Psychology of color: what color and what it means in advertising. Human perception of color

17.09.202027.05.2017

Bright colors attract shoppers

How to attract buyers with color?

Color spectrumwhere the store is located, renders strong impact on the visitor in the process of choosing a product and making a purchase. Each color sends a conditioned signal to the client's subconscious and awakens a certain emotion in response. We suggest that you familiarize yourself with the basic laws of color psychology.

Statistics show that perception deteriorates in the following sequence:

black letters on yellow background
black letters on white background
yellow letters on black background
white letters on black background
blue letters on white background
white letters on blue background
blue letters on yellow background
yellow letters on blue background
green letters on white background
white letters on a green background
brown letters on white background
white letters on brown background
brown letters on yellow background
yellow letters on brown background
red letters on white background
white letters on a red background
red letters on yellow background
yellow letters on red background

But the impact of advertising media is just the opposite, which is why red color usually used to highlight price tags with discounts and promotions... Most often, a red background and yellow or white text are used for this.

And for the design of the store, not so defiant combinations are used.

Under influence warm colors (shades of red, yellow and orange) customers usually feel a surge of energy, these shades stimulate the psyche. Therefore, experts recommend using them to "warm up" store visitors.

Cold spectrum colors (shades of blue, cyan and purple), on the contrary, reduces the activity of the nervous system... Under their influence, the customers of the store feel more relaxed and calm.

Warm range: buy without hesitation!

The strongest in the warm range is, of course, red color ... Red is able to activate all the functions of the body: under its influence, breathing is accelerated, muscles are strained, and the heartbeat increases. Correctly placed accents in red in the interior of the store can increase number of impulse purchases.

Discount promotions

However with red you should be careful and use it precisely as accents, not the main background. Overdoing it with red can make shoppers overly impatient, anxious and get them to leave quickly without making a purchase.

The surge of energy causes and orange color, but its overabundance in space is annoying, therefore, like red, it is harmonious only in the form of an accent color.

Pastel shades of orange evoke associations with beauty and a golden tan. They are often used in the design of sales areas with goods for women.

Yellow stronger than others attracts attentionso perfect suitable for decoration various promotions and special offers.

Marketers noted that in combination with red yellow is associated from buyers with affordable prices... Therefore, this color scheme is very often used in discounter stores.

Cold scale: enjoy a calm choice

Cool colors and their shades do a great job of in-store creation relaxing and calm atmosphere.
Influenced by blue, blue, purple buyers spend more time looking at shop windows and choice, less worried about possible costs. The coldest range of colors is the most appropriate in expensive stores or those in which queues often arise.

Blue associated with persistence and usually causes feeling of well-being... It promotes good assimilation of information and promotes trusting communication, therefore, it is most suitable for decorating shops of luxury goods, the purchase of which occurs after weighing all the pros and cons.

Contrary to popular belief, the size of the letters in the text does not play a role in the perception of information, but the design of the text affects the amount of memorization.

It has been experimentally proven that information printed in an unfamiliar and hard-to-read font is remembered by a person to a greater extent. According to psychologists, people often overestimate their ability to learn. Many are aware of cases when knowledge that is firmly seated in memory flies out of the head just at the moment when it is especially needed.

The search for a solution to this phenomenon began recently, and, according to experts, is nearing completion. University of California psychologist Robert A. Bjork believes that these studies will help people find out how solid their knowledge is and not be disappointed in their abilities.

Erroneous judgments about the strength of the knowledge gained are formed based on human inclinations and preferences. Many people are sure that the information received will stay in their memory for a long time, despite cases proving the opposite. As has been repeatedly confirmed by researchers, this conviction is formed at a subconscious level and is fixed in the human mind automatically.

In 1996, McAlester College, New York, conducted a study in which first-year students had to memorize the answers on final tests. The final test results of these students turned out to be worse than those to whom the answers were not shown.

According to Dr. Bjork, it was the availability of ready-made solutions that influenced the level of information perception of the tested. In the absence of a ready-made answer, the student would have to take into account every detail when looking for solutions to the question, which means that the information would have stuck in his memory more firmly.

For this reason, researchers have a negative attitude towards the use of ready-made answers by students for previous exams in preparation for the final testing. Such "help" does not contribute to the solid assimilation of information, disorienting the student.

The results of modern experiments, published in the popular scientific edition "Psychological Science", revealed a strong effect of text fonts on the level of knowledge perception and information memorization. During the study, participants were asked to examine a list of different words printed in a variety of fonts. The letter size of each word also varied. The task of the tested participants was to study the list and try to predict which word from it will be remembered for a long time. The subjects were firmly convinced that words in large letters would be remembered better and for a long time. But their attention was practically not paid to fonts.

Daniel M. Oppenheimer, summing up the results of the experiment, emphasized that it is the words written in an unusual font that are more firmly retained in memory, because they attract attention and make you concentrate on the material being studied. Despite the fact that it is common for a person to think about the content of a text without using complex fonts, however, when reading a text with an unfamiliar design, he has to pay more attention to its content.

Robert A. Bjork, commenting on the test results, hopes that the use of unfamiliar fonts in the text will help students to be more thoughtful when preparing for exams, and will provide high grades when passing them.

Any advertisement has a psychological effect on a person. But only qualitative influences the consumer's consciousness and subconsciousness purposefully. This is the main secret of its effectiveness. Unlike other types of outdoor advertising for food products, it is characterized by a large reach of the perceiving audience. Signs, posters, posters, billboards (billboards, firewalls, skyboards), light installations with bright images of food and laconic text are used as sources of advertising. They are located almost everywhere, attracting our attention. Their main goal is a constant reminder of the product.

In outdoor advertising of food products, the psychological impact on the consumer is not only a color picture of a juicy fruit with dew drops or a stream of a drink pouring from a colorful package. The font of the text also plays an important role.

* colored,

* unusual,

* large,

* easy to read,

* contrasting with the background of the shield in accordance with picture 1.

Figure 1. Contrast of background and font.

In various types of advertising, especially in direct mail, political or PR campaigns, handwritten type is often used. Him psychological function - reducing the distance between the advertiser and the consumer by creating a trust relationship using the font. However, this font is unacceptable for outdoor advertising. It is more difficult to read and much slower to perceive than such common types of fonts in Russia as Times or Arial. For the perception of text at a distance, bold font types are most effective. If the advertising material is perceived from a distance of 20 meters, then the height of the letters must be more than 3 cm.If the distance to the billboard is 50 meters, then the letters must be at least 5 cm.

The following color combinations can be referred to as "joyful" and therefore memorable consumers:

* white on green,

* green on yellow,

* yellow on green,

* yellow on white.

"Sad" color combinations:

* blue on black,

* purple on black,

* black on blue.

Neutral color combinations:

* blue on blue,

* blue on white,

* purple on blue.

"Aggressive" color combinations:

* red on black,

* brown on blue,

* purple on black,

* blue on black,

* blue on brown,

* green on purple.

The consumer distinguishes billboards from the variety of outdoor advertising materials. fromcontrasting combination of letters and background, and, therefore, remembers them better. Dark letters on a light background are perceived better than light type on a dark background in accordance with Figure 2. The usual combination of white and black is also unsuccessful.

Figure 2. Contrast of background and font.

The five most perceived by the consumer contrasting color combinations of letters and background:

* black letters on a yellow background,

* green on white,

* red on white,

* blue on white,

* white on blue.

However, if used ineptly, the "halo effect" can do a disservice. For example, the image of a public person or an erotic-looking woman grabs the consumer's attention to himself, distracting him from the advertised products, say, dark chocolate or baked goods.

Writing successful texts is one of the most important factors in PR events: a correctly composed speech will gather more listeners, a text built according to the rules of journalism has a better chance of being published.

In order for the ad text to attract a buyer, you must follow some rules. The advertising idea should be conveyed in the most optimal way and without wasting words. This does not mean that the ad copy should be extremely short. A textual advertising message should reflect the very essence of the advertised product, its quality, unique and distinctive characteristics in accordance with Figure 3.

All additional information that is not directly related to the advertised product reduces the effectiveness of advertising, creates some barriers for the correct perception of information. Marketing message literacy is the most important element of a successful copy.

Ad text with grammatical and spelling errors looks at least ridiculous. A potential buyer will judge the entire company by one such advertising text, which will certainly lead to a decrease in the company's prestige, trust in it, and, therefore, in sales. You should also choose words in accordance with their meaning, avoid ambiguous words and phrases. In this case, you run the risk of being misunderstood or, even worse, misunderstood.

The location of the text also plays an important role. For buyers, it is customary to arrange the following words from left to right, lines - from top to bottom. A different arrangement of the text takes place only when this is done without prejudice to the meaning of the advertising message and correct perception.

It is better to choose the color of the ad text that contrasts with the background of the ad. Naturally, you cannot write in black letters on a black background, the background in this situation needs a light one (white, pink, etc.). It is better to choose colors that are compatible with each other (for example, yellow is combined with blue, green with orange, etc.), since the combination of colors has a beneficial effect on the human psyche, creating a pleasant image.

If an advertising series is conceived, then the meaning of the text of one advertising message (and complete) should serve as the beginning of another, which, in turn, is a continuation of the first. External similarity and compositional unity will provide the effect of accumulating individual advertising influences from the consumer. The value of color in advertising is difficult to overestimate. Color is the most effective and cheapest way to attract attention. Its impact is immediate. He can attract or repel. Even before a person reads the text, the color will already postpone information at the subconscious level. What is the secret of such a powerful influence of color. One of the features of the perception of the surrounding reality for most people is precisely the visual system of perception. With our eyes, we literally absorb what surrounds us. Color is just a property of objects of the surrounding reality. When developing a booklet, poster or other advertising product, it is important to think over the design: the location of the text, the selection and location of the picture, and of course the background in the color scheme against which the advertisement will be perceived in the best way. The main thing in creativity is an idea that will captivate everyone around. And color plays one of the leading roles. The color itself in advertising can become the main hyper-idea.

The theory of color is currently disclosed in various scientific and practical areas: fine arts, theory of creativity, psychology of color, color science, coloristics... Let's look at the four basic concepts of color in advertising: classic, high-tech, mainstream, and provocation.

· In the classics, everything is certain: strict tone, cultural traditions, attachment to the type of advertising products.

· High-tech - a style of high technology, has a huge potential for growth and influence. All around we see the real emancipation of this style, and often the use of its attributes is out of place.

· The mainstream is a fashionable trend. This trend, like fashion itself, is very changeable. One cannot ignore the dominance of mass culture and the desire of most sellers to get into the buying mainstream.

It is worth paying attention to young people in this section as well. It is they who are ready to easily accept new things, abandoning traditional schemes. At the same time, they tend to copy the behavior of their peers.

· Provocation is a challenge to both classic and high tech and even the mainstream. This is a departure from the rules and regulations. It may be something provoking criticism of the supporters of the classics, high-tech or mainstream. (for example, Malevich's "Black Square" drenched in green paint)

Considering high-tech or mainstream, you can determine the main color combinations:

On a white background, neutral tones of golden yellow, cream, bluish gray colors.

Bright lines / patches of red, orange, crimson, hot pink in large fields of metallic gray or other dull colors.

The same combinations, but on a darker background. Instead of a red-orange-raspberry combination, juicy green can appear.

The combination of orange and gray has become a staple in hi-tech. An interesting property of this combination with a minimal contrast in tone, it has an extreme contrast in saturation. And to choose a third color for this combination is quite problematic: orange excludes all bright colors, and gray - all pale ones. In addition to gray, white and black are often used as the main colors. In the first case, neutral tones of golden yellow, cream, bluish gray are added. In the second - pink, blue, beige, green.

In general, these styles open up the broadest field for creative search for the best option when developing a design. In outdoor advertising of food products, the psychological impact on the consumer is not only a color picture of a juicy fruit with dew drops or a stream of a drink pouring from a colorful package. The font of the text plays an important role.

Any advertisement has a psychological effect on a person. But only qualitative influences on the consciousness and subconsciousness of the consumer purposefully. This is the main secret of its effectiveness. Unlike other types of outdoor advertising for food products, it is characterized by a large reach of the perceiving audience. Signs, posters, posters, billboards (billboards, firewalls, skyboards), light installations with bright images of food and laconic text are used as sources of advertising. They are located almost everywhere, attracting our attention. Their main goal is a constant reminder of the product in accordance with Figure 4.

In various types of advertising, especially in direct mail, political or PR campaigns, handwritten type is often used. Its psychological function is to reduce the distance between the advertiser and the consumer by creating a trusting relationship using the font. However, this font is unacceptable for outdoor advertising. It is more difficult to read and much slower to perceive than such common types of fonts in Russia as Times or Arial. For the perception of text at a distance, bold font types are most effective. If the advertising material is perceived from a distance of 20 meters, then the height of the letters must be more than 3 cm.If the distance to the billboard is 50 meters, then the letters must be at least 5 cm.

The color scale of the billboard also has an important psychological effect on the consumer: a combination of the color of the letters and the background. His emotional perception can be classified according to the signs "sad - joyful", "aggressive - non-aggressive".

It is important for product advertising designers to consider what color schemes the consumer considers “aggressive - non-aggressive”. For example, a green apple against one background can evoke positive emotions and be perceived as delicious. On the other - sour and evoke negative emotions.

Color combinations with a light background are recognized as non-aggressive, the blue on white gamut is especially popular.

From the multitude of materials for outdoor advertising of products, the consumer distinguishes boards with a contrasting combination of letters and backgrounds, and, therefore, remembers them better. Dark letters on a light background work better than light letters on a dark background. The usual combination of white and black is also unsuccessful.

The consumer's perception of the color combinations of the shield changes with the weakening of natural ambient light. This significantly distorts the image of perception. In particular, at dusk on a billboard without artificial illumination, the red half of the spectrum looks darker than the blue-violet. Green becomes lighter than yellow. And blue is lighter than red, while in the daytime red is 10 times lighter than blue.

To increase the effectiveness of food promotion in outdoor advertising, the "halo effect" is often used. These are special techniques, as well as familiar or unusual for the consumer images that draw attention to the advertised product. These are the rotating or moving platforms on which the billboards are installed; photographs of sexual subjects; images of unusual people or food; humorous images, fairy tale characters, etc. However, if used ineptly, the "halo effect" can do a disservice. For example, the image of a public person or an erotic-looking woman rivets the consumer's attention to himself, distracting him from advertised products, say, dark chocolate or baked goods.

The "identification effect" is often used. This is the emotional connection that arises when the billboard is perceived between the depicted image and the consumer. For example, the expression of pleasure on the face of a girl eating ice cream is extraordinarily impressive. A potential buyer unwittingly identifies with her, believing that they will get the same pleasure from the product.

For the shield to catch the eye of the consumer and keep his attention, the following methods are effective:

· Important information should be placed in the upper part of the board, preferably in the upper right corner, since it is here that the consumer's gaze lingers longer in accordance with Figure 5.

· The price of the product must be indicated on the board.

The genius Russian writer, Nobel laureate Ivan Bunin proposed a color range for all letters of the Russian alphabet. The famous Lithuanian artist Čiurlionis has created a world-renowned collection of colors and music.

Much has been written about the hearing of A. Scriabin, who saw musical sounds in color. A whole trend in art - color music - is based on this property of the sounds of music.

There is evidence that speech sounds, especially vowels, can also be perceived in color. A. Rimbaud even wrote a sonnet "Vowels", in which he colored the sounds like this: A black; white - E; And - red; U - green; Oh - blue: I will tell them their secret in my turn ...

But the French linguist K. Nirop attributed completely different colors to vowels: he considered I - blue, U - bright yellow, A - red. The German linguist A, Schlegel, wrote that for him I is sky blue, A is red, O is purple. But the Russian poet A. Bely argued that A appears to him white, E - yellow-green, I - blue, U - black, O bright orange. If we continue to name individual judgments about the color of vowels, then each sound will be colored in all the colors of the rainbow.

So, in this case, are there any specific sound-color correspondences at all? Isn't this fantasy. Or, perhaps, randomly occurring unstable associations between sound and color. And it is possible that the sound connections are a consequence of the extremely finely arranged mechanisms of perception of individual people.

Different answers were given to these questions, but most often they agreed that the “sound of speech - color” relationship is a rare, purely individual phenomenon. Modern science recognizes a phenomenon as existing only when it is either directly observed, or reproducibly manifests itself in experiments, or is strictly calculated. Moreover, in any case, the last word remains with practice: it is necessary for the phenomenon to function observably or to reveal traces of its action.

But when it comes to the human psyche, everything looks different. In this area, science, as in the "picnic on the sidelines" zone, still rarely and with difficulty penetrates, and having penetrated, it stumbles upon incomprehensible "complete dummies" that cannot be opened with its tools. Mental phenomena are most often not directly observed, in experiments they appear, then no, they are poorly calculated, and the traces of their functioning are vague, unsteady, irregular. Especially in the subconscious. Let's say intuition. Everyone can recall cases when, as it seems to us, the right decision or action was prompted to us by intuition. Moreover, as it turned out in the process of working on artificial intelligence, a person in difficult situations makes a decision not by enumerating all possible options, but heuristically, subconsciously, intuitively finds the right path. But on the other hand, intuition often fails. How to understand when intuition whispers to us the right decision, and when tricky pushes us into a dead end.

So it is with sound-color matches. If they exist, then who is right - A. Rimbaud or A. Bely. Whose intuition is more correct.

The idea of \u200b\u200bthe experiments is simple: the reactions of many subjects to a certain stimulus are recorded, and then statistical processing of the obtained material follows in order to reveal the main trends in the reactions. The registration technique is varied: the subjects are either presented with the sounds of speech - they need to choose colors for them, or different color cards are presented - they need to write sounds on them, or they are given the task to arrange sounds by color, say, from "the most red" to "least red", "Bluest" to "least blue", etc.

Many such experiments with thousands of informants have shown that the overwhelming majority of subjects color at least vowels quite definitely. Opinions are especially unanimous regarding the three vowels - A, E, I. The sound and letter (sound letter) A is quite consistently called red, E is clearly green, and I is definitely blue. Everyone considers the sound letter O to be light and bright, but although most of the subjects call it yellow, the answers are still quite common: "white." It turns out that it is sunny.

It is interesting that linguists consider the vowels A, O, E, I to be the main, supporting ones for the human speech apparatus and the main ones in all languages. And physicists consider the colors corresponding to these vowels to be the main ones, because their combinations give all other colors and shades. This is what color photography and color television use. Is it not surprising that in the language the correspondences to the main colors turned out to be the most clear.

Apparently, the "collective intuition" of people is manifested here: the color structure of the world is reflected in the color structure of the language. The names of the main colors are found in speech most often, and the sounds O, A, E, I are the most frequent of the vowels. And between the names of the primary colors and these vowels, in turn, a connection can be traced: the name of a certain color contains a correspondingly "colored" sound, and it occupies the most important position in the word - the stressed position: red, blue.

The rest of the vowels have a tint coloration, like the colors with which they are associated, moreover, this connection is less clearly traced - there is more variation in the opinions of the subjects. So, U - is associated with dark shades of blue: dark blue, dark blue, dark blue-green, dark purple. The sound letter Yu is also associated with shades of blue, but with light ones: blue, light lilac.

The sound letter Y behaves in an interesting way. It is similar in spelling to E, and in sounding to O. And in terms of color, it is quite definitely located between the yellow O and the green Hedgehog, about half of the subjects call it yellow, and half green. So Yo is light yellow-green.

But I almost do not differ in color from A, except that it is perceived as lighter and brighter.

As for N, here we should not talk about color, but rather about the light characteristic. If O is the sound letter of light, then Y is the sound letter of darkness, darkness. She is the darkest of all vowels, and the subjects unanimously give her the darkest characteristics - dark brown, black.

It is curious that the perception, strictly speaking, of the consonant sound Y was clearly influenced by the graphical form of the letter Y, which conveys this sound. The similarity between Y and I led to similar color assessments - Y is perceived as a blue sound letter, although with less certainty than I.

The letter E had to be excluded from the analysis. Although it conveys almost the same sound that in most cases is transmitted by the letter E, the green sound letter E cannot be obtained from the answers of the subjects: the letter form is different. And in general, no specific color is associated with E. And since E is found in texts extremely rarely (much less often than all other vowels), it was decided not to take it into account in further analysis of the texts.

Of course, not all sound-color correspondences are equally firmly fixed in the subconscious. There are subjects who in all experiments show clear and uniform results that coincide with the "collective opinion" of all respondents, and there are those whose answers in different experiments are contradictory, unstable, and no definite color of sounds can be traced in their answers. Well, well, color blind people do not see the color of objects, but this does not mean that the color of objects does not exist. It is important that most of the subjects as a whole, in a consistent and fairly uniform manner, establish quite definite connections between sound and color, although almost no one realizes this.

If the correspondences of speech sounds to certain colors exist, even in the subconscious, then they must manifest themselves somewhere, the sound color must somehow function in speech. And perhaps, first of all, it is necessary to look for manifestations of sound-color halos where the sound side is especially important. The effect of sound color can play a role in the case when a certain color picture is created, and the vowel pattern should support, "highlight" this picture with sounds of the corresponding color.

If this is so, then it is natural to expect that when describing, for example, red objects and phenomena in the text, the role of red A and Z will be emphasized; they will appear more frequently than usual, especially in the most important, most prominent positions (say, drums). The description of something blue will be accompanied by the injection of blue I, U, Yu; green - by pumping E, E, etc.

Mmmmmm ... I quoted a post here on how to remove creep radio from my blog. I read it carefully - what a long procedure, between us speaking!
But now is not about that. About frames, background and color of the font and about your eyes and psyche. Because what is written in red on black is, in my opinion, a disaster for your vision and mood.))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))) )))))))))))))
So.

Table for clarity:

White - openness and neutrality
This is the background of black or blue font in the notebook, as well as the color of the font on the black background of the blackboard in the classroom, laid down for us since childhood. White font works well with red, green, blue and black backgrounds in contrast, and white backgrounds with the same font colors. Effect of white font on the user with different background colors:
red background - drawing attention to information;
black background - increased attention to background information and conclusion;
green background - soft informing about problems;
blue background - convincing formation of the essence of the information.

Blue - tenderness and softness
It is the color of harmony, friendship, affection, and soul mates. The cyan font doesn't contrast well against the backgrounds presented, but the cyan background works well with black, red, yellow, and white font colors. The blue background is used to lull the caution of the visitor, and also encourages him to make innovative decisions.

Yellow - sociability, sociability and openness
This is the color of poise and inner harmony, it is well remembered and perceived by cheerful active people. Color activates development, and the activity of thought, it is not for nothing that one of the directions of presenting information was called "yellow press", as it gives a long discussion of its information. The contrast of yellow is good with black, blue, green and red backgrounds, and backgrounds with black, blue, green and red font colors. Effect of yellow font on user with different background colors:
black background - tertiary information and conclusion;
green background - soft information about small potential problems;
blue background - convincing formation of the detailed essence of business information.

Green - relieving nervous tension and acuteness of experience
It is the color of calming, reducing pain and fatigue, building balance. The associations caused by color are freshness and naturalness. The contrast of the green font goes well with the yellow and white background, and the background with the yellow and white font. Effect of green font on the user with different background colors:
white background - drawing attention to pleasant information;
yellow background - display of unpleasant information;
blue background - memorizing the essence of business information.

Brown - stability, realistic mood
This is the color of self-sufficient people. Brown fonts work well with cyan, yellow and white, and backgrounds with yellow and white fonts. Effect of brown font on the user with different background colors:
white background - enhances the attributes of information;
yellow background - reinforces the guaranteed result in the mind of the user;
blue background - strengthens the cohesion of users in the team.

Red - tension, attention, action
It is an attention-grabbing color. Red font works well with black, cyan, yellow, and white background colors, and red backgrounds with black, white and yellow font colors. Effect of red font on the user with different background colors:
white background - highlighting important information;
black background - boredom;
yellow background - user association;
blue background - the desire of new users to unite.

For some reason, nothing has been written about black. I found something here:

The black- first of all, of course, black is associated with something ominous, secret, scary. (Black magic, black cat - symbols of evil witchcraft, devilish forces, black hand - a character of childhood fears, black box - a complex, closed system).

Emotions and associations: power, sophistication, nervousness.

The strongest of the neutral colors, black, appears on almost any website. It can evoke different associations depending on the colors accompanying it or dominate them if used excessively.

The strength and neutrality of black makes it an excellent choice for large blocks of text, but as a primary color it can create a sense of nervousness or even be associated with evil.

For most sites, black is used to create a sense of sophistication. The combination of black and white in a minimalist design creates an impression of elegance and style.

Yes, like that.

As for the frames and fluttering sparkles - a terrible aoap and tastelessness. When I see this on my blog, I just move on to another. Only as a last resort I will read it if I desperately need info.

Good luck with your background and font colors!

A person has the ability to see the world around him in all the variety of colors and shades. He can admire the sunset, emerald greenery, bottomless blue sky and other beauties of nature. The perception of color and its effect on the psyche and physical condition of a person will be discussed in this article.

What is color

Color is the subjective perception of visible light by the human brain, differences in its spectral structure, as perceived by the eye. In humans, the ability to distinguish colors is better developed than in other mammals.

Light affects the photosensitive receptors of the retina, which then generate a signal that is transmitted to the brain. It turns out that the perception of color is formed in a complex way in the chain: the eyes (neural networks of the retina and exteroreceptors) - visual images of the brain.

Thus, color is an interpretation of the surrounding world in the mind of a person, resulting from the processing of signals from the light-sensitive cells of the eye - cones and rods. In this case, the former are responsible for the perception of color, and the latter are responsible for the acuity of twilight vision.

"Color Disorders"

The eye responds to three primary tones: blue, green, and red. And the brain perceives colors as a combination of these three basic colors. If the retina loses the ability to distinguish any color, then the person also loses it. For example, there are people who are unable to distinguish from red. 7% of men and 0.5% of women have such features. It is extremely rare that people do not see the colors around at all, which means that the receptor cells in their retina do not function. Some people suffer from poor twilight vision, which means that they have weakly sensitive sticks. Such problems arise for various reasons: due to vitamin A deficiency or hereditary factors. However, a person can adapt to "color disorders", so without special examination they are almost impossible to detect. People with normal vision are able to distinguish up to a thousand shades. A person's perception of color changes depending on the conditions of the surrounding world. The same tone looks different in candlelight or in sunlight. But human vision quickly adapts to these changes and identifies a familiar color.

Perception of form

Learning about nature, man was constantly discovering new principles of the structure of the world - symmetry, rhythm, contrast, proportions. He was guided by these impressions, transforming the environment, creating his own unique world. Subsequently, objects of reality gave rise to stable images in the human mind, accompanied by clear emotions. The perception of shape, size, color in the individual is associated with the symbolic associative meanings of geometric shapes and lines. For example, in the absence of divisions, the vertical is perceived by a person as something infinite, incommensurable, striving upward, light. The thickening in the lower part or the horizontal base makes it more stable in the eyes of the individual. But the diagonal symbolizes movement and dynamics. It turns out that a composition based on clear verticals and horizontals tends to be solemn, static, and stable, while an image based on diagonals tends to change, instability and movement.

Double impact

It is generally accepted that the perception of color is accompanied by the strongest emotional impact. This problem has been studied in detail by painters. V.V. Kandinsky noted that color affects a person in two ways. At first, the individual is physically affected when the eye is either fascinated by the color or irritated by it. This impression is fleeting when it comes to familiar objects. However, in an unusual context (a painting by an artist, for example), color can cause a powerful emotional experience. In this case, we can talk about the second type of influence of color on an individual.

Physical effects of color

Numerous experiments by psychologists and physiologists confirm the ability of color to influence the physical state of a person. Dr. Podolsky described human visual perception of color as follows.

Blue color - has an antiseptic effect. It is useful to look at it with suppuration and inflammation. It helps a sensitive individual better than green. But an "overdose" of this color causes some depression and fatigue.
Green is hypnotic and pain relieving. It has a positive effect on the nervous system, relieves irritability, fatigue and insomnia, and also raises the tone and blood.
Yellow color - stimulates the brain, therefore helps with mental disabilities.
Orange color - has a stimulating effect and accelerates the pulse without raising blood pressure. It improves vitality but can tire over time.
Purple color - affects the lungs, heart and increases the endurance of body tissues.
Red color - has a warming effect. It stimulates the activity of the brain, eliminates melancholy, but in large doses it irritates.

Types of color

The effect of color on perception can be classified in different ways. There is a theory according to which all tones can be divided into stimulating (warm), disintegrating (cold), pastel, static, dull, warm dark and cold dark.

Stimulating (warm) colors promote arousal and act as irritants:

red - life-affirming, strong-willed;
orange - cozy, warm;
yellow - radiant, contacting.

Disintegrating (cold) tones muffle arousal:

purple - heavy, deep;
blue - emphasizing the distance;
light blue - a guide leading into space;
blue-green - changeable, emphasizing movement.

Mute the effects of pure colors:

pink - mysterious and delicate;
lilac - isolated and closed;
pastel green - soft, affectionate;
gray-blue - discreet.

Static colors can balance and distract from exciting colors:

pure green - refreshing, demanding;
olive - softening, soothing;
yellow-green - liberating, renewing;
purple - pretentious, sophisticated.

Dull tones promote concentration (black); do not cause arousal (gray); extinguish irritation (white).

Warm dark colors (brown) cause lethargy, inertness:

ocher - softens the growth of arousal;
earthy brown - stabilizes;
dark brown - reduces excitability.

Dark cool tones suppress and isolate irritation.

Color and personality

The perception of color largely depends on the personality characteristics of a person. This fact was proved in his works on the individual perception of color compositions by the German psychologist M. Luscher. According to his theory, an individual who is in a different emotional and mental state can react differently to the same color. In this case, the characteristics of color perception depend on the degree of personality development. But even with a weak spiritual sensitivity, the colors of the surrounding reality are perceived ambiguously. Warm and light tones are more eye-catching than dark tones. And at the same time, clear but poisonous colors are disturbing, and a person's eyesight involuntarily seeks a cool green or blue hue to rest.

Color in advertising

In advertising, the choice of color cannot depend only on the taste of the designer. After all, bright colors can both attract the attention of a potential client and make it difficult to obtain the necessary information. Therefore, the perception of the shape and color of an individual must be taken into account when creating an advertisement. The solutions may be the most unexpected: for example, against a colorful background of bright pictures, the involuntary attention of a person is more likely to be attracted by a strict black and white announcement, rather than a colorful inscription.

Children and colors

Children's perception of color develops gradually. At first, they only distinguish between warm tones: red, orange and yellow. Then the development of mental reactions leads to the fact that the child begins to perceive blue, purple, blue and green colors. And only with age the whole variety of color tones and shades becomes available to the baby. At three years old, children usually name two or three colors, and they recognize about five. Moreover, some children have difficulty distinguishing basic tones even at the age of four. They poorly differentiate colors, have difficulty remembering their names, replace intermediate shades of the spectrum with basic ones, and so on. In order for a child to learn to adequately perceive the world around him, you need to teach him to correctly distinguish colors.

Development of color perception

From an early age, color perception should be taught. The kid is by nature very curious and needs a variety of information, but it must be introduced gradually so as not to irritate the child's sensitive psyche. At an early age, children usually associate color with the image of an object. For example, green is a herringbone, yellow is a chicken, blue is the sky, and so on. The teacher needs to take advantage of this moment and develop color perception using natural forms.

Color, as opposed to size and shape, can only be seen. Therefore, when determining the tone, a large role is assigned to comparison by overlay. When two colors are placed side by side, each child will know if they are the same or different. At the same time, he still does not need to know the name of the color, it is enough to be able to perform tasks such as "Plant each butterfly on a flower of the same color." After the child learns to visually distinguish and compare colors, it makes sense to start choosing according to the model, that is, to the actual development of color perception. For this, you can use the book by GS Shvaiko entitled "Games and game exercises for the development of speech." Acquaintance with the colors of the world around them helps children feel reality more subtly and more fully, develops thinking, observation, and enriches speech.

Visual color

An interesting experiment on himself was made by one resident of Britain - Neil Harbisson. Since childhood, he could not distinguish colors. Doctors found he had a rare visual defect - achromatopsia. The guy saw the surrounding reality as if in a black and white movie and considered himself a socially cut off person. Once Neil agreed to an experiment and allowed a special cybernetic instrument to be implanted into his head, which allows him to see the world in all its colorful diversity. It turns out that the eye's perception of color is not at all necessary. A chip and an antenna with a sensor were implanted in the back of Neal's head, which pick up vibration and convert it into sound. In this case, each note corresponds to a certain color: fa - red, la - green, do - blue, and so on. Now, for Harbisson, a visit to a supermarket is akin to visiting a nightclub, and an art gallery reminds him of going to a philharmonic. Technology has given Neal a sensation never before seen in nature: visual sound. A man sets up interesting experiments with his new feeling, for example, he comes close to different people, studies their faces and composes music for portraits.

Conclusion

One can talk endlessly about the perception of color. The experiment with Neil Harbisson, for example, suggests that the human psyche is very plastic and can adapt to the most unusual conditions. In addition, it is obvious that people have a desire for beauty, expressed in the inner need to see the world in color, and not monochrome. Vision is a unique and fragile instrument that will take a long time to learn. Learning as much as possible about him will be useful to everyone.