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ANGELA WRIGHT F.R.S.A.
Founder and President
COLOUR AFFECTS
Angela Wright studied unconscious thought processes at Queen Mary's Hospital, Roehampton, England but was frustrated by the fact that colour is a little explored area of psychology. It was after studying the dynamics of colour harmony in Carmel, California, USA, that she was able to formulate a clear hypothesis that identified links between patterns of colour and patterns of human behaviour, developing an academically sound and demonstrably effective system that crossed cultural boundaries and, for the first time, enabled colour psychology to be applied objectively, rationally and with remarkable accuracy. Her work has been studied and validated by experts in the fields of both psychology and colour physics. She also appears regularly on TV, the radio and in the press.
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When light strikes the eye, the different wavelengths do so at slightly different angles and in different ways, and in the retina they’re converted into electrical impulses that pass eventually to the hypothalamus, the part of the brain which governs our hormones and endocrine system. The result is the stimulation of physiological reactions which in turn, become psychological responses. It is for this reason that when colours are faithfully reproduced on a TV screen, and only then, a person watching that picture can feel truly "comfortable". The team from @radical.media in New York asked the renowned colour psychologist Angela Wright to explain how the brain reacts to colours…
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How does colour psychology work?
Angela Wright: Although we are unaware of it, our eyes and our bodies are constantly adapting to these wavelengths of light. In my research over the past 30 years, I’ve found a number of misconceptions about colour. The first one is the assumption that it’s purely a visual phenomenon.
Colour is energy and the fact that it has a physical effect on us has been proved time and again in experiments - most notably when blind people were asked to identify colours with their fingertips and were all able to do so easily. Colour has contributed to our survival throughout evolution. Learning if something that we’re thinking of eating is likely to poison us, we get that information from the colour, or if a creature coming towards us is likely to attack us. If it’s black and yellow, it probably will. We orient ourselves with colour, but all of this is happening on a largely unconscious level. When you look at a colour, without actually realising it, the colour is sending energy towards you which is affecting you.
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What is the difference between natural and artificial colour?
Ever since Adam was a lad, humanity has been trying to echo and recreate the matchless harmonies that nature just does. I'm not entirely sure that we’ve succeeded yet, but when it comes to colour reproduction it gets quite complicated. Take the case of designing on the computer, which of course everybody does now.
The colours used in their design on the screen are the primary colours, red, green and blue – known as RGB – but printers use the four printing colours: cyan, magenta, yellow and black (CMYK). There’s all sorts of adjustments that have to go on, between the different ways that humanity has tried to control and reproduce colour. What people mean when they talk about natural colour is, in fact, what they have observed in the natural world.
How important do you think it is that colours on a TV screen be “real”, when it comes to people’s subconscious interpretation of the picture?
I would suggest it’s very important, because if they’re distorted in any way… if they’re not very real, or they’re different, this throws us on an unconscious level.
Our reaction to colour is 80% unconscious, and that’s very, very powerful. It determines our behaviour. We use it to orient ourselves and to make judgements about anything that confronts us. If colours are unreal or “out” in any way, it also distorts the message and confuses us.
Do you think this fact is sufficiently taken into account by people in the TV business?
I think the technical challenge of achieving that is huge. It’s the same in any area where you’re trying to reproduce colour, like printing. It’s a lot more than a matter of mere appearance. The short answer is I don’t think people do take account of it. I don’t think they take enough account of the psychological effects of colour.
(Our thanks to @radical.media for this material)
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