Our world is filled with color—more colors than we can imagine. Truthfully, the number of colors in the world is infinite. Researchers have done some figuring on these numbers in the laboratory.
These smarty people are psychophysicists (people who study human responses, like seeing color, to things in the world, like light). They brought loads of people, like us, into the labs and took careful measurements of our visual systems. Essentially, they found out that we can see about 1000 levels of light-dark, 100 levels of red-green, and 100 levels of yellow-blue for a single viewing condition in a laboratory.
So, if you do the math — and they had to do it for me — this means that the total number of colors we can see is about 1000 x 100 x 100 = 10,000,000 (10 million). But wait. There is more.
That was just one setting. And what color looks like to us is greatly affected by the viewing conditions. My yellow rain slicker looks different hanging in the closet than under the lights at Walmart when it is soaking wet. So yes. These conditions include the color of the lighting, the amount of lighting, and other colors in the scene. To go on. Colors also appear differently on various objects and surfaces. So, take that 10-million in a single viewing condition and apply it to every situation on earth. The only truly correct answer is infinity when it comes to our seeing in color.
There is a lot to know about our colorful world.
First, men and women see the color red differently. Well, technically, we see a WHOLE lot of things differently. But let’s stick to red for now. In our human eyes, the ability to see red comes from a gene that is attached to the X chromosome. Since women have two X chromosomes, the two copies of these genes help women perceive the red-orange spectrum better. Men only see half as well when it comes to this. And then, there is “seeing red.”
This next fact always slays me. They have found that pink soothes the nerves and is often used for anger management. Studies have shown that pink has an overall calming effect. As such, they use it in mental health care institutions. They’ve also done this in prisons, all the way down to pink uniforms for some. But not for me. Of my favorite colors, pink isn’t even in the top one million. I’d rather see snotty green, or sooty gray, than pink.
So. What do we like in the way of color? Worldwide, blue is the most common favorite color. There have been numerous studies on this. However, I Googled these favorite lists for more information, and I found numerous websites “citing studies” of people’s favorite colors. Blue always seemed to be on top. But the rest of the spots varied. Purple was number two in one study. At another, red was second, followed by green and purple. But the low man on the totem pole always seemed to be yellow—the least favorite. My bedroom as a kid was yellow. I think it left a mark.
Surprisingly, to me, red is the first color a baby sees. Yes, red has the longest wavelength of the colors. Scientists speculate this makes it easier to process in those little growing receptors and nerves in a baby’s eye. So babies are seeing red. Especially when they are screaming and crying.
And then our receptors grow up. And we still see red a lot of the time, particularly in this world. Remember, according to the experts, we need more pink. But me? I think I’m still a little green when it comes to knowing for sure.
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“Mere color, unspoiled by meaning, and unallied with definite form, can speak to the soul in a thousand different ways.”
― Oscar Wilde
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“Let me, O let me bathe my soul in colours; let me swallow the sunset and drink the rainbow.”
― Khalil Gibran
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“I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.”
― Alice Walker, The Color Purple
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The color purple, number two, or maybe red
