Color and The Human Mind

In 1973, an article appeared in Time Magazine. There was a lot of reference about the work of Henner Ertel, director of the institute for Rational Psychology at Munich. A three year study was conducted for children, to judge (measure) the impact of environmental color on learning capacity.

Rooms with low ceilings were painted different colors. The better and more popular colors were: light blue, yellow, yellow-green and orange. In these environments, I.Q. could be raised as much as 12 points. The so-called "ugly" colors: white, black, brown caused a drop in I.Q. Researchers found that the popular colors also stimulated alertness and creativity. The "ugly" playrooms made children duller.

Early man's use of color was not about beauty. Years before the Renaissance., Egyptians used colors to decorate tombs and coffins. They used drawing and hieroglyphics. Caves in South Africa were drawn and painted, not for art's sake. These colorful images were for the benefit of the dead by magical means. This was true, not only for the Nile, but in China, India, Greece and Rome.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~Color and its Uses for early man~~~~~~~~~~

• charmed his existence
• worshiped his God
• portrayed his philosphy and science
• identified heaven and earth
• recorded history
• protected his life
• assured his salvation

Dozens of color preference tests have been conducted over the years. What they found goes something like this.....Infants liked luminous colors (yellow, white pink, red) children liked (red and blue)...these were universal favorites and maintained a fascination for life.

With maturity, comes a greater liking for hues of shorter wavelength (blue and green)

So...the preferred order is like this: BLUE -RED- GREEN -VIOLET- ORANGE -YELLOW

And it remains the eternal and international ranking. Color preferences are ALMOST identical in all humans...

• male
• female
• all nationalities
• all creeds
• even the insane!...yep I liked this part also...so this concludes my little study.