Although the Arnheim reading was full of interesting information and completely upended most of my conceptions about color and light and how they’re related, the one thing that stuck with me most was his description of a particular experiment in which “children were presented, for example, with a blue square and a red circle. They were asked whether a red square was more like the square or like the circle. Under such conditions, children up to three years of age chose more often on the basis of shape, whereas those between three and six selected by color. Children over six were disturbed by the ambiguity of the task, but more often opted for shape as their criterion” (335). I was interested by the explanation provided. According to Werner, the youngest children are mostly influenced by motor behavior and so the “graspable” shapes are more influential, while children between the ages of three and six have more developed visual characteristics and are drawn to colors rather than shapes. Werner also claims that children over the age of six gravitate back to shapes because of cultural influences. They are being “train[ed] in practical skills, which rely on shape much more heavily than on color” (335) and thus turn their attention to what will be most useful. It was this particular theory that most caught my attention. I have to wonder if this phenomenon really is a matter of cultural influences or if it could be a manifestation of another stage of brain development. I think that it is quite possible that cultural emphasis on practicality is responsible for a choice of shapes over colors, but I think it’s equally possible that it’s more of a biological development. After all, as evidenced by other species’ ability to perceive more or less color, it seems that perception of shapes is more relevant to a species’ survival. If that’s the case, then it would make sense that as a person moves closer to maturity, to being self-sufficient, they would naturally focus more on the aspects of a situation that could influence their survival.
On another note, Sacks’s story of the colorblind painter struck me in a few ways. At first, the idea of food becoming inedible because the colors were wrong seemed strange to me. After all, it would still smell and taste the same. But then I remembered this one time when my dad made green oatmeal for St. Patrick’s day. The oatmeal tasted perfectly normal. Logically, there shouldn’t have been a problem. But nobody ate it because it just looked wrong. Granted, in this case the food coloring actually made it look moldy, but I have a feeling that if he had turned it blue I would have had a similar problem. There’s a saying (which is often quoted on the Food Network) that “you first eat with your eyes” and I think Mr. I is living proof of this. I also wonder if this is something he has gotten over with time. Sacks describes how he has adapted to many aspects of his condition and how he would not regain his ability to see colors if given the choice, but I am curious as to whether he still prefers to live on black and white food.
Livingstone’s discussion of luminescence also reminded me of Mr. I. Sacks explains that he, along with many achromatopsia patients, not only saw the world in black and white, but that it was “wrong” and “dirty” and “impure” (7). I wonder if this has anything to do with luminescence. As Livingstone points out, most of the time when a color painting is photographed in black and white it loses much of its luminescence and tends to fall flat. I wonder if this is exactly what was going on with Mr. I. After all, he had much less of a problem with things that were already in black and white, things that were either designed in a way so that the luminescence carried through into the grayscale or things that had already lost that quality, whereas looking at something in color, something that hadn’t already been filtered for him, was disturbing. This is purely speculation, of course, but the dull pictures in Livingstone’s book, such as the black and white representation of Monet’s Impression Sunrise, had a flatness and wrongness that reminded me of what Sacks describes in his article.
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I was also very struck by Arnheim's discussion of the relationship between our perception of shape and of color. Particularly, I was interested in Arnheim's mention of the ink blot test, which he explains as giving "the observer the opportunity to base his description of what he sees on color at the expense of shape, or vice versa" (335). While, of course, responses to both form and color are necessary for recognizing an object or making sense of a picture, it appears as though we react with varying intensity to each of these stimuli (as Arnheim describes in the discussion of the experiment that you mentioned in your post). I want to relate this to Sacks' discussion of Mr. I, especially in terms of his aversion to foods that appeared to be the wrong color. It would seem that Mr. I, before his accident, was extremely sensitive to color as a stimulus. Indeed, it permeated not only his visual perception but also, as Hannah G. noted in her post this week, his perception of music- it is not a stretch, then, to assume that it was also very important in his experience with taste. To completely remove the perception of color (a stimulus which Rorschach deemed so connected to emotion, and which was obviously so dear to Mr. I) is to entirely remove one highly important way of relating to the world in general.
ReplyDeleteI am not sure that I am making any huge conclusions or original connections in this comment, but after I read Emma's post I was able to connect what Arnheim had described with its practical implications. I.e., Mr. I's relationship with food: the shape remained constant, but because its color was so off, we was unable to relate to the food in the same way, even finding it abhorrent.
I was also very struck by the story of the colorblind painter. I have, unlike Emma, eaten oatmeal of various frighteningly bright colors(and one time on a dare, blue-ish purple eggs)... and it did not have too much of an effect on me. I can, however, completely understand how it would change the way that Mr. I interacted with his food, the faces of those around him, and the rest of his world. Its hard to trust a mere memory of how a thing used to be - Mr. I says that he remembers what colors used to look like, but when he closes his eyes he still see the world in greyscale. This part of the reading actually scared me, I do not think I would go through the same progression as Mr. I, although it makes a lot of sense to me how he reacted - from frantic attempts to continue to use color moving towards sculpture and emphasizing form, contour, depth, and movement and then his eventual acceptance and exploration of his greyscale world. I was only satisfied in the end when he had changed his own way of thinking about the world to suit his changed way of viewing it. Through the livingston reading as well, all I could think about while reading about equiluminance was how Mr. I was living in, 'an inconsistent world, a world whose lights and darks fluctuated with the wavelengths of illumination'
ReplyDeleteJonathan's lack of interest in food was one of the most important parts of his loss along with his memories lacking color. I totally understand your story of green oatmeal … I mean isn't green mint chip ice cream much better than white mint chip ice cream ? So in a more drastic situation like Jonathan's I understand not wanting to eat the now "gray" foods. I also remember going through a picky eating stage when I was younger and my mom telling me to shut my eyes and try it before I pushed it to the other side of my plate. I gave it a try once with asparagus and now its one of my favorite vegetables. I also referred to Livingston's point about color paintings being photographed and losing their depth. All this talk about black and white verses color reminded me how I feel when I change one of my photographs from color to black and white. I always think that something is nicer about a black and white photograph. But maybe thats because I can always go back to color. Black and white is just "different" to me making it more appealing.
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