All parts of physiological psychological optics can contribute similar
material. The questions of color harmony and color contrast, light
intensity and mutual support of uniformly colored objects, of
irradiation, depth and perspective, are significant for an effective
display in the show-window, and the laboratory results can easily be
translated into psychotechnical prescriptions. But here it is still
more necessary to separate carefully the merely optical impression
from its æsthetic side. All that we claimed as to the poster is still
more justified for the presentation of the saleable objects
themselves. As soon as the display of the articles forms a real work
of art, it must produce inhibitions in the soul of the spectator by
which the practical economic desire is turned aside. Beauty here too
has strong power of attraction, and moreover the suggestive power, by
which it withdraws our senses from the chance surroundings, forces us
to lose ourselves in the offered presentation. But just through this
process the content of the display becomes isolated and separated from
the world of our practical interests. Our desires are brought to
silence, we do not seek a personal relation to the things which we
face as admiring spectators, and the intended economic effect is
therefore eliminated. Whoever is to examine the psychotechnics of
displays and exhibitions must therefore study the psychology of
æsthetic stimulation, of suggestion, of the effects of light, color,
form and movement, of apperception and attention, and ought not to
forget the psychology of humor and curiosity, of instincts and
emotions. For us the essential point is that here too the experimental
psychological method alone is able to lead from mere chance
arrangements founded on personal taste to the systematic construction
which secures with the greatest possible certainty the greatest
possible mental effect in the service of the economic purpose.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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