How Filmmakers Manipulate Our Emotions With Color

How Filmmakers Manipulate Our Emotions With Color

  6:45:00 PM    Science Lover

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Most of us don’t think about the color schemes of the films we watch. But for a long time now, movie studios have followed a special formula for each genre. Red tones for romance, blue for horror, and so on. 

The Verge explains how filmmakers manipulate our emotions using color in this trending video.

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Some People Can Hallucinate Colors at Will

Some People Can Hallucinate Colors at Will

  9:57:00 AM    Science Lover

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Scientists at the University of Hull have found that some people have the ability to hallucinate colours at will -- even without the help of hypnosis.

Scientists at the University of Hull have found that some
people have the ability to hallucinate colours at will -- even
without the help of hypnosis. (Credit: © Paul Herbert / Fotolia)

The study, published this week in the journal Consciousness and Cognition, was carried out in the Department of Psychology at the University of Hull. It focused on a group of people that had shown themselves to be 'highly suggestible' in hypnosis.

The subjects were asked to look at a series of monochrome patterns and to see colour in them. They were tested under hypnosis and without hypnosis and both times reported that they were able to see colours.

Individuals' reactions to the patterns were also captured using an MRI scanner, which enabled the researchers to monitor differences in brain activity between the suggestible and non-suggestible subjects. The results of the research, showed significant changes in brain activity in areas of the brain responsible for visual perception among the suggestible subjects only.

Professor Giuliana Mazzoni, lead researcher on the project says: "These are very talented people. They can change their perception and experience of the world in ways that the rest of us cannot."

The ability to change experience at will can be very useful. Research has shown that hypnotic suggestions can be used to block pain and increase the effectiveness of psychotherapy.

It has always been assumed that hypnosis was needed for these effects to occur, but the new study suggests that this is not true. Although hypnosis does seem to heighten the subjects' ability to see colour, the suggestible subjects were also able to see colours and change their brain activity even without the help of hypnosis.

The MRI scans also showed clearly that although it was not necessary for the subjects to be under hypnosis to be able to perceive colours in the tests, it was evident that hypnosis increased the ability of the subjects to experience these effects.

Dr William McGeown, who also contributed to the study, says: "Many people are afraid of hypnosis, although it appears to be very effective in helping with certain medical interventions, particularly pain control. The work we have been doing shows that certain people may benefit from suggestion without the need for hypnosis."

The study, which was partially funded by the BBC, used a control group formed of less suggestible people, or people less likely to respond to hypnosis. It was found that this group of people were not able to hallucinate colour and, again, these reported results were supported by MRI scans.

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Is Beauty Found in the Whites of the Eyes? 'Red Eyes' Associated With the Sad and Unattractive

Is Beauty Found in the Whites of the Eyes? 'Red Eyes' Associated With the Sad and Unattractive

  10:17:00 AM    Science Lover

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Beauty is said to be in the eye of the beholder, but a new study reveals that the reverse is also true; unattractiveness is in the eye of the beheld. Research published in Ethology finds that people with bloodshot eyes are considered sadder, unhealthier and less attractive than people whose eye whites are untinted, a cue which is uniquely human.

Eye images of a young adult female (left) and male (right). In the top images the sclera are white and in the bottom images the eyes have been digitally altered. In the study subjects rated 200 such images. (Credit: R.Provine)

"Red, 'bloodshot' eyes are prominent in medical diagnoses and in folk culture," said lead author Dr. Robert R. Provine from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. "We wanted to know if they influence the everyday behaviour and attitudes of those who view them, and if they trigger perceptions of attractiveness."

Bloodshot eyes occur when the small blood vessels of the usually transparent conjunctiva membrane on the surface of the eye become enlarged and congested with blood, giving a red tint to the underlying sclera, the "white" of the eyes. Redness of the sclera is believed to be a general but important sign of a person's emotional and biological state.

"If you met a friend with bloodshot eyes it may be unclear whether you should offer sympathy or medical assistance because red eyes may be a result of weeping, allergies or infectious diseases," said Provine. "Comments from our colleagues also suggest that red eyes prompt feelings of discomfort, ranging from increased monitoring of their own eyes to a hint of sympathetic tearing."

In the first empirical test to discover the perceptions and behavioural implications of red eyes Dr. Provine's team tested 208 volunteer students from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. The volunteers composed of 93 males and 115 females, with an average age of 20.6 years.

The volunteers were shown 200 images of eyes, half with clear white sclera and half with sclera tinted red by digital image processing. The volunteers were asked how sad, healthy or attractive the owners of the eyes were. The results revealed that people with reddened eyes appear sadder, less healthy, and less attractive compared to those with whiter, untinted eyes.

This is the first study to demonstrate that eye redness is perceived as a cue of emotion. Humans appear to be the only species which uses eye colouration as an indicator of either health or emotion. This is because other primates lack the background of white sclera necessary to make the reddened conjunctiva visible.

Sclera colour provides even casual, untrained observers with a quick estimate of the emotional and health status of an individual and the study's ratings of attractiveness suggest that this information does influence our behaviour.

"Standards of beauty vary across cultures, however, youth and healthiness are always in fashion because they are associated with reproductive fitness," said Provine. "Traits such as long, lustrous hair and smooth or scar-free skin are cues of youth and offer the beholder a partial record of health.

Now clear eye whites join these traits as a universal standard for the perception of beauty and a cue of health and reproductive fitness. Given this discovery, eye drops that 'get the red out' can be considered beauty aids."

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Nude-Colored Hospital Gowns Could Help Doctors Better Detect Hard-to-See Symptoms

Nude-Colored Hospital Gowns Could Help Doctors Better Detect Hard-to-See Symptoms

  10:28:00 AM    Science Lover

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Changing the hue of hospital gowns and bed sheets to match a patient's skin color could greatly enhance a physician's ability to detect cyanosis and other health-related skin color changes, according to a new study from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

A new study from Rensselaer Professor Mark Changizi 
suggests that changing the color of hospital gowns and 
bed sheets to match a patient’s skin color could greatly 
enhance the ability of a doctor or nurse to detect cyanosis 
and other health-related skin color changes. Perceived color 
on skin crucially depends on the background color. For example, 
the five small squares are identical in each of the above boxes. 
The change and gradation of the small squares, however, are 
much easier to identify in the box in the lower right-hand corner 
than the other hospital gown-colored boxes. 
(Credit: Mark Changizi / Rensselaer)

"If a doctor sees a patient, and then sees the patient again later, the doctor will have little or no idea whether the patient's skin has changed color," said neurobiologist and study leader Mark Changizi, assistant professor in the Department of Cognitive Science at Rensselaer. "Small shifts in skin color can have tremendous medical implications, and we have proposed a few simple tools -- skin-colored gowns, sheets, and adhesive tabs -- that could better arm physicians to make more accurate diagnoses."

Human eyes evolved to see in color largely for the purpose of detecting skin color changes such as when other people blush, Changizi said. These emotive skin color changes are extremely apparent because humans are hard-wired to notice them, and because the background skin color remains unchanged. The contrast against the nearby "baseline" skin color is what makes blushes so noticeable, he said.

Human skin also changes color as a result of hundreds of different medical conditions.

Pale skin, yellow skin, and cyanosis -- a potentially serious condition of bluish discoloration of the skin, lips, nails, and mucous membranes due to lack of oxygen in the blood -- are common symptoms. These color changes often go unnoticed, however, because they often involve a fairly universal shift in skin color, Changizi said. The observer in most instances will just assume the patient's current skin color is the baseline color. The challenge is that there is no color contrast against the baseline for the observer to pick up on, as the baseline skin color has changed altogether.

(To hear Changizi address the age-old question of why human veins look blue, see: http://blogger.rpi.edu/approach/2010/04/26/so-why-do-our-veins-look-blue/)

One potential solution, Changizi said, is for hospitals to outfit patients with gowns and sheets that are nude-colored and closely match their skin tone. Another solution is to develop adhesive tabs in a large palette of skin-toned colors. Physicians could then choose the tabs that most closely resemble the patient's skin tone, and place the tabs at several places on the skin of the patient. Both techniques should afford doctors and clinicians an easy and effective tool to record the skin tone of a patient, and see if it deviates -- even very slightly -- from its "baseline" color over time.

"If a patient's skin color shifts a small amount, the change will often be imperceptible to doctors and nurses," Changizi said. "If that patient is wearing a skin-colored gown or adhesive tab, however, and their skin uniformly changes slightly more blue, the initially 'invisible' gown or tab will appear bright and yellow to the observer."

While there are devices for specifically measuring the oxygen content of blood to help detect the onset of cyanosis, Changizi said the color recognition offered by the color-matched adhesive tabs and hospital gowns would be another tool to tip off the clinician that there is even a need to measure blood oxygen content. The color-matched tabs and gowns would also benefit many hospital departments, as well as international hospitals, which lack equipment to measure blood oxygen content, he said.

Changizi's findings are detailed in the paper "Harnessing color vision for visual oximetry in central cyanosis," published in the journal Medical Hypotheses. The complete paper may be viewed online at Changizi's Web site at: http://www.changizi.com/colorclinical.pdf.

Last year, Changizi's eye-opening book, The Vision Revolution: How the Latest Research Overturns Everything We Thought We Knew About Human Vision, hit store shelves. Published by BenBella Books, The Vision Revolution investigates why vision has evolved as it has over millions of years, and challenges theories that have dominated the scientific literature for decades.

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Synesthetic Experiences, Such as Seeing a Certain Color Associated With a Number, Are Real and Automatic

Synesthetic Experiences, Such as Seeing a Certain Color Associated With a Number, Are Real and Automatic

  9:57:00 AM    Science Lover

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For as many as 1 in 20 people, everyday experiences can elicit extra-ordinary associated sensations. The condition is known as synaesthesia and the most common form involves "seeing" colours when reading words and numbers. Many previous studies have shown that the brains of people who experience this phenomenon are different from those who do not and, in a new study reported in the February 2010 issue of Cortex, researchers from the University of Padova, Italy, have discovered that learning may also play an important role in synaesthesia and can lead to synaesthetic behaviour even when the person is not consciously aware of the experience.

A synaesthete for whom the number 2 is red will find it more difficult to name the ink colour of a green 2 than if the number is presented in red ink and will take longer to name the color. (Credit: iStockphoto)

Dr Ilaria Berteletti and colleagues tested an Italian synaesthete using a classic test, in which the participant was shown a series of numbers presented in different ink colours and asked to name those colours. A synaesthete for whom the number 2 is red will find it more difficult to name the ink colour of a green 2 than if the number is presented in red ink and will take longer to respond. This slowing of response is generally taken as evidence that synaesthetic experiences are real and automatic.

As predicted, the participant in this study was slower to name the colours of the presented Arabic digits when they did not match the colours that he had reported "seeing." Strikingly, the same slowing was observed when the numbers were presented as dots, such as dice patterns, even though the participant denied seeing any colours for these types of stimuli. The results suggest that the mere concept of a number, regardless of how it was presented visually (as an Arabic digit or pattern of dots), was enough to produce the marker of synaesthetic behaviour, even when the participant was not conscious of experiencing synaesthesia. According to co-author Dr Edward Hubbard, "a lifetime of synaesthetic experiences may lead to the creation of learned associations between different classes of stimuli" and that "conscious awareness of these associations is not necessary for them to affect behaviour."

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