley after she
got married and left the company. (NPR tried for months to find her, without success.) But over the years,
subsequent "Shirleys" have been equally as anonymous — sometimes wearing pearls, gloves, hats and even
swimming suits for beach scenes. In the early days, all of them were white and often tagged with the word
"normal.""The people who were producing the cards had a particular image of beauty, captured in the Shirley card,"
says Lorna Roth, a media professor at Canada's Concordia University who has researched the history of Kodak's
Shirley cards."At the time, in the '50s, the people who were buying cameras were mostly Caucasian people," she says.
"And so I guess they didn't see the need for the market to expand to a broader range of skin tones."According to
Roth, the dynamic range of the film — both still photo stock and motion picture — was biased toward white skin. In
1978, the filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard famously refused to use Kodak film to shoot in Mozambique because he
declared the film was racist. People also complained that photos of blacks and whites in the same shot would turn
out partially under- or over-exposed.In her 2013 novel The Flamethrowers, author Rachel Kushner writes about socalled "China girls" — models used in motion picture film like the Shirley cards. "Some of the China girls smiled. Most
stared into the camera with a faint, taut bemusement just under the surface of their expressions," Kushner writes.
Kushner says the China girls were most certainly not Chinese, and like the early Shirleys, they had porcelain skin.
"Their ordinariness was part of their appeal," she writes, "real but unreachable women who left no sense of who they
were. No clue but a Kodak color bar, which was no clue at all."
In the 1970s, photographer Jim Lyon joined Kodak's first photo tech division and research laboratories. He says the
company recognized there was a problem with the all-white Shirley cards."I started incorporating black models
pretty heavily in our testing, and it caught on very quickly," he says. "It wasn't a big deal, it just seemed like this is the
right thing to do. I wasn't attempting to be politically correct. I was just trying to give us a chance of making a better
film, one that reproduced everybody's skin tone in an appropriate way."By then, other film companies had their own
versions of Shirley cards, and Kodak started making multiracial norm reference cards with black, Asian, Latina and
white Shirleys. Then came digital photography. Kodak went bankrupt in 2012 and re-emerged as a much smaller
technology company. By then, it had already stopped making Shirley cards.Shirley wasn't really about variation. She
was about, 'This is the standard.' And truthfully, in the real world, there is no standard.
On computer monitors back at Richard Photo Lab in Hollywood photo techs can adjust the colors on every image.
"Shirley wasn't really about variation," says Bill Pyne, the lab's general manager. "She was about, 'This is the
standard.' And truthfully, in the real world, there is no standard."Jersson Garcia says the lab can now custom-make
color palettes for clients. "Photographers submit their own images, and we create their own Shirley for them, so we
get the skin tones they like."But Garcia's beloved Shirley from the 1980s still shows up in the Kodak software the lab
uses from time to time to set the machines back to neutral."She's still here," Garcia says. "We haven't really gotten
away from her. She keeps coming back.""He's completely obsessed," Pyne jokes."Uh, my wife can't know about
Shirley," Garcia says with a laugh.Surely, he jests.
Blue? Sacred, Sad And Salacious: With Many Meanings, What Is True November 12, 2014 5:41 PM ET
MANDALIT DEL BARCO
i.The color blue has meant a lot of things to a lot of different people. In medieval times, the Virgin Mary's cloak was
often painted a celestial, pure, sacred blue. In the early 1900s, Pablo Picasso created somber blue paintings during a
period of depression. The color has been championed by everyone from jazz musician Miles Davis and singersongwriter Joni Mitchell to the theatrical Blue Man Group.i
Back in Colonial America, blue meant indecent. Lawmakers established rigid controls over morals and conduct; the
so-called "blue laws" were designed "to encourage people to go to church, and to prohibit people from engaging in
secular activities," says David L. Hudson Jr., an author and attorney who teaches about the first amendment at
Vanderbilt University and the Nashville School of Law. The idea behind blue laws was to make certain activities illegal
on Sundays."Common blue laws, for instance, prohibit the sale of alcohol on Sunday, prohibit certain sports on
Sunday — hunting or horse racing — fiddling even." Hudson says.Really? Fiddling?"Fiddle players would often ...
people would gather around and listen to them and drink and carouse and engage in activity that was not akin to
sitting in a pew," says Hudson.But why blue? Here's one theory: "The colony of New Haven printed their laws on blue
sheets of paper," Hudson explains.
iBlue paper is also behind what's known as blue humor — jokes considered indecent or off-color. John Kenrick, who
teaches the history of musical theater at New York University, says the term began 100 years ago, with performers
working for the Keith-Albee vaudeville chain. After their first gig in each new theater, they would get notes written
on blue stationary."That blue envelope was the management informing you what material in your act might be
offensive to local audiences, and therefore had to be removed from your act on pain of termination," says Kenrick.
"Over the course of time, blue came to be identified for any kind of humor that was off-color, that was a little too
adult, that was risqué or even downright dirty."In the early days of vaudeville, performer Sophie Tucker snuck some
"blue" into her act with bawdy songs and stage shows. Comedian Milton Berle even found blue envelopes in his
mailbox. The idea of blue meaning forbidden, adult, humor worked its way into Hollywood, and became a standard
show business term."It was used in all areas of the business," says Kenrick. "So if you said something was blue, it
meant it was dirty, it had to go."Kenrick says Bob Hope loved telling dirty jokes in his burlesque career and in his
private life, but was constantly censored on radio and TV. By the 1960s, though, comedian Redd Foxx's blue humor
made it onto vinyl."Foxx was known for his incredibly adult humor," Kenrick says. "When these recordingsdid get
done, they were carefully sold in the back of the record store, kind of like adult videos are in some stores today.
'Party records,' as they were known. And right in through my childhood in the '60s, there'd be a point where the
grown-ups would put the kids to bed, they'd turn the volume down low and put on these adult party records. And
that was where the blue humor got spread around."These irreverent jokes were hip, Kenrick says.
i"It's cool to be blue," Kenrick says. "It's cool to be off-color. It is outside of the norm. It's cool to challenge the
establishment."
Singing The Blues
Blue also can evoke a deep sadness — as in "feeling blue." No one is exactly sure where that phrase comes from.
Some say it dates back to the 16th century. Others have attributed it to the nautical practice of flying a blue flag or
painting a blue stripe around the hull of a ship after the death of a captain or officer. Naturalist John James Audubon
even wrote in an 1827 journal entry that he "had the blues" (though maybe he was talking about blue jay specimens).
The music that came to be called the blues originated in the plantation work songs of African slaves in the Mississippi
Delta in the 1800s.Folklorist Alan Lomax traveled the South recording this music throughout the 20th century. In his
1979 documentary, The Land Where The Blues Began, Lomax said the music was created out of loneliness and
deprivation."As one old-times blues man told me: It'd take a man that had the blues to sing the blues," said Lomax.
"And so the blues were born — field hollers floating over solid syncopated dance rhythms, songs that voiced
unspoken anger, the powerful bitter poetry of a hard-pressed people."But the name, the blues, may have its roots in
another feeling besides sadness, says guitarist Debra Devi, author of the book The Language of the Blues."There was a
phrase 'the blue devils,' which was used to mean the hallucinations that would bedevil somebody who had the
[delirium tremens] from alcohol withdrawal," she says.But Devi also offers another thought as well: "In West African
culture — in Yoruba, specifically — there's a quality called coolness: Itutu, and it's symbolized by the color blue. And
to have that quality means to be connected to the divine. This is a concept that came over with the Africans who
came over here as slaves, and the color blue is used in Yoruban art to symbolize that quality."Divine, soulful, cool,
sad, naughty — it's a lot for one word to embody. Then again, the color blue comes in many shades.
iUntil about 600 million years ago, seeing colors didn't matter so much to Earth's inhabitants — nobody had
eyes."Before the eye evolved, you just wouldn't have seen what was there," says Andrew Parker, a biologist at
London's Natural History Museum who studies the evolution of color.Simple animals back then just floated around,
he says. They were aware of sunlight, but didn't have any of the biological bits and pieces needed to perceive color.
Then, as Parker tells it, something really big happened."A predator that could swim quickly evolved vision," he
explains.That predator probably looked something like a big shrimp, and now it had eyeballs — compound eyes, like
the ones that flies have. "That's when color kicked off," Parker says.Suddenly color could serve as a beacon, alerting
predators to tasty food. If you were a worm or a juicy slime blob of a thing — like the soft-bodied ancestors of shrimp
or beetles that bobbed about back then — and you stuck out in the murk because you just happened to be yellow or
red, you'd be lunch.So, red prey, for example, had to adapt — by hanging out more often in red seaweed to hide, or
by evolving in a way that took advantage of that red color to scare off the enemy. As time wore on, color became
useful to animals trying to stay fit, well-fed andsexy enough to get the cool girl or guy — or shrimp-thing.Millions of
species and a few mass extinctions later, creatures with fins, fur and feathers have developed ways to make every
color in the Pantone chart.A lot of the colors in plants and animals come from pigments,colored chemicals that
absorb certain wavelengths of light. Many pigments are useful in other ways — granules of melanin, for example,
help keep bird feathers strong, and help protect human skin from the sun. Chlorophyll is a chemical that helps
plants trap light for photosynthesis; it also makes them look green.Pigments are like a color currency — many
animals can take them from plants, digest them or modify them, and eventually display a version of the pigment in
their outer layer. But they have to have evolved the right mechanisms to do so.Take pink flamingos, for example.
Baby flamingos are knobby-kneed, fluffy and awkward. They are also light gray. The adults are pink only because they
steal pigments called carotenoids from the foods they eat.Carotenoids, a class of natural pigments, are abundant
in plants, where they play a role in photosynthesis. Different carotenoids make carrots orange and beets red, and are
responsible for the range of colors in autumn leaves. Flamingos pick them up from pigment-rich shrimp, crabs and
algae. Robins and cardinals get carotenoids from berries, and koi turn orange from munching on algae.That sort of
color change sometimes shows up in humans, too."If you eat way too many carrots and the whites of your eyes turn
a little pink hue? That's the same process," explains Sara Hallager, curator of birds at the Smithsonian National Zoo.i
Eat pink, become pink. Eat red, become red. It sounds simple.But color isn't that straightforward, as one tanning pill
company found out the hard way in the 1980s: The pale people in the company's experiment stayed mostly pale, but
developed red palms and red poop.And, Hallager points out, "you can't feed flamingos blueberries and turn them
blue."Animals, it turns out, have a lot of those sorts of color limitations. Browns and grays appear frequently among
birds, for example, and they can make yellow and red from pigments they get from their food. But other colors —
blue especially — are surprisingly tough for a bird's body to create via dietary pigments, says Yale ornithologist Rick
Prum. The reason why is still a mystery."Blue is fascinating because the vast majority of animals are incapable of
making it with pigments," Prum says.In fact, of all Earth's inhabitants with backbones, not one is known to harbor
blue pigment. Even some of the most brilliantly blue things in nature — a peacock feather, or a blue eye, for example
— don't contain a single speck of blue pigment. So, how can they look so blue?"They have evolved a new kind of
optical technology, if you will, to create this color," Prum explains — it's a trick of structure.
Blue morpho butterflies are great examples. Biologist Dan Babbitt keeps some at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural
History's insect zoo.
The butterflies have a 6-inch wingspan — one side a dull brown and the other a vibrant, reflective blue. The
butterflies have tiny transparent structures on the surface of their wings that bounce light in just the right way to
make them appear a vibrant blue that's so bright it almost hurts your eyes. But if you grind up the wings, the dust —
robbed of its reflective prism structures — would just look gray or brown.
"Everywhere you look, organisms have been inventing different solutions to creating the same color," says Antonia
Monteiro, who studies butterfly wings in Singapore.
Monteiro says a lot of animals use different materials to get the same effect. Butterfly wings are sheathed in
reflective scales made of chitin, the same stuff that makes a crab's shell hard. And a 2012 study found that some birds
use bubble-laced keratin (the same stuff that human fingernails are made of) in the barbs of their feathers; it scatters
the light from the feather in a way that happens to look blue to humans.
Having optical structures like these to make yourself blue also solves a different color challenge: going green."Green
is a pigment that animals have really had a problem making," says Parker. That's unfortunate if you want to lurk on a
green, leafy planet. So, some land animals dabble in a little color mixing.Many green snakes and frogs, says Parker,
"actually are not green at all. They've evolved a yellow pigment and a blue structural color, and the two combined
produce a green effect."When those snakes die, they turn from green to blue, because the yellow pigments fade. But
the structural color, created as the snakes' scales scatter light, is practically immortal.Structural color isn't just a hack
for making blue. It's also a hack for lasting through time.The best example might be a 50-million-year-old beetle
carcass found in Germany in 1998, in a layer of dull brown and gray fossils. Even after millions of years underground,
this particular beetle was still a brilliant, metallic blue.
Is It Time To Reappropriate Pink? November 10, 201410:53 AM ET TANIA LOMBROZO
i"Pink is clearly freighted with sociocultural significance. And much of it isn't pretty."So writes philosopher Liz Camp
in a blog post titled "The Socio-Aesthetics of Pink." In the post, Camp discloses her 2-year-old daughter's deep love of
pink, exploring why she herself is so irked by the little one's palette-based passion. The post is part parental
reflections, part hard-core philosophy and part cultural commentary.As the mother of a 3-year-old girl myself, the
preoccupation with pink that Camp describes is all too familiar. Last week's tantrum was about the loss of a pink
Band-Aid. Our attempt to replace it with a peach-toned Band-Aid (of arguably pink hue) was met with weepy
outrage. That was not the right pink. And how dare we. This from a child whose parents much prefer blue dresses and
dinosaur pajamas.Camp's daughter, and my own, are not exceptions. Researcher Diane Ruble and her colleagues
have identified a phenomenon they call PFD, for "Pink Frilly Dress." A 2011 review paper explains:
"Recently, preschool- and kindergarten-aged girls seen flitting around in pink, frilly dresses have caught the attention
of both the media and psychologists. ... Glittery chiffon peeks out of their winter jackets even on the coldest of days.
These girls not only love pink — they demand to wear pink and refuse to wear pants nearly every single day and for
every occasion, even when inconvenient and inappropriate, such as when they have run out of clean pink clothes or
when embarking on a day of strenuous outdoor activities."
Confirming the prevalence of PFD, a study published earlier this year found that almost 70 percent of the 3- to 4-yearold girls whose parents were queried reported relatively strong, gender-based rigidity in the way their daughters
chose to dress, with pink frills and dresses well-represented.
Boys, by contrast, were much less rigid about their dress. But when they did have strong preferences, it was very
often to avoid girly apparel rather than to embrace stereotypically boyish attire, such as superhero gear or baseball
caps. "He wouldn't be caught dead in girls' clothing," one parent reported.
This asymmetry between girls and boys highlights part of the problem with pink. Pink isn't just the color choice that's
marked, that deviates from "neutral" or "normal." It also comes with considerable cultural baggage. For Camp, the
connotations differ by hue: hot pink goes with cupcakes and poodles, dusty rose goes with woodland fairies and
tea. A study of color preferences found that pink was associated with bubble gum, lipstick and rosy cheeks.In a post
at The Cut titled "What's the problem with pink, anyway?" Yael Kohen writes:
"If we've made pink the most visible representation of girl culture, and also treat it as a symbol of frivolity, then we're
unwittingly telling girls (and boys) that the girl world isn't important."
It isn't just young boys who eventually come to reject pretty pink frills and — by extension — girliness. By elementary
school, PFD is no longer the norm among girls.In a review of research on the development of gender identity, May
Ling Halim and colleagues write that only about 30 to 40 percent of girls in the post-kindergarten years identify as
"traditional" girls or as having interests that are typically associated with girls or women. Many instead reject the
girliness they'd once embraced, with up to half labeling themselves as tomboys. Meanwhile, boys, who don't receive
such conflicting signals about the value of their gender identity, don't characteristically experience a similar reversal,
first embracing and then rejecting the stereotypical trappings of boys and men.If girls need a vision of girlhood with
more robust cultural value, one that withstands their own scrutiny and that of their peers, is "pink pride" the
solution? Is it time to take back the hue?There's no question that pink's contemporary cultural baggage is just that —
an accessory of our time and place. At the start of the last century, blue was considered delicate and dainty — and
pink the stronger color, more suitable for boys. Things can change again, and they inevitably will. But Camp raises
doubts that reappropriating pink can be enough:
" ... reappropriation can't be achieved in isolation; in the absence of a coordinated counter-cultural movement it just
perpetuates established stereotypes. Besides, 'pink pride' is easily coopted, so that apparent re-valuation becomes a
more insidious form of accommodation. (I've decided this is why I hate Frozen.)"The trouble is that "pinkifying" the
nonfrivolous (think pink power tools and pink Legos) merely marks the hers, in some ways confirming that "neutral"
was his all along. And on the flip side, dignifying the girly (think Sparkle Science) can only go so far when the fabric of
the girly is so thin.Girliness — by which I mean what little girls are really made of — is rich and diverse and multihued.
Let's start there.
http://www.npr.org/series/358046323/colors
http://apps.npr.org/lookatthis/posts/colors/
Color Theory https://cs.nyu.edu/courses/fall02/V22.0380001/color_theory.htm
A primary color is a color that cannot be made from a combination of any other colors.
A secondary color is a color created from a combination of two primary
colors. Tertiary color is a combination of three colors (primary or secondary).
Printers and artists have different definitions for primary colors. The traditionional primary
colors that painters have used are red, yellow, and blue. Modern printing press secondary
colors are magenta, yellow, and cyan. These two primary color systems obviously do not
agree. Additive and subtractive are the two primary methods for reproducing a range of
color.
Additive Color
Additive color synthesis is the creation of color by mixing colors of light. Human vision
relies on light sensitive cells in the retina of the eye. There are two basic kinds of sensors.
These are rods and cones. Rods are cells which can work at very low intensity, but cannot
resolve sharp images or color. Cones are cells that can resolve sharp images and color, but
require much higher light levels to work. The combined information from these sensors is
sent to the brain and enables us to see.
There are three types of cone. Red cones are sensitive to red light, green cones are sensitive
to green light, and blue cones are sensitive to blue light. The perception of color depends
on an imbalance between the stimulation level of the different cell types.
Additive color processes, such as television, work by having the capability to generate an
image composed of red, green, and blue light. Since the intensity information for each of
the three colors is preserved, the image color is preserved as well. The spectral distribution
of the image will probably be wrong, but if the degree of intensity for each of the primary
colors is correct, the image will appear to be the right color.
The three primaries in light are red, blue, and green, because they correspond to the red,
green, and blue cones in the eye. Example 1 shows how the light from red, green and blue
flashlights would appear if shone on a dark wall.
Red + Green = Yellow
Red + Blue = Magenta
Green + Blue = Cyan
Printers' primaries—yellow, cyan, and magenta—are typically used by professional
designers and printing presses .
When all of the colors of the spectrum are combined, they add up to white light.
2 parts Red + 1 part Green = Orange
2 parts Green + 1 part Red = Lime
4 parts Red + 1 part Blue + 1 part Green = Brown
Subtractive Color
Subtractive color synthesis is the creation of color by mixing colors of pigment, such as
paint or ink in your computer’s printer. This type of color is what is used in the art and
design world. When learning basic color theory, art students typically use familiar colors
like red, yellow, and blue.
Subtractive color processes work by blocking out parts of the spectrum. The idea of
subtractive color is to reduce the amount of undesired color reaching the eye. If, for
example, you had a yellow image, you would want to have a dye that would let red and
green reach the eye, and block out blue. The additive secondaries become the printers’
subtractive primaries, because each of the additive secondaries will reflect two of the
additive primaries, and absorb one of the additive primaries.
The three primaries on the artists’ color wheel are red, blue, and yellow. Example
2 illustrates subtractive color by showing how primary colors mix on a piece of white
paper.
Yellow + Blue = Green
Yellow + Red = Orange
Blue + Red = Violet
When all of the colors are combined, they create black pigment.
Additive Primaries/Secondaries Absorption Chart
Color
Yellow
Magenta
Cyan
Reflects
Red and Green
Red and Blue
Green and Blue
Absorbs
Blue
Green
Red
With this information, if we wanted red, we would mix magenta and yellow. Magenta
would absorb green, and yellow would absorb blue, leaving only red to be reflected back to
the eye. For black, a combination of all three would be used, which should block out all
light in theory. Printers use black as well, since the dyes used in printing are not perfect,
and some light from other parts of the spectrum gets through.
For printers’ mixing:
Yellow + Cyan = Green
Yellow + Magenta = Red
Cyan + Magenta = Blue
Description of Color
Hue – Is the name of the color itself, the dominant wavelength of light or the choice of
pigment.
Lightness (brightness) – Is the lightness or darkness of the color, the amoung of light
reflected or transmitted.
Saturation – Is the level of white, black or grey, ranges from neutral to brilliant (pastel to
full color).
Tint – Base color plus white.
Tone – Base color plus grey.
Shade – Base color plus black.
Value – How light or dark a color is.
Aggressive - AKA 'Warm'. The yellows, oranges, and reds. These come towards the eye
more (spatially) and are generally 'louder' than passive colors.
Passive - AKA 'Cool'. The greens, blues, and violets. These recede from the eye more
(spatially) and are generally 'quieter' than the aggressive colors.
Color Schemes
Achromatic – An achromatic color scheme is one that is colorless – using blacks, whites
and grays.
Complementary – A complementary color scheme is one that uses colors directly across
from each other on the color wheel. This can be accomplished by using two colors or hues
that are opposites such as red and green or violet and yellow. In this color scheme any two
complements, all the semi-neutrals and the neutral they produce can be used. Black and
white can also be used. Since you can choose from varying colors and hues which can give
a bold and dramatic effect, this color scheme is best used for dramatic, strong, or bold
statements.
An example of a complimentary color scheme
Monochromatic – A monochromatic color scheme is a one-color color scheme. However,
the color can be neutralized by adding its complement to lower the intensity of the color.
Black and white can also be used to darken and lighten the value of the color. It is achieved
by using one color or hue, utilizing that colors’ various tints, tones and shades. Using a
monochromatic scheme with multiple textures creates character and maintains unity.
An example of a monochromatic color scheme
Analogous – An analogous color scheme is any three adjacent primary, secondary, or
tertiary colors on the color wheel. These schemes can be warm or cool. Each can be
neutralized by use of its complement, and black and white can be used. Analogous colors
"harmonize" well and produce a definite mood to a composition. This can create a very
harmonious color scheme.
An example of an analogous color scheme
Color Triad – A triadic color scheme are colors that are an equal distant from each other on
the color wheel. Any three colors equidistant around the color wheel form a triad and can
be used in this color scheme (eg., red, yellow and blue). Semi-neutrals are mixed using two
of the colors in the triad and the third can be added to further neutralize the pair. Black and
white can also be used. This can create a very balanced scheme.
An example of a color triad
Color Tetrad – A tetradic color scheme is one using four or more colors on the color wheel
(eg., green, violet, red and yellow).
Color Diad – A diadic color scheme is one using two colors that are two colors apart on the
color wheel (eg., red and orange).
Split Complementary – A split complimentary color scheme is similar to complimentary
but instead of just two colors directly opposite on the color wheel, two of the three colors
are adjacent to one of the colors that is opposite. More simply, choose one color and use
the color on each side of its complement (eg., blue, yellow-orange and red-orange). Any
three adjacent primary, secondary, and tertiary colors can be used, plus the complement of
the middle hue. This complement is used subordinately and to produce semi-neutrals of the
three colors while maintaining color harmony. Black and white can also be used.
Psychological Properties Of Colours
http://www.colour-affects.co.uk/psychological-properties-of-colours
There are four psychological primary colours - red, blue, yellow and green. They relate respectively to the body, the mind, the emotions
and the essential balance between these three. The psychological properties of the eleven basic colours are as follows (Learn how you can
harness the positive effects of the colours, by joining us on one of our courses):
RED. Physical
Positive: Physical courage, strength, warmth, energy, basic survival, 'fight or flight', stimulation, masculinity,
excitement.
Negative: Defiance, aggression, visual impact, strain.
Being the longest wavelength, red is a powerful colour. Although not technically the most visible, it has the
property of appearing to be nearer than it is and therefore it grabs our attention first. Hence its effectiveness in
traffic lights the world over. Its effect is physical; it stimulates us and raises the pulse rate, giving the impression
that time is passing faster than it is. It relates to the masculine principle and can activate the "fight or flight"
instinct. Red is strong, and very basic. Pure red is the simplest colour, with no subtlety. It is stimulating and lively,
very friendly. At the same time, it can be perceived as demanding and aggressive.
BLUE. Intellectual.
Positive: Intelligence, communication, trust, efficiency, serenity, duty, logic, coolness, reflection, calm.
Negative: Coldness, aloofness, lack of emotion, unfriendliness.
Blue is the colour of the mind and is essentially soothing; it affects us mentally, rather than the physical reaction
we have to red. Strong blues will stimulate clear thought and lighter, soft blues will calm the mind and aid
concentration. Consequently it is serene and mentally calming. It is the colour of clear communication. Blue
objects do not appear to be as close to us as red ones. Time and again in research, blue is the world's favourite
colour. However, it can be perceived as cold, unemotional and unfriendly.
YELLOW. Emotional
Positive: Optimism, confidence, self-esteem, extraversion, emotional strength, friendliness, creativity.
Negative: Irrationality, fear, emotional fragility, depression, anxiety, suicide.
The yellow wavelength is relatively long and essentially stimulating. In this case the stimulus is emotional,
therefore yellow is the strongest colour, psychologically. The right yellow will lift our spirits and our self-esteem; it
is the colour of confidence and optimism. Too much of it, or the wrong tone in relation to the other tones in a
colour scheme, can cause self-esteem to plummet, giving rise to fear and anxiety. Our "yellow streak" can surface.
GREEN. Balance
Positive: Harmony, balance, refreshment, universal love, rest, restoration, reassurance, environmental awareness,
equilibrium, peace.
Negative: Boredom, stagnation, blandness, enervation.
Green strikes the eye in such a way as to require no adjustment whatever and is, therefore, restful. Being in the
centre of the spectrum, it is the colour of balance - a more important concept than many people realise. When the
world about us contains plenty of green, this indicates the presence of water, and little danger of famine, so we
are reassured by green, on a primitive level. Negatively, it can indicate stagnation and, incorrectly used, will be
perceived as being too bland.
VIOLET. Spiritual
Positive: Spiritual awareness, containment, vision, luxury, authenticity, truth, quality.
Negative: Introversion, decadence, suppression, inferiority.
The shortest wavelength is violet, often described as purple. It takes awareness to a higher level of thought, even
into the realms of spiritual values. It is highly introvertive and encourages deep contemplation, or meditation. It
has associations with royalty and usually communicates the finest possible quality. Being the last visible
wavelength before the ultra-violet ray, it has associations with time and space and the cosmos. Excessive use of
purple can bring about too much introspection and the wrong tone of it communicates something cheap and nasty,
faster than any other colour.
ORANGE.
Positive: Physical comfort, food, warmth, security, sensuality, passion, abundance, fun.
Negative: Deprivation, frustration, frivolity, immaturity.
Since it is a combination of red and yellow, orange is stimulating and reaction to it is a combination of the physical
and the emotional. It focuses our minds on issues of physical comfort - food, warmth, shelter etc. - and sensuality.
It is a 'fun' colour. Negatively, it might focus on the exact opposite - deprivation. This is particularly likely when
warm orange is used with black. Equally, too much orange suggests frivolity and a lack of serious intellectual
values.
PINK.
Positive: Physical tranquillity, nurture, warmth, femininity, love, sexuality, survival of the species.
Negative: Inhibition, emotional claustrophobia, emasculation, physical weakness.
Being a tint of red, pink also affects us physically, but it soothes, rather than stimulates. (Interestingly, red is the
only colour that has an entirely separate name for its tints. Tints of blue, green, yellow, etc. are simply called light
blue, light greenetc.) Pink is a powerful colour, psychologically. It represents the feminine principle, and survival
of the species; it is nurturing and physically soothing. Too much pink is physically draining and can be somewhat
emasculating.
GREY.
Positive: Psychological neutrality.
Negative: Lack of confidence, dampness, depression, hibernation, lack of energy.
Pure grey is the only colour that has no direct psychological properties. It is, however, quite suppressive. A virtual
absence of colour is depressing and when the world turns grey we are instinctively conditioned to draw in and
prepare for hibernation. Unless the precise tone is right, grey has a dampening effect on other colours used with it.
Heavy use of grey usually indicates a lack of confidence and fear of exposure.
BLACK.
Positive: Sophistication, glamour, security, emotional safety, efficiency, substance.
Negative: Oppression, coldness, menace, heaviness.
Black is all colours, totally absorbed. The psychological implications of that are considerable. It creates protective
barriers, as it absorbs all the energy coming towards you, and it enshrouds the personality. Black is essentially an
absence of light, since no wavelengths are reflected and it can, therefore be menacing; many people are afraid of
the dark. Positively, it communicates absolute clarity, with no fine nuances. It communicates sophistication and
uncompromising excellence and it works particularly well with white. Black creates a perception of weight and
seriousness.
It is a myth that black clothes are slimming:
Which of these boxes do you think is bigger/heavier?
The truth behind the myth is that black is the most recessive colour a matter of not drawing attention to yourself,
rather than actually making you look slimmer.
WHITE.
Positive: Hygiene, sterility, clarity, purity, cleanness, simplicity, sophistication, efficiency.
Negative: Sterility, coldness, barriers, unfriendliness, elitism.
Just as black is total absorption, so white is total reflection. In effect, it reflects the full force of the spectrum into
our eyes. Thus it also creates barriers, but differently from black, and it is often a strain to look at. It
communicates, "Touch me not!" White is purity and, like black, uncompromising; it is clean, hygienic, and sterile.
The concept of sterility can also be negative. Visually, white gives a heightened perception of space. The negative
effect of white on warm colours is to make them look and feel garish.
BROWN.
Positive: Seriousness, warmth, Nature, earthiness, reliability, support.
Negative: Lack of humour, heaviness, lack of sophistication.
Brown usually consists of red and yellow, with a large percentage of black. Consequently, it has much of the same
seriousness as black, but is warmer and softer. It has elements of the red and yellow properties. Brown has
associations with the earth and the natural world. It is a solid, reliable colour and most people find it quietly
supportive - more positively than the ever-popular black, which is suppressive, rather than supportive.
There are four psychological primary colours - red, blue, yellow and green. They relate respectively to the body, the mind, the emotions
and the essential balance between these three. The psychological properties of the eleven basic colours are as follows (Learn how you can
harness the positive effects of the colours, by joining us on one of our courses):
RED. Physical
Positive: Physical courage, strength, warmth, energy, basic survival, 'fight or flight', stimulation, masculinity,
excitement.
Negative: Defiance, aggression, visual impact, strain.
Being the longest wavelength, red is a powerful colour. Although not technically the most visible, it has the
property of appearing to be nearer than it is and therefore it grabs our attention first. Hence its effectiveness in
traffic lights the world over. Its effect is physical; it stimulates us and raises the pulse rate, giving the impression
that time is passing faster than it is. It relates to the masculine principle and can activate the "fight or flight"
instinct. Red is strong, and very basic. Pure red is the simplest colour, with no subtlety. It is stimulating and lively,
very friendly. At the same time, it can be perceived as demanding and aggressive.
BLUE. Intellectual.
Positive: Intelligence, communication, trust, efficiency, serenity, duty, logic, coolness, reflection, calm.
Negative: Coldness, aloofness, lack of emotion, unfriendliness.
Blue is the colour of the mind and is essentially soothing; it affects us mentally, rather than the physical reaction
we have to red. Strong blues will stimulate clear thought and lighter, soft blues will calm the mind and aid
concentration. Consequently it is serene and mentally calming. It is the colour of clear communication. Blue
objects do not appear to be as close to us as red ones. Time and again in research, blue is the world's favourite
colour. However, it can be perceived as cold, unemotional and unfriendly.
YELLOW. Emotional
Positive: Optimism, confidence, self-esteem, extraversion, emotional strength, friendliness, creativity.
Negative: Irrationality, fear, emotional fragility, depression, anxiety, suicide.
The yellow wavelength is relatively long and essentially stimulating. In this case the stimulus is emotional,
therefore yellow is the strongest colour, psychologically. The right yellow will lift our spirits and our self-esteem; it
is the colour of confidence and optimism. Too much of it, or the wrong tone in relation to the other tones in a
colour scheme, can cause self-esteem to plummet, giving rise to fear and anxiety. Our "yellow streak" can surface.
GREEN. Balance
Positive: Harmony, balance, refreshment, universal love, rest, restoration, reassurance, environmental awareness,
equilibrium, peace.
Negative: Boredom, stagnation, blandness, enervation.
Green strikes the eye in such a way as to require no adjustment whatever and is, therefore, restful. Being in the
centre of the spectrum, it is the colour of balance - a more important concept than many people realise. When the
world about us contains plenty of green, this indicates the presence of water, and little danger of famine, so we
are reassured by green, on a primitive level. Negatively, it can indicate stagnation and, incorrectly used, will be
perceived as being too bland.
VIOLET. Spiritual
Positive: Spiritual awareness, containment, vision, luxury, authenticity, truth, quality.
Negative: Introversion, decadence, suppression, inferiority.
The shortest wavelength is violet, often described as purple. It takes awareness to a higher level of thought, even
into the realms of spiritual values. It is highly introvertive and encourages deep contemplation, or meditation. It
has associations with royalty and usually communicates the finest possible quality. Being the last visible
wavelength before the ultra-violet ray, it has associations with time and space and the cosmos. Excessive use of
purple can bring about too much introspection and the wrong tone of it communicates something cheap and nasty,
faster than any other colour.
ORANGE.
Positive: Physical comfort, food, warmth, security, sensuality, passion, abundance, fun.
Negative: Deprivation, frustration, frivolity, immaturity.
Since it is a combination of red and yellow, orange is stimulating and reaction to it is a combination of the physical
and the emotional. It focuses our minds on issues of physical comfort - food, warmth, shelter etc. - and sensuality.
It is a 'fun' colour. Negatively, it might focus on the exact opposite - deprivation. This is particularly likely when
warm orange is used with black. Equally, too much orange suggests frivolity and a lack of serious intellectual
values.
PINK.
Positive: Physical tranquillity, nurture, warmth, femininity, love, sexuality, survival of the species.
Negative: Inhibition, emotional claustrophobia, emasculation, physical weakness.
Being a tint of red, pink also affects us physically, but it soothes, rather than stimulates. (Interestingly, red is the
only colour that has an entirely separate name for its tints. Tints of blue, green, yellow, etc. are simply called light
blue, light greenetc.) Pink is a powerful colour, psychologically. It represents the feminine principle, and survival
of the species; it is nurturing and physically soothing. Too much pink is physically draining and can be somewhat
emasculating.
GREY.
Positive: Psychological neutrality.
Negative: Lack of confidence, dampness, depression, hibernation, lack of energy.
Pure grey is the only colour that has no direct psychological properties. It is, however, quite suppressive. A virtual
absence of colour is depressing and when the world turns grey we are instinctively conditioned to draw in and
prepare for hibernation. Unless the precise tone is right, grey has a dampening effect on other colours used with it.
Heavy use of grey usually indicates a lack of confidence and fear of exposure.
BLACK.
Positive: Sophistication, glamour, security, emotional safety, efficiency, substance.
Negative: Oppression, coldness, menace, heaviness.
Black is all colours, totally absorbed. The psychological implications of that are considerable. It creates protective
barriers, as it absorbs all the energy coming towards you, and it enshrouds the personality. Black is essentially an
absence of light, since no wavelengths are reflected and it can, therefore be menacing; many people are afraid of
the dark. Positively, it communicates absolute clarity, with no fine nuances. It communicates sophistication and
uncompromising excellence and it works particularly well with white. Black creates a perception of weight and
seriousness.
It is a myth that black clothes are slimming:
Which of these boxes do you think is bigger/heavier?
The truth behind the myth is that black is the most recessive colour a matter of not drawing attention to yourself,
rather than actually making you look slimmer.
WHITE.
Positive: Hygiene, sterility, clarity, purity, cleanness, simplicity, sophistication, efficiency.
Negative: Sterility, coldness, barriers, unfriendliness, elitism.
Just as black is total absorption, so white is total reflection. In effect, it reflects the full force of the spectrum into
our eyes. Thus it also creates barriers, but differently from black, and it is often a strain to look at. It
communicates, "Touch me not!" White is purity and, like black, uncompromising; it is clean, hygienic, and sterile.
The concept of sterility can also be negative. Visually, white gives a heightened perception of space. The negative
effect of white on warm colours is to make them look and feel garish.
BROWN.
Positive: Seriousness, warmth, Nature, earthiness, reliability, support.
Negative: Lack of humour, heaviness, lack of sophistication.
Brown usually consists of red and yellow, with a large percentage of black. Consequently, it has much of the same
seriousness as black, but is warmer and softer. It has elements of the red and yellow properties. Brown has
associations with the earth and the natural world. It is a solid, reliable colour and most people find it quietly
supportive - more positively than the ever-popular black, which is suppressive, rather than supportive.
Different Colors Describe Happiness vs.
Depression
by Stephanie Pappas, Live Science Contributor | February 08, 2010 02:02pm ET
http://www.livescience.com/6084-colors-describe-happiness-depression.html
People tend to pick different colors to describe different moods, according to research published Feb. 8, 2010 in the journal
BMC Medical
Research Methodology.
Credit:
View full size image
Are you in a gray mood today? How about a blue funk? Maybe you're seeing red, because you're green with jealousy. The
colors we use to describe emotions may be more useful than you think, according to new research.
The study found that people with depression or anxiety were more likely to associate their mood with the
color gray, while people preferred yellow. The results, which are detailed today in the journal BMC Medical
Research Methodology, could help doctors gauge the moods of children and other patients who have trouble
communicating verbally.
"This is a way of measuring anxiety and depression which gets away from the use of language," study coauthor and gastroenterologist Peter Whorwell of University Hospital South Manchester told LiveScience.
"What is very interesting is that this might actually be a better way of capturing the patient's mood than
questions."
Colors are often used as metaphors for moods, but no one had systematically researched color associations,
Whorwell said. To investigate, he and his colleagues picked eight colors — red, orange, green, purple, blue,
yellow, pink and brown — and split each into four shades. They then added white, black and four shades of
gray for a total of 38 options. After meeting with focus groups, the researchers decided to display the colors
in the form of a wheel.
Next, they recruited 105 healthy adults, 110 anxious adults and 108 depressed adults and mailed them
printouts of the color wheel. Each person was asked to pick their favorite color, as well as the color they were
most "drawn to." Finally, they were asked to pick a color that described their day-to-day mood over the last
several months. Another group of 204 healthy volunteers classified each color as positive, negative or neutral.
Whether depressed, anxious or healthy, people liked blue and yellow. Blue 28 on the color wheel was the
most popular favorite color among healthy people, while Blue 27 (which is a little darker than 28) got first
place among people with anxiety and depression. Meanwhile, Yellow 14 was picked as the color most likely to
catch the eye.
But when it came to mood, the groups diverged. Only 39 percent of healthy people associated their mood
with a color at all. Of those who did, Yellow 14 was the most popular choice, with about 20 percent of the
votes. Meanwhile, about 30 percent of people with anxiety picked a shade of gray, as did more than half of
depressed volunteers. In comparison, healthy volunteers described their mood with a shade of gray only
about 10 percent of the time.
The researchers also found that when assigning a mood to colors, saturation matters.
"A light blue is not associated with a poor mood, but a dark blue is," Whorwell said. "The shade of color is
more important than the color itself."
Whorwell is now testing the wheel on patients with irritable bowel syndrome. He's hoping that color choices
can reveal patients' attitudes and predict how well they will respond to treatments like hypnosis. Because
people are embarrassed by gastroenterogical symptoms , Whorewell said, non-verbal methods of getting
information are sometimes preferable to conversation. And, he said, with additional research, the wheel could
be used in medical fields from pediatrics to surgery.
"You've got an instrument now," Whorwell said. "Now people have to play with it and find out the
applications."