Colour Perception in Psychology

Introduction

There are millions of colours in this world. The study of human behaviour in psychology states the fact that colour influences people’s behaviour in many ways. It’s treated as a determinant of human behaviour in a relative way depending upon various types of people having their preferences unique. Receiving colours of anything in our daily life is highly notable and it also gets reflected directly to the mind both physically and emotionally. There is a direct link between colour and emotion. This helps to make a strong ideology of colours and their impact on our personal lives. 

Discussion

Facts about Colour Perception

We, humans, carry two types of cells in our eyes, namely rods and cones which is mainly responsible for the sensitivity to visualise different colours. According to science, these cones are sensitised to wavelengths. Cones are the photoreceptors in the retina. The proper functioning of the biological web perfectly helps to percept colours. 

Characteristics

Three main categories of Colour perception:

S for their sensitivity to Short Wavelengths.

1. M for Medium
2. L for Long.

The colour white is received when these three wavelengths have equal stimulation. All colours that we experience are influenced by three psychological influences. 

• Hue

It’s the strongest effect on colour with 200 varieties. Hue is a property of a stimulus that it may share with one or more particular sectors of the rainbow.

• Saturation

It reflects how much a hue is being diluted by greyness. The whiteness of the saturation defines whether the photo will be faded or wasted.

• Brightness

Brightness in colour vision is the sensation shared with achromatic visual systems. Short wavelengths of the cones do not contribute to this.

Colour perception psychology

Colours carry an important part in our lives. Even some delicious food without proper visual effects can look not so appealing to us. Not only in the case of having food or drinks but putting different colours on different types of medicines are also important such as placebo pills are coloured red, yellow etc. In Japan, the authorities of the railway inserted blue lights to prevent suicidal attempts though this method is questioned in many aspects. Lights affect our mind in different directions leading to our emotional changes and our behaviour. 

The idea of differentiating colours and association of them to various ideologies imprinted in our minds is the key matter of perception. Hence, it can be brought forth that the concept of colourisation beholds a strong ideology that changes the mood and thoughts of an individual. The lack of understanding of colours does not help to impair the basic comprehension of the world. Therefore, an individual being “colour blind” is not able to gain the perception of the world and the variant ideologies of it altogether. 

Three main theories of colour perception

• The Trichromatic Theory or Young-Helmholtz Theory
• The Opponent Process Theory
• The Dual Processes Theory 

The Trichromatic Theory or Young-Helmholtz Theory

The first theory states that all of our vision is inspired by three basic colours, red, green and blue. It explains the responses of the cones in the retina. However, later modifications show that other colours are formed from the mixing process of these three colours. This theory fails to give a plausible explanation of Colour Blindness and Negative After Effects. 

The Theory of Opponent Process

 The Second one attempts to find the answers to how colour blindness occurred. The Theory of opponent-Process also explains the neural response regarding the cells which are connected to the cones further in the brain. This states that our retina functions in a melancholic way like receptors react exactly opposite colours of the main three such as, red as an opposite of green, blue versus yellow and light against dark.

The Dual Processes Theory

The dual-process theory provides ideas on how thoughts can arise in different ways as a result of variant presentations. The dual processes theory consists of the former two theories. They are implicit unconscious processes and explicit conscious processes. Both of the processes allow the clinicians to think both fast and slow while reasoning through a patient’s presentation. This helps to understand the sensing pattern of patterns of colours and lines. 

These are the three key theories of colour perception. This helps to bring forward the integral aspect of how colour is perceptive through our eyes and processed in our minds. Moreover, it is an important part that helps to enhance the understanding of colour reception and improve the understanding of the core process accordingly. 

Conclusion

With all the data and details provided, it can be concluded that colour perception in psychology undertakes a key aspect in the everyday life of people. With the right performance of retina cones, the saturation, contrast and brightness of colours are being well understood. This helps to build a stronger understanding of colours and hence, perform everyday activities accordingly. Hence, the functioning of every part of the biological stem provides the psychology to perform in a perfect form.