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
doubt that the evolution of the child’s color sense repeats that of the
race.
[G] Garbini, “Evoluzione del senso cromatico nella infanzia,”
_Archivio per l’Antropologia_, 1894. I.
In dealing with the color perceptions of savages and children we are,
of course, to some extent dealing more or less unconsciously with their
color preferences. There is some interest from our present point of
view in considering the conscious color preferences of young and adult
civilized persons. Red, as we have seen, is the color that fascinates
our attention earliest, that we see and recognize most vividly; it
remains the color that attracts our attention most readily and that
gives us the greatest emotional shock. It by no means necessarily
follows that it is the most pleasurable color. As a matter of fact,
such evidence as is available shows that very often it is not. There
seems reason to think that after the first early perception of red,
and early pleasure in it, yellow or orange is frequently the favorite
color, the preference often lasting during several years of childhood;
Preyer’s child liked and discriminated yellow best, and Miss Shinn was
inclined to think that it was the favorite color of her niece, who in
the twenty-eighth month showed a special fondness for daffodils and
for a yellow dress. Barnes found that in children the love of yellow
diminishes with age. Binet’s child was specially preoccupied with
orange. Aars in an elaborate and frequently varied investigation into
the color preferences of eight children (four of each sex), between
four and seven years of age, found that with the boys the order of
preference was blue and yellow (both equal), then red, lastly green;
while with the girls the order was green, blue, red and yellow; in
combinations of two colors it was found that combinations of blue come
first, then of yellow, then green, lastly red. It was found (as J. Cohn
has found among adults and cultivated people) that the deepest and most
saturated color was most pleasing; and also that the love of novelty
and of variety was an important factor. It will be observed that at
this age green was the girls’ favorite color and that least liked by
the boys, whose favorite color, in combination, was blue; the number
of individuals was, however, small. This was in Germany. In America,
among 1,000 children, probably somewhat older on the average (though I
have not details of the inquiry), Mr. Earl Barnes found, like Dr. Aars,
that more boys than girls selected blue, while the girls preferred red
more frequently than the boys; Barnes considers that with growing years
there is a growing tendency to select red; as is well known, girls are
more precocious than boys. Among 100 students at Columbia University,
the order of preference was found to be blue (34 per cent), red (22.7
per cent), and then at a more considerable distance violet, yellow,
green. It is noteworthy that among 100 women students at Wellesley
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