Colors are of particular interest to some behavioral psychologists, and it is widely known that colors affect many of our behavioral patterns, from food appreciation and hunger to mood patterns and even sleep. Industry long ago discovered that colors such as orange, brown, and yellow increased appreciation of food, using them extensively in many restaurants. Colors like blue and green have an opposite effect upon hunger and taste and arc rarely used in restaurants except for natural greens in plants used as decoration. While you would not find an appetite for green-tinted mashed potatoes, or blue bread, a tinge of caramel coloring is a common ingredient in many foods.
Brown gravy is brown not because of the preparation techniques involved but as the result of caramel coloring agents added to the mix. We know that colors also affect one’s psychology and feelings of trust and confidence. Most people are aware that jails or mental hospitals have experimented with painting walls pink to alter moods, while institutional walls are usually green, which is a color of trust and efficiency. While medical coats of white were once considered evidence of intelligence and trustworthiness, green “scrubs” became widely popular within the past fifty years not because of cost, but because the color inspired trust in patients.
A wide range of books on color and its psychological over¬ tones has been written and is available at most libraries. Color was also of interest to the USSR psi research teams, as they had discovered or developed several individuals whose extreme sensitivity gave them enhanced abilities to tactile (touch) recognition. These researchers discovered that individual colors, while taking their differences from reflected light, actually had an apparent temperature and in some experiments exhibited a variance in texture! Being careful to utilize similar matrix materials, only the hue itself being different, psi teams tested their theories numerous times. Red apparently felt not only hot or warm to the percipients, but also when fingertips were pushed across a given sample, a “rubbly” feeling was experienced as if grains of salt or sugar were mixed inside, while blue might feel completely smooth to the touch.
Science tells us that our index and second fingertips are the most sensitive and are usually used for fine differentiation. In the lab, psi researchers found that while one hand might be sensitive to these slight temperature differences, the other hand’s fingertips were most easily used to test these textural variances. It was not yet apparent to them, if indeed it is now that there really is a natural polarity in the receptivity of the body. To learn these techniques, you will need one or more enamel paint selector charts found at a hardware or paint store. Usually the colors offered will be in small squares or round shapes. Cut apart, they could be used as is or pasted to white index cards. Several charts will give you more than one sample of each color you intend to use.
