The Popular Science Monthly, August, 1900: Vol. 57, May, 1900 to October, 1900 — John Shaqi
The Popular Science Monthly, August, 1900: Vol. 57, May, 1900 to October, 1900Various
Science
The Popular Science Monthly, August, 1900: Vol. 57, May, 1900 to October, 1900
Various
Science -- Periodicals; Technology -- Periodicals
It may be noted that red and perhaps yellow have been stated to
be the only colors visible in dreams; this is possibly due to the
blood-vessels. Such an explanation is probable with regard to the
various subjective visual sensations which constitute an aura in
epilepsy, among which, as Gowers notes, red and reddish yellow are most
frequently found. Féré has further noted that in various emotional
states somewhat resembling epilepsy, and even in mystic exaltation,
red may be subjectively seen. Simroth has gone so far as to argue
that not only is red fundamental in human color psychology, but that
in living organisms generally, even as a pigment, red is the most
primitive of colors, that since the algæ at the greatest sea-depths
are red it is possible that protoplasm at first only responded to rays
of long wave-length, and that with increased metabolism colors became
differentiated, following the order in the spectrum.
If it is really the case that in the evolution of the race familiarity
with the red end of the spectrum has been earlier and more perfectly
acquired than with the violet end, and that red and yellow made a more
profound impression on primitive man than green and blue, we should
expect to find this evolution reflected in the development of the
individual, and that the child would earlier acquire a sensitiveness
for red and orange and yellow than for green and blue and violet. This
seems actually to be the case. The study of the color sense in children
is, indeed, even more difficult than in savages; and many investigators
have probably succumbed to the fallacies involved in this study.
Doubtless we may thus account for some discrepancies in the attempts
to ascertain the facts of color perception and color preference in
children, while doubtless also there are individual differences which
discount the value of experiments made on only a single child. A few
careful and elaborate investigations, however, especially that of
Garbini on 600 North Italian children of various ages, have thrown much
light on the matter. There is fairly general agreement that red is the
first color that attracts young children and which they recognize. That
is the result recorded by Uffelmann in Germany, while Preyer found
yellow and red at the head; Binet in France concluded that red comes
first; Wolfe in America reached the same result, and Luckey noted that
his own children seemed to enjoy red, orange and yellow very much
earlier than they could perceive blue, which seemed to come last.
Baldwin, indeed, found in the case of his own child that blue seemed
more attractive than red; his methods have, however, been criticised,
and his experiments failed to include yellow. Mrs. Moore found that
her baby, between the sixteenth and forty-fifth weeks, nearly always
preferred a yellow ball to a red ball; this was doubtless not a
matter of color, but of brightness, for there is no reason to suppose
chromatic perception at so early an age.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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