Birren, Faber. Color and Human Response. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1978.
I found this book difficult to read and hard to understand. It skipped around often and mentioned names of scientists that I had never heard of before. The author gives many examples of experiments, but few explanations throughout the course of the book. The book is, I think, a survey of the development in color experiments and studies. I also found this book very boring as far as color was concerned. There were no color illustrations, except eight, located in the center of the book. This is odd considering the author is an authority on color and its effect on humans.
The book is broken down into chapters that describe different responses to color such as: Emotional, Visual, Biological, Psychic, and Aesthetic responses to color. The most interesting of them was the chapter, Emotional Response. This chapter explained the many different experiments conducted in the past to find the emotional response of color in animals and humans.
One example I found interesting was the experiments conducted by A. Metzger. His experiments showed that when colored light was thrown onto only one eye of an animal or human, the result was a "tonus" reaction from the corresponding side of the body to the eye. A tonus reaction is the same as a muscular tension. Muscle tension and relaxation are both state of tonus. He concluded that the influence of light was not only producing reactions in the muscular system, but was affecting the entire organism at a much deeper level.
Another experiment, conducted by H. Ehrenwald, concluded that not only the eyes, but the entire body is sensitive to different colors and intensities of light. When the face and neck of a blindfolded individual were illuminated from the side, the individual's arms turned toward red light and away from blue light. This experiment was also conducted on blind individuals with the same results. Tonus reflex seemed to go in two directions. Yellow-green had neutral results while orange-red had an attraction to the stimuli, and in contrast, green-blue had a withdrawal to the stimuli.
Another interesting thing the author mentioned was the effects of drugs on the eye and mind in seeing color. Birren focussed on the effects of LSD. Birren explains some cases of individuals seeing floating color, exploding color, and rainbows. These colors are normally connected to a feeling that can range from bliss to terror.
I find this interesting because during my last residency, I was able to sit in on a discussion of experiences with acid during the sixties (a little before my time). One of the people was able to explain in great detail how balls of pure color were dripping from the ceiling and falling to the floor and then swirling as if going down a drain. Another person's account was of pure colors exploding before their eyes. These colors coated the walls then ran down in streaks.
Although I found this book difficult to read and understand, I still found it interesting in it's approach to the mind and body's responses to color. Had the experiments been illustrated, their descriptions would have made more sense to me.
Faber Birren is the most widely read authority on color. He is an expert
on the scientific, historical, and artistic aspects of color. He has
devoted thirty years to the research of color and human response. He
has been consulted by major businesses and government departments and
has lectured both here and abroad. He has written hundreds of articles
and books on color to include: Creative Color, Color and Environment,
Principles of Color, Color Perception and Art, and The
Textile Colorist.