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
Red, orange and yellow, it may
be added, are perceived by a slightly lower illumination than green,
blue and violet, the last being the most difficult of all to perceive,
so that it is not surprising that the colors at the violet end should
be inconspicuous to young infants. Garbini, whose experiments are worth
noting in more detail, found that the order of perception is red,
green, yellow, orange, blue and violet, and as he experimented with a
large number of children and used methods which so competent a judge as
Binet regards as approaching perfection, his results may be considered
a fair approach to the truth. He found that for the first few days
after birth the infant shuns the light; then, about the fourteenth
day, he ceases to be photophobic and begins to enjoy the light, as is
shown by his being quieted when brought into a bright light and crying
when taken from it; this may sometimes begin even about the fifth
day. Between the fifth week and the eighteenth month children show
signs of distinguishing white, black and grey objects. It is not until
after the eighteenth month that their chromatic perception begins,
any preference for red and yellow objects at an earlier age being due
merely to their greater luminosity. Garbini considers that it is the
center of the retina, or the portion most sensitive to red and yellow,
which is most exercised in young infants. Between the second and third
years children, both boys and girls, were found to be most successful
in the recognition of red, then of green, but they very often confused
orange with red, and mixed up yellow, blue, violet and green; he thinks
they tend to confuse a color with the preceding color in spectral
order. Under the age of three children may be said to be color-blind,
and they are liable to confuse rosy tints with green. Between the ages
of three and five they are able to distinguish red in any gradation,
green nearly always, with an occasional confusion with red, while
yellow is sometimes confused with orange, orange sometimes replaced
by rose, blue often not recognized in its gradations, and violet
often selected in place of blue. At this age, also (as in hysterical
anæsthesia of the retina), blue seems dark or black. In the fifth and
sixth years red, green and yellow are always correctly chosen; orange
gradations are not always recognized, and blue and violet come last,
being sometimes confused. In the sixth year children are perfecting
their knowledge of orange, blue and violet and completing their
knowledge of color designations. Garbini has reached the important
result that color perceptions and verbal expression of the perceptions
follow exactly parallel paths, so that in studying verbal expression
we are really studying perception, with the important distinction
that the expression comes much later than the perception.[G] These
investigations of Garbini are very significant, and there can be little
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