Investigating the Use of an Adjustment Task to Set Preferred Colour of Ambient Illumination

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Logadóttir, Ásta; Fotios, Steve A.; Christoffersen, Jens

2013-01-01

An experiment was carried out to examine the method of adjustment when determining user preferences for the colour appearance of ambient lighting. A booth was lit using luminaires containing an array of white and coloured light emitting diodes (LEDs), allowing continuous variation of correlated...... different CCT stimulus ranges within the available range. All three ranges led to significantly different results for preferred CCT: 3288, 3490 and 3671 K. The experimental results confirmed that stimulus range, anchor and adaptation time have significant effect on the preferred CCT determined using...

Preschoolers' Mathematical Play and Colour Preferences: A New Window into the Development of Gendered Beliefs about Math

Science.gov (United States)

Paz-Albo Prieto, Jesús; Cvencek, Dario; Herranz Llácer, Cristina V.; Hervás Escobar, Aránzazu; Meltzoff, Andrew N.

2017-01-01

In play, children often explore mathematical ideas that are vital for future learning. Children's play also reveals gender differences in both colour and toy preferences. The authors examined how gender-related colour preferences of 5-year-olds are related to preferences for math-specific games/toys and gendered beliefs about math. Spanish…

Male courtship preferences demonstrate discrimination against allopatric colour morphs in a cichlid fish.

Science.gov (United States)

Zoppoth, P; Koblmüller, S; Sefc, K M

2013-03-01

Whether premating isolation is achieved by male-specific, female-specific or sex-independent assortative preferences often depends on the underlying evolutionary processes. Here we test mate preferences of males presented with females of different allopatric colour variants of the cichlid fish Tropheus sp., a Lake Tanganyika endemic with rich geographical colour pattern variation, in which the strength of sexual isolation varies between populations. We conducted two-way mate choice experiments to compare behaviour of males of a red-bodied morph (population Moliro) towards females from their own population with behaviour towards females from four allopatric populations at different stages of phylogenetic and phenotypic divergence. Males courted same-population females significantly more intensely than females of other populations, and reduced their heteromorphic courtship efforts both with increasing genetic and increasing phenotypic distinctness of the females. In particular, females of a closely related red-bodied population received significantly more courtship than either genetically distinct, similarly coloured females ('Kirschfleck' morph) or genetically related, differently coloured females ('yellow-blotch' morph), both of which were courted similarly. Genetically and phenotypically distinct females (Tropheus polli) were not courted at all. Consistent with previous female-choice experiments, female courtship activity also decreased with increasing genetic distance from the males' population. Given successful experimental and natural introgression between colour morphs and the pervasive allopatry of related variants, we consider it unlikely that assortative preferences of both sexes were driven by direct selection during periods of secondary contact or, in turn, drove colour pattern differentiation in allopatry. Rather, we suggest that sexual isolation evolved as by-product of allopatric divergence. © 2012 The Authors. Journal of Evolutionary Biology © 2012

Gamut Volume Index: a color preference metric based on meta-analysis and optimized colour samples.

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Qiang; Huang, Zheng; Xiao, Kaida; Pointer, Michael R; Westland, Stephen; Luo, M Ronnier

2017-07-10

A novel metric named Gamut Volume Index (GVI) is proposed for evaluating the colour preference of lighting. This metric is based on the absolute gamut volume of optimized colour samples. The optimal colour set of the proposed metric was obtained by optimizing the weighted average correlation between the metric predictions and the subjective ratings for 8 psychophysical studies. The performance of 20 typical colour metrics was also investigated, which included colour difference based metrics, gamut based metrics, memory based metrics as well as combined metrics. It was found that the proposed GVI outperformed the existing counterparts, especially for the conditions where correlated colour temperatures differed.

Innate colour preference, individual learning and memory retention in the ant Camponotus blandus.

Science.gov (United States)

Yilmaz, Ayse; Dyer, Adrian G; Rössler, Wolfgang; Spaethe, Johannes

2017-09-15

Ants are a well-characterized insect model for the study of visual learning and orientation, but the extent to which colour vision is involved in these tasks remains unknown. We investigated the colour preference, learning and memory retention of Camponotus blandus foragers under controlled laboratory conditions. Our results show that C. blandus foragers exhibit a strong innate preference for ultraviolet (UV, 365 nm) over blue (450 nm) and green (528 nm) wavelengths. The ants can learn to discriminate 365 nm from either 528 nm or 450 nm, independent of intensity changes. However, they fail to discriminate between 450 nm and 528 nm. Modelling of putative colour spaces involving different numbers of photoreceptor types revealed that colour discrimination performance of individual ants is best explained by dichromacy, comprising a short-wavelength (UV) receptor with peak sensitivity at about 360 nm, and a long-wavelength receptor with peak sensitivity between 470 nm and 560 nm. Foragers trained to discriminate blue or green from UV light are able to retain the learned colour information in an early mid-term (e-MTM), late mid-term (l-MTM), early long-term (e-LTM) and late long-term (l-LTM) memory from where it can be retrieved after 1 h, 12 h, 24 h, 3 days and 7 days after training, indicating that colour learning may induce different memory phases in ants. Overall, our results show that ants can use chromatic information in a way that should promote efficient foraging in complex natural environments. © 2017. Published by The Company of Biologists Ltd.

Children’s preferences for gender-typed objects and colours: a commentary from gender research in Spain

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Raúl Navarro

2014-12-01

Full Text Available The main aim of this review was to examine international research on children’s preferences regarding gender-typed objects and colours. Firstly, we provide the theoretical background on gender development to elucidate the ways in which individuals can learn gender stereotypes and develop gender-related preferences. Secondly, we review international research on gender-related preferences. Thirdly, we analyse empirical studies on gender stereotypes in children conducted in Spain and Latin American countries, and show that although gender is a priority research area in these countries, studies on gender development in childhood are lacking. Thus, our aim was to identify a set of issues that provide insights into the development of gender-typed preferences, and that also suggest new directions for researchers in Spanish-speaking countries who are interested in clarifying the relationship between gender and children’s preferences for objects and colours.

The colours of CERN

CERN Multimedia

Laëtitia Pedroso

2010-01-01

Would you move into an office painted in a colour you hate? As we all know, taste in colour is individual. Thanks to the establishment of a new Painting Charter, conflicting opinions will be unified.   The four new paint colours established in the Painting Charter. There were many reasons behind the creation of the Painting Charter by the GS SEM Department. Unlike many companies, CERN has not until now regulated which colours can be used inside buildings. With many nationalities passing through CERN, tastes tend to differ: northern countries usually prefer colder colours, while southern countries seem to prefer warm colours. It’s not hard to imagine how quickly we could make a rainbow! In addition, whenever an office needs to be repainted, it can be difficult to find exactly the same colour. This results in entire walls being repainted, which increases the cost. If – by chance – the original colour is found, it could be out of stock. While ...

Determination of the Colour Preferences of 5th Grade Students in Relation to Gender

Science.gov (United States)

Uysal, Hüseyin

2016-01-01

The purpose of this research is to determine the colour preferences of 5th grade students in relation to the concept of gender. The study was conducted with the 19 5th grade students studying at Central District of Bartin Province in 2015 to 2016 academic year. Throughout the research, quantitative research method had been used while survey had…

Blue colour preference in honeybees distracts visual attention for learning closed shapes.

Science.gov (United States)

Morawetz, Linde; Svoboda, Alexander; Spaethe, Johannes; Dyer, Adrian G

2013-10-01

Spatial vision is an important cue for how honeybees (Apis mellifera) find flowers, and previous work has suggested that spatial learning in free-flying bees is exclusively mediated by achromatic input to the green photoreceptor channel. However, some data suggested that bees may be able to use alternative channels for shape processing, and recent work shows conditioning type and training length can significantly influence bee learning and cue use. We thus tested the honeybees' ability to discriminate between two closed shapes considering either absolute or differential conditioning, and using eight stimuli differing in their spectral characteristics. Consistent with previous work, green contrast enabled reliable shape learning for both types of conditioning, but surprisingly, we found that bees trained with appetitive-aversive differential conditioning could additionally use colour and/or UV contrast to enable shape discrimination. Interestingly, we found that a high blue contrast initially interferes with bee shape learning, probably due to the bees innate preference for blue colours, but with increasing experience bees can learn a variety of spectral and/or colour cues to facilitate spatial learning. Thus, the relationship between bee pollinators and the spatial and spectral cues that they use to find rewarding flowers appears to be a more rich visual environment than previously thought.

Colour preference of online consumers: a cross-cultural perspective

OpenAIRE

Broeder, Peter; Scherp, Evelien

2017-01-01

This study focuses on the influence of colour on the online purchasing intention of consumers. The literature review about colour associations showed that several factors could play a mediating role in the relationship between colour and purchasing intention. Two of these factors are emotion and trust, which have been shown in previous studies to have a relationship both with certain colours and with online purchasing intention. The aim of the study was to investigate the relationship between...

Colour preference of online consumers : a cross-cultural perspective

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Broeder, Peter; Scherp, Evelien

2017-01-01

This study focuses on the influence of colour on the online purchasing intention of consumers. The literature review about colour associations showed that several factors could play a mediating role in the relationship between colour and purchasing intention. Two of these factors are emotion and

Preferences by Rhagoletis indifferens (Dipt., Tephritidae) and non-target flies for rectangles of various yellow colours and fluorescence

Science.gov (United States)

Seven sticky rectangle traps of various yellow colours and fluorescence made of cardboard were field tested against western cherry fruit fly, Rhagoletis indifferens Curran, in paired trap preference experiments in Washington state, USA. Alpha Scents (proprietary paint), Fluorescent Yellow (aerosol ...

Segmenting memory colours

OpenAIRE

Fredembach, Clément; Estrada, Francisco; Süsstrunk, Sabine

2008-01-01

Memory colours refer to the colour of specific image classes that have the essential attribute of being perceived in a consistent manner by human observers. In colour correction or rendering tasks, this consistency implies that they have to be faithfully reproduced; their importance, in that respect, is greater than other regions in an image. Before these regions can be properly addressed, one must in general detect them. There are various schemes and attributes to do so, but the preferred me...

The role of pollinators in maintaining variation in flower colour in the Rocky Mountain columbine, Aquilegia coerulea.

Science.gov (United States)

Thairu, Margaret W; Brunet, Johanne

2015-05-01

Flower colour varies within and among populations of the Rocky Mountain columbine, Aquilegia coerulea, in conjunction with the abundance of its two major pollinators, hawkmoths and bumble-bees. This study seeks to understand whether the choice of flower colour by these major pollinators can help explain the variation in flower colour observed in A. coerulea populations. Dual choice assays and experimental arrays of blue and white flowers were used to determine the preference of hawkmoths and bumble-bees for flower colour. A test was made to determine whether a differential preference for flower colour, with bumble-bees preferring blue and hawkmoths white flowers, could explain the variation in flower colour. Whether a single pollinator could maintain a flower colour polymorphism was examined by testing to see if preference for a flower colour varied between day and dusk for hawkmoths and whether bumble-bees preferred novel or rare flower colour morphs. Hawkmoths preferred blue flowers under both day and dusk light conditions. Naïve bumble-bees preferred blue flowers but quickly learned to forage randomly on the two colour morphs when similar rewards were presented in the flowers. Bees quickly learned to associate a flower colour with a pollen reward. Prior experience affected the choice of flower colour by bees, but they did not preferentially visit novel flower colours or rare or common colour morphs. Differences in flower colour preference between the two major pollinators could not explain the variation in flower colour observed in A. coerulea. The preference of hawkmoths for flower colour did not change between day and dusk, and bumble-bees did not prefer a novel or a rare flower colour morph. The data therefore suggest that factors other than pollinators may be more likely to affect the flower colour variation observed in A. coerulea. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Annals of Botany Company 2015. This work is written by (a) US Government

Avoidance of achromatic colours by bees provides a private niche for hummingbirds.

Science.gov (United States)

Lunau, Klaus; Papiorek, Sarah; Eltz, Thomas; Sazima, Marlies

2011-05-01

That hummingbird-pollinated plants predominantly have red flowers has been known for decades, but well-investigated research studies are still rare. Preference tests have shown that hummingbirds do not have an innate preference for red colours. In addition, hummingbirds do not depend solely upon red flowers, because white-flowered hummingbird-pollinated plants are also common and temporarily abundant. Here we show that both white and red hummingbird-pollinated flowers differ from bee-pollinated flowers in their reflection properties for ultraviolet (UV) light. Hummingbird-pollinated red flowers are on average less UV reflective, and white hummingbird-pollinated flowers are more UV reflective than the same coloured bee-pollinated ones. In preference tests with artificial flowers, neotropical orchid bees prefer red UV-reflecting artificial flowers and white UV-nonreflecting flowers over red and white flowers with the opposite UV properties. By contrast, hummingbirds showed no preference for any colour in the same tests. Plotting floral colours and test stimuli into the honeybees' perceptual colour space suggests that the less attractive colours are achromatic for bees and therefore more difficult to detect against the background. This underlying colour preference in bees might provide hummingbirds with a private niche that is not attractive to bees.

Investigation of Culicoides spp. preference for light colour and ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Catches from white and green light were not found to differ significantly and the interaction between light colour and source was not found to be significant. Possible trap development and action thresholds are discussed. Keywords: Culicoides midge vector, African Horse Sickness, light colour, light emitting diodes ...

Patients' evaluation of shape, size and colour of solid dosage forms

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Overgaard, A.B.A.; Møller-Sonnergaard, J.; Christrup, L.L.

2001-01-01

Aim: The aim of the study was to investigate the swallow ability and the patient preferences of tablets and capsules with different sizes, shapes, surfaces and colours. Method: Patients were asked to swallow tablets with different surface and size, while tablets with different shape and colour were...... visually assessed. They were asked to indicate their preferences. Results: Gelatine capsules were found easier to swallow than tablets and coated tablets were found easier than uncoated normal tablets. The preferred colour was white both for tables and capsules, and the most disliked colours were purple...... tablets and brown capsules. The preferred shape was strongly arched circular for small tablets, oval for medium sized and big tablets. The difficulty to swallow tablets increased with increasing size. Conclusion: According to the results of this study, the ideal tablet is small and white, strongly arched...

An Experimental Study of Gender and Cultural Differences in Hue Preference

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Abdulrahman Saud Al-Rasheed

2015-01-01

Full Text Available This paper investigates the influence of both gender and culture on colour preference. Inspection of previous studies of colour preference reveals that many of these studies have poor control over the colours that are shown – the chromatic co-ordinates of colours are either not noted or the illuminant that colours are shown under is not controlled. This means that conclusions about colour preference are made using subjective terms for hue with little knowledge about the precise colours that were shown. However, recently, a new quantitative approach to investigating colour preference has been proposed, where there is no need to summarise colour preference using subjective terms for hue (Ling et al., 2007; Hurlbert & Ling, 2007. This approach aims to quantitatively summarise hue preference in terms of weights on the two channels or ‘cardinal axes’ underlying colour vision. Here I further extend Hurlbert and Ling’s (2007 approach to investigating colour preference, by replicating their study but with Arabic and English participants, and to answer several questions: First, are there cultural differences in the shape of the overall preference curve for English and Arabic participants? Second, are there gender differences in the shape of the overall preference curve for English and Arabic participants?. Thirty eight British and 71 Saudi Arabian (Arabic participants were compared. Results revealed that Arabic and English preference curves were found to differ, yet there was greater similarity for Arabic and English males than Arabic and English females. There was also a sex difference that was present for both Arabic and English participants. The male curve is fairly similar for both samples: peak-preference is in the blue-green region, and a preference minimum is in the red-pink/purple region. For Arabic females the preference peak appears to be in the red-pink region, whilst for English females it is shifted towards purple/blue-green.

Assessing the colour quality of LED sources

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jost-Boissard, S.; Avouac, P.; Fontoynont, Marc

2015-01-01

The CIE General Colour Rendering Index is currently the criterion used to describe and measure the colour-rendering properties of light sources. But over the past years, there has been increasing evidence of its limitations particularly its ability to predict the perceived colour quality of light...... sources and especially some LEDs. In this paper, several aspects of perceived colour quality are investigated using a side-by-side paired comparison method, and the following criteria: naturalness of fruits and vegetables, colourfulness of the Macbeth Color Checker chart, visual appreciation...... (attractiveness/ preference) and colour difference estimations for both visual scenes. Forty-five observers with normal colour vision evaluated nine light sources at 3000 K, and 36 observers evaluated eight light sources at 4000 K. Our results indicate that perceived colour differences are better dealt...

Colour Vision Impairment in Young Alcohol Consumers.

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Alódia Brasil

Full Text Available Alcohol consumption among young adults is widely accepted in modern society and may be the starting point for abusive use of alcohol at later stages of life. Chronic alcohol exposure can lead to visual function impairment. In the present study, we investigated the spatial luminance contrast sensitivity, colour arrangement ability, and colour discrimination thresholds on young adults that weekly consume alcoholic beverages without clinical concerns. Twenty-four young adults were evaluated by an ophthalmologist and performed three psychophysical tests to evaluate their vision functions. We estimated the spatial luminance contrast sensitivity function at 11 spatial frequencies ranging from 0.1 to 30 cycles/degree. No difference in contrast sensitivity was observed comparing alcohol consumers and control subjects. For the evaluation of colour vision, we used the Farnsworth-Munsell 100 hue test (FM 100 test to test subject's ability to perform a colour arrangement task and the Mollon-Reffin test (MR test to measure subject's colour discrimination thresholds. Alcohol consumers made more mistakes than controls in the FM100 test, and their mistakes were diffusely distributed in the FM colour space without any colour axis preference. Alcohol consumers also performed worse than controls in the MR test and had higher colour discrimination thresholds compared to controls around three different reference points of a perceptually homogeneous colour space, the CIE 1976 chromaticity diagram. There was no colour axis preference in the threshold elevation observed among alcoholic subjects. Young adult weekly alcohol consumers showed subclinical colour vision losses with preservation of spatial luminance contrast sensitivity. Adolescence and young adult age are periods of important neurological development and alcohol exposure during this period of life might be responsible for deficits in visual functions, especially colour vision that is very sensitive to

Grapheme-colour synaesthesia is associated with a distinct cognitive style

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Beat eMeier

2013-09-01

Full Text Available In this study we investigated whether synaesthesia is associated with a particular cognitive style. Cognitive style refers to preferred modes of information processing, such as a verbal style or a visual style. We reasoned that related to the enriched world of experiences created by synaesthesia, its association with enhanced verbal and visual memory, higher imagery and creativity, synaesthetes might show enhanced preference for a verbal as well as for a visual cognitive style compared to non-synaesthetes. In Study 1 we tested a large convenience sample of 1046 participants, who classified themselves as grapheme-colour, sound-colour, lexical-gustatory, sequence-space or as non-synaesthetes. To assess cognitive style, we used the revised verbalizer-visualizer questionnaire, which involves three independent cognitive style dimensions (verbal style, visual-spatial style, and vivid imagery style. The most important result was that those who reported grapheme-colour synaesthesia showed higher ratings on the verbal and vivid imagery style dimensions, but not on the visual-spatial style dimension. In Study 2 we replicated this finding in a laboratory study involving 24 grapheme-colour synaesthetes with objectively confirmed synaesthesia and a closely matched control group. Our results indicate that grapheme-colour synaesthetes prefer both a verbal and a specific visual cognitive style. We suggest that this enhanced preference, probably together with the greater ease to switch between a verbal and a vivid visual imagery style, may be related to cognitive advantages associated with grapheme colour synaesthesia such as enhanced memory performance and creativity.

From spectral information to animal colour vision: experiments and concepts.

Science.gov (United States)

Kelber, Almut; Osorio, Daniel

2010-06-07

Many animals use the spectral distribution of light to guide behaviour, but whether they have colour vision has been debated for over a century. Our strong subjective experience of colour and the fact that human vision is the paradigm for colour science inevitably raises the question of how we compare with other species. This article outlines four grades of 'colour vision' that can be related to the behavioural uses of spectral information, and perhaps to the underlying mechanisms. In the first, even without an (image-forming) eye, simple organisms can compare photoreceptor signals to locate a desired light environment. At the next grade, chromatic mechanisms along with spatial vision guide innate preferences for objects such as food or mates; this is sometimes described as wavelength-specific behaviour. Here, we compare the capabilities of di- and trichromatic vision, and ask why some animals have more than three spectral types of receptors. Behaviours guided by innate preferences are then distinguished from a grade that allows learning, in part because the ability to learn an arbitrary colour is evidence for a neural representation of colour. The fourth grade concerns colour appearance rather than colour difference: for instance, the distinction between hue and saturation, and colour categorization. These higher-level phenomena are essential to human colour perception but poorly known in animals, and we suggest how they can be studied. Finally, we observe that awareness of colour and colour qualia cannot be easily tested in animals.

Memory colour segmentation and classification using class-specific eigenregions

OpenAIRE

Fredembach, Clement; Estrada, Francisco; Süsstrunk, Sabine

2009-01-01

Memory colours refer to the colour of specific image regions that have the essential attribute of being perceived in a consistent manner by human observers. In colour correction-or rendering-tasks, this consistency implies that they have to be faithfully reproduced; their importance, in that respect, is greater than for other regions in an image. There are various schemes and attributes to detect memory colours, but the preferred method remains to segment the images into meaningful regions, a...

Sphagnum mosses as a microhabitat for invertebrates in acidified lakes and the colour adaptation and substrate preference in Leucorrhinia dubia (Odonata, Anisoptera)

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Henrikson, B.-I. (Dept. of Zoology, Sect. of Animal Ecology, Univ. of Goeteborg, Goeteborg (Sweden))

1993-01-01

The increase of peat mosses, Sphagnum spp., in acidified lakes leads to a changed microhabitat structure for benthic invertebrates. The importance of this change was investigated for some benthic invertebrates. Comparisons between quantitative samples of Sphagnum and debris within the acidified Lake Stora Haestevatten, in the Lake Gaardsjoen catchment of SW Sweden, showed significantly higher abundances of Chironomidae, Ceratopogonidae, Odonata, Trichoptera, Cladocera and Argyroneta aquatica (Araneae) in Sphagnum. For chironomidae and Cladocera the differences were tenfold. Special reference was made to the libellulid Leucorrhinia dubia which is common in acid lakes. In a laboratory test, late instar larvae of L. dubia were shown to change colour to correspond to the brown and green colour of Sphagnum. This result was completed with a field test where larvae of L. dubia were significantly more common in Sphagnum of the same colour as the larvae. The ability to change colour may have an adaptive value when coexisting with visual predators. Small larvae were more prevalent in Sphagnum and they also showed a preference for this substrate in the laboratory test. Laboratory tests showed mediumsized larvae preferred Sphagnum. Larvae of L. dubia were more successful as predators on Asellus aquaticus in Sphagnum substrate than in debris in the laboratory test. Laboratory predation tests with notonecta glauca, Corixa dentipes, Acilius sulcatus, Hyphydrus ovatus and L. dubia showed that they could all feed on larvae of L. dubia. The complex habitat structure of Sphagnum is probably the reason for the high abundance of invertebrates since it may serve as both shelter against predation and as foraging sites. it is probably important as a key habitat for young instars of, for example, L. dubia. In lakes with large Sphagnum mats, L. dubia can coexist with fish. The expansion of Sphagnum due to acidification will probably benefit many acid-tolerant invertebrate species. (au)

Skin-Tone Preferences and Self-Representation in Hispanic Children

Science.gov (United States)

Kaufman, Erin A.; Wiese, Deborah L.

2012-01-01

Skin-tone preferences and colourism within Hispanic children have been largely unexamined in the psychological literature. The objectives of the current study were to investigate Hispanic children's skin-tone preferences and the effect of assessor race and ethnicity on those preferences. To carry out the study, Clark and Clark's colouring task was…

The role of fruit colour in avian fruit selection: an objective approach

OpenAIRE

Schmidt, Veronika

2002-01-01

To explain the prevalence of red and black fruits in fruit colour patterns, the following hypotheses were addressed, using reflectance spectra of fruits as colour assessment: 1. Birds prefer red and black fruits, or these hues are cues for food recognition in migrants or fledglings. 2. Fruit colours correlate with chemical compounds. 3. Fruit colours serve as advertisement for ripe fruits. Reflectance spectra are the most objective colour assessment currently possible. Birds show no colour pr...

The effect of colour on the perception of taste, quality and preference ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

This study utilized twenty four (24) psychology students of Covenant University as participants. The colour of the fruit drink served as the independent variable while ... significant difference in the association of colour with taste based on gender ...

Sensory evaluation of meat colour using photographs

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Gianluigi Destefanis

2010-01-01

Full Text Available Five m. longissimus thoracis steaks from different breeds, purchased at retail, were cut into samples and simultaneously photographed under standard shooting conditions. The first photo was taken on samples just arrived at the laboratory, the second one on a freshly cut surface after blooming. Two consumer panels evaluated beef colour using respectively photo 1 and photo 2. Each consumer was asked to rank samples in order of preference. Rank sums were evaluated with Fridman’s test. Immediately after taking the photos, colour was measured with a colorimeter. Regarding photo 1, consumers were able to discriminate one sample, the worst, from all the others. Concerning photo 2, consumers discriminated the worst sample, as in photo 1, but also the best one. Therefore a more accurate colour evaluation can be obtained if the assessment is carried out on a fresh cut surface after blooming. In general consumers preferred samples with high lightness and a relatively high yellowness. The sensory evaluation of meat colour using photographs is a promising tool to overcome the difficulties when the meat is directly evaluated. But it is very important to standardize the shooting conditions to obtain a true reproduction of the meat. For this purpose the use of a colour target is useful to check the validity of the adopted parameters.

Does Gender Influence Colour Choice in the Treatment of Visual Stress?

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Miriam L Conway

Full Text Available Visual Stress (VS is a condition in which words appear blurred, in motion, or otherwise distorted when reading. Some people diagnosed with VS find that viewing black text on white paper through coloured overlays or precision tinted lenses (PTLs reduces symptoms attributed to VS. The aim of the present study is to determine whether the choice of colour of overlays or PTLs is influenced by a patient's gender.Records of all patients attending a VS assessment in two optometry practices between 2009 and 2014 were reviewed retrospectively. Patients who reported a significant and consistent reduction in symptoms with either overlay and or PTL were included in the analysis. Overlays and PTLs were categorized as stereotypical male, female or neutral colours based on gender preferences as described in the literature. Chi-square analysis was carried out to determine whether gender (across all ages or within age groups was associated with overlay or PTL colour choice.279 patients (133 males and 146 females, mean age 17 years consistently showed a reduction in symptoms with an overlay and were included. Chi-square analysis revealed no significant association between the colour of overlay chosen and male or female gender (Chi-square 0.788, p = 0.674. 244 patients (120 males and 124 females, mean age 24.5 years consistently showed a reduction in symptoms with PTLs and were included. Chi-square analysis revealed a significant association between stereotypical male/female/neutral colours of PTLs chosen and male/female gender (Chi-square 6.46, p = 0.040. More males preferred stereotypical male colour PTLs including blue and green while more females preferred stereotypical female colour PTLs including pink and purple.For some VS patients, the choice of PTL colour is influenced not only by the alleviation of symptoms but also by other non-visual factors such as gender.

Does Gender Influence Colour Choice in the Treatment of Visual Stress?

Science.gov (United States)

Conway, Miriam L; Evans, Bruce J W; Evans, Josephine C; Suttle, Catherine M

2016-01-01

Visual Stress (VS) is a condition in which words appear blurred, in motion, or otherwise distorted when reading. Some people diagnosed with VS find that viewing black text on white paper through coloured overlays or precision tinted lenses (PTLs) reduces symptoms attributed to VS. The aim of the present study is to determine whether the choice of colour of overlays or PTLs is influenced by a patient's gender. Records of all patients attending a VS assessment in two optometry practices between 2009 and 2014 were reviewed retrospectively. Patients who reported a significant and consistent reduction in symptoms with either overlay and or PTL were included in the analysis. Overlays and PTLs were categorized as stereotypical male, female or neutral colours based on gender preferences as described in the literature. Chi-square analysis was carried out to determine whether gender (across all ages or within age groups) was associated with overlay or PTL colour choice. 279 patients (133 males and 146 females, mean age 17 years) consistently showed a reduction in symptoms with an overlay and were included. Chi-square analysis revealed no significant association between the colour of overlay chosen and male or female gender (Chi-square 0.788, p = 0.674). 244 patients (120 males and 124 females, mean age 24.5 years) consistently showed a reduction in symptoms with PTLs and were included. Chi-square analysis revealed a significant association between stereotypical male/female/neutral colours of PTLs chosen and male/female gender (Chi-square 6.46, p = 0.040). More males preferred stereotypical male colour PTLs including blue and green while more females preferred stereotypical female colour PTLs including pink and purple. For some VS patients, the choice of PTL colour is influenced not only by the alleviation of symptoms but also by other non-visual factors such as gender.

Colour attitude test: the possibility of application in sociology

OpenAIRE

V P Tkach

2009-01-01

The article provides the analysis of the cognitive potential of colour tests in sociology. Nowadays colour tests which are extensively used in the framework of psychology find practically no application in sociological research due to a number of their peculiarities. However, it should be recognized that such tests as colour attitude test demonstrate the richest cognitive potential for the identification of value preferences and social attitudes system at the level of the unconscious of vario...

Colour From the Perspective of Hadith: an Overview

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Zainan Nazri Mohd Khairul Nizam

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Colour is mentioned a few times in the Prophetic Traditions, signifying its values and symbolic representation for the people. The Prophet PBUH highlighted the significance of certain colours by describing his preferred colours for his clothing and he also approved or discouraged the usage of certain colours. Among the colours that are specifically mentioned and found in the hadith are white, red, green, black and yellow. These colours give different connotations as they were used in the Prophet’s attires during battles and other occasions; and some bring about specific understanding, as stated by the Prophet PBUH. Interestingly, the use of certain colours as found in the hadith corresponds to that mentioned in the Qur’an. Thus, this paper will observe the discussion among Muhaddithin regarding to the topic of colours in terms of its definition, function, significance and impact on the human life. The variety of meaning and understanding of colours according to different perspectives and cultures will also be discussed. The implications of using specific colours psychologically and scientifically will also be exposed in order to discover the connection between colours in the Prophetic Traditions and in our contemporary life.

Evaluation of pepper spent as an egg yolk colouring agent in the ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Evaluation of pepper spent as an egg yolk colouring agent in the diet of white leghorn layers. ... Evaluation was based on egg yolk colour intensity measured based on Roche colour fan scores, potassium dichromate grades and consumer preference scores on raw, boiled and fried egg samples. Egg production, feed ...

Teaching Individuals with Profound Multiple Disabilities to Access Preferred Stimuli with Multiple Microswitches

Science.gov (United States)

Tam, Gee May; Phillips, Katrina J.; Mudford, Oliver C.

2011-01-01

We replicated and extended previous research on microswitch facilitated choice making by individuals with profound multiple disabilities. Following an assessment of stimulus preferences, we taught 6 adults with profound multiple disabilities to emit 2 different responses to activate highly preferred stimuli. All participants learnt to activate…

Colour attitude test: the possibility of application in sociology

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

V P Tkach

2009-09-01

Full Text Available The article provides the analysis of the cognitive potential of colour tests in sociology. Nowadays colour tests which are extensively used in the framework of psychology find practically no application in sociological research due to a number of their peculiarities. However, it should be recognized that such tests as colour attitude test demonstrate the richest cognitive potential for the identification of value preferences and social attitudes system at the level of the unconscious of various social groups. The methodological experiment carried out by the author has proved demonstratively the feasibility and high efficiency of colour attitude tests application in the framework of empirical sociological research.

Effects of memory colour on colour constancy for unknown coloured objects.

Science.gov (United States)

Granzier, Jeroen J M; Gegenfurtner, Karl R

2012-01-01

The perception of an object's colour remains constant despite large variations in the chromaticity of the illumination-colour constancy. Hering suggested that memory colours, the typical colours of objects, could help in estimating the illuminant's colour and therefore be an important factor in establishing colour constancy. Here we test whether the presence of objects with diagnostical colours (fruits, vegetables, etc) within a scene influence colour constancy for unknown coloured objects in the scene. Subjects matched one of four Munsell papers placed in a scene illuminated under either a reddish or a greenish lamp with the Munsell book of colour illuminated by a neutral lamp. The Munsell papers were embedded in four different scenes-one scene containing diagnostically coloured objects, one scene containing incongruent coloured objects, a third scene with geometrical objects of the same colour as the diagnostically coloured objects, and one scene containing non-diagnostically coloured objects (eg, a yellow coffee mug). All objects were placed against a black background. Colour constancy was on average significantly higher for the scene containing the diagnostically coloured objects compared with the other scenes tested. We conclude that the colours of familiar objects help in obtaining colour constancy for unknown objects.

Effects of Memory Colour on Colour Constancy for Unknown Coloured Objects

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jeroen J M Granzier

2012-04-01

Full Text Available The perception of an object's colour remains constant despite large variations in the chromaticity of the illumination—colour constancy. Hering suggested that memory colours, the typical colours of objects, could help in estimating the illuminant's colour and therefore be an important factor in establishing colour constancy. Here we test whether the presence of objects with diagnostical colours (fruits, vegetables, etc within a scene influence colour constancy for unknown coloured objects in the scene. Subjects matched one of four Munsell papers placed in a scene illuminated under either a reddish or a greenish lamp with the Munsell book of colour illuminated by a neutral lamp. The Munsell papers were embedded in four different scenes—one scene containing diagnostically coloured objects, one scene containing incongruent coloured objects, a third scene with geometrical objects of the same colour as the diagnostically coloured objects, and one scene containing non-diagnostically coloured objects (eg, a yellow coffee mug. All objects were placed against a black background. Colour constancy was on average significantly higher for the scene containing the diagnostically coloured objects compared with the other scenes tested. We conclude that the colours of familiar objects help in obtaining colour constancy for unknown objects.

Effects of memory colour on colour constancy for unknown coloured objects

OpenAIRE

Granzier, Jeroen J M; Gegenfurtner, Karl R

2012-01-01

The perception of an object's colour remains constant despite large variations in the chromaticity of the illumination—colour constancy. Hering suggested that memory colours, the typical colours of objects, could help in estimating the illuminant's colour and therefore be an important factor in establishing colour constancy. Here we test whether the presence of objects with diagnostical colours (fruits, vegetables, etc) within a scene influence colour constancy for unknown coloured objects in...

The Effect of Affective Characterizations on the Use of Size and Colour in Drawings Produced by Children in the Absence of a Model

Science.gov (United States)

Burkitt, Esther; Barrett, Martyn; Davis, Alyson

2004-01-01

Previous studies have revealed that children increase the size of drawings of topics about which they feel positively and use their most preferred colours for colouring in these drawings, and decrease the size of drawings of topics about which they feel negatively and use their least preferred colours for colouring in these drawings. However,…

An analysis of basic design students' intuitive and analytic attitudes in colour decisions

OpenAIRE

Akbay, Saadet

2003-01-01

Cataloged from PDF version of article. Colour can be defined as a subjective preference, an experience and an intuitive sense, or as a theory and a science. Design education regards colour as a scientific theory by means of reasoning. The design students’ colour decisions, values, and intuitive attitudes are aimed to be developed and cultivated by colour education in basic design, and supported and equipped by knowledge towards analytical attitudes. Thus, the major concern o...

Colour polymorphic lures exploit innate preferences for spectral versus luminance cues in dipteran prey.

Science.gov (United States)

White, Thomas E; Kemp, Darrell J

2017-08-14

Theory predicts that colour polymorphism may be favored by variation in the visual context under which signals are perceived. The context encompasses all environmental determinants of light availability and propagation, but also the dynamics of perception in receivers. Color vision involves the neural separation of information into spectral versus luminance channels, which often differentially guide specific tasks. Here we explicitly tested whether this discrete perceptual basis contributes to the maintenance of polymorphism in a prey-luring system. The orb-weaving spider Gasteracantha fornicata is known to attract a broad community of primarily dipteran prey due to their conspicuous banded dorsal signal. They occur in two morphs ("white" and "yellow") which should, respectively, generate greater luminance and color contrast in the dipteran eye. Given that arthropods often rely upon luminance-versus-spectral cues for relatively small-versus-large stimulus detection, we predicted a switch in relative attractiveness among morphs according to apparent spider size. Our experimental tests used colour-naïve individuals of two known prey species (Drosophila hydei and Musca domestica) in replicate Y-maze choice trials designed to manipulate the apparent size of spider models via the distance at which they are viewed. Initial trials confirmed that flies were attracted to each G. fornicata morph in single presentations. When given a simultaneous choice between morphs against a viewing background typical of those encountered in nature, flies exhibited no preference regardless of the visual angle subtended by models. However, when backgrounds were adjusted to nearer the extremes of those of each morph in the wild, flies were more attracted by white morphs when presented at longer range (consistent with a reliance on achromatic cues), yet were unbiased in their close-range choice. While not fully consistent with predictions (given the absence of a differential preference for

Food habits and food preferences of white and coloured South ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

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ISSN 0378-5254 Journal of Family Ecology and Consumer Sciences, Vol 29, 2001. 1. Food habits and ..... familiar to the majority (>88%) of white and coloured participants and ...... ROLLS, BJ. 1988. Food beliefs and food choices in adoles-.

Physicochemical and physiological basis of dichromatic colour

Science.gov (United States)

Kreft, Samo; Kreft, Marko

2007-11-01

Out of three perceptual characteristics of the colour of any substance, the hue depends mostly on the spectral properties of a substance, while the brightness and saturation depend also on the concentration of a substance and its thickness. Here, we report that evident change of the hue of the colour (i.e., from green to red) is due to a change in concentration or the thickness of a layer in some exceptional substances such as pumpkin seed oil or an aqueous solution of bromophenol blue. In some regions of Central Europe, salad dressing is made preferably with the pumpkin seed oil, which has a strong characteristic nut-like taste and remarkable properties of the colour: it appears red in a bottle, but green when served as a salad dressing. The colour of the pumpkin seed oil was previously described as brownish yellow, dark green, dark green to red ochre or dark reddish brown to light yellow green. We elucidated the physicochemical and physiological basis of such dichromatism by Beer-Lambert law and by the characteristics of human colour perception. Our concept was corroborated by the outcome of calculations of colour from spectral properties using colour matching functions. We found that dichromatism is observed if the absorption spectrum of any substance has at least two local minima: one wide but shallow and one narrow but deep local minimum.

Background matching and evolution of cryptic colours of selected passerines in deciduous woodlands

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bursell, Jens; Dyck, Jan

2003-01-01

Most drab plumage colours are probably cryptic. Crypsis (camouflage) occurs when the colour of a significant part of the plumage is similar to the colour of a significant part of the background against which the prey bird may be detected by a potential predator. In this study we compare back...... colours of tits and associated species with colour backgrounds in their habitat during a four-month period in winter. We test the hypothesis that in some of the species back colour is similar to one of the background colours. In addition to colour backgrounds, microhabitats and tree species were also...... recorded. Great Tit Parus major, Nuthatch Sitta europea and Treecreeper Certhia familiaris showed distinct preferences for different colour backgrounds, reflecting their choice of microhabitats and tree species. The data suggest that in the Great Tit the olivemoss green back colour has evolved as crypsis...

Do pig farmers preferences bias consumer choice for pork? Response to critique of the pork preference studies.

Science.gov (United States)

Ngapo, T M; Fortin, J; Martin, J-F

2010-08-01

Québec consumers and pig farmers selected their preferred chop from 16 images that had been modified to give 16 treatments: two levels each of fat cover, colour, marbling and drip. The selection process was repeated eight times from different groups of chops. Fat cover (47% preferred lean) and colour (44%, light red) were the most frequently chosen characteristics. No significant differences were observed between farmers and consumers preferences (chi(2) test, Ppreference-based clusters were found; 41% preferring dark red, lean meat and 59%, light red, lean meat, without marbling or drip. Choice-based clusters showed no significant links with either individual socio-demographic items, including pig farmer as occupation, or the three socio-demographic-based clusters observed (chi(2) test, Pconsumers and, therefore, inclusion of pig farmers in consumer panels would not bias consumer choice for pork. Crown Copyright (c) 2010. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Effects of Alkali Concentration and Conching Temperature on Flavour, Hardness and Colour of Chocolate

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Misnawi Jati

2006-05-01

Full Text Available Alkalization is an addition of alkali into cocoa mass to improve product quality in terms of flavour and colour appearance. Sodium bicarbonate and potassium bicarbonate are usual to be added into cocoa cotyledon prior to roasting. A study has been carried out to evaluate the effects of alkalization proceeded upon conching on chocolate sensory properties, hardness and colour. Re sponse Surface Methodology design at alkali concentrations of 1—15 g kg -1 and conching temperature of 40—80 oC have been used in the study. Parameters evaluated were sensory properties, particle size, hardness and colour. Results of the study showed that alkali concentration significantly influenced aroma, overall preference, particle size and hardness; meanwhile, conching temperature showed significant influence on aroma, taste, appearance, overall preference and texture of chocolate. Alkali concentration and conching temperature showed interactively influence on aroma and overall preference. A good quality of chocolate could be found at the alkali concentration of 8—15 g kg -1 and conching temperature of 74—80 oC. Key words: cocoa bean, chocolate, flavour, conching, alkalization, colour, particle size, texture.

Memory colours affect colour appearance.

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Witzel, Christoph; Olkkonen, Maria; Gegenfurtner, Karl R

2016-01-01

Memory colour effects show that colour perception is affected by memory and prior knowledge and hence by cognition. None of Firestone & Scholl's (F&S's) potential pitfalls apply to our work on memory colours. We present a Bayesian model of colour appearance to illustrate that an interaction between perception and memory is plausible from the perspective of vision science.

Performance of different colour quality metrics proposed to CIE TC 1-91

OpenAIRE

Bhusal, Pramod; Dangol, Rajendra

2017-01-01

The main aim of the article is to find out the performance of different metrics proposed to CIE TC 1-91. Currently, six different indexes have been proposed to CIE TC 1-91: Colour Quality Scale (CQS), Feeling of Contrast Index (FCI), Memory colour rendering index (MCRI), Preference of skin (PS), Relative gamut area index (RGAI) and Illuminating Engineering society Method for evaluating light source colour rendition (IES TM-30). The evaluation and analysis are based on previously conducted exp...

[Patient-related color preference and color design in the hospital].

Science.gov (United States)

Schuschke, G; Christiansen, H

1994-06-01

Colour-physiological studies involving volunteers and colour-psychological interviewing of patients with varied diagnoses revealed that, currently, no compelling scientific reasons can be given for coloration in the hospital. Interviewing 68 patients from a number of clinics on the coloration of sick-rooms yielded the following preferred colours, irrespective of the patients' classing into groups by various criteria: Light colours were consistently preferred for all objects such as ceiling, walls, floor, curtains, furniture, and bed linen. It should be emphasized that even white was a desirable colour for ceilings and bed linen. Beige was found to rank first for walls, floors, curtains, and furniture, whereas the colours of wood and grey shared the second rank for floors and furniture. Green and pink ranked second for bed linen. White and green ranked second for walls and curtains, respectively. In view of the heterogeneity, the findings may not be converted into an absolute just as the recommendations by other workers. Still, the patients' wish should be given priority over decreed recommendations by experts when basic considerations of illumination (reflectance!) are allowed for in the particular overall colour design project.

Lessons Learnt on Rain Forest Management for Wood Production in ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

The study was carried out with the aim of analyzing and establishing what lessons have been learnt from positive and negative experiences of various initiatives, projects and programmes aiming at sustainable management, use and conservation of rain forests in Sub-Saharan Africa. The lessons learnt from the case ...

Botanical origin, colour, granulation, and sensory properties of the Harenna forest honey, Bale, Ethiopia.

Science.gov (United States)

Belay, Abera; Solomon, W K; Bultossa, Geremew; Adgaba, Nuru; Melaku, Samuel

2015-01-15

In this study, the Harenna forest honey samples were investigated with respect to their botanical origin, granulation, colour and sensory properties. Sixteen honey samples were collected from two representative sites (Chiri, C, and Wabero, W) using random sampling techniques. Botanical origin was investigated using qualitative pollen analysis by counting 500 pollen grains using harmonised methods of melissopalynology. Granulation, colour, and sensory properties of honey were determined by visual observation, using Pfund grader, acceptability and preference tests, respectively. Honey samples were also tested for tetracycline. Honey obtained from Wabero is originated dominantly from Syzygium guineense while Chiri was multifloral. The colour of honey ranged from 34 to 85 with light amber and extra light amber colours. The honey samples were free from tetracycline residue and form coarse granules slowly. Significant variation (p>0.05) in sensory preference and acceptability tests not observed due to hive types and locations. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Intrasexual competition facilitates the evolution of alternative mating strategies in a colour polymorphic fish.

Science.gov (United States)

Hurtado-Gonzales, Jorge L; Uy, J Albert C

2010-12-23

Intense competition for access to females can lead to males exploiting different components of sexual selection, and result in the evolution of alternative mating strategies (AMSs). Males of Poecilia parae, a colour polymorphic fish, exhibit five distinct phenotypes: drab-coloured (immaculata), striped (parae), structural-coloured (blue) and carotenoid-based red and yellow morphs. Previous work indicates that immaculata males employ a sneaker strategy, whereas the red and yellow morphs exploit female preferences for carotenoid-based colours. Mating strategies favouring the maintenance of the other morphs remain to be determined. Here, we report the role of agonistic male-male interactions in influencing female mating preferences and male mating success, and in facilitating the evolution of AMSs. Our study reveals variation in aggressiveness among P. parae morphs during indirect and direct interactions with sexually receptive females. Two morphs, parae and yellow, use aggression to enhance their mating success (i.e., number of copulations) by 1) directly monopolizing access to females, and 2) modifying female preferences after winning agonistic encounters. Conversely, we found that the success of the drab-coloured immaculata morph, which specializes in a sneak copulation strategy, relies in its ability to circumvent both male aggression and female choice when facing all but yellow males. Strong directional selection is expected to deplete genetic variation, yet many species show striking genetically-based polymorphisms. Most studies evoke frequency dependent selection to explain the persistence of such variation. Consistent with a growing body of evidence, our findings suggest that a complex form of balancing selection may alternatively explain the evolution and maintenance of AMSs in a colour polymorphic fish. In particular, this study demonstrates that intrasexual competition results in phenotypically distinct males exhibiting clear differences in their levels of

Intrasexual competition facilitates the evolution of alternative mating strategies in a colour polymorphic fish

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Uy J Albert C

2010-12-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Intense competition for access to females can lead to males exploiting different components of sexual selection, and result in the evolution of alternative mating strategies (AMSs. Males of Poecilia parae, a colour polymorphic fish, exhibit five distinct phenotypes: drab-coloured (immaculata, striped (parae, structural-coloured (blue and carotenoid-based red and yellow morphs. Previous work indicates that immaculata males employ a sneaker strategy, whereas the red and yellow morphs exploit female preferences for carotenoid-based colours. Mating strategies favouring the maintenance of the other morphs remain to be determined. Here, we report the role of agonistic male-male interactions in influencing female mating preferences and male mating success, and in facilitating the evolution of AMSs. Results Our study reveals variation in aggressiveness among P. parae morphs during indirect and direct interactions with sexually receptive females. Two morphs, parae and yellow, use aggression to enhance their mating success (i.e., number of copulations by 1 directly monopolizing access to females, and 2 modifying female preferences after winning agonistic encounters. Conversely, we found that the success of the drab-coloured immaculata morph, which specializes in a sneak copulation strategy, relies in its ability to circumvent both male aggression and female choice when facing all but yellow males. Conclusions Strong directional selection is expected to deplete genetic variation, yet many species show striking genetically-based polymorphisms. Most studies evoke frequency dependent selection to explain the persistence of such variation. Consistent with a growing body of evidence, our findings suggest that a complex form of balancing selection may alternatively explain the evolution and maintenance of AMSs in a colour polymorphic fish. In particular, this study demonstrates that intrasexual competition results in phenotypically distinct

International preferences for pork appearance: I. Consumer choices

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Ngapo, T.M.; Martin, J.F.; Dransfield, E.

2007-01-01

Using the same digital photographs of pork chops varying systematically in fat cover, colour, marbling and drip, 12,590 consumers from 23 countries each selected their preferred chop. Preferences differed considerably between individuals, between groups and between countries when comparing

The effect of storage on the colour of paprika powders with added oleoresin

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Horváth Zs. H.

2016-12-01

Full Text Available The use of natural food colours is preferred to that of arti­ficial dyestuffs for modern alimentary purposes. Paprika is a spice plant grown and consumed in considerable quantities worldwide and also used as a natural food colour, so the colouring power of powders is very important. The colour of paprika powder is highly relevant too because the consumer concludes its colouring power based on its colour. The colouring power of paprika powders is directly determined by the quality and quantity of the colouring agent of paprika. The paprika oleoresin, that is an oil soluble extract from the fruits of Capsicum Annum Linn or Capsicum Frutescens, is suitable to raise the colour agent content of paprika powders. We investigated how the colour and the characteristics of paprika powder samples with added oleoresin change in the course of storage. The colour agent content of 7 different quality powders was increased with 7-75% using oleoresin. The initial colour agent content of samples changed between 41 and 169 ASTA units. The powders were made from Chinese, Peruvian, and Hungarian paprika. Colour measurements were performed with a HunterLab MiniScan colour-measuring instrument. The CIELab colour system was used for colour characterization. The colour agent content and the colour coordinates of samples were measured throughout 9 months. The decrease of colour agent con­tent varied between 22 and 51 percent, while the average reduction was 33 percent. The quantity of added oleoresin did not influence the colour agent content decrease significantly.

Jewelled spiders manipulate colour-lure geometry to deceive prey.

Science.gov (United States)

White, Thomas E

2017-03-01

Selection is expected to favour the evolution of efficacy in visual communication. This extends to deceptive systems, and predicts functional links between the structure of visual signals and their behavioural presentation. Work to date has primarily focused on colour, however, thereby understating the multicomponent nature of visual signals. Here I examined the relationship between signal structure, presentation behaviour, and efficacy in the context of colour-based prey luring. I used the polymorphic orb-web spider Gasteracantha fornicata , whose yellow- or white-and-black striped dorsal colours have been broadly implicated in prey attraction. In a manipulative assay, I found that spiders actively control the orientation of their conspicuous banded signals in the web, with a distinct preference for near-diagonal bearings. Further field-based study identified a predictive relationship between pattern orientation and prey interception rates, with a local maximum at the spiders' preferred orientation. There were no morph-specific effects on capture success, either singularly or via an interaction with pattern orientation. These results reveal a dynamic element in a traditionally 'static' signalling context, and imply differential functions for chromatic and geometric signal components across visual contexts. More broadly, they underscore how multicomponent signal designs and display behaviours may coevolve to enhance efficacy in visual deception. © 2017 The Author(s).

Colour Terms Affect Detection of Colour and Colour-Associated Objects Suppressed from Visual Awareness

Science.gov (United States)

Forder, Lewis; Taylor, Olivia; Mankin, Helen; Scott, Ryan B.; Franklin, Anna

2016-01-01

The idea that language can affect how we see the world continues to create controversy. A potentially important study in this field has shown that when an object is suppressed from visual awareness using continuous flash suppression (a form of binocular rivalry), detection of the object is differently affected by a preceding word prime depending on whether the prime matches or does not match the object. This may suggest that language can affect early stages of vision. We replicated this paradigm and further investigated whether colour terms likewise influence the detection of colours or colour-associated object images suppressed from visual awareness by continuous flash suppression. This method presents rapidly changing visual noise to one eye while the target stimulus is presented to the other. It has been shown to delay conscious perception of a target for up to several minutes. In Experiment 1 we presented greyscale photos of objects. They were either preceded by a congruent object label, an incongruent label, or white noise. Detection sensitivity (d’) and hit rates were significantly poorer for suppressed objects preceded by an incongruent label compared to a congruent label or noise. In Experiment 2, targets were coloured discs preceded by a colour term. Detection sensitivity was significantly worse for suppressed colour patches preceded by an incongruent colour term as compared to a congruent term or white noise. In Experiment 3 targets were suppressed greyscale object images preceded by an auditory presentation of a colour term. On congruent trials the colour term matched the object’s stereotypical colour and on incongruent trials the colour term mismatched. Detection sensitivity was significantly poorer on incongruent trials than congruent trials. Overall, these findings suggest that colour terms affect awareness of coloured stimuli and colour- associated objects, and provide new evidence for language-perception interaction in the brain. PMID:27023274

Colour Terms Affect Detection of Colour and Colour-Associated Objects Suppressed from Visual Awareness.

Science.gov (United States)

Forder, Lewis; Taylor, Olivia; Mankin, Helen; Scott, Ryan B; Franklin, Anna

2016-01-01

The idea that language can affect how we see the world continues to create controversy. A potentially important study in this field has shown that when an object is suppressed from visual awareness using continuous flash suppression (a form of binocular rivalry), detection of the object is differently affected by a preceding word prime depending on whether the prime matches or does not match the object. This may suggest that language can affect early stages of vision. We replicated this paradigm and further investigated whether colour terms likewise influence the detection of colours or colour-associated object images suppressed from visual awareness by continuous flash suppression. This method presents rapidly changing visual noise to one eye while the target stimulus is presented to the other. It has been shown to delay conscious perception of a target for up to several minutes. In Experiment 1 we presented greyscale photos of objects. They were either preceded by a congruent object label, an incongruent label, or white noise. Detection sensitivity (d') and hit rates were significantly poorer for suppressed objects preceded by an incongruent label compared to a congruent label or noise. In Experiment 2, targets were coloured discs preceded by a colour term. Detection sensitivity was significantly worse for suppressed colour patches preceded by an incongruent colour term as compared to a congruent term or white noise. In Experiment 3 targets were suppressed greyscale object images preceded by an auditory presentation of a colour term. On congruent trials the colour term matched the object's stereotypical colour and on incongruent trials the colour term mismatched. Detection sensitivity was significantly poorer on incongruent trials than congruent trials. Overall, these findings suggest that colour terms affect awareness of coloured stimuli and colour- associated objects, and provide new evidence for language-perception interaction in the brain.

Colour Terms Affect Detection of Colour and Colour-Associated Objects Suppressed from Visual Awareness.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lewis Forder

Full Text Available The idea that language can affect how we see the world continues to create controversy. A potentially important study in this field has shown that when an object is suppressed from visual awareness using continuous flash suppression (a form of binocular rivalry, detection of the object is differently affected by a preceding word prime depending on whether the prime matches or does not match the object. This may suggest that language can affect early stages of vision. We replicated this paradigm and further investigated whether colour terms likewise influence the detection of colours or colour-associated object images suppressed from visual awareness by continuous flash suppression. This method presents rapidly changing visual noise to one eye while the target stimulus is presented to the other. It has been shown to delay conscious perception of a target for up to several minutes. In Experiment 1 we presented greyscale photos of objects. They were either preceded by a congruent object label, an incongruent label, or white noise. Detection sensitivity (d' and hit rates were significantly poorer for suppressed objects preceded by an incongruent label compared to a congruent label or noise. In Experiment 2, targets were coloured discs preceded by a colour term. Detection sensitivity was significantly worse for suppressed colour patches preceded by an incongruent colour term as compared to a congruent term or white noise. In Experiment 3 targets were suppressed greyscale object images preceded by an auditory presentation of a colour term. On congruent trials the colour term matched the object's stereotypical colour and on incongruent trials the colour term mismatched. Detection sensitivity was significantly poorer on incongruent trials than congruent trials. Overall, these findings suggest that colour terms affect awareness of coloured stimuli and colour- associated objects, and provide new evidence for language-perception interaction in the brain.

Hue-specific colour memory impairment in an individual with intact colour perception and colour naming.

Science.gov (United States)

Jakobson, L S; Pearson, P M; Robertson, B

2008-01-15

Cases of hue-selective dyschomatopsias, together with the results of recent optical imaging studies [Xiao, Y., Casti, A. R. R., Xiao, J., & Kaplan, E. (2006). A spatially organized representation of colour in macaque primary visual cortex. Perception, 35, ECVP Abstract Supplement; Xiao, Y., Wang, Y., & Felleman, D. J. (2003). A spatially organized representation of colour in macaque cortical area V2. Nature, 421, 535-539], have provided support for the idea that different colours are processed in spatially distinct regions of extrastriate cortex. In the present report, we provide evidence suggesting that a similar, but distinct, map may exist for representations of colour in memory. This evidence comes from observations of a young woman (QP) who demonstrates an isolated deficit in colour memory secondary to a concussive episode. Despite having normal colour perception and colour naming skills, and above-average memory skills in other domains, QP's ability to recall visually encoded colour information over short retention intervals is dramatically impaired. Her long-term memory for colour and her colour imagery skills are also abnormal. Surprisingly, however, these impairments are not seen with all hues; specifically, her ability to remember or imagine blue shades is spared. This interesting case contributes to the literature suggesting that colour perception, naming, and memory can be clinically dissociated, and provides insights into the organization of colour information in memory.

Colour in flux: describing and printing colour in art

Science.gov (United States)

Parraman, Carinna

2008-01-01

This presentation will describe artists, practitioners and scientists, who were interested in developing a deeper psychological, emotional and practical understanding of the human visual system who were working with wavelength, paint and other materials. From a selection of prints at The Prints and Drawings Department at Tate London, the presentation will refer to artists who were motivated by issues relating to how colour pigment was mixed and printed, to interrogate and explain colour perception and colour science, and in art, how artists have used colour to challenge the viewer and how a viewer might describe their experience of colour. The title Colour in Flux refers, not only to the perceptual effect of the juxtaposition of one colour pigment with another, but also to the changes and challenges for the print industry. In the light of screenprinted examples from the 60s and 70s, the presentation will discuss 21 st century ideas on colour and how these notions have informed the Centre for Fine Print Research's (CFPR) practical research in colour printing. The latter part of this presentation will discuss the implications for the need to change methods in mixing inks that moves away from existing colour spaces, from non intuitive colour mixing to bespoke ink sets, colour mixing approaches and colour mixing methods that are not reliant on RGB or CMYK.

Specifying colours for colour vision testing using computer graphics.

Science.gov (United States)

Toufeeq, A

2004-10-01

This paper describes a novel test of colour vision using a standard personal computer, which is simple and reliable to perform. Twenty healthy individuals with normal colour vision and 10 healthy individuals with a red/green colour defect were tested binocularly at 13 selected points in the CIE (Commission International d'Eclairage, 1931) chromaticity triangle, representing the gamut of a computer monitor, where the x, y coordinates of the primary colour phosphors were known. The mean results from individuals with normal colour vision were compared to those with defective colour vision. Of the 13 points tested, five demonstrated consistently high sensitivity in detecting colour defects. The test may provide a convenient method for classifying colour vision abnormalities.

THE ICONOGRAPHIC COLOUR SYMBOLISM IN BIBLICAL POEMS BY SERGEI YESENIN

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Natalia Vladimirovna Mikhalenko

2014-11-01

Full Text Available The Biblical poems by Sergei Yesenin are full of pathos of theurgic reforms and creation of a new world. All components of these poems (images, spatial-temporal organization, colour symbolics stressed the importance of ongoing changes. The colours in small poems not only correspond to normal natural colours, but also bear a symbolic meaning, drawing the reader to the iconographic mysticism. The colourful preferences correspond to the tradition (of the Old or New Testaments, iconography or liturgy, as well as scenic tradition, which Yesenin follows in his poetry. Creating images of cosmic transformation, the poet turns to the traditional icon colour combinations and reinterprets the Old and New Testaments images. It puts the cases of prophet Sergei Yesenin in line with the acts of the biblical prophets. All poems in their colour scheme are consistent with iconographic tradition. In these poems three basic colours are used which repeat the colours of thematically close icons. So, Th e Coming is coloristically associated with the icon of the Nativity, The Transfiguration corresponds to the eponymous icon of Christ. The colours show the relationship and the parallelism of the processes occurring in earthly and heavenly worlds. It emphasizes the unity of the poetic world, the engagement of the Earth and the Heaven in the conversion process. The consideration of Yesenin’s revolutionary epic in line with biblical and iconographic symbolism allows analyzing in a more detailed and deep way originality of poetic recreation of the World and enables to reveal philosophical and esoteric content of the works.

Preferences of cut flowers consumers

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sylwia Kierczyńska

2010-01-01

Full Text Available The results of interviews suggest that majority of the cut flowers’ consumers has favourite kind of flower, among which most frequently pointed one was the rose. More than half of the interviewed favour the uniform colour of cut flowers and red colour was the most favourite one. The subtle smell of flowers was the most preferable one but the intensive fragrance was favoured for more consumers than odourless flowers. The data from selected florists’ confirm the information from interviews – in spite of the occasion, roses were the most demanded cut flowers.

Colour discrimination of dental professionals and colour deficient laypersons.

Science.gov (United States)

Poljak-Guberina, Renata; Celebic, Asja; Powers, John M; Paravina, Rade D

2011-12-01

The aim of the present study was to compare results of non-dental (conventional) and dental colour discrimination tests (customized, shade guide test), to evaluate influence of profession, gender and age of colour normal dentists and laboratory technicians on colour discrimination results and to evaluate results of colour deficient laypersons. A total of 36 colour normal dental professionals, all volunteers were divided into two groups consisting of 18 participants each: dentists (DDS) and laboratory technicians (CDT). In addition, a group 15 colour deficient males also volunteered (CDP). Colour discrimination was examined using Farnsworth-Munsell 100 Hue Test and total error scores (TES) were calculated. Participants performed a dentistry related colour discrimination test by matching 26 pairs of shade tabs. Shade guide scores (3DS) were calculated. These tests were performed under the controlled conditions of a viewing booth. Mean values and standard deviations were determined. ANOVA, Mann-Whitney test, t-test and Pearson's correlation coefficient (r) were used for result analysis. TES and 3DS were correlated for colour normal observers, r = 0.47 (p gender and age were recorded. TES of 159 (83) and 3DS of 6.7 (2.7) were recorded for colour deficient laypersons. Based on TES, 33% of colour deficient laypersons had average discrimination, whilst 67% had low discrimination. Within the limitation of this study, it was concluded that results of non-dental and dental colour discrimination tests were correlated, and that profession (DDS/CDT), gender and age gender did not influence colour discrimination of colour normal participants. Although colour and appearance of dental restorations are of paramount importance for the aesthetic outcome, colour vision of dental professionals is not routinely tested. This paper validates and recommends the usage of dental shade guides for a simple, affordable and understandable testing of colour vision, either as a sole test or

Colour simplicity

OpenAIRE

du Preez, Warren

2017-01-01

This dissertation addresses the metaphysics of conscious experience. I defend a thesis labelled Colour Simplicity, according to which the properties constitutive of what it is like to have visual sensory experiences of colour – colour qualia – are simple, in that they lack more basic constituent properties. I develop a valid argument for Colour Simplicity, drawing on the premises that (P1) ‘colour qualia appear to be simple under introspection’, and (P2) ‘if colour qualia appear to be simp...

Leaf Colour as a Signal of Chemical Defence to Insect Herbivores in Wild Cabbage (Brassica oleracea.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jonathan P Green

Full Text Available Leaf colour has been proposed to signal levels of host defence to insect herbivores, but we lack data on herbivory, leaf colour and levels of defence for wild host populations necessary to test this hypothesis. Such a test requires measurements of leaf spectra as they would be sensed by herbivore visual systems, as well as simultaneous measurements of chemical defences and herbivore responses to leaf colour in natural host-herbivore populations. In a large-scale field survey of wild cabbage (Brassica oleracea populations, we show that variation in leaf colour and brightness, measured according to herbivore spectral sensitivities, predicts both levels of chemical defences (glucosinolates and abundance of specialist lepidopteran (Pieris rapae and hemipteran (Brevicoryne brassicae herbivores. In subsequent experiments, P. rapae larvae achieved faster growth and greater pupal mass when feeding on plants with bluer leaves, which contained lower levels of aliphatic glucosinolates. Glucosinolate-mediated effects on larval performance may thus contribute to the association between P. rapae herbivory and leaf colour observed in the field. However, preference tests found no evidence that adult butterflies selected host plants based on leaf coloration. In the field, B. brassicae abundance varied with leaf brightness but greenhouse experiments were unable to identify any effects of brightness on aphid preference or performance. Our findings suggest that although leaf colour reflects both levels of host defences and herbivore abundance in the field, the ability of herbivores to respond to colour signals may be limited, even in species where performance is correlated with leaf colour.

Daylight Influence on Colour Design : Empirical Study on Perceived Colour and Colour Experience Indoors

OpenAIRE

Hårleman, Maud

2007-01-01

It is known that one and the same interior colouring will appear different in rooms with windows facing north or facing south, but it is not known how natural daylight from these two compass points affects perceived colour and the ways in which colour is experienced. The objective is to describe the perceived colours to be expected in rooms with sunlight and diffused light, and thus develop a tool for colour design. Two empirical investigations provide the basis for six attached papers. The m...

Colours sometimes count: awareness and bidirectionality in grapheme-colour synaesthesia.

Science.gov (United States)

Johnson, Addie; Jepma, Marieke; de Jong, Ritske

2007-10-01

Three experiments were conducted with 10 grapheme-colour synaesthetes and 10 matched controls to investigate (a) whether awareness of the inducer grapheme is necessary for synaesthetic colour induction and (b) whether grapheme-colour synaesthesia may be bidirectional in the sense that not only do graphemes induce colours, but that colours influence the processing of graphemes. Using attentional blink and Stroop paradigms with digit targets, we found that some synaesthetes did report "seeing" synaesthetic colours even when they were not able to report the inducing digit. Moreover, congruency effects (effects of matching the colour of digit presentation with the synaesthetic colour associated with that digit) suggested that grapheme-colour synaesthesia can be bidirectional, at least for some synaesthetes.

Evidence for genetic variation in human mate preferences for sexually dimorphic physical traits.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Karin J H Verweij

Full Text Available Intersexual selection has been proposed as an important force in shaping a number of morphological traits that differ between human populations and/or between the sexes. Important to these accounts is the source of mate preferences for such traits, but this has not been investigated. In a large sample of twins, we assess forced-choice, dichotomous mate preferences for height, skin colour, hair colour and length, chest hair, facial hair, and breast size. Across the traits, identical twins reported more similar preferences than nonidentical twins, suggesting genetic effects. However, the relative magnitude of estimated genetic and environmental effects differed greatly and significantly between different trait preferences, with heritability estimates ranging from zero to 57%.

Colour scheme an exploration of the indeterminate space of colour

OpenAIRE

Varga, Tania Elke

2017-01-01

Colour Scheme examines the potential for colour to be understood as a relational and therefore, indeterminate space. The CMYK process colour model is reworked to investigate the idea of colour as an indeterminate space. In proposing that process colour can be understood as a fluid and relational system I draw attention to the unquantifiable and qualitative nature of colour. Colour can be understood as a verb, and as such may be thought of as an active substance. This understanding of col...

Validation of a colour rendering index based on memory colours

OpenAIRE

Smet, Kevin; Jost-Boissard, Sophie; Ryckaert, Wouter; Deconinck, Geert; Hanselaer, Peter

2010-01-01

In this paper the performance of a colour rendering index based on memory colours is investigated in comparison with the current CIE Colour Rendering Index, the NIST Colour Quality Scale and visual appreciation results obtained at CNRS at Lyon University for a set of 3000K and 4000K LED light sources. The Pearson and Spearman correlation coefficients between each colour rendering metric and the two sets of visual results were calculated. It was found that the memory colour based colour render...

Consumer preferences for pork chops in five Canadian provinces.

Science.gov (United States)

Ngapo, T M

2017-07-01

The aim of this study is to identify the most important characteristics of fresh pork that determine consumer choice in five Canadian provinces. Within-consumer preference replication and systematic image manipulation in surveying showed differences in strategies for pork choice in lean colour (P<0.001) and marbling (P=0.006). High proportions of Nova Scotians (29%) chose light red pork, Albertans (42%) dark red and Quebecers (29%) non-marbled pork. Overall, the most important choice criteria were fat cover (57% preferred lean, 8% fatty) and lean colour (35% dark red, 18% light red). Marbling and drip were less used, but are important noting that 26% of consumers used three or four characteristics to make their choice. The preferences are readily met by the industry, but unfortunately, preferences for minimal or no marbling and fat cover likely result in a compromised gustative experience for many Canadian consumers. Crown Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Rethinking Colour Constancy.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Alexander D Logvinenko

Full Text Available Colour constancy needs to be reconsidered in light of the limits imposed by metamer mismatching. Metamer mismatching refers to the fact that two objects reflecting metameric light under one illumination may reflect non-metameric light under a second; so two objects appearing as having the same colour under one illuminant can appear as having different colours under a second. Yet since Helmholtz, object colour has generally been believed to remain relatively constant. The deviations from colour constancy registered in experiments are usually thought to be small enough that they do not contradict the notion of colour constancy. However, it is important to determine how the deviations from colour constancy relate to the limits metamer mismatching imposes on constancy. Hence, we calculated metamer mismatching's effect for the 20 Munsell papers and 8 pairs of illuminants employed in the colour constancy study by Logvinenko and Tokunaga and found it to be so extensive that the two notions-metamer mismatching and colour constancy-must be mutually exclusive. In particular, the notion of colour constancy leads to some paradoxical phenomena such as the possibility of 20 objects having the same colour under chromatic light dispersing into a hue circle of colours under neutral light. Thus, colour constancy refers to a phenomenon, which because of metamer mismatching, simply cannot exist. Moreover, it obscures the really important visual phenomenon; namely, the alteration of object colours induced by illumination change. We show that colour is not an independent, intrinsic attribute of an object, but rather an attribute of an object/light pair, and then define a concept of material colour in terms of equivalence classes of such object/light pairs. We suggest that studying the shift in material colour under a change in illuminant will be more fruitful than pursuing colour constancy's false premise that colour is an intrinsic attribute of an object.

Rethinking Colour Constancy.

Science.gov (United States)

Logvinenko, Alexander D; Funt, Brian; Mirzaei, Hamidreza; Tokunaga, Rumi

2015-01-01

Colour constancy needs to be reconsidered in light of the limits imposed by metamer mismatching. Metamer mismatching refers to the fact that two objects reflecting metameric light under one illumination may reflect non-metameric light under a second; so two objects appearing as having the same colour under one illuminant can appear as having different colours under a second. Yet since Helmholtz, object colour has generally been believed to remain relatively constant. The deviations from colour constancy registered in experiments are usually thought to be small enough that they do not contradict the notion of colour constancy. However, it is important to determine how the deviations from colour constancy relate to the limits metamer mismatching imposes on constancy. Hence, we calculated metamer mismatching's effect for the 20 Munsell papers and 8 pairs of illuminants employed in the colour constancy study by Logvinenko and Tokunaga and found it to be so extensive that the two notions-metamer mismatching and colour constancy-must be mutually exclusive. In particular, the notion of colour constancy leads to some paradoxical phenomena such as the possibility of 20 objects having the same colour under chromatic light dispersing into a hue circle of colours under neutral light. Thus, colour constancy refers to a phenomenon, which because of metamer mismatching, simply cannot exist. Moreover, it obscures the really important visual phenomenon; namely, the alteration of object colours induced by illumination change. We show that colour is not an independent, intrinsic attribute of an object, but rather an attribute of an object/light pair, and then define a concept of material colour in terms of equivalence classes of such object/light pairs. We suggest that studying the shift in material colour under a change in illuminant will be more fruitful than pursuing colour constancy's false premise that colour is an intrinsic attribute of an object.

Developmental colour agnosia.

Science.gov (United States)

van Zandvoort, Martine J E; Nijboer, Tanja C W; de Haan, Edward

2007-08-01

Colour agnosia concerns the inability to recognise colours despite intact colour perception, semantic memory for colour information, and colour naming. Patients with selective colour agnosia have been described and the deficit is associated with left hemisphere damage. Here we report a case study of a 43-year-old man who was referred to us with a stroke in his right cerebellar hemisphere. During the standard assessment it transpired that he was unable to name coloured patches. Detailed assessment of his colour processing showed that he suffers from a selective colour agnosia. As he claimed to have had this problem all his life, and the fact that the infratentorial infarct that he had incurred was in an area far away from the brain structures that are known to be involved in colour processing, we suggest that he is the first reported case of developmental colour agnosia.

Synaesthetic Colours Can Behave More like Recalled Colours, as Opposed to Physical Colours that Can Be Seen

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Derek H. Arnold

2011-05-01

Full Text Available Grapheme-color synaesthesia is an atypical condition characterized by coloured sensations when reading achromatic text. Different forms have been characterized, but this is somewhat controversial. In associative grapheme-colour synaesthesia, written graphemes can automatically trigger a sensation of colour in the ‘mind's eye’, but hearing the name of a grapheme does not. This allowed us explore the precision with which synaesthetes match triggered synaesthetic colours across separate presentations, versus the precision for recalled experiences cued by spoken graphemes. We recorded CIE coordinates, and found that matches for triggered sensations were equally variable relative to recalled experiences. To ensure this was not due to insensitivity of our apparatus, we next had synaesthetes and age-matched controls either match the colour of a circular patch while they could see it, or from memory after it had disappeared. Both synaesthetes and controls were more variable when matching from memory, and synaesthetes were more precise when matching colour hue, but not brightness. Interestingly, the variance of synaesthetes' recalled matches in this experiment matched that associated with synaesthetic colours in the first experiment. Overall, our data suggests that, for associative grapheme-colour synaesthetes, synaesthetic colours behave more like recalled colours, as opposed to physical colours that can be seen.

True and false memory for colour names versus actual colours: support for the visual distinctiveness heuristic in memory for colour information.

Science.gov (United States)

Eslick, Andrea N; Kostic, Bogdan; Cleary, Anne M

2010-06-01

In a colour variation of the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) false memory paradigm, participants studied lists of words critically related to a nonstudied colour name (e.g., "blood, cherry, scarlet, rouge ... "); they later showed false memory for the critical colour name (e.g., "red"). Two additional experiments suggest that participants generate colour imagery in response to such colour-related DRM lists. First, participants claim to experience colour imagery more often following colour-related than standard non-colour-related DRM lists; they also rate their colour imagery as more vivid following colour-related lists. Second, participants exhibit facilitative priming for critical colours in a dot selection task that follows words in the colour-related DRM list, suggesting that colour-related DRM lists prime participants for the actual critical colours themselves. Despite these findings, false memory for critical colour names does not extend to the actual colours themselves (font colours). Rather than leading to source confusion about which colours were self-generated and which were studied, presenting the study lists in varied font colours actually worked to reduce false memory overall. Results are interpreted within the framework of the visual distinctiveness hypothesis.

Voltage-controlled colour-tunable microcavity OLEDs with enhanced colour purity

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Choy, Wallace C H; Niu, J H; Li, W L; Chui, P C

2008-01-01

The emission spectrum of single-unit voltage-controlled colour-tunable organic light emitting devices (OLEDs) has been theoretically and experimentally studied. Our results show that by introducing the microcavity structure, the colour purity of not only the destination colour but also the colour-tunable route can be enhanced, while colour purity is still an issue in typical single-unit voltage-controlled colour-tunable OLEDs. With the consideration of the periodical cycling of resonant wavelength and absorption loss of the metal electrodes, the appropriate change in the thickness of the microcavity structure has been utilized to achieve voltage-controlled red-to-green and red-to-blue colour-tunable OLEDs without adding dyes or other organic materials to the OLEDs

Role of intrinsic search cues in the formation of consumer preferences and choice for pork chops.

Science.gov (United States)

Verbeke, Wim; De Smet, Stefaan; Vackier, Isabelle; Van Oeckel, Monique J; Warnants, Nathalie; Van Kenhove, Patrick

2005-02-01

This study investigates the role of drip, colour, marbling and fat cover as intrinsic search cues in the formation of pork chop preferences and individual determinants. Data are collected from a sample of 443 pork consumers in Belgium through using repeated selection of chops from randomised photobooks and questionnaires including socio-demographic, attitudinal and behavioural variables. Data analysis includes mixture regression analysis, bivariate descriptive statistics and the estimation of multivariate probit models. Consumers sampled in this study prefer pork chops without fat cover. Preference for fat cover is stronger among male, 35+ aged consumers with lower levels of awareness of the relation between food and health and who like pork for other reasons than taste and nutritional value (all p<0.05). Preference for colour is equally consistent within an individual, though fifty-fifty light-dark, with dark chops being more preferred by 35+ aged consumers (p<0.05). Preferences for marbling and drip are not consistent and not determined by joint socio-demographic, attitudinal and behavioural factors. Preferences for cue levels are not correlated, except a weak relation between preference for dark chops without drip (r=0.116). Preferences are apparently formed by deductions with the use of single cues as key information, mainly based on fat cover or colour, and random choice on marbling and drip.

Recolouring-resistant colourings

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Pedersen, A. S.; Rautenbach, D.

2011-01-01

We study colourings of graphs with the property that the number of used colours cannot be reduced by applying some recolouring operation. A well-studied example of such colourings are b-colourings, which were introduced by Irving and Manlove [R.W. Irving, D.F. Manlove, The la-chromatic number...... of a graph, Discrete Appl. Math. 91 (1999) 127-141]. Given a graph and a colouring, a recolouring operation specifies a set of vertices of the graph on which the colouring can be changed. We consider two such operations: One which allows the recolouring of all vertices within some given distance of some...... colour class, and another which allows the recolouring of all vertices that belong to one of a given number of colour classes. Our results extend known results concerning b-colourings and the associated b-chromatic number. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved....

Dichromatic colour vision in wallabies as characterised by three behavioural paradigms.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Wiebke Ebeling

Full Text Available Despite lacking genetic evidence of a third cone opsin in the retina of any Australian marsupial, most species tested so far appear to be trichromatic. In the light of this, we have re-examined colour vision of the tammar wallaby which had previously been identified as a dichromat. Three different psychophysical tests, based on an operant conditioning paradigm, were used to confirm that colour perception in the wallaby can be predicted and conclusively explained by the existence of only two cone types. Firstly, colour-mixing experiments revealed a Confusion Point between the three primary colours of a LCD monitor that can be predicted by the cone excitation ratio of the short- and middle-wavelength sensitive cones. Secondly, the wavelength discrimination ability in the wallaby, when tested with monochromatic stimuli, was found to be limited to a narrow range between 440 nm and 500 nm. Lastly, an experiment designed to test the wallaby's ability to discriminate monochromatic lights from a white light provided clear evidence for a Neutral Point around 485 nm where discrimination consistently failed. Relative colour discrimination seemed clearly preferred but it was possible to train a wallaby to perform absolute colour discriminations. The results confirm the tammar wallaby as a dichromat, and so far the only behaviourally confirmed dichromat among the Australian marsupials.

Is colour cognitive?

Science.gov (United States)

Skorupski, Peter; Chittka, Lars

2011-03-01

In recent years, colour-vision abilities have been rather generously ascribed to various invertebrates and even bacteria. This uncertainty of when to diagnose colour vision stems in part from confusing what colour vision can do with what it is. What colour vision can do is discriminate wavelength independent of intensity. However, if we take this as a definition of what colour vision is, then we might be obliged to conclude that some plants and bacteria have colour vision. Moreover, there is a similar confusion of what are necessary and what are sufficient mechanisms and behavioural abilities for colour vision. To humans, seeing in colour means seeing an image in which objects/lights have chromatic attributes—in contrast to the sensation that we have when viewing monochrome movies, or our experience in dim light when only rod vision is possible. The necessary basic equipment for this is to have at least two types of photoreceptors that differ in spectral sensitivity, and at least one type of spectrally opponent cell to compare the signals from the photoreceptors. Clearly, however, a necessary additional prerequisite for colour vision is to have vision, which entails the identification of shapes, sizes and locations of objects in the world. Thus, if an animal has colour vision, it should see an image in which distinct objects/lights have colour attributes. This distinguishes colour vision from wavelength discrimination, but also from what has historically been called wavelength-specific behaviour: a type of behaviour triggered by fixed configurations of spectral receptor signals; however, we discuss difficulties in diagnosing wavelength-specific behaviour as an indicator of the absence of colour vision. Finally, we discuss whether colour vision, by definition, contains a cognitive dimension for ordering and classifying perceptual experience.

Plasmonic colour generation

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kristensen, Anders; Yang, Joel K. W.; Bozhevolnyi, Sergey I.

2016-01-01

Plasmonic colours are structural colours that emerge from resonant interactions between light and metallic nanostructures. The engineering of plasmonic colours is a promising, rapidly emerging research field that could have a large technological impact. We highlight basic properties of plasmonic...... colours and recent nanofabrication developments, comparing technology-performance indicators for traditional and nanophotonic colour technologies. The structures of interest include diffraction gratings, nanoaperture arrays, thin films, and multilayers and structures that support Mie resonances...... and whispering-gallery modes. We discuss plasmonic colour nanotechnology based on localized surface plasmon resonances, such as gap plasmons and hybridized disk–hole plasmons, which allow for colour printing with sub-diffraction resolution. We also address a range of fabrication approaches that enable large...

On the colour of wing scales in butterflies: iridescence and preferred orientation of single gyroid photonic crystals.

Science.gov (United States)

Corkery, Robert W; Tyrode, Eric C

2017-08-06

Lycaenid butterflies from the genera Callophrys , Cyanophrys and Thecla have evolved remarkable biophotonic gyroid nanostructures within their wing scales that have only recently been replicated by nanoscale additive manufacturing. These nanostructures selectively reflect parts of the visible spectrum to give their characteristic non-iridescent, matte-green appearance, despite a distinct blue-green-yellow iridescence predicted for individual crystals from theory. It has been hypothesized that the organism must achieve its uniform appearance by growing crystals with some restrictions on the possible distribution of orientations, yet preferential orientation observed in Callophrys rubi confirms that this distribution need not be uniform. By analysing scanning electron microscope and optical images of 912 crystals in three wing scales, we find no preference for their rotational alignment in the plane of the scales. However, crystal orientation normal to the scale was highly correlated to their colour at low (conical) angles of view and illumination. This correlation enabled the use of optical images, each containing up to 10 4 -10 5 crystals, for concluding the preferential alignment seen along the [Formula: see text] at the level of single scales, appears ubiquitous. By contrast, [Formula: see text] orientations were found to occur at no greater rate than that expected by chance. Above a critical cone angle, all crystals reflected bright green light indicating the dominant light scattering is due to the predicted band gap along the [Formula: see text] direction, independent of the domain orientation. Together with the natural variation in scale and wing shapes, we can readily understand the detailed mechanism of uniform colour production and iridescence suppression in these butterflies. It appears that the combination of preferential alignment normal to the wing scale, and uniform distribution within the plane is a near optimal solution for homogenizing the angular

What colour is the car? Implicit memory for colour information in children.

Science.gov (United States)

Mecklenbräuker, S; Hupbach, A; Wippich, W

2001-11-01

Three experiments were conducted to examine age-related differences in colour memory. In Experiment 1, preschool age and elementary school age children were given a conceptual test of implicit colour memory (a colour-choice task). They were presented with the names or achromatic versions of previously studied coloured line drawings and asked to select an appropriate colour. Significant priming could be demonstrated: The children chose the previously seen colours more often than was expected by chance. Equivalent priming was found for both versions (pictorial and verbal) suggesting that colour priming may be conceptually mediated. Moreover, colour priming proved to be age invariant. Experiment 2 replicated and extended this finding by using a wider age group (preschool, elementary school, and young adults) and by giving a perceptual implicit task (picture identification) in addition to a verbal colour-choice task. Colour did not affect priming in the perceptual task. Whereas priming showed no developmental change, age-related improvements were observed on an explicit colour memory task that differed only in the test instructions from the implicit colour-choice task (Experiments 2 and 3). Taken together, the results suggest that implicit colour memory may be mediated by conceptual processes that are age invariant.

Measuring Colour

CERN Document Server

Hunt, R W G

2011-01-01

The classic authority on colour measurement now fully revised and updated with the latest CIE recommendations The measurement of colour is of major importance in many commercial applications, such as the textile, paint, and foodstuff industries; as well as having a significant role in the lighting, paper, printing, cosmetic, plastics, glass, chemical, photographic, television, transport, and communication industries. Building upon the success of earlier editions, the 4th edition of Measuring Colour has been updated throughout with new chapters on colour rendering by light sources; colorimetry

Colour Studies

African Journals Online (AJOL)

DR Nneka

2015-04-14

Apr 14, 2015 ... failure of the student to differentiate what is of particular concern to him or her, and .... perception of the physical appearance of colour and our ..... Colour is perceived in different modes and dimension and has derivative ..... which pigment colours can effectively depict existing realities, express emotions and.

Investigating the use of an adjustment task to set preferred illuminances in a workplace environment

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Logadóttir, Ásta; Christoffersen, Jens; Fotios, Steve

2011-01-01

An experiment was carried out to examine user preferences for light level using the method of adjustment. The study sought preferred illuminances under lighting from fluorescent lamps of different correlated colour temperature. It was hypothesised that the preferred illuminance would be influenced...

Colour changes in prints during long-term dark storage of prints

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Parraman, Carinna

2010-01-01

The most significant impact on colour fading in prints is exposure to light and air. However what happens to coloured prints during long-term storage in boxes, drawers and on shelves? Measurements of samples, printed in July 2005, stored in a range of light and darkened storage conditions have shown some interesting initial results. As more emphasis is placed on the effects of light, the dark stability of inkjet prints is relatively overlooked when considering how to preserve or store coloured prints. This study and presentation builds on previous research [1] and has concentrated on the changes to colour during storage. With reference to ASTM F2035 - 00(2006) Standard Practice for Measuring the Dark Stability of Ink Jet Prints, the Standards outline points out that whilst natural aging is the most reliable method of assessing image stability, materials and inks any data that is produced quickly becomes redundant; therefore accelerated aging is more preferred. However, the fine art materials in this study are still very much in circulation. The leading fine art papers, and pigmented ink-sets used in these trials are still being used by artists. We can therefore demonstrate the characteristics of colour changes and the impact of ink on paper that utilises natural aging methods.

Synaesthetic Colours Can Behave More like Recalled Colours, as Opposed to Physical Colours that Can Be Seen

OpenAIRE

Derek H. Arnold; Signy V. Wegener; Francesca Brown; Jason B. Mattingley

2011-01-01

Grapheme-color synaesthesia is an atypical condition characterized by coloured sensations when reading achromatic text. Different forms have been characterized, but this is somewhat controversial. In associative grapheme-colour synaesthesia, written graphemes can automatically trigger a sensation of colour in the ?mind's eye?, but hearing the name of a grapheme does not. This allowed us explore the precision with which synaesthetes match triggered synaesthetic colours across separate presenta...

Evaluation of hardness and colour change of soft liners after accelerated ageing.

Science.gov (United States)

Mancuso, Daniela Nardi; Goiato, Marcelo Coelho; Zuccolotti, Bruna Carolina Rossatti; Moreno, Amália; dos Santos, Daniela Micheline

2009-07-01

Soft liners have been developed to offer comfort to denture wearers. However, this comfort is compromised when there is a change in the properties of the material, causing colour change, solubility, absorption and hardening. These characteristics can compromise the longevity of soft liners. The aim of this in vitro study was to investigate the effect of ageing on both the hardness and colour change of two soft liners following accelerated ageing. Two denture liners, one resin based (Trusoft, Bosworth, Illinois, USA) and one silicone based (Ufi Gel P, Voco GMBH, Cuxhaven, Germany), were tested in this study for both hardness (using the Shore A scale) and colour change (using the CIE L*a*b* colour scale), initially and after 1008 hours (6 weeks) of accelerated ageing. Statistical analysis was performed using the unpaired t-test with the Welch correction. These indicated that both materials increased in hardness and underwent colour change after accelerated ageing. The initial hardness of Trusoft was far lower than that of Ufi Gel P (18.2 Shore A units vs 34.8 Shore A units). However, for Trusoft the changes for both hardness (from 18.2 to 52.1 Shore A units) and colour change (16.85 on the CIE L*a*b* colour scale) were greater than those for Ufi Gel P, for which hardness changed from 34.8 to 36.5 Shore A units and the colour change was 5.19 on the CIE L*a*b* colour scale. Ufi Gel P underwent less hardness and colour change after accelerated ageing than Trusoft. On the other hand, the use of Trusoft may be preferable in cases where initial softness is a major consideration, such as when relining an immediate denture after implant surgery.

The colour of an avifauna: A quantitative analysis of the colour of Australian birds

Science.gov (United States)

Delhey, Kaspar

2015-01-01

Animal coloration is a poorly-understood aspect of phenotypic variability. Here I expand initial studies of the colour gamut of birds by providing the first quantitative description of the colour variation of an entire avifauna: Australian landbirds (555 species). The colour of Australian birds occupies a small fraction (19%) of the entire possible colour space and colour variation is extremely uneven. Most colours are unsaturated, concentrated in the centre of colour space and based on the deposition of melanins. Other mechanisms of colour production are less common but account for larger portions of colour space and for most saturated colours. Male colours occupy 45–25% more colour space than female colours, indicating that sexual dichromatism translates into a broader range of male colours. Male-exclusive colours are often saturated, at the edge of chromatic space, and have most likely evolved for signalling. While most clades of birds occupy expected or lower-than-expected colour volumes, parrots and cockatoos (Order Psittaciformes) occupy a much larger volume than expected. This uneven distribution of colour variation across mechanisms of colour production, sexes and clades is probably shared by avifaunas in other parts of the world, but this remains to be tested with comparable data. PMID:26679370

Detection of coloured tracks of heavy ion particles using photographic colour film

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kuge, K.; Yasuda, N.; Kumagai, H.; Nakazawa, K.; Kobayashi, T.; Aoki, N.; Hasegawa, A.

2001-01-01

A photographic colour film, which was exposed to heavy ions, reveals a coloured dye image of the ion tracks. Since the colour film consists of several layers and different colours appear on each layer, three-dimensional information on the tracks in the layers can be obtained by the colour image. Previously, we have reported the method for which the tracks in different colours represented differences of track depth and we also discussed the disadvantages of using commercial colour films. Here we present the procedure for a self-made photographic coating and the development formula which can overcome the disadvantages

Colour printing techniques

OpenAIRE

Parraman, C.

2017-01-01

Invited chapter in the book Colour Design: Theories and Applications. In PART 3 COLOUR, DESIGN AND COLORATION this chapter covers:\\ud - Hardcopy colour: analogue versus digital\\ud - Colour theory in relation to printing\\ud - Overview of halftoning and digital print technologies\\ud - Overview and development of inks\\ud - Inkjet papers and inks\\ud - Recent and future trends in colour, printing inks and hardware.\\ud \\ud This book differs from other existing books in the field, with the aim of an...

Molecular genetics of coat colour variations in White Galloway and White Park cattle.

Science.gov (United States)

Brenig, B; Beck, J; Floren, C; Bornemann-Kolatzki, K; Wiedemann, I; Hennecke, S; Swalve, H; Schütz, E

2013-08-01

White Galloway cattle exhibit three different white coat colour phenotypes, that is, well marked, strongly marked and mismarked. However, mating of individuals with the preferred well or strongly marked phenotype also results in offspring with the undesired mismarked and/or even fully black coat colour. To elucidate the genetic background of the coat colour variations in White Galloway cattle, we analysed four coat colour relevant genes: mast/stem cell growth factor receptor (KIT), KIT ligand (KITLG), melanocortin 1 receptor (MC1R) and tyrosinase (TYR). Here, we show that the coat colour variations in White Galloway cattle and White Park cattle are caused by a KIT gene (chromosome 6) duplication and aberrant insertion on chromosome 29 (Cs29 ) as recently described for colour-sided Belgian Blue. Homozygous (Cs29 /Cs29 ) White Galloway cattle and White Park cattle exhibit the mismarked phenotype, whereas heterozygous (Cs29 /wt29 ) individuals are either well or strongly marked. In contrast, fully black individuals are characterised by the wild-type chromosome 29. As known for other cattle breeds, mutations in the MC1R gene determine the red colouring. Our data suggest that the white coat colour variations in White Galloway cattle and White Park cattle are caused by a dose-dependent effect based on the ploidy of aberrant insertions and inheritance of the KIT gene on chromosome 29. © 2013 The Authors, Animal Genetics © 2013 Stichting International Foundation for Animal Genetics.

Colour intransparency and the cross sections for colour-singlet and colour-octet hadrons in the Low-Nussinov model

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Dolejsi, J.; Huefner, J.

1992-01-01

The dependence of cross sections on the colour state of the colliding hadrons is investigated within the Low-Nussinov model of two-gluon exchange. The total cross sections for colour-octet hadrons are practically constant as functions of the hadronic radii, while they tend to zero when the radii of the colour-singlet hadrons approach zero. The slope parameter of the differential elastic cross sections for small momentum transfers is rather insensitive to the colour structure of the colliding hadrons. The integrated colour exchange cross section is calculated. (orig.)

The IAT shows no evidence for Kandinsky’s colour-shape associations

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Alexis eMakin

2013-09-01

Full Text Available In the early 20th century, the Bauhaus revolutionised art & design by using simple colours and forms. Wassily Kandinsky was especially interested in the relationship of these two visual attributes and postulated a fundamental correspondence between colour and form: yellow triangle, red square and blue circle. Subsequent empirical studies also used preference judgments to test Kandinsky’s original colour-form combinations, usually yielding inconsistent results. We have set out to test the validity of these postulated associations by using the Implicit Association Test. Participants pressed one of two buttons on each trial. On some trials they classified shapes (e.g. circle or triangle. On interleaved trials they classified colours (e.g. blue or yellow. Response times should theoretically be faster when the button mapping follows Kandinsky’s associations: For example, when the left key is used to report blue or circle and the right is used for yellow and triangle, than when the response mapping is the opposite of this (blue or triangle, yellow or circle. Our findings suggest that there is no implicit association between the original colour-form combinations. Of the three combinations we tested, no response time differences were significantly greater than zero, although there was a marginal effect in one experiment. It can be concluded that our IAT does not support all Kandinsky’s postulated colour-form associations, and these are probably not an aesthetic universal.

Use of conjoint analysis to determine the impact of logotype colour, and the type, duration and price of a street performance on consumer purchase decisions

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Maja Piko

2017-12-01

Full Text Available The aim of our research was to determine how colour impacts the effectiveness of a logotype for a particular activity and which colour used is strong, stable, associative and “playful”, and thus the most appropriate for presenting a selected activity. For the purpose of this research, a logotype for a circus artist was designed using four colour variations, while conjoint analysis was used to identify the colour preference of a specific logotype. Besides colour, three additional attributes were chosen: the type, duration and price of a performance. Three or four levels were specified for every attribute. The results of the survey showed that colour is the not the most important of the four attributes, but that it does have a certain effect on a customer’s decision. In the analysis, most respondents choose the red logotype, an outdoor performance, and the longest duration and the lowest price of a performance. The most important of the four attributes for respondents was the price of a performance, followed by the duration of a performance, the content/type of a performance and finally the colour of the associated logotype. The preference of respondents was improved by testing combinations of the four attributes and levels, where the colour blue was replaced with red. The research opens possibilities for further research regarding the impact of colours on subconscious decisions.

Measurements and modelling of the influence of dentine colour and enamel on tooth colour.

Science.gov (United States)

Battersby, Paul D; Battersby, Stephen J

2015-03-01

We provide a quantitative predictive model for the extent to which coloured dentine, visible through the enamel, contributes to tooth colour. Our model uses (L(*),a(*),b(*)) measurements rather than spectral measurements. We have used a model system, composed of a slice of bovine enamel placed on top of coloured paper. We have measured the colour of the enamel-paper combination, as an analogue for a tooth, and have related this to the colour of the paper, as an analogue for dentine. By changing the paper colour, we have been able to explore how the colour of dentine determines tooth colour, according to our model system. We have also compared hydrated and desiccated samples. In qualitative terms, superimposing the enamel on top of the paper increases the "lightness" for all colours tested except white while simultaneously reducing the chromaticity, a measure of the extent to which the colour differs from grey. Desiccated enamel is much more effective at increasing the lightness and reducing the chromaticity than hydrated enamel. Quantitatively, our measurements are reproduced by the mathematical model we have developed to within 2% in "lightness" and about 8% in chromaticity. We are able to predict the colour of an analogue for a tooth, composed of bovine enamel and coloured paper, from the colour of an analogue for the dentine, the coloured paper alone, with good accuracy. This understanding provides insights into the role of dentine colour in determining tooth colour. Our work helps quantify the importance of dentine colour, compared to other, extrinsic causes of colour, such as staining, in determining the visible colour of teeth. Our predicted colours represent a baseline to which extrinsic sources will add. Copyright © 2015. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Colours sometimes count : Awareness and bidirectionality in grapheme-colour synaesthesia

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Johnson, Addie; Jepma, Marieke; de Jong, Ritske

2007-01-01

Three experiments were conducted with 10 grapheme-colour synaesthetes and 10 matched controls to investigate (a) whether awareness of the inducer grapheme is necessary for synaesthetic colour induction and (b) whether grapheme-colour synaesthesia may be bidirectional in the sense that not only do

Application of red pitaya powder as a natural food colourant in fruit pastille

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Low Pinn Yee

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Background: Confectionary products meet the important consumers’ need states of fun and enjoyment, especially among children. Synthetic colourant had been applied as a colouring agent in confectionery products for decades, however various adverse health effects have been reported after consumption. Hence, usage of natural colourant has increased enormously as it confers functional and nutraceutical benefits. Red pitaya, a common and popular fruit cultivated in South-east Asian countries. It is rich betacyanin content that gives the fruit a red-violet colour. Hence, red pitaya is a potential source of natural colorant as an alternative to the synthetic colorant. Objective: This research was aimed to produce fruit pastille with red pitaya powder applied as a natural colourant. Method: Production of red pitaya powder was achieved through spray drying process. Fruit pastille was prepared and subjected to antioxidant, stability and sensory analysis. Results: The Physicochemical study showed that pastille incorporated with red pitaya powder exhibited significantly (p<0.05 higher antioxidant properties than the blank pastille (control. An eight weeks storage stability study revealed that betacyanin content of pastille incorporated with pitaya powder remained stable for the first four weeks of storage. Besides, no significant change was observed in redness (a* of pastille throughout the storage study. Sensory study was carried out to assess the consumer preference on pastille incorporated with pitaya powder and synthetic colourant. Colour attribute of pastille incorporated with red pitaya powder has gained significantly (p<0.05 higher liking that the one added with synthetic colour. Conclusion: Red pitaya powder could be a potential natural colourant for gummy confectionery.

Colour Blocking: Disregarding Traditional Artistic Colour Harmonies ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

A development in the world of design – costume, fashion, graphics, architecture and general decor whereby traditional colour harmonies are reengineered to suite the taste of the time engages the attention of the paper. The trending phenomenon popularly referred to as 'colour blocking' involves the use of bright ...

Colour perception in ADHD

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Banaschewski, T.; Ruppert, S; Tannock, R.; Albrecht, B.; Becker, A.; Uebel, H.; Sergeant, J.A.; Rothenberger, A.

2006-01-01

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is associated with unexplained impairments on speeded naming of coloured stimuli. These deficits may reflect hypofunctioning retinal dopaminergic mechanisms impairing particularly blue-yellow colour discrimination. Colour perception and rapid colour

Chemical-sensory properties and consumer preference of hibiscus beverages produced by improved industrial processes.

Science.gov (United States)

Monteiro, Maria João P; Costa, Ana Isabel A; Fliedel, Geneviève; Cissé, Mady; Bechoff, Aurélie; Pallet, Dominique; Tomlins, Keith; Pintado, Maria Manuela E

2017-06-15

The need to increase sustainability and add value to traditional foods claiming health benefits led to the introduction of key improvements in the production of hibiscus beverages in Senegal. The physicochemical and sensory properties of three resulting products (an under-vacuum concentrate, a dilute-to-taste syrup and a ready-to-drink infusion) were assessed, vis-à-vis those of conventionally manufactured beverages, and their impact on local consumer preference determined (n=146). New beverages had more intense, redder colour and higher monomeric anthocyanin content, total phenolic content and antioxidant capacity. Moreover, their colour evaluations by trained panellists were mainly linked to colour density and anthocyanin/polyphenol content, while flavour assessments were associated to titratable acidity and sugar-to-acid ratio. Consumer evaluations, in turn, were driven by the beverages' red colour intensity, aroma strength and balance between sweetness and acidity. This explained why they overwhelmingly preferred the under-vacuum concentrate, regardless of their age, gender or frequency of hibiscus beverage consumption. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

COLOUR THEREPY-BOON TO MANKIND

OpenAIRE

Dr.Sajan Kurien Mathew

2017-01-01

Colour Therapy is a complementary therapy for which there is evidence dating back thousands of years to the ancient cultures of Egypt, China and India. Colour is simply light of varying wavelengths, thus each colour has its own particular wavelength and energy. "Colour affects our life. Colour is physical..........we see it. Colour communicates............we recieve information from the language of colour. Colour is emotional..........it evokes our feeling."1 The energy relating to each of th...

Exploring the functional nature of synaesthetic colour: Dissociations from colour perception and imagery.

Science.gov (United States)

Chiou, Rocco; Rich, Anina N; Rogers, Sebastian; Pearson, Joel

2018-08-01

Individuals with grapheme-colour synaesthesia experience anomalous colours when reading achromatic text. These unusual experiences have been said to resemble 'normal' colour perception or colour imagery, but studying the nature of synaesthesia remains difficult. In the present study, we report novel evidence that synaesthetic colour impacts conscious vision in a way that is different from both colour perception and imagery. Presenting 'normal' colour prior to binocular rivalry induces a location-dependent suppressive bias reflecting local habituation. By contrast, a grapheme that evokes synaesthetic colour induces a facilitatory bias reflecting priming that is not constrained to the inducing grapheme's location. This priming does not occur in non-synaesthetes and does not result from response bias. It is sensitive to diversion of visual attention away from the grapheme, but resistant to sensory perturbation, reflecting a reliance on cognitive rather than sensory mechanisms. Whereas colour imagery in non-synaesthetes causes local priming that relies on the locus of imagined colour, imagery in synaesthetes caused global priming not dependent on the locus of imagery. These data suggest a unique psychophysical profile of high-level colour processing in synaesthetes. Our novel findings and method will be critical to testing theories of synaesthesia and visual awareness. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Memory colours and colour quality evaluation of conventional and solid-state lamps.

Science.gov (United States)

Smet, Kevin A G; Ryckaert, Wouter R; Pointer, Michael R; Deconinck, Geert; Hanselaer, Peter

2010-12-06

A colour quality metric based on memory colours is presented. The basic idea is simple. The colour quality of a test source is evaluated as the degree of similarity between the colour appearance of a set of familiar objects and their memory colours. The closer the match, the better the colour quality. This similarity was quantified using a set of similarity distributions obtained by Smet et al. in a previous study. The metric was validated by calculating the Pearson and Spearman correlation coefficients between the metric predictions and the visual appreciation results obtained in a validation experiment conducted by the authors as well those obtained in two independent studies. The metric was found to correlate well with the visual appreciation of the lighting quality of the sources used in the three experiments. Its performance was also compared with that of the CIE colour rendering index and the NIST colour quality scale. For all three experiments, the metric was found to be significantly better at predicting the correct visual rank order of the light sources (p < 0.1).

Colour Perception in ADHD

Science.gov (United States)

Banaschewski, Tobias; Ruppert, Sinje; Tannock, Rosemary; Albrecht, Bjorn; Becker, Andreas; Uebel, Henrik; Sergeant, Joseph A.; Rothenberger, Aribert

2006-01-01

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is associated with unexplained impairments on speeded naming of coloured stimuli. These deficits may reflect hypofunctioning retinal dopaminergic mechanisms impairing particularly blue-yellow colour discrimination. Colour perception and rapid colour naming ability were investigated in 14 children…

Colour and magnetic monopoles

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Corrigan, E.; Olive, D.

1976-01-01

If the exact gauge symmetry of nature consists of the U(1)sub(EM) generated by the electric charge operator Q and the colour group K, with Q a colour singlet, then, if g is a possible magnetic charge, exp(4πigQ) must equal an element of the colour group. For colour singlet particles this reduces to Dirac's condition eg = n/2. In general, possible monopoles correspond to points of intersection of the colour and electromagnetic groups. If the colour group is semi-simple and compact, there can at most be a finite number p of such points (p = N if K = SU(N)). The existence of non-trivial (not equal to unity) solutions to our condition means that there must be fractionally charged (with p the fraction) coloured particles and magnetic monopoles emanating colour magnetic flux as well as electromagnetic flux. (Auth.)

Colour perception in ADHD

OpenAIRE

Banaschewski, T.; Ruppert, S; Tannock, R.; Albrecht, B.; Becker, A.; Uebel, H.; Sergeant, J.A.; Rothenberger, A.

2006-01-01

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is associated with unexplained impairments on speeded naming of coloured stimuli. These deficits may reflect hypofunctioning retinal dopaminergic mechanisms impairing particularly blue-yellow colour discrimination. Colour perception and rapid colour naming ability were investigated in 14 children with ADHD and 13 healthy peers matched for age, gender, and IQ, using the Farnsworth-Munsell 100 Hue Test (FMT) and the Stroop-Colour-Word test. Childr...

Measuring colour

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Hunt, R. W. G; Pointer, Michael, Ph. D

2011-01-01

... industries.Building upon the success of earlier editions, the 4th edition of [start italics]Measuring Colour[end italics] has been updated throughout with new chapters on colour rendering by light sources...

Colourful FKS subtraction

CERN Document Server

Frixione, Stefano

2011-01-01

I formulate in a colour-friendly way the FKS method for the computation of QCD cross sections at the next-to-leading order accuracy. This is achieved through the definition of subtraction terms for squared matrix elements, constructed with single colour-dressed or pairs of colour-ordered amplitudes. The latter approach relies on the use of colour flows, is exact to all orders in $N$, and is thus particularly suited to being organized as a systematic expansion in 1/N.

Subjective estimates of colour attributes for surface colours

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Ishak, I.G.H.; Bouma, H.; van Bussel, H.J.J.

1970-01-01

Subjective estimates of hue, saturation, and lightness are reported for sixty coloured Munsell samples, shown against seven backgrounds (black, grey, white, red, yellow, green, and blue) as judged by two observers. The results show the adequacy of this method for studies on colour appearance. The

Object Knowledge Modulates Colour Appearance

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Christoph Witzel

2011-01-01

Full Text Available We investigated the memory colour effect for colour diagnostic artificial objects. Since knowledge about these objects and their colours has been learned in everyday life, these stimuli allow the investigation of the influence of acquired object knowledge on colour appearance. These investigations are relevant for questions about how object and colour information in high-level vision interact as well as for research about the influence of learning and experience on perception in general. In order to identify suitable artificial objects, we developed a reaction time paradigm that measures (subjective colour diagnosticity. In the main experiment, participants adjusted sixteen such objects to their typical colour as well as to grey. If the achromatic object appears in its typical colour, then participants should adjust it to the opponent colour in order to subjectively perceive it as grey. We found that knowledge about the typical colour influences the colour appearance of artificial objects. This effect was particularly strong along the daylight axis.

Object knowledge modulates colour appearance

Science.gov (United States)

Witzel, Christoph; Valkova, Hanna; Hansen, Thorsten; Gegenfurtner, Karl R

2011-01-01

We investigated the memory colour effect for colour diagnostic artificial objects. Since knowledge about these objects and their colours has been learned in everyday life, these stimuli allow the investigation of the influence of acquired object knowledge on colour appearance. These investigations are relevant for questions about how object and colour information in high-level vision interact as well as for research about the influence of learning and experience on perception in general. In order to identify suitable artificial objects, we developed a reaction time paradigm that measures (subjective) colour diagnosticity. In the main experiment, participants adjusted sixteen such objects to their typical colour as well as to grey. If the achromatic object appears in its typical colour, then participants should adjust it to the opponent colour in order to subjectively perceive it as grey. We found that knowledge about the typical colour influences the colour appearance of artificial objects. This effect was particularly strong along the daylight axis. PMID:23145224

Hypersensitivity reactions to food colours with special reference to the natural colour annatto extract (butter colour).

Science.gov (United States)

Mikkelsen, H; Larsen, J C; Tarding, F

1978-01-01

It is well known that synthetic food colours especially some azo dyes can provoke hypersensitivity reactions such as urticaria, angioneurotic oedema, and astma (Michaëlsson and Juhlin, 1973, Granholt and Thune, 1975). Natural food colours are scarcely investigated with respect to potential allergic properties. Annatto extract, a commonly used food colour in edible fats e.g. butter, has been tested in patients. Among 61 consecutive patients suffereing from chornic urticaria and/or angioneurotic oedema 56 patients were orally provoked by annatto extract during elimination diet. Challenge was performed with a dose equivalent to the amount used in 25 grammes of butter. Twentysix per cent of the patients reacted to this colour 4 hours (SD: 2,6) after intake. Similar challenges with synthetic dyes showed the following results: Tartrazine 11%, Sunset Yellow FCF 17%, Food Red 17 16%, Amaranth 9%, Ponceau 4 R 15%, Erythrosine 12% and Brillant Blue FCF 14%. The present study indicates that natural food colours may induce hypersensitivity reactions as frequent as synthetic dyes.

Optimal colour quality of LED clusters based on memory colours.

Science.gov (United States)

Smet, Kevin; Ryckaert, Wouter R; Pointer, Michael R; Deconinck, Geert; Hanselaer, Peter

2011-03-28

The spectral power distributions of tri- and tetrachromatic clusters of Light-Emitting-Diodes, composed of simulated and commercially available LEDs, were optimized with a genetic algorithm to maximize the luminous efficacy of radiation and the colour quality as assessed by the memory colour quality metric developed by the authors. The trade-off of the colour quality as assessed by the memory colour metric and the luminous efficacy of radiation was investigated by calculating the Pareto optimal front using the NSGA-II genetic algorithm. Optimal peak wavelengths and spectral widths of the LEDs were derived, and over half of them were found to be close to Thornton's prime colours. The Pareto optimal fronts of real LED clusters were always found to be smaller than those of the simulated clusters. The effect of binning on designing a real LED cluster was investigated and was found to be quite large. Finally, a real LED cluster of commercially available AlGaInP, InGaN and phosphor white LEDs was optimized to obtain a higher score on memory colour quality scale than its corresponding CIE reference illuminant.

Cadmium colours: composition and properties

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Paulus, J.; Knuutinen, U.

2004-01-01

The composition and the properties of cadmium aquarelle colours are discussed. The examined colours were 24 different aquarelle cadmium colours from six different manufacturers. The colours ranged from light, bright yellows to dark, deep-red tones. The aim of this research was to find out if the pigments contain cadmium salts: sulphides and/or selenides. This information will help in choosing watercolours in conservation processes. Today, aquarelle colours not containing cadmium pigments are being sold as cadmium colours; thus their properties might be different from actual cadmium colours. The aim of the research was to verify that the colour samples contained cadmium pigments and to estimate their compositions and ageing properties. Element analyses were performed from colour samples using micro-chemical tests and X-ray fluorescence measurements. Thin-layer chromatography was used for analysing gum Arabic as a possible binding medium in the chosen colour samples. Through ageing tests, the resistance of the colour samples to the exposure to light, heat and humidity was studied. Visible-light spectroscopy was used in determining the hues and hue changes of the aquarelle colour samples. The spectrophotometer used the CIE L * a * b * tone colour measuring system. From the colour measurements the changes in the lightness/darkness, the redness, the yellowness and the saturation of the samples were examined. (orig.)

Lessons learnt from the capacity building activities for Asian countries

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nakagawa, Masaki

2010-01-01

Japan Nuclear Energy Safety Organization (JNES) has being providing much of cooperative activities for establishing the nuclear regulatory infrastructure to the several Asian countries like China, Indonesia, Thailand and particularly Vietnam which either started extended construction of nuclear power stations or are launching on new nuclear power programs. Our cooperation to these countries covers several different types like long-term training course, issue-specific training course and periodic safety seminar etc. Through these activities what we have learnt is that to help other countries is not an easy business. To fully recognize what are actually requested by the recipients' countries is not at all an easy business either. This paper will illustrate our experiences to have worked on the cooperative activities putting the emphasis on the lessons learnt through these experiences. (author)

Colour categories are reflected in sensory stages of colour perception when stimulus issues are resolved

Science.gov (United States)

He, Xun; Franklin, Anna

2017-01-01

Debate exists about the time course of the effect of colour categories on visual processing. We investigated the effect of colour categories for two groups who differed in whether they categorised a blue-green boundary colour as the same- or different-category to a reliably-named blue colour and a reliably-named green colour. Colour differences were equated in just-noticeable differences to be equally discriminable. We analysed event-related potentials for these colours elicited on a passive visual oddball task and investigated the time course of categorical effects on colour processing. Support for category effects was found 100 ms after stimulus onset, and over frontal sites around 250 ms, suggesting that colour naming affects both early sensory and later stages of chromatic processing. PMID:28542426

Minimum Colour Differences Required To Recognise Small Objects On A Colour CRT

Science.gov (United States)

Phillips, Peter L.

1985-05-01

Data is required to assist in the assessment, evaluation and optimisation of colour and other displays for both military and general use. A general aim is to develop a mathematical technique to aid optimisation and reduce the amount of expensive hardware development and trials necessary when introducing new displays. The present standards and methods available for evaluating colour differences are known not to apply to the perception of typical objects on a display. Data is required for irregular objects viewed at small angular subtense ((1°) and relating the recognition of form rather than colour matching. Therefore laboratory experiments have been carried out using a computer controlled CRT to measure the threshold colour difference that an observer requires between object and background so that he can discriminate a variety of similar objects. Measurements are included for a variety of background and object colourings. The results are presented in the CIE colorimetric system similar to current standards used by the display engineer. Apart from the characteristic small field tritanopia, the results show that larger colour differences are required for object recognition than those assumed from conventional colour discrimination data. A simple relationship to account for object size and background colour is suggested to aid visual performance assessments and modelling.

Put on that colour, it fits your emotion: Colour appropriateness as a function of expressed emotion.

Science.gov (United States)

Dael, Nele; Perseguers, Marie-Noëlle; Marchand, Cynthia; Antonietti, Jean-Philippe; Mohr, Christine

2016-01-01

People associate affective meaning with colour, and this may influence decisions about colours. Hue is traditionally considered the most salient descriptor of colour and colour-affect associations, although colour brightness and saturation seem to have particularly strong affective connotations. To test whether colour choices can be driven by emotion, we investigated whether and how colour hue, brightness, and saturation are systematically associated with bodily expressions of positive (joy) and negative (fear) emotions. Twenty-five non-colour-blind participants viewed videos of these expressions and selected for each video the most appropriate colour using colour sliders providing values for hue, brightness, and saturation. The overall colour choices were congruent with the expressed emotion--that is, participants selected brighter and more saturated colours for joy expressions than for fear expressions. Also, colours along the red-yellow spectrum were deemed more appropriate for joy expressions and cyan-bluish hues for fear expressions. The current study adds further support to the role of emotion in colour choices by (a) showing that emotional information is spontaneously used in an unconstrained choice setting, (b) extending to ecologically valid stimuli occurring in everyday encounters (dressed bodies), and (c) suggesting that all colour parameters are likely to be important when processing affective nonverbal person information, though not independently from each other.

The control of attentional target selection in a colour/colour conjunction task

OpenAIRE

Berggren, Nick; Eimer, Martin

2016-01-01

To investigate the time course of attentional object selection processes in visual search tasks where targets are defined by a combination of features from the same dimension, we measured the N2pc component as an electrophysiological marker of attentional object selection during colour/colour conjunction search. In Experiment 1, participants searched for targets defined by a combination of two colours, while ignoring distractor objects that matched only one of these colours. Reliable N2pc com...

Response selection difficulty modulates the behavioral impact of rapidly learnt action effects.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Uta eWolfensteller

2014-12-01

Full Text Available It is well established that we can pick up action effect associations when acting in a free-choice intentional mode. However, it is less clear whether and when action effect associations are learnt and actually affect behavior if we are acting in a forced-choice mode, applying a specific stimulus-response (S-R rule. In the present study, we investigated whether response selection difficulty imposed by S-R rules influences the initial rapid learning and the behavioral expression of previously learnt but weakly practiced action effect associations when those are re-activated by effect exposure. Experiment 1 showed that the rapid acquisition of action effect associations is not directly influenced by response selection difficulty. By contrast, the behavioral expression of re-activated action effect associations is prevented when actions are directly activated by highly over-learnt response cues and thus response selection difficulty is low. However, all three experiments showed that if response selection difficulty is sufficiently high during re-activation, the same action effect associations do influence behavior. Experiment 2 and 3 revealed that the effect of response selection difficulty cannot be fully reduced to giving action effects more time to prime an action, but seems to reflect competition during response selection. Finally, the present data suggest that when multiple novel rules are rapidly learnt in succession, which requires a lot of flexibility, action effect associations continue to influence behavior only if response selection difficulty is sufficiently high. Thus, response selection difficulty might modulate the impact of experiencing multiple learning episodes on action effect expression and learning, possibly via inducing different strategies.

An example of applied colour vision research: the conspicuity of airplane colour

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Lucassen, M.P.

2002-01-01

This paper describes the application of the combined knowledge on colorimetry, colour imaging (visualization) and colour perception in an aviation related research project. It involves the optimisation of the conspicuity of the colour scheme of an airplane, with the purpose of minimizing the changes

Colour-Temperature Correspondences: When Reactions to Thermal Stimuli Are Influenced by Colour

Science.gov (United States)

Ho, Hsin-Ni; Van Doorn, George H.; Kawabe, Takahiro; Watanabe, Junji; Spence, Charles

2014-01-01

In our daily lives, information concerning temperature is often provided by means of colour cues, with red typically being associated with warm/hot, and blue with cold. While such correspondences have been known about for many years, they have primarily been studied using subjective report measures. Here we examined this correspondence using two more objective response measures. First, we used the Implicit Association Test (IAT), a test designed to assess the strength of automatic associations between different concepts in a given individual. Second, we used a priming task that involved speeded target discrimination in order to assess whether priming colour or thermal information could invoke the crossmodal association. The results of the IAT confirmed that the association exists at the level of response selection, thus indicating that a participant’s responses to colour or thermal stimuli are influenced by the colour-temperature correspondence. The results of the priming experiment revealed that priming a colour affected thermal discrimination reaction times (RTs), but thermal cues did not influence colour discrimination responses. These results may therefore provide important clues as to the level of processing at which such colour-temperature correspondences are represented. PMID:24618675

Computational colour science using MATLAB

CERN Document Server

Westland, Stephen; Cheung, Vien

2012-01-01

Computational Colour Science Using MATLAB 2nd Edition offers a practical, problem-based approach to colour physics. The book focuses on the key issues encountered in modern colour engineering, including efficient representation of colour information, Fourier analysis of reflectance spectra and advanced colorimetric computation. Emphasis is placed on the practical applications rather than the techniques themselves, with material structured around key topics. These topics include colour calibration of visual displays, computer recipe prediction and models for colour-appearance prediction. Each t

About Coloured Cold Asphaltic Mixtures

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Loredana Judele

2008-01-01

Full Text Available The first coloured bitumen was obtained by using bitumen from Peru and then bitumen from the Middle East, with a low content of asphaltenes, also called "colourable" bitumens. The colours obtained by adding iron oxides led nevertheless to dark colours, due to the presence of asphaltenes. Nowadays the coloured asphalt is obtained from synthesis binders with translucent aspect. The colours are obtained by adding inorganic pigments, mainly iron oxide for red, chromic oxide for green, titanic dioxide for white. The properties and behaviour of the coloured bitumen during its lifetime are comparable with the ones of classic bitumen, sometimes even better.

Colour evaluation in scars: tristimulus colorimeter, narrow-band simple reflectance meter or subjective evaluation?

Science.gov (United States)

Draaijers, Lieneke J; Tempelman, Fenike R H; Botman, Yvonne A M; Kreis, Robert W; Middelkoop, Esther; van Zuijlen, Paul P M

2004-03-01

The evaluation of scar colour is, at present, usually limited to an assessment according to a scar assessment scale. Although useful, these assessment scales only evaluate subjectively the degree of scar colour. In this study, the reliability of the subjective assessment of scar colour by observers is compared to the reliability of the measurements of two objective colour measurement instruments. Four independent observers subjectively assessed the vascularisation and pigmentation of 49 scar areas in 20 patients. The degree of vascularisation and pigmentation was scored according to a scale ranging from '1', when it appeared to be like healthy skin, to '10', which corresponds to the worst imaginable outcome of vascularisation or pigmentation. The observers also scored the pigmentation categories of the scar (hypopigmention, hyperpigmention or mixed pigmentation). Finally, each observer measured the scar areas with a tristimulus colorimeter (Minolta Chromameter) and a narrow-band simple reflectance meter (DermaSpectrometer). A single observer could reliably carry out measurements of the DermaSpectrometer and the Minolta Chromameter for the evaluation of scar colour (r = 0.72). The vascularisation of scars could also be assessed reliably with a single observer (r = 0.76) whereas for a reliable assessment of pigmentation at least three observers were necessary (r > or = 0.77). The agreement between the observers for the pigmentation categories also turned out to be unacceptably low (k = 0.349). This study shows that an overall evaluation of scar colour with the DermaSpectrometer and the Minolta Chromameter is more reliable than the evaluation of scar colour with observers. Of both instruments for measuring scar colour, we prefer, because of its feasibility, the DermaSpectrometer.

Topographical coloured plasmonic coins

OpenAIRE

Guay, Jean-Michel; Lesina, Antonino Calà; Côté, Guillaume; Charron, Martin; Ramunno, Lora; Berini, Pierre; Weck, Arnaud

2016-01-01

Plasmonic resonances in metallic nanoparticles have been used since antiquity to colour glasses. The use of metal nanostructures for surface colourization has attracted considerable interest following recent developments in plasmonics. However, current top-down colourization methods are not ideally suited to large-scale industrial applications. Here we use a bottom-up approach where picosecond laser pulses can produce a full palette of non-iridescent colours on silver, gold, copper and alumin...

Molluscan shell colour.

Science.gov (United States)

Williams, Suzanne T

2017-05-01

The phylum Mollusca is highly speciose, and is the largest phylum in the marine realm. The great majority of molluscs are shelled, including nearly all bivalves, most gastropods and some cephalopods. The fabulous and diverse colours and patterns of molluscan shells are widely recognised and have been appreciated for hundreds of years by collectors and scientists alike. They serve taxonomists as characters that can be used to recognise and distinguish species, however their function for the animal is sometimes less clear and has been the focus of many ecological and evolutionary studies. Despite these studies, almost nothing is known about the evolution of colour in molluscan shells. This review summarises for the first time major findings of disparate studies relevant to the evolution of shell colour in Mollusca and discusses the importance of colour, including the effects of visual and non-visual selection, diet and abiotic factors. I also summarise the evidence for the heritability of shell colour in some taxa and recent efforts to understand the molecular mechanisms underpinning synthesis of shell colours. I describe some of the main shell pigments found in Mollusca (carotenoids, melanin and tetrapyrroles, including porphyrins and bile pigments), and their durability in the fossil record. Finally I suggest that pigments appear to be distributed in a phylogenetically relevant manner and that the synthesis of colour is likely to be energetically costly. © 2016 Cambridge Philosophical Society.

Experimental manipulation of melanism demonstrates the plasticity of preferred temperature in an agricultural pest (Phaulacridium vittatum).

Science.gov (United States)

Harris, Rebecca M B; McQuillan, Peter; Hughes, Lesley

2013-01-01

Phenotypic plasticity is a key trait of successful pest species, and may increase the ability to cope with higher, more variable temperatures under climate change. We investigate the plasticity of preferred temperature in a widespread agricultural pest, the wingless grasshopper (Phaulacridium vittatum). Preferred temperature is a measure of thermoregulatory behaviour through habitat selection. It is influenced by melanism, which affects body temperature by determining the amount of radiation absorbed by the body. First we demonstrate that body temperature and preferred temperature in P. vittatum is influenced by melanism, by comparing the preferred temperature of the colour morphs in laboratory thermal gradients and field body temperatures in natural populations. We then test whether preferred temperature changes in response to changes in body temperature, by determining preferred temperature before and after manipulation of melanism by painting. When melanism was manipulated experimentally in live grasshoppers, preferred temperature changed to reflect the thermal qualities of the new colour. The preferred temperature of light grasshoppers increased after they were painted black, and decreased after being painted white. Similarly, dark individuals that were painted white behaved like a light individual, maintaining a lower body temperature. Preferred temperature in P.vittatum is a plastic thermoregulatory response to ambient temperature, mediated by the influence of melanism on body temperature.

Colour for Behavioural Success

Science.gov (United States)

Reeves, Adam

2018-01-01

Colour information not only helps sustain the survival of animal species by guiding sexual selection and foraging behaviour but also is an important factor in the cultural and technological development of our own species. This is illustrated by examples from the visual arts and from state-of-the-art imaging technology, where the strategic use of colour has become a powerful tool for guiding the planning and execution of interventional procedures. The functional role of colour information in terms of its potential benefits to behavioural success across the species is addressed in the introduction here to clarify why colour perception may have evolved to generate behavioural success. It is argued that evolutionary and environmental pressures influence not only colour trait production in the different species but also their ability to process and exploit colour information for goal-specific purposes. We then leap straight to the human primate with insight from current research on the facilitating role of colour cues on performance training with precision technology for image-guided surgical planning and intervention. It is shown that local colour cues in two-dimensional images generated by a surgical fisheye camera help individuals become more precise rapidly across a limited number of trial sets in simulator training for specific manual gestures with a tool. This facilitating effect of a local colour cue on performance evolution in a video-controlled simulator (pick-and-place) task can be explained in terms of colour-based figure-ground segregation facilitating attention to local image parts when more than two layers of subjective surface depth are present, as in all natural and surgical images. PMID:29770183

The handicap of abnormal colour vision.

Science.gov (United States)

Cole, Barry L

2004-07-01

All people with abnormal colour vision, except for a few mildly affected deuteranomals, report that they experience problems with colour in everyday life and at work. Contemporary society presents them with increasing problems because colour is now so widely used in printed materials and in computer displays. Equal opportunity law gives them protection against unfair discrimination in employment, so a decision to exclude a person from employment on the grounds of abnormal colour vision must now be well supported by good evidence and sound argument. This paper reviews the investigations that have contributed to understanding the nature and consequences of the problems they have. All those with abnormal colour vision are at a disadvantage with comparative colour tasks that involve precise matching of colours or discrimination of fine colour differences either because of their loss of colour discrimination or anomalous perception of metamers. The majority have problems when colour is used to code information, in man-made colour codes and in naturally occurring colour codes that signal ripeness of fruit, freshness of meat or illness. They can be denied the benefit of colour to mark out objects and organise complex visual displays. They may be unreliable when a colour name is used as an identifier. They are slower and less successful in search when colour is an attribute of the target object or is used to organise the visual display. Because those with the more severe forms of abnormal colour vision perceive a very limited gamut of colours, they are at a disadvantage in the pursuit and appreciation of those forms of art that use colour.

Specific deficit of colour-colour short-term memory binding in sporadic and familial Alzheimer's disease.

Science.gov (United States)

Parra, Mario A; Sala, Sergio Della; Abrahams, Sharon; Logie, Robert H; Méndez, Luis Guillermo; Lopera, Francisco

2011-06-01

Short-term memory binding of visual features which are processed across different dimensions (shape-colour) is impaired in sporadic Alzheimer's disease, familial Alzheimer's disease, and in asymptomatic carriers of familial Alzheimer's disease. This study investigated whether Alzheimer's disease also impacts on within-dimension binding processes. The study specifically explored whether visual short-term memory binding of features of the same type (colour-colour) is sensitive to Alzheimer's disease. We used a neuropsychological battery and a short-term memory binding task to assess patients with sporadic Alzheimer's disease (Experiment 1), familial Alzheimer's disease (Experiment 2) due to the mutation E280A of the Presenilin-1 gene and asymptomatic carriers of the mutation. The binding task assessed change detection within arrays of unicoloured objects (Colour Only) or bicoloured objects the colours of which had to be remembered separately (Unbound Colours) or together (Bound Colours). Performance on the Bound Colours condition (1) explained the largest proportion of variance between patients (sporadic and familial Alzheimer's disease), (2) combined more sensitivity and specificity for the disease than other more traditional neuropsychological tasks, (3) identified asymptomatic carriers of the mutation even when traditional neuropsychological measures and other measures of short-term memory did not and, (4) contrary to shape-colour binding, correlated with measures of hippocampal functions. Colour-colour binding and shape-colour binding both appear to be sensitive to AD even though they seem to rely on different brain mechanisms. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Ontogenetic shifts in male mating preference and morph-specific polyandry in a female colour polymorphic insect

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Sanchez-Guillen, Rosa Ana; Hammers, Martijn; Hansson, Bengt; Van Gossum, Hans; Cordero-Rivera, Adolfo; Galicia Mendoza, Dalia Ivette; Wellenreuther, Maren

2013-01-01

Background: Sexual conflict over mating rates may favour the origin and maintenance of phenotypes with contrasting reproductive strategies. The damselfly Ischnura elegans is characterised by a female colour polymorphism that consists of one androchrome and two gynochrome female morphs. Previous

Search for Colour Singlet and Colour Reconnection Effects in Hadronic Z Decays at LEP

CERN Document Server

Achard, P; Aguilar-Benítez, M; Alcaraz, J; Alemanni, G; Allaby, James V; Aloisio, A; Alviggi, M G; Anderhub, H; Andreev, V P; Anselmo, F; Arefev, A; Azemoon, T; Aziz, T; Bagnaia, P; Bajo, A; Baksay, G; Baksay, L; Baldew, S V; Banerjee, S; Banerjee, Sw; Barczyk, A; Barillère, R; Bartalini, P; Basile, M; Batalova, N; Battiston, R; Bay, A; Becattini, F; Becker, U; Behner, F; Bellucci, L; Berbeco, R; Berdugo, J; Berges, P; Bertucci, B; Betev, B L; Biasini, M; Biglietti, M; Biland, A; Blaising, J J; Blyth, S C; Bobbink, Gerjan J; Böhm, A; Boldizsar, L; Borgia, B; Bottai, S; Bourilkov, D; Bourquin, Maurice; Braccini, S; Branson, J G; Brochu, F; Burger, J D; Burger, W J; Cai, X D; Capell, M; Cara Romeo, G; Carlino, G; Cartacci, A M; Casaus, J; Cavallari, F; Cavallo, N; Cecchi, C; Cerrada, M; Chamizo-Llatas, M; Chang, Y H; Chemarin, M; Chen, A; Chen, G; Chen, G M; Chen, H F; Chen, H S; Chiefari, G; Cifarelli, Luisa; Cindolo, F; Clare, I; Clare, R; Coignet, G; Colino, N; Costantini, S; de la Cruz, B; Cucciarelli, S; van Dalen, J A; De Asmundis, R; Déglon, P L; Debreczeni, J; Degré, A; Dehmelt, K; Deiters, K; Della Volpe, D; Delmeire, E; Denes, P; De Notaristefani, F; De Salvo, A; Diemoz, M; Dierckxsens, M; Dionisi, C; Dittmar, M; Doria, A; Dova, M T; Duchesneau, D; Duda, M; Echenard, B; Eline, A; El-Hage, A; El-Mamouni, H; Engler, A; Eppling, F J; Extermann, P; Falagán, M A; Falciano, S; Favara, A; Fay, J; Fedin, O; Felcini, M; Ferguson, T; Fesefeldt, H S; Fiandrini, E; Field, J H; Filthaut, F; Fisher, P H; Fisher, W; Fisk, I; Forconi, G; Freudenreich, Klaus; Furetta, C; Galaktionov, Yu; Ganguli, S N; García-Abia, P; Gataullin, M; Gentile, S; Giagu, S; Gong, Z F; Grenier, G; Grimm, O; Grünewald, M W; Guida, M; van Gulik, R; Gupta, V K; Gurtu, A; Gutay, L J; Haas, D; Hatzifotiadou, D; Hebbeker, T; Hervé, A; Hirschfelder, J; Hofer, H; Hohlmann, M; Holzner, G; Hou, S R; Hu, Y; Jin, B N; Jones, L W; de Jong, P; Josa-Mutuberria, I; Käfer, D; Kaur, M; Kienzle-Focacci, M N; Kim, J K; Kirkby, Jasper; Kittel, E W; Klimentov, A; König, A C; Kopal, M; Koutsenko, V F; Kräber, M H; Krämer, R W; Krüger, A; Kunin, A; Ladrón de Guevara, P; Laktineh, I; Landi, G; Lebeau, M; Lebedev, A; Lebrun, P; Lecomte, P; Lecoq, P; Le Coultre, P; Le Goff, J M; Leiste, R; Levtchenko, M; Levchenko, P M; Li, C; Likhoded, S; Lin, C H; Lin, W T; Linde, Frank L; Lista, L; Liu, Z A; Lohmann, W; Longo, E; Lü, Y S; Luci, C; Luminari, L; Lustermann, W; Ma Wen Gan; Malgeri, L; Malinin, A; Maña, C; Mans, J; Martin, J P; Marzano, F; Mazumdar, K; McNeil, R R; Mele, S; Merola, L; Meschini, M; Metzger, W J; Mihul, A; Milcent, H; Mirabelli, G; Mnich, J; Mohanty, G B; Muanza, G S; Muijs, A J M; Musicar, B; Musy, M; Nagy, S; Natale, S; Napolitano, M; Nessi-Tedaldi, F; Newman, H; Nisati, A; Novák, T; Nowak, H; Ofierzynski, R A; Organtini, G; Pal, I; Palomares, C; Paolucci, P; Paramatti, R; Passaleva, G; Patricelli, S; Paul, T; Pauluzzi, M; Paus, C; Pauss, Felicitas; Pedace, M; Pensotti, S; Perret-Gallix, D; Petersen, B; Piccolo, D; Pierella, F; Pioppi, M; Piroué, P A; Pistolesi, E; Plyaskin, V; Pohl, M; Pozhidaev, V; Pothier, J; Prokofev, D; Prokofiev, D O; Quartieri, J; Rahal-Callot, G; Rahaman, M A; Raics, P; Raja, N; Ramelli, R; Rancoita, P G; Ranieri, R; Raspereza, A V; Razis, P A; Ren, D; Rescigno, M; Reucroft, S; Riemann, S; Riles, K; Roe, B P; Romero, L; Rosca, A; Rosier-Lees, S; Roth, S; Rosenbleck, C; Rubio, J A; Ruggiero, G; Rykaczewski, H; Sakharov, A; Saremi, S; Sarkar, S; Salicio, J; Sánchez, E; Schäfer, C; Shchegelskii, V; Schopper, Herwig Franz; Schotanus, D J; Sciacca, C; Servoli, L; Shevchenko, S; Shivarov, N; Shoutko, V; Shumilov, E; Shvorob, A V; Son, D; Souga, C; Spillantini, P; Steuer, M; Stickland, D P; Stoyanov, B; Strässner, A; Sudhakar, K; Sultanov, G G; Sun, L Z; Sushkov, S; Suter, H; Swain, J D; Szillási, Z; Tang, X W; Tarjan, P; Tauscher, Ludwig; Taylor, L; Tellili, B; Teyssier, D; Timmermans, C; Ting, Samuel C C; Ting, S M; Tonwar, S C; Tóth, J; Tully, C; Tung, K L; Ulbricht, J; Valente, E; Van de Walle, R T; Vásquez, R; Veszpremi, V; Vesztergombi, G; Vetlitskii, I; Vicinanza, D; Viertel, Gert M; Villa, S; Vivargent, M; Vlachos, S; Vodopyanov, I; Vogel, H; Vogt, H; Vorobev, I; Vorobyov, A A; Wadhwa, M; Wang, Q; Wang, X L; Wang, Z M; Weber, M; Wienemann, P; Wilkens, H; Wynhoff, S; Xia, L; Xu, Z Z; Yamamoto, J; Yang, B Z; Yang, C G; Yang, H J; Yang, M; Yeh, S C; Zalite, A; Zalite, Yu; Zhang, Z P; Zhao, J; Zhu, G Y; Zhu, R Y; Zhuang, H L; Zichichi, A; Zimmermann, B; Zöller, M

2004-01-01

A search is performed in symmetric 3-jet hadronic Z decay events for evidence of colour singlet production or colour reconnection effects. Asymmetries in the angular separation of particles are found to be sensitive indicators of such effects. Upper limits on the level of colour singlet production and colour reconnection effects are established for a variety of models.

Colour Reproduction on Tablet Devices

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Vladimir Zorić

2014-07-01

Full Text Available With the advent of Internet and mobile devices client services and other print production are migrating more and more to online platforms. In a recent technology changeover it is obvious that there is growing number of printers as well need from the customers for the print service providers to expand their business to online and mobile platforms. With this technological transition there are some open questions regarding the possibilities of using the tablet devices for colour soft proofing and other colour related operations. As a display devices on a hardware level there are large similarities with the desktop display devices but the operating systems which are driving them are not yet colour smart. There have been some initial attempts to characterize the colour reproduction on this type of devices and find a possibility of using them not just for information content but also for colour managed content. In this study we have tested several tablets (Apple iPad2,Asus Transformer TF101, Samsung Galaxy Tab 1 with different display and OS technology and tested a software which is intended for colour managed viewing of the reproduction. We have measured the colour reproduction of the tablets with the digital version of the GretagMacbeth ColorChecker card and have calculated the colour differences between the colour chart data and the displayed data. We have calibrated the Ipad2 with the only existing colour management tool the Spyder Gallery and we have also tested the chart display with and without the colour correction of the software. We have found that there are differences in the colour reproduction of the display technologies and that the possibilities of a real colour managed workflow has yet to be resolved on the OS level of tablet and mobile devices

Lessons Learnt from Past Incidents and Accidents in Radiation Oncology.

Science.gov (United States)

Knöös, T

2017-09-01

The purpose of this report is to review and compile what have been and can be learnt from incidents and accidents in radiation oncology, especially in external beam and brachytherapy. Some major accidents from the last 20 years will be discussed. The relationship between major events and minor or so-called near misses is mentioned, leading to the next topic of exploring the knowledge hidden among them. The main lessons learnt from the discussion here and elsewhere are that a well-functioning and safe radiotherapy department should help staff to work with awareness and alertness and that documentation and procedures should be in place and known by everyone. It also requires that trained and educated staff with the required competences are in place and, finally, functions and responsibilities are defined and well known. Copyright © 2017 The Royal College of Radiologists. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Automaticity and localisation of concurrents predicts colour area activity in grapheme-colour synaesthesia.

Science.gov (United States)

Gould van Praag, Cassandra D; Garfinkel, Sarah; Ward, Jamie; Bor, Daniel; Seth, Anil K

2016-07-29

In grapheme-colour synaesthesia (GCS), the presentation of letters or numbers induces an additional 'concurrent' experience of colour. Early functional MRI (fMRI) investigations of GCS reported activation in colour-selective area V4 during the concurrent experience. However, others have failed to replicate this key finding. We reasoned that individual differences in synaesthetic phenomenology might explain this inconsistency in the literature. To test this hypothesis, we examined fMRI BOLD responses in a group of grapheme-colour synaesthetes (n=20) and matched controls (n=20) while characterising the individual phenomenology of the synaesthetes along dimensions of 'automaticity' and 'localisation'. We used an independent functional localiser to identify colour-selective areas in both groups. Activations in these areas were then assessed during achromatic synaesthesia-inducing, and non-inducing conditions; we also explored whole brain activations, where we sought to replicate the existing literature regarding synaesthesia effects. Controls showed no significant activations in the contrast of inducing > non-inducing synaesthetic stimuli, in colour-selective ROIs or at the whole brain level. In the synaesthete group, we correlated activation within colour-selective ROIs with individual differences in phenomenology using the Coloured Letters and Numbers (CLaN) questionnaire which measures, amongst other attributes, the subjective automaticity/attention in synaesthetic concurrents, and their spatial localisation. Supporting our hypothesis, we found significant correlations between individual measures of synaesthetic phenomenology and BOLD responses in colour-selective areas, when contrasting inducing against non-inducing stimuli. Specifically, left-hemisphere colour area responses were stronger for synaesthetes scoring high on phenomenological localisation and automaticity/attention, while right-hemisphere colour area responses showed a relationship with localisation

Towards realistic modelling of spectral line formation - lessons learnt from red giants

Science.gov (United States)

Lind, Karin

2015-08-01

Many decades of quantitative spectroscopic studies of red giants have revealed much about the formation histories and interlinks between the main components of the Galaxy and its satellites. Telescopes and instrumentation are now able to deliver high-resolution data of superb quality for large stellar samples and Galactic archaeology has entered a new era. At the same time, we have learnt how simplifying physical assumptions in the modelling of spectroscopic data can bias the interpretations, in particular one-dimensional homogeneity and local thermodynamic equilibrium (LTE). I will present lessons learnt so far from non-LTE spectral line formation in 3D radiation-hydrodynamic atmospheres of red giants, the smaller siblings of red supergiants.

Neural correlates of imagined and synaesthetic colours.

Science.gov (United States)

Rich, Anina N; Williams, Mark A; Puce, Aina; Syngeniotis, Ari; Howard, Matthew A; McGlone, Francis; Mattingley, Jason B

2006-01-01

The experience of colour is a core element of human vision. Colours provide important symbolic and contextual information not conveyed by form alone. Moreover, the experience of colour can arise without external stimulation. For many people, visual memories are rich with colour imagery. In the unusual phenomenon of grapheme-colour synaesthesia, achromatic forms such as letters, words and numbers elicit vivid experiences of colour. Few studies, however, have examined the neural correlates of such internally generated colour experiences. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to compare patterns of cortical activity for the perception of external coloured stimuli and internally generated colours in a group of grapheme-colour synaesthetes and matched non-synaesthetic controls. In a voluntary colour imagery task, both synaesthetes and non-synaesthetes made colour judgements on objects presented as grey scale photographs. In a synaesthetic colour task, we presented letters that elicited synaesthetic colours, and asked participants to perform a localisation task. We assessed the neural activity underpinning these two different forms of colour experience that occur in the absence of chromatic sensory input. In both synaesthetes and non-synaesthetes, voluntary colour imagery activated the colour-selective area, V4, in the right hemisphere. In contrast, the synaesthetic colour task resulted in unique activity for synaesthetes in the left medial lingual gyrus, an area previously implicated in tasks involving colour knowledge. Our data suggest that internally generated colour experiences recruit brain regions specialised for colour perception, with striking differences between voluntary colour imagery and synaesthetically induced colours.

On the colour contribution to effective weak vertex in broken colour gauge theories

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ramachandran, R.

1979-01-01

Treating the breaking of colour symmetry via the mixing between the colour gluons and weak bosons (a la Rajasekaran and Roy) it is observed that the colour contribution to the effective weak vertex of a quark at zero momentum transfer is zero upto 0(α). (author)

COLOURFUL DIET FOR GOOD HEALTH

OpenAIRE

Vandana Gupta

2017-01-01

We are surrounded by colour and they can affect us profoundly and in ways that we may not have thought of. It is a known fact, that colours can influence your moods, feelings and emotions. Colours influence your actions and how you respond to people, situations and ideas. Apart from the colour of interiors, exteriors, our clothing and other things, the colour of food and beverage products are also extremely important. Green fruits and vegetables support eye health and may help protect against...

Disruptive colouration and perceptual grouping.

Science.gov (United States)

Espinosa, Irene; Cuthill, Innes C

2014-01-01

Camouflage is the primary defence of many animals and includes multiple strategies that interfere with figure-ground segmentation and object recognition. While matching background colours and textures is widespread and conceptually straightforward, less well explored are the optical 'tricks', collectively called disruptive colouration, that exploit perceptual grouping mechanisms. Adjacent high contrast colours create false edges, but this is not sufficient for an object's shape to be broken up; some colours must blend with the background. We test the novel hypothesis that this will be particularly effective when the colour patches on the animal appear to belong to, not merely different background colours, but different background objects. We used computer-based experiments where human participants had to find cryptic targets on artificial backgrounds. Creating what appeared to be bi-coloured foreground objects on bi-coloured backgrounds, we generated colour boundaries that had identical local contrast but either lay within or between (illusory) objects. As predicted, error rates for targets matching what appeared to be different background objects were higher than for targets which had otherwise identical local contrast to the background but appeared to belong to single background objects. This provides evidence for disruptive colouration interfering with higher-level feature integration in addition to previously demonstrated low-level effects involving contour detection. In addition, detection was impeded in treatments where targets were on or in close proximity to multiple background colour or tone boundaries. This is consistent with other studies which show a deleterious influence of visual 'clutter' or background complexity on search.

Disruptive colouration and perceptual grouping.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Irene Espinosa

Full Text Available Camouflage is the primary defence of many animals and includes multiple strategies that interfere with figure-ground segmentation and object recognition. While matching background colours and textures is widespread and conceptually straightforward, less well explored are the optical 'tricks', collectively called disruptive colouration, that exploit perceptual grouping mechanisms. Adjacent high contrast colours create false edges, but this is not sufficient for an object's shape to be broken up; some colours must blend with the background. We test the novel hypothesis that this will be particularly effective when the colour patches on the animal appear to belong to, not merely different background colours, but different background objects. We used computer-based experiments where human participants had to find cryptic targets on artificial backgrounds. Creating what appeared to be bi-coloured foreground objects on bi-coloured backgrounds, we generated colour boundaries that had identical local contrast but either lay within or between (illusory objects. As predicted, error rates for targets matching what appeared to be different background objects were higher than for targets which had otherwise identical local contrast to the background but appeared to belong to single background objects. This provides evidence for disruptive colouration interfering with higher-level feature integration in addition to previously demonstrated low-level effects involving contour detection. In addition, detection was impeded in treatments where targets were on or in close proximity to multiple background colour or tone boundaries. This is consistent with other studies which show a deleterious influence of visual 'clutter' or background complexity on search.

Are the unken reflex and the aposematic colouration of Red-Bellied Toads efficient against bird predation?

Science.gov (United States)

Caorsi, Valentina Zaffaroni; Colombo, Patrick; Abadie, Michelle; Brack, Ismael Verrastro; Dasoler, Bibiana Terra; Borges-Martins, Márcio

2018-01-01

Aposematic signals as well as body behaviours may be important anti-predator defences. Species of the genus Melanophryniscus are characterised by having toxic lipophilic alkaloids in the skin and for presenting a red ventral colouration, which can be observed when they perform the behaviour called the unken reflex. Both the reflex behaviour and the colouration pattern are described as defence mechanisms. However, there are currently no studies testing their effectiveness against predators. This study aimed to test experimentally if both ventral conspicuous colouration and the unken reflex in Melanophryniscus cambaraensis function as aposematic signals against visually oriented predators (birds). We simulated the species studied using three different clay toad models as follows: (a) in a normal position with green coloured bodies, (b) in the unken reflex position with green coloured body and extremities and (c) in the unken reflex position with a green body and red extremities. Models were distributed on a known M. cambaraensis breeding site and in the adjacent forest. More than half of the attacks on the models were from birds; however, there was no preference for any model type. Thus, just the presence of the red colour associated with the motionless unken reflex position does not seem to prevent attacks from potential predators. It is possible that the effective aposematic signal in Melanophryniscus is achieved through the unken reflex movement together with the subsequent exhibition of the warning colouration and the secretion of toxins. PMID:29596437

Colour and Organization Studies

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Beyes, Timon

2017-01-01

Colour is inescapable. It fills and forms the world, shaping what can be felt and known, desired and expressed. It thus becomes social technology and organizational tool. At the same time, however, colour betrays, undermines and subverts the attempts to manage it. Based on an understanding...... of colour as aesthetic force and medium of transformation, the essay presents a montage of scenes that set up encounters with what colour does: how it affects organization, and how it is affected by organization; how it organizes what is given to perception, knowledge and organization itself, and how...

Colour mixing based on daylight

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Meyn, Jan-Peter

2008-01-01

Colour science is based on the sensation of monochromatic light. In contrast to that, surface colours are caused by reflection of wide sections of the daylight spectrum. Non-spectral colours like magenta and purple appear homologous to colours with spectral hue, if the approach of mixing monochromatic light is abandoned. It is shown that a large region of the colour space can be covered by mixing three primary colours derived from lossless spectral decomposition of daylight. These primaries are specified by hue, saturation and luminosity. Duality of additive and subtractive mixing is formulated quantitatively. Experimental demonstrations of calculated results are suggested. This paper is intended for undergraduate optics courses, and advanced interdisciplinary seminars on arts and physics

Colour Mixing Based on Daylight

Science.gov (United States)

Meyn, Jan-Peter

2008-01-01

Colour science is based on the sensation of monochromatic light. In contrast to that, surface colours are caused by reflection of wide sections of the daylight spectrum. Non-spectral colours like magenta and purple appear homologous to colours with spectral hue, if the approach of mixing monochromatic light is abandoned. It is shown that a large…

Do isolated packaging variables influence consumers' attention and preferences?

Science.gov (United States)

García-Madariaga, Jesús; Blasco López, Maria-Francisca; Burgos, Ingrit Moya; Virto, Nuria Recuero

2018-04-25

Developments in neuroscience have provided the opportunity to know unconscious consumer reactions and acknowledge direct measures of cognitive constructs like attention. Given the ever-increasing concern over packaging's contribution to creating a positive first impression, the current research seeks to examine consumers' attention and declarative preferences regarding the three main different packaging attributes as isolated variables: images, texts and colours. The experiment exposed participants (N = 40) to 63 stimuli, which were based on modifications of the three main packaging attributes of three products of three different food categories. This study used electroencephalogram (EEG) and eye-tracking (ET) to measure attention, and a declarative test was employed to examine preference. First, the results presented herein show that the presence of visual elements, either images or texts on packages, increased the participants' level of attention. Second, the results reveal that colour modifications do not have a significant effect on participants' neurophysiological attention levels. Third, the results demonstrated that the neurophysiological effects among the participants do not necessarily coincide with their subjective evaluations of preference. Hence, this study increases awareness of the relevance of combining traditional market research tools that rely on explicit consumer responses with neuroscientific techniques. These findings indicate, first of all, that more research is needed to ascertain the extent to which consumers' neurophysiological outcomes correspond to their declarative preferences and second, that neurophysiological methods should be given more attention in research. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Colour Perception in Ancient World

Science.gov (United States)

Nesterov, D. I.; Fedorova, M. Yu

2017-11-01

How did the human thought form the surrounding color information into the persistent semantic images of a mythological, pseudoscientific and religious nature? The concepts associated with colour perception are suggested. The existence of colour environment does not depend on the human consciousness. The colour culture formation is directly related to the level of the human consciousness development and the possibility to influence the worldview and culture. The colour perception of a person goes through the stages similar to the development of colour vision in a child. Like any development, the colour consciousness has undergone stages of growth and decline, evolution and stagnation. The way of life and difficult conditions for existence made their own adjustments to the development of the human perception of the surrounding world. Wars have been both a powerful engine of progress in all spheres of life and a great destructive force demolishing the already created and preserved heritage. The surrounding world has always been interesting for humans, evoked images and fantasies in the consciousness of ancient people. Unusual and inexplicable natural phenomena spawned numerous legends and myths which was reflected in the ancient art and architecture and, accordingly, in a certain manifestation of colour in the human society. The colour perception of the ancient man, his pragmatic, utilitarian attitude to colour is considered as well as the influence of dependence on external conditions of existence and their reflection in the colour culture of antiquity. “Natural Science” conducts research in the field of the colour nature and their authorial interpretation of the Hellenic period. Several authorial concepts of the ancient world have been considered.

The twelve colourful stones

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Doria, R.M.

1983-01-01

A dynamics with twelve colourful stones is created based on the concepts of gauge and colour. It is associated different gauge fields to the same group. A group of gauge invariant Lagrangians is established. A gauge invariant mass term is introduced. The colourful stones physical insight is to be building blocks for quarks and leptons. (Author) [pt

The effect of a diet supplemented with sea-buckthorn pomace on the colour and viscosity of the egg yolk

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Petr Dvořák

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Sea-buckthorn pomace is a very valuable product which contains not only important nutrients but also high-quality oils. The question addressed in the present study was to what extent the diet containing the sea-buckthorn pomace would affect the viscosity and colour of egg yolk measured in the CIELAB system. The feeding mixture for laying hens was supplemented with 20; 50 and 100 g∙kg-1 of sea-buckthorn pomace. As a result, colour indices of the egg yolk such as L*, a* and b* changed significantly (α = 0.01. The greatest relative enhancement was observed for indicator a* for the red colour. Visually, this corresponds to the more intense orange colour of the egg yolk. The addition of sea-buckthorn pomace to the diet for laying hens resulted in a larger increase in indicator ∆E* (CIE total colour difference compared to the control group. Colour indicator hab is the only indicator whose value oscillated around that determined for the control group. The addition of sea-buckthorn pomace to the diet resulted in an increase in colour indices a*, b* and C*ab. Indicator ∆E* also increased significantly with an increasing amount of sea-buckthorn pomace in a diet. Egg yolks were darker, had more intense red and yellow colours, and showed lower viscosity which are all features preferred by the consumer.

Supervised Object Class Colour Normalisation

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Riabchenko, Ekatarina; Lankinen, Jukka; Buch, Anders Glent

2013-01-01

. In this work, we develop a such colour normalisation technique, where true colours are not important per se but where examples of same classes have photometrically consistent appearance. This is achieved by supervised estimation of a class specic canonical colour space where the examples have minimal variation......Colour is an important cue in many applications of computer vision and image processing, but robust usage often requires estimation of the unknown illuminant colour. Usually, to obtain images invariant to the illumination conditions under which they were taken, color normalisation is used...... in their colours. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our method with qualitative and quantitative examples from the Caltech-101 data set and a real application of 3D pose estimation for robot grasping....

Optimization of colour quality of LED lighting with reference to memory colours

OpenAIRE

Smet, Kevin; Ryckaert, Wouter; Pointer, Michael R.; Deconinck, Geert; Hanselaer, Peter

2012-01-01

Simulated and real tri- and tetrachromatic light-emitting-diode (LED) clusters were optimized for luminous efficacy of radiation (LER) and the memory colour quality metric developed by the authors. The simulated clusters showed no significant differences in achievable colour quality and LER between the different cluster types investigated. The real clusters (composed of commercially available LEDs) showed substantial differences in achievable colour quality and LER between the different clus...

Colour-scent associations in a tropical orchid: three colours but two odours.

Science.gov (United States)

Delle-Vedove, Roxane; Juillet, Nicolas; Bessière, Jean-Marie; Grison, Claude; Barthes, Nicolas; Pailler, Thierry; Dormont, Laurent; Schatz, Bertrand

2011-06-01

Colour and scent are the major pollinator attractants to flowers, and their production may be linked by shared biosynthetic pathways. Species with polymorphic floral traits are particularly relevant to study the joint evolution of floral traits. We used in this study the tropical orchid Calanthe sylvatica from Réunion Island. Three distinct colour varieties are observed, presenting lilac, white or purple flowers, and named respectively C. sylvaticavar.lilacina (hereafter referred as var. lilacina), C. sylvaticavar. alba (var. alba) and C. sylvatica var. purpurea (var. purpurea). We investigated the composition of the floral scent produced by these colour varieties using the non-invasive SPME technique in the wild. Scent emissions are dominated by aromatic compounds. Nevertheless, the presence of the terpenoid (E)-4,8-dimethylnona-1,3,7-triène (DMNT) is diagnostic of var. purpurea, with the volatile organic compounds (VOC) produced by some individuals containing up to 60% of DMNT. We evidence specific colour-scent associations in C. sylvatica, with two distinct scent profiles in the three colour varieties: the lilacina-like profile containing no or very little DMNT (2%). Calanthe sylvatica var. alba individuals group with one or the other scent profile independently of their population of origin. We suggest that white-flowered individuals have evolved at least twice, once from var. lilacina and at least once from var. purpurea after the colonisation of la Réunion. White-flowered individuals may have been favoured by the particular pollinator fauna characterising the island. These flowering varieties of C. sylvatica, which display three colours but two scents profiles prove that colour is not always a good indicator of odour and that colour-scent associations may be complex, depending on pollination ecology of the populations concerned. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Ultrasonic colour Doppler imaging

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Evans, David H.; Jensen, Jørgen Arendt; Nielsen, Michael Bachmann

2011-01-01

Ultrasonic colour Doppler is an imaging technique that combines anatomical information derived using ultrasonic pulse-echo techniques with velocity information derived using ultrasonic Doppler techniques to generate colour-coded maps of tissue velocity superimposed on grey-scale images of tissue...... anatomy. The most common use of the technique is to image the movement of blood through the heart, arteries and veins, but it may also be used to image the motion of solid tissues such as the heart walls. Colour Doppler imaging is now provided on almost all commercial ultrasound machines, and has been...... vectors. This review briefly introduces the principles behind colour Doppler imaging and describes some clinical applications. It then describes the basic components of conventional colour Doppler systems and the methods used to derive velocity information from the ultrasound signal. Next, a number of new...

Colour schemes

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

van Leeuwen, Theo

2013-01-01

This chapter presents a framework for analysing colour schemes based on a parametric approach that includes not only hue, value and saturation, but also purity, transparency, luminosity, luminescence, lustre, modulation and differentiation.......This chapter presents a framework for analysing colour schemes based on a parametric approach that includes not only hue, value and saturation, but also purity, transparency, luminosity, luminescence, lustre, modulation and differentiation....

Colour application on mammography image segmentation

Science.gov (United States)

Embong, R.; Aziz, N. M. Nik Ab.; Karim, A. H. Abd; Ibrahim, M. R.

2017-09-01

The segmentation process is one of the most important steps in image processing and computer vision since it is vital in the initial stage of image analysis. Segmentation of medical images involves complex structures and it requires precise segmentation result which is necessary for clinical diagnosis such as the detection of tumour, oedema, and necrotic tissues. Since mammography images are grayscale, researchers are looking at the effect of colour in the segmentation process of medical images. Colour is known to play a significant role in the perception of object boundaries in non-medical colour images. Processing colour images require handling more data, hence providing a richer description of objects in the scene. Colour images contain ten percent (10%) additional edge information as compared to their grayscale counterparts. Nevertheless, edge detection in colour image is more challenging than grayscale image as colour space is considered as a vector space. In this study, we implemented red, green, yellow, and blue colour maps to grayscale mammography images with the purpose of testing the effect of colours on the segmentation of abnormality regions in the mammography images. We applied the segmentation process using the Fuzzy C-means algorithm and evaluated the percentage of average relative error of area for each colour type. The results showed that all segmentation with the colour map can be done successfully even for blurred and noisy images. Also the size of the area of the abnormality region is reduced when compare to the segmentation area without the colour map. The green colour map segmentation produced the smallest percentage of average relative error (10.009%) while yellow colour map segmentation gave the largest percentage of relative error (11.367%).

Colour isomers in quark material

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hoegaasen, H.

1981-01-01

Quantum chromodynamics is stated to be analogous to quantum electrodynamics and colour to electric charge. However since there are eight gluon fields and only one photon field, and gluons have colour while photons are electrically neutral, QCD is much more complicated than QED. The concept of colour confine confinement is introduced and the addition rules for colour multiplets are discussed. It is shown that quark colour leads to isomeric meson states. Bubble chamber films from CERN groups have been examined and hyperons and (sup a)Y* resonance particles have been found, which appears to confirm the theory. (JIW)

An evaluation of advanced digital colour technology for colour matching maxillofacial prosthetics.

OpenAIRE

Nacher-Garcia, C.

2016-01-01

Aim: To evaluate the reliability and reproducibility of the Spectromatch-Pro digital colour system (Spectromatch Ltd. UK) in the reproduction of simulated skin-silicone colour samples; and to determine threshold Delta E (∆E) (CIE L*a*b*) of perceptible and acceptable colour differences for maxillofacial prosthetics. Method: A two phase quantitative research design. Phase 1: tested; (i) the reproducibility of the spectrophotometer for eight subjects (n=48) scans; from four ethnic groups...

Food branding and young children's taste preferences: a reassessment.

Science.gov (United States)

Elliott, Charlene D; Carruthers Den Hoed, Rebecca; Conlon, Martin J

2013-08-20

This study examines the effects of branding and packaging on young children's taste preferences. Preschool children aged 3 to 5 (n=65) tasted five pairs of identical foods in packaging from McDonald's and in matched packaging that was either plain, Starbucks-branded, or colourful (but unbranded). Children were asked if the foods tasted the same or if one tasted better. Children preferred the taste of foods wrapped in decorative wrappings, relying more on aesthetics than on familiar branding when making their choices. The findings suggest the need to explore questions beyond commercial advertising (and brand promotion) on television and other media platforms. More attention should be directed at the important role of packaging in directing children's food preferences.

Graph Colouring Algorithms

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Husfeldt, Thore

2015-01-01

This chapter presents an introduction to graph colouring algorithms. The focus is on vertex-colouring algorithms that work for general classes of graphs with worst-case performance guarantees in a sequential model of computation. The presentation aims to demonstrate the breadth of available...

Biomimetic superwettable materials with structural colours.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Zelinlan; Guo, Zhiguang

2017-12-05

Structural colours and superwettability are of great interest due to their unique characteristics. However, the application of materials with either structural colours or superwettability is limited. Moreover, materials possessing both structural colours and superwettability are crucial for many practical applications. The combination of structural colours and superwettability can result in materials for use various applications, such as in sensors, detectors, bioassays, anti-counterfeiting, and liquid actuators, by controlling surfaces to repel or absorb liquids. Regarding superwettability and structural colours, surface texture and chemical composition are two factors for the construction of materials with superwettable structural colours. This review aims at offering a comprehensive elaboration of the mechanism, recent biomimetic research, and applications of biomimetic superwettable materials with structural colours. Furthermore, this review provides significant insight into the design, fabrication, and application of biomimetic superwettable materials with structural colours.

Chemistry of Colours

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

focus on why things have colour and what causes them to change their colour. Light is a form of .... Another pigment found in the leaves of many plants is carotene. Carotene absorbs ... structure of cyanidin changes with pH. The form shown in ...

International preferences for pork appearance: II. Factors influencing consumer choice

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Ngapo, T.M.; Martin, J.F.; Dransfield, E.

2007-01-01

The preference for pork varying in its fat cover, lean colour, marbling and drip differs among countries, but the influence of socio-demographic factors is unknown. In this study of 11,717 consumers from 22 countries, more than 80% of consumers liked pork, thought that pork quality was at least

Colour, phenolic content and antioxidant capacity of some fruits dehydrated by a combination of different methods.

Science.gov (United States)

Chong, Chien Hwa; Law, Chung Lim; Figiel, Adam; Wojdyło, Aneta; Oziembłowski, Maciej

2013-12-15

The objective of this study was to improve product quality of dehydrated fruits (apple, pear, papaya, mango) using combined drying techniques. This involved investigation of bioactivity, colour, and sensory assessment on colour of the dried products as well as the retention of the bio-active ingredients. The attributes of quality were compared in regard to the quality of dehydrated samples obtained from continuous heat pump (HP) drying technique. It was found that for apple, pear and mango the total colour change (ΔE) of samples dried using continuous heat pump (HP) or heat pump vacuum-microwave (HP/VM) methods was lower than of samples dried by other combined methods. However, for papaya, the lowest colour change exhibited by samples dried using hot air-cold air (HHC) method and the highest colour change was found for heat pump (HP) dehydrated samples. Sensory evaluation revealed that dehydrated pear with higher total colour change (ΔE) is more desirable because of its golden yellow appearance. In most cases the highest phenol content was found from fruits dried by HP/VM method. Judging from the quality findings on two important areas namely colour and bioactivity, it was found that combined drying method consisted of HP pre-drying followed by VM finish drying gave the best results for most dehydrated fruits studied in this work as the fruits contain first group of polyphenol compounds, which preferably requires low temperature followed by rapid drying strategy. Crown Copyright © 2013. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Connected Colourings of Complete Graphs and Hypergraphs

OpenAIRE

Leader, Imre; Tan, Ta Sheng

2014-01-01

Gallai's colouring theorem states that if the edges of a complete graph are 3-coloured, with each colour class forming a connected (spanning) subgraph, then there is a triangle that has all 3 colours. What happens for more colours: if we $k$-colour the edges of the complete graph, with each colour class connected, how many of the $\\binom{k}{3}$ triples of colours must appear as triangles? In this note we show that the `obvious' conjecture, namely that there are always at least $\\binom{k-1}{2}...

A Handheld LED Coloured-Light Mixer for Students to Learn Collaboratively the Primary Colours of Light

Science.gov (United States)

Nopparatjamjomras, Suchai; Chitaree, Ratchapak; Panijpan, Bhinyo

2009-01-01

To overcome students' inaccurate prior knowledge on primary additive colours, a coloured-light mixer has been constructed to enable students to observe directly the colours produced and reach the conclusion by themselves that the three primary colours of light are red, green, and blue (NOT red, yellow, and blue). Three closely packed tiny…

The "Human Colour" Crayon: Investigating the Attitudes and Perceptions of Learners Regarding Race and Skin Colour

Science.gov (United States)

Alexander, Neeske; Costandius, Elmarie

2017-01-01

Some coloured and black learners in South Africa use a light orange or pink crayon to represent themselves in art. Many learners name this colour "human colour" or "skin colour". This is troublesome, because it could reflect exclusionary ways of representing race in images and language. This case study, conducted with two…

Colourism: a global adolescent health concern.

Science.gov (United States)

Craddock, Nadia; Dlova, Ncoza; Diedrichs, Phillippa C

2018-05-08

Colourism, a form of prejudice and discrimination based solely upon skin colour, stands to jeopardize the physical health, wellbeing and life chances of adolescents of colour, globally. Research shows that adolescents can experience colourism at school and college, in the criminal justice system, at work and in the media they consume. It is therefore unsurprising that adolescents of colour often express a desire for lighter skin tones and/or are dissatisfied with their skin tone. Although research is scarce, some studies include older adolescents in their samples of skin-lightening product users. This is significant as the evidence is clear that the unmonitored use of skin-lightening products can be harmful to physical and psychological health, with evidence linking skin-lightening use to skin damage, kidney failure and depression. Although it is evident that colourism is central to the lives of adolescents of colour, more research is needed concerning the use of skin-lightening products among adolescents. Media literacy and critical race theory offer avenues in helping attenuate the harmful impact of colourism for adolescents of colour.

Consumer preference for cowpea in Kwara State, Nigeria | Ayinde ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

The primary data were collected through a structured from 120 respondents and secondary data was used to determine the factors for variation in prices of cowpea. The study revealed that consumers prefer that is of medium size, red in colour, very sweet in taste and a shelf-life of at least month. It also showed that the most ...

Legal and Illegal Colours

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Larsen, John Christian

2008-01-01

opinions on food additives, including colours, and on the bioavailability and safety of nutrient sources. The WG ADD consists of several members from the AFC Panel together with selected external experts. The draft opinions go forward to the AFC Panel for discussion and final adoption. The adopted opinions......://www.efsa.europa.eu/EFSA/efsa_locale-1178620753812_1178620761956.htm. Accessed 12.05.08.] this paper only deals with some of the major issues that the Panel has faced in relation to the use of food colours. The three topics to be dealt with are (1) evaluation of illegal colours in food in the EU (EFSA, 2005), (2) re-evaluation of the authorised...... food colours in the EU (ongoing, but one opinion on Red 2G has been published; EFSA, 2007), and (3) evaluation of 'the Southampton study' on hyperactivity in children after intake of food colours (and sodium benzoate) (ongoing at the time of this presentation, but an opinion has now been published...

The twelve colourful stones

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Doria, R.M.

1984-01-01

The gauge symmetry is extended. It is associated differents matter and gauge fields to the same group. A group of gauge invariant Lagrangians is established. A gauge invariant mass term is introduced. A massive Yang Mills is obtained. A dynamics with twelve colourful stones is created based on the concepts of gauge and colour. Structures identified as quarks and leptons are generated. A discussion about colour meaning is presented. (Author) [pt

Consumer exposures to anthocyanins from colour additives, colouring foodstuffs and from natural occurrence in foods.

Science.gov (United States)

Tennant, David R; Klingenberg, Andreas

2016-06-01

Anthocyanins are responsible for the red/blue colour of grapes, currants, and other fruits and vegetables. They may also be extracted for use as colour additives (E163) or concentrated for use as colouring foods. Consumer exposures have been assessed using data on natural occurrence, use levels and frequencies from food manufacturers and European food consumption data. Intakes from natural occurrence can be up to 4 mg kg bw(-1) day(-1) at the mean and up to 17 mg kg bw(-1) day(-1) for children who are high level consumers of red/black berries and small fruits. High-level intakes for children from food colour and colouring food applications lie in the range 0.3-6.3 mg kg bw(-1) day(-1) and for adults at 0.6-2.8 mg kg bw(-1) day(-1). Exposures from food colour use and colouring foods separately or combined are therefore lower than those from natural occurrence in foods.

The original colours of fossil beetles.

Science.gov (United States)

McNamara, Maria E; Briggs, Derek E G; Orr, Patrick J; Noh, Heeso; Cao, Hui

2012-03-22

Structural colours, the most intense, reflective and pure colours in nature, are generated when light is scattered by complex nanostructures. Metallic structural colours are widespread among modern insects and can be preserved in their fossil counterparts, but it is unclear whether the colours have been altered during fossilization, and whether the absence of colours is always real. To resolve these issues, we investigated fossil beetles from five Cenozoic biotas. Metallic colours in these specimens are generated by an epicuticular multi-layer reflector; the fidelity of its preservation correlates with that of other key cuticular ultrastructures. Where these other ultrastructures are well preserved in non-metallic fossil specimens, we can infer that the original cuticle lacked a multi-layer reflector; its absence in the fossil is not a preservational artefact. Reconstructions of the original colours of the fossils based on the structure of the multi-layer reflector show that the preserved colours are offset systematically to longer wavelengths; this probably reflects alteration of the refractive index of the epicuticle during fossilization. These findings will allow the former presence, and original hue, of metallic structural colours to be identified in diverse fossil insects, thus providing critical evidence of the evolution of structural colour in this group.

Maintaining mimicry diversity: optimal warning colour patterns differ among microhabitats in Amazonian clearwing butterflies.

Science.gov (United States)

Willmott, Keith R; Robinson Willmott, Julia C; Elias, Marianne; Jiggins, Chris D

2017-05-31

Mimicry is one of the best-studied examples of adaptation, and recent studies have provided new insights into the role of mimicry in speciation and diversification. Classical Müllerian mimicry theory predicts convergence in warning signal among protected species, yet tropical butterflies are exuberantly diverse in warning colour patterns, even within communities. We tested the hypothesis that microhabitat partitioning in aposematic butterflies and insectivorous birds can lead to selection for different colour patterns in different microhabitats and thus help maintain mimicry diversity. We measured distribution across flight height and topography for 64 species of clearwing butterflies (Ithomiini) and their co-mimics, and 127 species of insectivorous birds, in an Amazon rainforest community. For the majority of bird species, estimated encounter rates were non-random for the two most abundant mimicry rings. Furthermore, most butterfly species in these two mimicry rings displayed the warning colour pattern predicted to be optimal for anti-predator defence in their preferred microhabitats. These conclusions were supported by a field trial using butterfly specimens, which showed significantly different predation rates on colour patterns in two microhabitats. We therefore provide the first direct evidence to support the hypothesis that different mimicry patterns can represent stable, community-level adaptations to differing biotic environments. © 2017 The Author(s).

Colour and fat content as intrinsic cues for consumers attitudes towards meat product quality

Science.gov (United States)

Ristić, M.; Troeger, K.; Đinović-Stojanović, J.; Knežević, N.; Damnjanović, M.

2017-09-01

The aim of this study was to evaluate consumers’ attitudes towards sensory properties of chicken, royal and beef salami, meat products from Zlatiborac Meat Company. Sensory evaluation was performed by Serbian consumers (n=1018) in four retail stores (Delhaize) in Belgrade. Consumers were asked for their preference concerning the colour and fat of three selected salami and then completed questionnaire of socio-demographic information including eating behaviour. Selected smoked meat products were evaluated in the DLG Test Center Food, Germany. Consumers, at all education levels and in all age groups, evaluated colour as good and fat as sufficient with a significantly (psmoked products passed the DLG tests and received “DLG award winner” medals in Gold (73%) or Silver (27%).

On colour categorization of nature

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Yendrikhovskij, S.N.

1998-01-01

The following research elaborates on some of the 'semantic' and 'algorithmic' aspects of the categorization process for thc colour domain. The structure of colour categories is argued to resemble the structure of Ihe distribution of colours in the perceived world. This distribution can be

Discrepancies between descriptions and illustrations of colours in Congo red-stained amyloid, and explanation of discrepant colours.

Science.gov (United States)

Howie, Alexander J; Owen-Casey, Mared P

2010-09-01

Congo red-stained sections of amyloid may show various colours between crossed polariser and analyser. The aims were to see how papers described the colours, to compare descriptions with illustrations, and to explain the colours. In 160 papers on Congo red-stained amyloid, the commonest descriptions were 'green birefringence' and 'apple-green birefringence'. In 191 figures in 82 papers, 59 (31%) showed a pure green colour, 62 (32%) showed green and yellow or blue and yellow, 38 (20%) showed green and a colour other than yellow, mostly red, and 32 (17%) showed other colours. Discrepancies between colours reported and illustrated were noted in 127 figures (66%). Most (77) were between green alone in descriptions and green and another colour in figures, and 30 were between green in descriptions and no green at all in figures. Pure green can be seen in ideal conditions, but more often there are green and yellow, explained by strain birefringence, and green and red or other combinations, explained by uncrossing of polariser and analyser. These other anomalous colours are just as characteristic of amyloid as the pure green colour. Many papers on Congo red-stained amyloid appear to describe what is expected theoretically rather than what is actually seen.

What do colour-blind people really see?

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Hogervorst, M.A.; Alferdinck, J.W.A.M.

2008-01-01

Problem: colour perception of dichromats (colour-blind persons) Background: Various models have been proposed (e. g. Walraven & Alferdinck, 1997; Brettel et al. , 1997) to model reduced colour vision of colour-blind people. It is clear that colour-blind people cannot distinguish certain object

Influence of colour in working environment

OpenAIRE

Gabrovšek, Barbara

2014-01-01

Anton Trstenjak wrote: »Our life is practically sinking in the sea of light and colours.« Different colours create different psycho-physiological responses. That is why colours have various impacts on human experiences and arrangements of our attention. When we know how control the colours in our environment, we can influence human psychological and physiological well-being and attention in the space. In my thesis, I explore how colours affect our feelings, our body and attention. Knowing all...

Electrophysiological evidence for colour effects on the naming of colour diagnostic and noncolour diagnostic objects

OpenAIRE

Bramão, I.; Francisco, A.; Inácio , F.; Faísca, L.; Reis, A.; Petersson, K.

2012-01-01

In this study, we investigated the level of visual processing at which surface colour information improves the naming of colour diagnostic and noncolour diagnostic objects. Continuous electroencephalograms were recorded while participants performed a visual object naming task in which coloured and black-and-white versions of both types of objects were presented. The black-and-white and the colour presentations were compared in two groups of event-related potentials (ERPs): (1) The P1 and N1 c...

Colour correct: the interactive effects of food label nutrition colouring schemes and food category healthiness on health perceptions.

Science.gov (United States)

Nyilasy, Gergely; Lei, Jing; Nagpal, Anish; Tan, Joseph

2016-08-01

The purpose of the present study was to examine the effects of food label nutrition colouring schemes in interaction with food category healthiness on consumers' perceptions of food healthiness. Three streams of colour theory (colour attention, colour association and colour approach-avoidance) in interaction with heuristic processing theory provide consonant predictions and explanations for the underlying psychological processes. A 2 (food category healthiness: healthy v. unhealthy)×3 (food label nutrient colouring schemes: healthy=green, unhealthy=red (HGUR) v. healthy=red, unhealthy=green (HRUG) v. no colour (control)) between-subjects design was used. The research setting was a randomised-controlled experiment using varying formats of food packages and nutritional information colouring. Respondents (n 196) sourced from a national consumer panel, USA. The findings suggest that, for healthy foods, the nutritional colouring schemes reduced perceived healthiness, irrespective of which nutrients were coloured red or green (healthinesscontrol=4·86; healthinessHGUR=4·10; healthinessHRUG=3·70). In contrast, for unhealthy foods, there was no significant difference in perceptions of food healthiness when comparing different colouring schemes against the control. The results make an important qualification to the common belief that colour coding can enhance the correct interpretation of nutrition information and suggest that this incentive may not necessarily support healthier food choices in all situations.

The effect of skin surface topography and skin colouration cues on perception of male facial age, health and attractiveness.

Science.gov (United States)

Fink, B; Matts, P J; Brauckmann, C; Gundlach, S

2018-04-01

Previous studies investigating the effects of skin surface topography and colouration cues on the perception of female faces reported a differential weighting for the perception of skin topography and colour evenness, where topography was a stronger visual cue for the perception of age, whereas skin colour evenness was a stronger visual cue for the perception of health. We extend these findings in a study of the effect of skin surface topography and colour evenness cues on the perceptions of facial age, health and attractiveness in males. Facial images of six men (aged 40 to 70 years), selected for co-expression of lines/wrinkles and discolouration, were manipulated digitally to create eight stimuli, namely, separate removal of these two features (a) on the forehead, (b) in the periorbital area, (c) on the cheeks and (d) across the entire face. Omnibus (within-face) pairwise combinations, including the original (unmodified) face, were presented to a total of 240 male and female judges, who selected the face they considered younger, healthier and more attractive. Significant effects were detected for facial image choice, in response to skin feature manipulation. The combined removal of skin surface topography resulted in younger age perception compared with that seen with the removal of skin colouration cues, whereas the opposite pattern was found for health preference. No difference was detected for the perception of attractiveness. These perceptual effects were seen particularly on the forehead and cheeks. Removing skin topography cues (but not discolouration) in the periorbital area resulted in higher preferences for all three attributes. Skin surface topography and colouration cues affect the perception of age, health and attractiveness in men's faces. The combined removal of these features on the forehead, cheeks and in the periorbital area results in the most positive assessments. © 2018 Society of Cosmetic Scientists and the Société Française de Cosmétologie.

The control of attentional target selection in a colour/colour conjunction task.

Science.gov (United States)

Berggren, Nick; Eimer, Martin

2016-11-01

To investigate the time course of attentional object selection processes in visual search tasks where targets are defined by a combination of features from the same dimension, we measured the N2pc component as an electrophysiological marker of attentional object selection during colour/colour conjunction search. In Experiment 1, participants searched for targets defined by a combination of two colours, while ignoring distractor objects that matched only one of these colours. Reliable N2pc components were triggered by targets and also by partially matching distractors, even when these distractors were accompanied by a target in the same display. The target N2pc was initially equal in size to the sum of the two N2pc components to the two different types of partially matching distractors and became superadditive from approximately 250 ms after search display onset. Experiment 2 demonstrated that the superadditivity of the target N2pc was not due to a selective disengagement of attention from task-irrelevant partially matching distractors. These results indicate that attention was initially deployed separately and in parallel to all target-matching colours, before attentional allocation processes became sensitive to the presence of both matching colours within the same object. They suggest that attention can be controlled simultaneously and independently by multiple features from the same dimension and that feature-guided attentional selection processes operate in parallel for different target-matching objects in the visual field.

SMART-1: Development and lessons learnt

Science.gov (United States)

Rathsman, Peter; Kugelberg, Joakim; Bodin, Per; Racca, Giuseppe D.; Foing, Bernard; Stagnaro, Luca

2005-07-01

SMART-1 is the first of the small missions for advanced research and technology as part of ESA's science programme “Cosmic vision”. It was successfully launched on September 27, 2003 and is presently traveling towards its destination, the Moon. The main objective of the mission, to demonstrate solar electric primary propulsion for future Cornerstones (such as Bepi-Colombo), has already been achieved. At the time of writing the electric propulsion system has been working already for more than 3400 h and has provided a Delta-V to the spacecraft of more than 2500 m/s. The other technology objectives are also being fulfilled by the verification of the proper functioning of such on-board experiments like the X-Ka band transponder, the X-ray spectrometer, the near IR spectrometer, the laser link, etc. The scientific objectives are related to lunar science and will be fulfilled once the spacecraft enters its operational lunar orbit, currently expected for January 2005. SMART-1 lunar science investigations will include studies of the chemical composition of the Moon, of geophysical processes, environment and high-resolution studies in preparation for future steps of lunar exploration. SMART-1 has been an innovative mission in many aspects and we are now drawing some preliminary conclusions about the lessons to be learnt. The paper describes the spacecraft and the technology elements with particular emphasis to the technology nature of the mission. The on-board avionics employs many novel designs for spacecraft, including a serial CAN bus for data communication, autonomous star trackers and extensive use of auto-code generation for implementing the attitude control system and the failure, detection, isolation and recovery (FDIR). Finally, the orbital operation phase currently ongoing, including the routine electric propulsion operations and the instrument commissioning, is providing a wealth of data and lesson-learnt useful for future autonomous planetary missions.

Colour-rendition properties of solid-state lamps

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Zukauskas, A [Institute of Applied Research, Vilnius University, Sauletekio al. 9, bldg. III, Vilnius, LT-10222 (Lithuania); Vaicekauskas, R [Department of Computer Science, Vilnius University, Naugarduko g. 24, Vilnius, LT-03225 (Lithuania); Shur, M S, E-mail: arturas.zukauskas@ff.vu.l [Department of Electrical, Computer, and System Engineering, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 110 8th Street, Troy, NY 12180 (United States)

2010-09-08

The applicability of colour-quality metrics to solid-state light sources is validated and the results of the assessment of colour-rendition characteristics of various lamps are presented. The standard colour-rendering index metric or a refined colour-quality scale metric fails to distinguish between two principle colour-rendition properties of illumination: the ability to render object colours with high fidelity and the ability to increase chromatic contrast, especially when the spectra of light sources contain a few narrow-band electroluminescence components. Supplementing these metrics by the known figures of merit that measure the gamut area of a small number of test colour samples does not completely resolve this issue. In contrast, the statistical approach, which is based on sorting a very large number of test colour samples in respect of just-perceivable colour distortions of several kinds, offers a comprehensive assessment of colour-rendition properties of solid-state light sources. In particular, two statistical indices, colour-fidelity index (CFI) and colour-saturation index (CSI), which are the relative numbers of object colours rendered with high fidelity and increased saturation, respectively, are sufficient to reveal and assess three distinct types of solid-state light sources. These are (i) high-fidelity lamps, which cover the entire spectrum with the spectral components present in the wavelength ranges of both 530-610 nm and beyond 610 nm (e.g. trichromatic warm white phosphor-converted (pc) light-emitting diodes (LEDs), red-amber-green-blue LED clusters, complementary clusters of white and coloured LEDs); (ii) colour-saturating lamps, which lack power in the 530-610 nm wavelength range (e.g. red-green-blue or red-cyan-blue LED clusters) and (iii) colour-dulling lamps, which lack power for wavelengths longer than 610 nm (dichromatic daylight pc LEDs and amber-green-blue LED clusters). Owing to a single statistical format, CSI and CFI can be used for

Colour-rendition properties of solid-state lamps

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zukauskas, A; Vaicekauskas, R; Shur, M S

2010-01-01

The applicability of colour-quality metrics to solid-state light sources is validated and the results of the assessment of colour-rendition characteristics of various lamps are presented. The standard colour-rendering index metric or a refined colour-quality scale metric fails to distinguish between two principle colour-rendition properties of illumination: the ability to render object colours with high fidelity and the ability to increase chromatic contrast, especially when the spectra of light sources contain a few narrow-band electroluminescence components. Supplementing these metrics by the known figures of merit that measure the gamut area of a small number of test colour samples does not completely resolve this issue. In contrast, the statistical approach, which is based on sorting a very large number of test colour samples in respect of just-perceivable colour distortions of several kinds, offers a comprehensive assessment of colour-rendition properties of solid-state light sources. In particular, two statistical indices, colour-fidelity index (CFI) and colour-saturation index (CSI), which are the relative numbers of object colours rendered with high fidelity and increased saturation, respectively, are sufficient to reveal and assess three distinct types of solid-state light sources. These are (i) high-fidelity lamps, which cover the entire spectrum with the spectral components present in the wavelength ranges of both 530-610 nm and beyond 610 nm (e.g. trichromatic warm white phosphor-converted (pc) light-emitting diodes (LEDs), red-amber-green-blue LED clusters, complementary clusters of white and coloured LEDs); (ii) colour-saturating lamps, which lack power in the 530-610 nm wavelength range (e.g. red-green-blue or red-cyan-blue LED clusters) and (iii) colour-dulling lamps, which lack power for wavelengths longer than 610 nm (dichromatic daylight pc LEDs and amber-green-blue LED clusters). Owing to a single statistical format, CSI and CFI can be used for

Colorimetry and prime colours--a theorem.

Science.gov (United States)

Hornaes, Hans Petter; Wold, Jan Henrik; Farup, Ivar

2005-08-01

Human colour vision is the result of a complex process involving topics ranging from physics of light to perception. Whereas the diversity of light entering the eye in principle span an infinite-dimensional vector space in terms of the spectral power distributions, the space of human colour perceptions is three dimensional. One important consequence of this is that a variety of colours can be visually matched by a mixture of only three adequately chosen reference lights. It has been observed that there exists one particular set of monochromatic reference lights that, according to a certain definition, is optimal for producing colour matches. These reference lights are commonly denoted prime colours. In the present paper, we intend to rigorously show that the existence of prime colours is not particular to the human visual system as sometimes stated, but rather an algebraic consequence of the manner in which a kind of colorimetric functions called colour-matching functions are defined and transformed. The solution is based on maximisation of a determinant determining the gamut size of the colour space spanned by the prime colours. Cramer's rule for solving a set of linear equations is an essential part of the proof. By means of examples, it is shown that mathematically the optimal set of reference lights is not unique in general, and that the existence of a maximum determinant is not a necessary condition for the existence of prime colours.

The unsuitability of HTML-based colour charts for estimating animal colours--a comment on Berggren and Merilä (2004).

Science.gov (United States)

Stevens, Martin; Cuthill, Innes C

2005-08-30

A variety of techniques are used to study the colours of animal signals, including the use of visual matching to colour charts. This paper aims to highlight why they are generally an unsatisfactory tool for the measurement and classification of animal colours and why colour codes based on HTML (really RGB) standards, as advocated in a recent paper, are particularly inappropriate. There are many theoretical arguments against the use of colour charts, not least that human colour vision differs markedly from that of most other animals. However, the focus of this paper is the concern that, even when applied to humans, there is no simple 1:1 mapping from an RGB colour space to the perceived colours in a chart (the results are both printer- and illumination-dependent). We support our criticisms with data from colour matching experiments with humans, involving self-made, printed colour charts. Colour matching experiments with printed charts involving 11 subjects showed that the choices made by individuals were significantly different between charts that had exactly the same RGB values, but were produced from different printers. Furthermore, individual matches tended to vary under different lighting conditions. Spectrophotometry of the colour charts showed that the reflectance spectra of the charts varied greatly between printers and that equal steps in RGB space were often far from equal in terms of reflectance on the printed charts. In addition to outlining theoretical criticisms of the use of colour charts, our empirical results show that: individuals vary in their perception of colours, that different printers produce strikingly different results when reproducing what should be the same chart, and that the characteristics of the light irradiating the surface do affect colour perception. Therefore, we urge great caution in the use of colour charts to study animal colour signals. They should be used only as a last resort and in full knowledge of their limitations, with

Colour revolutions: criminal-legal aspect

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sergey Alekseyevich Gordeychik

2015-03-01

Full Text Available Objective basing on the analysis of colour revolution technologies in different countries to formulate propositions for improving criminal legislation aimed at counteraction against this phenomenon. Methods general scientific induction deduction analysis synthesis and specific scientific formaljuridical and comparativelegal. Results using the results of colour revolutionsrsquo research carried out by political scientists the author evaluates the character and level of public danger of colour revolutions. The author states that the colour revolutions threaten the normal existence of the country or several countries. The conclusion is made that the colour revolutions must be counteracted by criminallegal means. The article states the absence of norms in the existing criminal legislation which would impose criminal liability on organizers incendiaries and participants of colour revolutions. It is proposed to supplement the existing criminal law with the norm stipulating the liability for such deeds and to insert this norm into Art. 34 ldquoCrimes against peace and security of humanityrdquo thus equating organization preparation and implementing colour revolutions with planning preparation launching and conducting an aggressive war Art. 353 of the Russian Criminal Code. Scientific novelty basing on the existing legal norms modern politological and juridical scientific literature a conclusion is made that the colour revolutions are based on the abuse of law. This allows the organizers of colour revolutions to legally prepare and implement the subversion of undesirable political regimes. The author formulates proposals for supplementing the criminal legislation. Practical value the materials and conclusions of the article can be used in lawmaking activity when elaborating the drafts of legal acts for changing and supplementing the Russian Criminal Code for research activity when preparing monographs and dissertations tutorials and articles when

Lessons learnt from the organ retention controversy

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Madden, D.

2009-01-01

This paper examines the lessons to be learnt from the organ retention controversy in the Republic of Ireland. The paper emphasises the importance of good communication between clinicians and families of deceased persons and a move away from a medical culture based on paternalism to a partnership approach between clinicians and patients based on mutual trust and understanding. A model of authorisation rather than consent is proposed as the way forward for dealing with the difficult and traumatic experience of asking families for permission to carry out a post mortem examination on their deceased child. (authors)

Colour Day: an innovative project

CERN Multimedia

Staff Association

2016-01-01

This year, the Children’s Day-Care Centre (EVE) and School works on the theme of colours. Every class has their own project revolving around this common theme. The class of Claire, Sandrine and Nadia, introduced a monthly “Colour Day”. The objective of this day is to offer children different activities (arts and crafts, baking, etc.) designed around a specific colour. The children get a chance to decorate their classroom and learn in many different ways inspired by the colours blue, red, and many others. The parents are also called to contribute and invited to dress their children in the colour of the day. In September, we discovered the colour blue, in October it was time for red, and in mid-November yellow will brighten up our structure. Everyone plays along, making this a very festive day for us all. On Tuesday, 20 September, we saw the whole School turn blue! We were all dressed in blue and we made blue paintings, too! We made beautiful artwork inspired by artists like Ma...

Block colourings of 6-cycle systems

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Paola Bonacini

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Let \\(\\Sigma=(X,\\mathcal{B}\\ be a \\(6\\-cycle system of order \\(v\\, so \\(v\\equiv 1,9\\mod 12\\. A \\(c\\-colouring of type \\(s\\ is a map \\(\\phi\\colon\\mathcal {B}\\rightarrow \\mathcal{C}\\, with \\(C\\ set of colours, such that exactly \\(c\\ colours are used and for every vertex \\(x\\ all the blocks containing \\(x\\ are coloured exactly with \\(s\\ colours. Let \\(\\frac{v-1}{2}=qs+r\\, with \\(q, r\\geq 0\\. \\(\\phi\\ is equitable if for every vertex \\(x\\ the set of the \\(\\frac{v-1}{2}\\ blocks containing \\(x\\ is partitioned in \\(r\\ colour classes of cardinality \\(q+1\\ and \\(s-r\\ colour classes of cardinality \\(q\\. In this paper we study bicolourings and tricolourings, for which, respectively, \\(s=2\\ and \\(s=3\\, distinguishing the cases \\(v=12k+1\\ and \\(v=12k+9\\. In particular, we settle completely the case of \\(s=2\\, while for \\(s=3\\ we determine upper and lower bounds for \\(c\\.

Colour dependence of zodiacal light models

Science.gov (United States)

Giese, R. H.; Hanner, M. S.; Leinert, C.

1973-01-01

Colour models of the zodiacal light in the ecliptic have been calculated for both dielectric and metallic particles in the sub-micron and micron size range. Two colour ratios were computed, a blue ratio and a red ratio. The models with a size distribution proportional to s to the -2.5 power ds (where s is the particle radius) generally show a colour close to the solar colour and almost independent of elongation. Especially in the blue colour ratio there is generally no significant dependence on the lower cutoff size (0.1-1 micron). The main feature of absorbing particles is a reddening at small elongations. The models for size distributions proportional to s to the -4 power ds show larger departures from solar colour and more variation with model parameters. Colour measurements, including red and near infra-red, therefore are useful to distinguish between flat and steep size spectra and to verify the presence of slightly absorbing particles.

Skin Colour Analysis of Iraqi Kurdish Population

OpenAIRE

Zardawi, Faraedon M; Xiao, Kaida; Yates, Julian M

2015-01-01

Objective: Skin colour measurement and analysis was performed for Iraqi Kurdish population in sulaimani city. The purpose of this study was to produce a dedicated skin shade guide for precise colour reproduction and colour matching of maxillofacial prostheses with the patient’s original skin colour. Methodology: A skin colour measurement was undertaken for 140 subjects (73 female and 67 male). A method of capturing their (L* a* b*) colour values from nine body parts was performed using a Mi...

Plasmonic colour laser printing

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Zhu, Xiaolong; Vannahme, Christoph; Højlund-Nielsen, Emil

2016-01-01

-beam lithography (EBL) or focused ion beam (FIB), both expensive and not scalable processes that are not suitable for post-processing customization. Here we show a method of colour printing on nanoimprinted plasmonic metasurfaces using laser post-writing. Laser pulses induce transient local heat generation...... that leads to melting and reshaping of the imprinted nanostructures. Depending on the laser pulse energy density, different surface morphologies that support different plasmonic resonances leading to different colour appearances can be created. Using this technique we can print all primary colours...

Synaesthetic colour in the brain: beyond colour areas. A functional magnetic resonance imaging study of synaesthetes and matched controls.

Science.gov (United States)

van Leeuwen, Tessa M; Petersson, Karl Magnus; Hagoort, Peter

2010-08-10

In synaesthesia, sensations in a particular modality cause additional experiences in a second, unstimulated modality (e.g., letters elicit colour). Understanding how synaesthesia is mediated in the brain can help to understand normal processes of perceptual awareness and multisensory integration. In several neuroimaging studies, enhanced brain activity for grapheme-colour synaesthesia has been found in ventral-occipital areas that are also involved in real colour processing. Our question was whether the neural correlates of synaesthetically induced colour and real colour experience are truly shared. First, in a free viewing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiment, we located main effects of synaesthesia in left superior parietal lobule and in colour related areas. In the left superior parietal lobe, individual differences between synaesthetes (projector-associator distinction) also influenced brain activity, confirming the importance of the left superior parietal lobe for synaesthesia. Next, we applied a repetition suppression paradigm in fMRI, in which a decrease in the BOLD (blood-oxygenated-level-dependent) response is generally observed for repeated stimuli. We hypothesized that synaesthetically induced colours would lead to a reduction in BOLD response for subsequently presented real colours, if the neural correlates were overlapping. We did find BOLD suppression effects induced by synaesthesia, but not within the colour areas. Because synaesthetically induced colours were not able to suppress BOLD effects for real colour, we conclude that the neural correlates of synaesthetic colour experience and real colour experience are not fully shared. We propose that synaesthetic colour experiences are mediated by higher-order visual pathways that lie beyond the scope of classical, ventral-occipital visual areas. Feedback from these areas, in which the left parietal cortex is likely to play an important role, may induce V4 activation and the percept of

Synaesthetic colour in the brain: beyond colour areas. A functional magnetic resonance imaging study of synaesthetes and matched controls.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tessa M van Leeuwen

Full Text Available BACKGROUND: In synaesthesia, sensations in a particular modality cause additional experiences in a second, unstimulated modality (e.g., letters elicit colour. Understanding how synaesthesia is mediated in the brain can help to understand normal processes of perceptual awareness and multisensory integration. In several neuroimaging studies, enhanced brain activity for grapheme-colour synaesthesia has been found in ventral-occipital areas that are also involved in real colour processing. Our question was whether the neural correlates of synaesthetically induced colour and real colour experience are truly shared. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: First, in a free viewing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI experiment, we located main effects of synaesthesia in left superior parietal lobule and in colour related areas. In the left superior parietal lobe, individual differences between synaesthetes (projector-associator distinction also influenced brain activity, confirming the importance of the left superior parietal lobe for synaesthesia. Next, we applied a repetition suppression paradigm in fMRI, in which a decrease in the BOLD (blood-oxygenated-level-dependent response is generally observed for repeated stimuli. We hypothesized that synaesthetically induced colours would lead to a reduction in BOLD response for subsequently presented real colours, if the neural correlates were overlapping. We did find BOLD suppression effects induced by synaesthesia, but not within the colour areas. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Because synaesthetically induced colours were not able to suppress BOLD effects for real colour, we conclude that the neural correlates of synaesthetic colour experience and real colour experience are not fully shared. We propose that synaesthetic colour experiences are mediated by higher-order visual pathways that lie beyond the scope of classical, ventral-occipital visual areas. Feedback from these areas, in which the left parietal

Bio deterioration behaviour in different colour roofing tiles (red and straw coloured)

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Guzulla, M. F.; Sanchez, E.; Gonzalez, J. M.; Orduna, M.

2014-01-01

Bio colonization of building materials is a critical problem for the durability of constructions. Industrial experience shows that straw coloured roofing tiles are more prone to colonization than red roofing tiles, even having similar characteristics. The aim of this work is to explain the difference of bio colonization between different colour roofing tiles. The chemical composition of the surface of straw coloured and red roofing tiles, the phase composition and the microstructure of the roofing tiles were determined by WD-XRF, XRD and SEM-EDX, respectively. The pore size distribution was carried out by Hg porosimetry. The solubility was studied by determining the soluble salts (Ca, Mg, Na, K, Cl and SO 4 2-) by ICP-OES and ionic chromatography. Roofing tile bio receptivity was evaluated by determining fluorescence intensity using a pulse amplitude- modulated (PAM) fluoro meter, and cyanobacteria Oscillator sp. The results obtained show higher concentration of calcium and sulphur in straw coloured roofing tiles surface, and higher solubility than red roofing tiles. Moreover, according to the results obtained in bio receptivity assays, straw coloured roofing tiles are more prone to colonization than red roofing tiles, so, there is a relationship between surface properties of roofing tiles and bio colonization, as it is observed in industrial products. (Author)

The Metric of Colour Space

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Gravesen, Jens

2015-01-01

and found the MacAdam ellipses which are often interpreted as defining the metric tensor at their centres. An important question is whether it is possible to define colour coordinates such that the Euclidean distance in these coordinates correspond to human perception. Using cubic splines to represent......The space of colours is a fascinating space. It is a real vector space, but no matter what inner product you put on the space the resulting Euclidean distance does not correspond to human perception of difference between colours. In 1942 MacAdam performed the first experiments on colour matching...

Gaze Duration Biases for Colours in Combination with Dissonant and Consonant Sounds: A Comparative Eye-Tracking Study with Orangutans.

Science.gov (United States)

Mühlenbeck, Cordelia; Liebal, Katja; Pritsch, Carla; Jacobsen, Thomas

2015-01-01

Research on colour preferences in humans and non-human primates suggests similar patterns of biases for and avoidance of specific colours, indicating that these colours are connected to a psychological reaction. Similarly, in the acoustic domain, approach reactions to consonant sounds (considered as positive) and avoidance reactions to dissonant sounds (considered as negative) have been found in human adults and children, and it has been demonstrated that non-human primates are able to discriminate between consonant and dissonant sounds. Yet it remains unclear whether the visual and acoustic approach-avoidance patterns remain consistent when both types of stimuli are combined, how they relate to and influence each other, and whether these are similar for humans and other primates. Therefore, to investigate whether gaze duration biases for colours are similar across primates and whether reactions to consonant and dissonant sounds cumulate with reactions to specific colours, we conducted an eye-tracking study in which we compared humans with one species of great apes, the orangutans. We presented four different colours either in isolation or in combination with consonant and dissonant sounds. We hypothesised that the viewing time for specific colours should be influenced by dissonant sounds and that previously existing avoidance behaviours with regard to colours should be intensified, reflecting their association with negative acoustic information. The results showed that the humans had constant gaze durations which were independent of the auditory stimulus, with a clear avoidance of yellow. In contrast, the orangutans did not show any clear gaze duration bias or avoidance of colours, and they were also not influenced by the auditory stimuli. In conclusion, our findings only partially support the previously identified pattern of biases for and avoidance of specific colours in humans and do not confirm such a pattern for orangutans.

Colour pyrometer. Farbpyrometer

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Luhleich, H; Suetterlin, L; Borchers, D; Pflaum, P

1980-12-11

The colour pyrometer according to the invention, in which two beams of limited wavelength from the incoming beam of light are filtered through a chopper with two colour filters of the same diameter rotating round and axis, and are taken to a photo-electric element, from the output signals of which a quotient proportional to the surface temperature of the object is formed in an electrical network, is characterized by the fact that the colour filters in the cylinder wall are arranged at a right angle to each other in a drum rotating around the cylinder axis transverse to the incoming light beam, and are parallel to the axis of rotation, and that the drum wall has openings in the sides diametrically opposite the filters.

Attentional capture by masked colour singletons.

Science.gov (United States)

Ansorge, Ulrich; Horstmann, Gernot; Worschech, Franziska

2010-09-15

We tested under which conditions a colour singleton of which an observer is unaware captures attention. To prevent visual awareness of the colour singleton, we used backward masking. We find that a masked colour singleton cue captures attention if it matches the observer's goal to search for target colours but not if it is task-irrelevant. This is also reflected in event-related potentials to the visible target: the masked goal-matching cue elicits an attentional potential (N2pc) in a target search task. By contrast, a non-matching but equally strong masked colour singleton cue failed to elicit a capture effect and an N2pc. Results are discussed with regard to currently pertaining conceptions of attentional capture by colour singletons. Copyright 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Ultrasonic colour Doppler imaging

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Evans, David H; Jensen, Jørgen Arendt; Nielsen, Michael Bachmann

2011-01-01

Ultrasonic colour Doppler is an imaging technique that combines anatomical information derived using ultrasonic pulse-echo techniques with velocity information derived using ultrasonic Doppler techniques to generate colour-coded maps of tissue velocity superimposed on grey-scale images of tissue...... anatomy. The most common use of the technique is to image the movement of blood through the heart, arteries and veins, but it may also be used to image the motion of solid tissues such as the heart walls. Colour Doppler imaging is now provided on almost all commercial ultrasound machines, and has been...

An unconventional colour superconductor

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Huang Mei

2007-01-01

Superfluidity, or superconductivity with mismatched Fermi momenta, appears in many systems such as charge-neutral dense quark matter, asymmetric nuclear matter, and in imbalanced cold atomic gases. The mismatch plays the role of breaking the Cooper pairing, and the pair-breaking state cannot be properly described in the framework of standard BCS theory. I give a brief review on recent theoretical developments in understanding unconventional colour superconductivity, including a gapless colour superconductor, chromomagnetic instabilities and the Higgs instability in the gapless phase. I also introduce a possible new framework for describing an unconventional colour superconductor

What triggers colour change? Effects of background colour and temperature on the development of an alpine grasshopper.

Science.gov (United States)

Valverde, J Pablo; Schielzeth, Holger

2015-08-21

Colour polymorphisms are a fascinating facet of many natural populations of plants and animals, and the selective processes that maintain such variation are as relevant as the processes which promote their development. Orthoptera, the insect group that encompasses grasshoppers and bush crickets, includes a particularly large number of species that are colour polymorphic with a marked green-brown polymorphism being particularly widespread. Colour polymorphism has been associated with the need for crypsis and background matching and background-dependent homochromy has been described in a few species. However, when and how different environmental conditions influence variation in colour remains poorly understood. Here we test for effects of background colour and ambient temperature on the occurrence of colour morph switches (green to brown or brown to green) and developmental darkening in the alpine dwelling club-legged grasshopper Gomphocerus sibiricus. We monitored individually housed nymphae across three of their four developmental stages and into the first week after final ecdysis. Our data show an absence of colour morph switches in G. sibiricus, without a single switch observed in our sample. Furthermore, we test for an effect of temperature on colouration by manipulating radiant heat, a limiting factor in alpine habitats. Radiant heat had a significant effect on developmental darkening: individuals under low radiant heat tended to darken, while individuals under high radiant heat tended to lighten within nymphal stages. Young imagoes darkened under either condition. Our results indicate a plastic response to a variable temperature and indicate that melanin, a multipurpose pigment responsible for dark colouration and presumed to be costly, seems to be strategically allocated according to the current environmental conditions. Unlike other orthopterans, the species is apparently unable to switch colour morphs (green/brown) during development, suggesting that

Determinants of Colour Constancy and the Blue Bias

Science.gov (United States)

Gegenfurtner, Karl

2017-01-01

We investigated several sensory and cognitive determinants of colour constancy across 40 illumination hues. In the first experiment, we measured colour naming for the illumination and for the colour induced by the illumination on the colorimetric grey. Results confirmed that the induced colours are approximately complementary to the colour of the illumination. In the second experiment, we measured colour constancy using achromatic adjustments. Average colour constancy was perfect under the blue daylight illumination and decreased in colour directions away from the blue daylight illumination due to undershooting and a strong blue bias. Apart from this blue bias, colour constancy was not related to illumination discrimination and to chromatic detection measured previously with the same setup and stimuli. We also observed a strong negative relationship between the degree of colour constancy and the consensus of naming the illumination colour. Constancy coincided with a low naming consensus, in particular because bluish illumination colours were sometimes seen as achromatic. Blue bias and category consensus alone explained >68%, and all determinants together explained >94% of the variance of achromatic adjustments. These findings suggest that colour constancy is optimised for blue daylight. PMID:29348910

Lessons learnt from implementation of the International Health Regulations: a systematic review

Science.gov (United States)

Allen, Lisa G; Cifuentes, Sara; Dye, Christopher; Nagata, Jason M

2018-01-01

Abstract Objective To respond to the World Health Assembly call for dissemination of lessons learnt from countries that have begun implementing the International Health Regulations, 2005 revision; IHR (2005). Methods In November 2015, we conducted a systematic search of the following online databases and sources: PubMed®, Embase®, Global Health, Scopus, World Health Organization (WHO) Global Index Medicus, WHO Bulletin on IHR Implementation and the International Society for Disease Surveillance. We included identified studies and reports summarizing national experience in implementing any of the IHR (2005) core capacities or their components. We excluded studies that were theoretical or referred to IHR (1969). Qualitative systematic review methodology, including meta-ethnography, was used for qualitative synthesis. Findings We analysed 51 articles from 77 countries representing all WHO Regions. The meta-syntheses identified a total of 44 lessons learnt across the eight core capacities of IHR (2005). Major themes included the need to mobilize and sustain political commitment; to adapt global requirements based on local sociocultural, epidemiological, health system and economic contexts; and to conduct baseline and follow-up assessments to monitor the status of IHR (2005) implementation. Conclusion Although experiences of IHR (2005) implementation covered a wide global range, more documentation from Africa and Eastern Europe is needed. We did not find specific areas of weakness in monitoring IHR (2005); sustained monitoring of all core capacities is required to ensure effective systems. These lessons learnt could be adapted by countries in the process of meeting IHR (2005) requirements. PMID:29403114

Interactions between colour-producing mechanisms and their effects on the integumentary colour palette.

Science.gov (United States)

Shawkey, Matthew D; D'Alba, Liliana

2017-07-05

Animal integumentary coloration plays a crucial role in visual communication and camouflage, and varies extensively among and within species and populations. To understand the pressures underlying such diversity, it is essential to elucidate the mechanisms by which animals have created novel integumentary coloration. Colours can be produced by selective absorption of light by skin pigments, through light scattering by structured or unstructured tissues, or by a combination of pigments and nanostructures. In this review, we highlight our current understanding of the interactions between pigments and structural integumentary tissues and molecules. We analyse the available evidence suggesting that these combined mechanisms are capable of creating colours and optical properties unachievable by either mechanism alone, thereby effectively expanding the animal colour palette. Moreover, structural and pigmentary colour mechanisms frequently interact in unexpected and overlooked ways, suggesting that classification of colours as being of any particular type may be difficult. Finally, we discuss how these mixtures are useful for investigating the largely unknown genetic, developmental and physical processes generating phenotypic diversity.This article is part of the themed issue 'Animal coloration: production, perception, function and application'. © 2017 The Author(s).

Conspicuous plumage colours are highly variable.

Science.gov (United States)

Delhey, Kaspar; Szecsenyi, Beatrice; Nakagawa, Shinichi; Peters, Anne

2017-01-25

Elaborate ornamental traits are often under directional selection for greater elaboration, which in theory should deplete underlying genetic variation. Despite this, many ornamental traits appear to remain highly variable and how this essential variation is maintained is a key question in evolutionary biology. One way to address this question is to compare differences in intraspecific variability across different types of traits to determine whether high levels of variation are associated with specific trait characteristics. Here we assess intraspecific variation in more than 100 plumage colours across 55 bird species to test whether colour variability is linked to their level of elaboration (indicated by degree of sexual dichromatism and conspicuousness) or their condition dependence (indicated by mechanism of colour production). Conspicuous colours had the highest levels of variation and conspicuousness was the strongest predictor of variability, with high explanatory power. After accounting for this, there were no significant effects of sexual dichromatism or mechanisms of colour production. Conspicuous colours may entail higher production costs or may be more sensitive to disruptions during production. Alternatively, high variability could also be related to increased perceptual difficulties inherent to discriminating highly elaborate colours. Such psychophysical effects may constrain the exaggeration of animal colours. © 2017 The Author(s).

A new universal colour image fidelity metric

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Toet, A.; Lucassen, M.P.

2003-01-01

We extend a recently introduced universal grayscale image quality index to a newly developed perceptually decorrelated colour space. The resulting colour image fidelity metric quantifies the distortion of a processed colour image relative to its original version. We evaluated the new colour image

Effect of Pigment Colouring on Physico-mechanical Properties of Hardened Cement Paste and Response of Colour Intensity to UV Radiation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Khattab, M.M.; Abdel-Rahman, H.A.; Hassan, M.S.

2010-01-01

In this work, different ratios of pigment colour was mixed with cement paste during mixing. The pigment colour used was Phthalocyanine Green. The effect of pigment colouring on hardened cement paste (HCP) was characterized in terms of compressive strength, IR spectroscopic analysis and X-ray diffraction. In addition, the effect of UV radiation on the colour strength of hardened cement paste/pigment colour composites was investigated. The results indicated that the increase in the ratio of pigment colour was accompanied with a slight decrease in the values of compressive strength. The exposure of the coloured hardened cement paste to UV radiation for long lengths of time causes a little effect on the colour intensity

Classification of pre-sliced pork and Turkey ham qualities based on image colour and textural features and their relationships with consumer responses.

Science.gov (United States)

Iqbal, Abdullah; Valous, Nektarios A; Mendoza, Fernando; Sun, Da-Wen; Allen, Paul

2010-03-01

Images of three qualities of pre-sliced pork and Turkey hams were evaluated for colour and textural features to characterize and classify them, and to model the ham appearance grading and preference responses of a group of consumers. A total of 26 colour features and 40 textural features were extracted for analysis. Using Mahalanobis distance and feature inter-correlation analyses, two best colour [mean of S (saturation in HSV colour space), std. deviation of b*, which indicates blue to yellow in L*a*b* colour space] and three textural features [entropy of b*, contrast of H (hue of HSV colour space), entropy of R (red of RGB colour space)] for pork, and three colour (mean of R, mean of H, std. deviation of a*, which indicates green to red in L*a*b* colour space) and two textural features [contrast of B, contrast of L* (luminance or lightness in L*a*b* colour space)] for Turkey hams were selected as features with the highest discriminant power. High classification performances were reached for both types of hams (>99.5% for pork and >90.5% for Turkey) using the best selected features or combinations of them. In spite of the poor/fair agreement among ham consumers as determined by Kappa analysis (Kappa-valuetexture appearance and acceptability), a dichotomous logistic regression model using the best image features was able to explain the variability of consumers' responses for all sensorial attributes with accuracies higher than 74.1% for pork hams and 83.3% for Turkey hams. Copyright 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The unsuitability of html-based colour charts for estimating animal colours – a comment on Berggren and Merilä (2004

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Cuthill Innes C

2005-08-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background A variety of techniques are used to study the colours of animal signals, including the use of visual matching to colour charts. This paper aims to highlight why they are generally an unsatisfactory tool for the measurement and classification of animal colours and why colour codes based on HTML (really RGB standards, as advocated in a recent paper, are particularly inappropriate. There are many theoretical arguments against the use of colour charts, not least that human colour vision differs markedly from that of most other animals. However, the focus of this paper is the concern that, even when applied to humans, there is no simple 1:1 mapping from an RGB colour space to the perceived colours in a chart (the results are both printer- and illumination-dependent. We support our criticisms with data from colour matching experiments with humans, involving self-made, printed colour charts. Results Colour matching experiments with printed charts involving 11 subjects showed that the choices made by individuals were significantly different between charts that had exactly the same RGB values, but were produced from different printers. Furthermore, individual matches tended to vary under different lighting conditions. Spectrophotometry of the colour charts showed that the reflectance spectra of the charts varied greatly between printers and that equal steps in RGB space were often far from equal in terms of reflectance on the printed charts. Conclusion In addition to outlining theoretical criticisms of the use of colour charts, our empirical results show that: individuals vary in their perception of colours, that different printers produce strikingly different results when reproducing what should be the same chart, and that the characteristics of the light irradiating the surface do affect colour perception. Therefore, we urge great caution in the use of colour charts to study animal colour signals. They should be used only as a last

IRIS COLOUR CLASSIFICATION SCALES--THEN AND NOW.

Science.gov (United States)

Grigore, Mariana; Avram, Alina

2015-01-01

Eye colour is one of the most obvious phenotypic traits of an individual. Since the first documented classification scale developed in 1843, there have been numerous attempts to classify the iris colour. In the past centuries, iris colour classification scales has had various colour categories and mostly relied on comparison of an individual's eye with painted glass eyes. Once photography techniques were refined, standard iris photographs replaced painted eyes, but this did not solve the problem of painted/ printed colour variability in time. Early clinical scales were easy to use, but lacked objectivity and were not standardised or statistically tested for reproducibility. The era of automated iris colour classification systems came with the technological development. Spectrophotometry, digital analysis of high-resolution iris images, hyper spectral analysis of the human real iris and the dedicated iris colour analysis software, all accomplished an objective, accurate iris colour classification, but are quite expensive and limited in use to research environment. Iris colour classification systems evolved continuously due to their use in a wide range of studies, especially in the fields of anthropology, epidemiology and genetics. Despite the wide range of the existing scales, up until present there has been no generally accepted iris colour classification scale.

Independent effects of colour on object identification and memory.

Science.gov (United States)

Lloyd-Jones, Toby J; Nakabayashi, Kazuyo

2009-02-01

We examined the effects of colour on object identification and memory using a study-test priming procedure with a coloured-object decision task at test (i.e., deciding whether an object is correctly coloured). Objects were selected to have a single associated colour and were either correctly or incorrectly coloured. In addition, object shape and colour were either spatially integrated (i.e., colour fell on the object surface) or spatially separated (i.e., colour formed the background to the object). Transforming the colour of an object from study to test (e.g., from a yellow banana to a purple banana) reduced priming of response times, as compared to when the object was untransformed. This utilization of colour information in object memory was not contingent upon colour falling on the object surface or whether the resulting configuration was of a correctly or incorrectly coloured object. In addition, we observed independent effects of colour on response times, whereby coloured-object decisions were more efficient for correctly than for incorrectly coloured objects but only when colour fell on the object surface. These findings provide evidence for two distinct mechanisms of shape-colour binding in object processing.

Scalable, full-colour and controllable chromotropic plasmonic printing

Science.gov (United States)

Xue, Jiancai; Zhou, Zhang-Kai; Wei, Zhiqiang; Su, Rongbin; Lai, Juan; Li, Juntao; Li, Chao; Zhang, Tengwei; Wang, Xue-Hua

2015-01-01

Plasmonic colour printing has drawn wide attention as a promising candidate for the next-generation colour-printing technology. However, an efficient approach to realize full colour and scalable fabrication is still lacking, which prevents plasmonic colour printing from practical applications. Here we present a scalable and full-colour plasmonic printing approach by combining conjugate twin-phase modulation with a plasmonic broadband absorber. More importantly, our approach also demonstrates controllable chromotropic capability, that is, the ability of reversible colour transformations. This chromotropic capability affords enormous potentials in building functionalized prints for anticounterfeiting, special label, and high-density data encryption storage. With such excellent performances in functional colour applications, this colour-printing approach could pave the way for plasmonic colour printing in real-world commercial utilization. PMID:26567803

Grapheme-colour synaesthesia improves detection of embedded shapes, but without pre-attentive 'pop-out' of synaesthetic colour.

Science.gov (United States)

Ward, Jamie; Jonas, Clare; Dienes, Zoltan; Seth, Anil

2010-04-07

For people with synaesthesia letters and numbers may evoke experiences of colour. It has been previously demonstrated that these synaesthetes may be better at detecting a triangle made of 2s among a background of 5s if they perceive 5 and 2 as having different synaesthetic colours. However, other studies using this task (or tasks based on the same principle) have failed to replicate the effect or have suggested alternative explanations of the effect. In this study, we repeat the original study on a larger group of synaesthetes (n = 36) and include, for the first time, an assessment of their self-reported colour experiences. We show that synaesthetes do have a general advantage over controls on this task. However, many synaesthetes report no colour experiences at all during the task. Synaesthetes who do report colour typically experience around one third of the graphemes in the display as coloured. This is more consistent with theories of synaesthesia in which spatial attention needs to be deployed to graphemes for conscious colour experiences to emerge than the interpretation based on 'pop-out'.

n-Colour even self-inverse compositions

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

An -colour even self-inverse composition is defined as an -colour self-inverse composition with even parts. In this paper, we get generating functions, explicit formulas and recurrence formulas for -colour even self-inverse compositions. One new binomial identity is also obtained.

A Bayesian Model of the Memory Colour Effect.

Science.gov (United States)

Witzel, Christoph; Olkkonen, Maria; Gegenfurtner, Karl R

2018-01-01

According to the memory colour effect, the colour of a colour-diagnostic object is not perceived independently of the object itself. Instead, it has been shown through an achromatic adjustment method that colour-diagnostic objects still appear slightly in their typical colour, even when they are colourimetrically grey. Bayesian models provide a promising approach to capture the effect of prior knowledge on colour perception and to link these effects to more general effects of cue integration. Here, we model memory colour effects using prior knowledge about typical colours as priors for the grey adjustments in a Bayesian model. This simple model does not involve any fitting of free parameters. The Bayesian model roughly captured the magnitude of the measured memory colour effect for photographs of objects. To some extent, the model predicted observed differences in memory colour effects across objects. The model could not account for the differences in memory colour effects across different levels of realism in the object images. The Bayesian model provides a particularly simple account of memory colour effects, capturing some of the multiple sources of variation of these effects.

Game Coloured Petri Nets

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Westergaard, Michael

2006-01-01

This paper introduces the notion of game coloured Petri nets. This allows the modeler to explicitly model what parts of the model comprise the modeled system and what parts are the environment of the modeled system. We give the formal definition of game coloured Petri nets, a means of reachability...... analysis of this net class, and an application of game coloured Petri nets to automatically generate easy-to-understand visualizations of the model by exploiting the knowledge that some parts of the model are not interesting from a visualization perspective (i.e. they are part of the environment...

Thirteen-colour photometry of Be stars

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Alvarez, M; Schuster, W J [Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, Mexico City. Inst. de Astronomia

1981-01-01

Thirteen-colour photometry made at the San Pedro Martir Observatory in Baja California, for a number of spectroscopically variable Be and shell stars is presented. Several of these stars also show photometric variability in the ultraviolet and/or infrared over a time base of two to three years. We analyze the more interesting stars in terms of colour-colour diagrams, colour excesses, spectral characteristics and changes in their energy distributions. Prospects for future research are discussed.

Thirteen-colour photometry of Be stars

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Alvarez, M.; Schuster, W.J.

1981-01-01

Thirteen-colour photometry made at the San Pedro Martir Observatory in Baja California, for a number of spectroscopically variable Be and shell stars is presented. Several of these stars also show photometric variability in the ultraviolet and/or infrared over a time base of two to three years. We analyze the more interesting stars in terms of colour-colour diagrams, colour excesses, spectral characteristics and changes in their energy distributions. Prospects for future research are discussed. (author)

Colour vision and computer-generated images

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ramek, Michael

2010-01-01

Colour vision deficiencies affect approximately 8% of the male and approximately 0.4% of the female population. In this work, it is demonstrated that computer generated images oftentimes pose unnecessary problems for colour deficient viewers. Three examples, the visualization of molecular structures, graphs of mathematical functions, and colour coded images from numerical data are used to identify problematic colour combinations: red/black, green/black, red/yellow, yellow/white, fuchsia/white, and aqua/white. Alternatives for these combinations are discussed.

The colour of gender stereotyping.

Science.gov (United States)

Cunningham, Sheila J; Macrae, C Neil

2011-08-01

Despite legislative attempts to eliminate gender stereotyping from society, the propensity to evaluate people on the basis of their sex remains a pernicious social problem. Noting the critical interplay between cultural and cognitive factors in the establishment of stereotypical beliefs, the current investigation explored the extent to which culturally transmitted colour-gender associations (i.e., pink is for girls, blue is for boys) set the stage for the automatic activation and expression of gender stereotypes. Across six experiments, the results demonstrated that (1) consumer choice for children's goods is dominated by gender-stereotyped colours (Experiment 1); (2) colour-based stereotypic associations guide young children's behaviour (Experiment 2); (3) colour-gender associations automatically activate associated stereotypes in adulthood (Experiments 3-5); and (4) colour-based stereotypic associations bias impressions of male and female targets (Experiment 6). These findings indicate that, despite prohibitions against stereotyping, seemingly innocuous societal practices may continue to promote this mode of thought. ©2011 The British Psychological Society.

The Effects of Pre-Fermentative Addition of Oenological Tannins on Wine Components and Sensorial Qualities of Red Wine

OpenAIRE

Kai Chen; Carlos Escott; Iris Loira; Juan Manuel del Fresno; Antonio Morata; Wendu Tesfaye; Fernando Calderon; Santiago Benito; Jose Antonio Suárez-Lepe

2016-01-01

Today in the wine industry, oenological tannins are widely used to improve wine quality and prevent oxidation in wine aging. With the development of tannin products, new oenological tannins are developed with many specific functions, such as modifying antioxidant effect, colour stabilization and aroma modifications. The aim of this work is to investigate effects of pre-fermentative addition of oenological tannins on wine colour, anthocyanins, volatile compounds and sensorial properties. In th...

Colour chemistry

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hong-Mo, C.

1978-10-01

Colour is now popularly believed to be the basis of strong interactions and as evidence for such a fundamental new degree of freedom one should expect an entirely new class of phenomena qualitatively different from those in a colourless world. One place to seek such manifestations is in spectroscopy, where a new degree of freedom should lead to a richer spectrum. this approach is here discussed with especial reference to the case of diquoniums. The very existence of M-diquoniums, whose spectrum has been calculated and is shown, would be a verification of colour. (U.K.)

Repeatability indices for the Adams D-15 test for colour-normal and colour-defective adults.

Science.gov (United States)

Hovis, Jeffery K; Ramaswamy, Shankaran; Anderson, Matthew

2004-07-01

The Adams desaturated D-15 test was administered to individuals with normal colour vision or with congenital red-green colour vision defects to establish the repeatability of the test. One hundred subjects with normal colour vision and 64 subjects with defective colour vision participated in the study. Results were analysed from two different sessions to determine the repeatability of the test for different pass/fail criteria. The test was scored using both visual inspection of the score sheet and the modified Colour Difference Vector analysis (CDV) program. For both subject groups, the repeatability was lowest when a perfect arrangement was required for a pass and improved as more errors were allowed. The improvement in repeatability was greatest as the failure criterion changed from 'any mistake' to 'more than two crossings'. The kappa coefficient for the reliability of the defect classification was 0.38 for visual inspection and 0.59 for the CDV analysis. All the protans who failed the test at both sessions were classified correctly. Approximately 98 per cent of the colour-normals and 82 per cent of the colour-defectives would have the same pass/fail outcome on the Adams D-15 test conducted several days apart when the failure criterion was either one or more or two or more crossings. Individuals who make less than four crossings on the Adams D-15 should repeat the test to ensure confidence in the pass/fail result.

Colouring outside the lines

Science.gov (United States)

Commissariat, Tushna

2017-10-01

Walk into a bookshop today, or even a gift shop, and you will most likely come across an entire section of colouring books for adults. Visions of Numberland: a Colouring Journey Through the Mysteries of Maths by Alex Bellos and Edmund Harriss is one such book.

The Categorisation of Non-Categorical Colours: A Novel Paradigm in Colour Perception

Science.gov (United States)

Cropper, Simon J.; Kvansakul, Jessica G. S.; Little, Daniel R.

2013-01-01

In this paper, we investigate a new paradigm for studying the development of the colour ‘signal’ by having observers discriminate and categorize the same set of controlled and calibrated cardinal coloured stimuli. Notably, in both tasks, each observer was free to decide whether two pairs of colors were the same or belonged to the same category. The use of the same stimulus set for both tasks provides, we argue, an incremental behavioural measure of colour processing from detection through discrimination to categorisation. The measured data spaces are different for the two tasks, and furthermore the categorisation data is unique to each observer. In addition, we develop a model which assumes that the principal difference between the tasks is the degree of similarity between the stimuli which has different constraints for the categorisation task compared to the discrimination task. This approach not only makes sense of the current (and associated) data but links the processes of discrimination and categorisation in a novel way and, by implication, expands upon the previous research linking categorisation to other tasks not limited to colour perception. PMID:23536899

Exposure of Polish children to Southampton food colours.

Science.gov (United States)

Gajda-Wyrębek, J; Kuźma, K; Świtka, A; Jarecka, J; Beresińska, M; Postupolski, J

2017-01-01

A study published in 2007 showed that the intake of six food colours (the so-called 'Southampton colours') may have an adverse effect on activity and attention in children. The present study set out to assess the exposure of Polish children (3 and 8-9 years old, n = 149) to six of the target colours. Two methods were used to evaluate colour consumption by children: scenario 1 using the maximum permitted levels (MPLs) and actual food consumption data; and scenario 2 using the actual levels in food and actual food consumption data. The data on the actual consumption of food containing the colours was collected using a 7-day questionnaire survey. The results of laboratory analysis of food consumed by children provided data on the actual levels of the colours in food. Consumption of the colours estimated by scenario 1 in any case did not exceed the acceptable daily intakes (ADIs) of the colours in both age groups of children. For more refined colour intake (scenario 2), isolated cases exceeding the ADI were recorded for four colours, but assuming that manufacturers comply with the current legislation on MPL of colours in food, the intake of the colours assessed in scenario 2 should not be a reason for exceeding of ADIs for the target food colours.

Use of non-Saccharomyces yeasts and oenological tannin in red winemaking: Influence on colour, aroma and sensorial properties of young wines.

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Kai; Escott, Carlos; Loira, Iris; Del Fresno, Juan Manuel; Morata, Antonio; Tesfaye, Wendu; Calderon, Fernando; Suárez-Lepe, Jose Antonio; Han, Shunyu; Benito, Santiago

2018-02-01

Today, many non-Saccharomyces strains have been verified can be positive for the development of wine anthocyanin and aroma in different fermentation scenarios. Moreover, oenological tannins are widely used in wine industry to improve the colour profile and aroma complexity. The aim of this work is to analyze the fermentation characters of non-Saccharomyces strains and investigate the effects of pre-fermentative addition of oenological tannins on the wine components as well as sensory properties. For this purpose, five selected non-Saccharomyces strains and grape seed tannin were used to carry out the different fermentation trials. As a result, the grape seed tannin were less likely to influence growth kinetics of non-Saccharomyces strains. Schizosaccharomyces pombe has been proved can be effective to reduce the malic acid content while increase the level of vinylphenolic pyranoanthocyanin, which is positive for wine colour stability. Pre-fermentative use of oenological tannin was verified could be beneficial for the wines fermented with non-Saccharomyces regarding the improvement of wine colour, anthocyanin composition and the complexity of volatile compounds. Nevertheless, sensory analysis showed that oenological tannin could be less effective to modify the aroma impression of non-Saccharomyces wines. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

[Historical Development of the Wool and Colour Plate Tests for Screening for Colour Vision Deficiencies in German Speaking Countries].

Science.gov (United States)

Kuchenbecker, J

2017-07-01

Colour vision is a complex visual function that can be affected by congenital and/or acquired disorders. The frequency of congenital colour vision deficiencies has been investigated in rail and navy staff since the 1870s. Various test methods have been developed. Wool tests, flor contrast tests and colour plate tests have been used. A published colour plate test, based on Stilling's pseudo-isochromatic plates in combination with a flor contrast test, has been a common screening method for colour vision testing in German-speaking countries. This test is intended to detect congenital and acquired colour vision deficiencies in a simple and safe manner. More modern options, such as Internet and tablet PC have technical limitations, but will increasingly be used for screening for colour vision deficiencies. Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart · New York.

Exploring the benefit of synaesthetic colours: testing for "pop-out" in individuals with grapheme-colour synaesthesia.

Science.gov (United States)

Rich, Anina N; Karstoft, Karen-Inge

2013-01-01

In grapheme-colour synaesthesia, letters, numbers, and words elicit involuntary colour experiences. Recently, there has been much emphasis on individual differences and possible subcategories of synaesthetes with different underlying mechanisms. In particular, there are claims that for some, synaesthesia occurs prior to attention and awareness of the inducing stimulus. We first characterized our sample using two versions of the "Synaesthetic Congruency Task" to distinguish "projector" and "associator" synaesthetes who may differ in the extent to which their synaesthesia depends on attention and awareness. We then used a novel modification of the "Embedded Figures Task" that included a set-size manipulation to look for evidence of preattentive "pop-out" from synaesthetic colours, at both a group and an individual level. We replicate an advantage for synaesthetes over nonsynaesthetic controls on the Embedded Figures Task in accuracy, but find no support for pop-out of synaesthetic colours. We conclude that grapheme-colour synaesthetes are fundamentally similar in their visual processing to the general population, with the source of their unusual conscious colour experiences occurring late in the cognitive hierarchy.

Brown colour in natural diamond and interaction between the brown related and other colour-inducing defects

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fisher, D; Sibley, S J; Kelly, C J

2009-01-01

Absorption spectroscopy results on a range of type II diamonds are presented which enable the electronic states associated with them to be mapped out. High pressure, high temperature treatment of brown type IIa diamonds has enabled an activation energy for the removal of the brown colour of 8.0 ± 0.3 eV to be determined and this is consistent with expectations associated with the currently accepted vacancy cluster model for the defect. Theoretical calculations suggest that this defect will generate partially filled gap states about 1 eV above the valence band. Data on the photochromic behaviour of bands producing pink colour and their relation to brown colour are presented; these suggest that the pink bands are produced from two independent transitions with ground states close to each other just below the middle of the band gap. Compensation of neutral boron by charge transfer from states associated with brown colour is demonstrated via the correlated increase in neutral boron and decrease in brown colour on high pressure, high temperature treatment to remove the defects causing the brown colour.

Imidacloprid slows the development of preference for rewarding food sources in bumblebees (Bombus impatiens).

Science.gov (United States)

Phelps, Jordan D; Strang, Caroline G; Gbylik-Sikorska, Malgorzata; Sniegocki, Tomasz; Posyniak, Andrzej; Sherry, David F

2018-03-01

Bee pollination is economically and ecologically vital and recent declines in bee populations are therefore a concern. One possible cause of bee declines is pesticide use. Bumblebees exposed to imidacloprid, a neonicotinoid pesticide, have been shown to be less efficient foragers and collect less pollen on foraging trips than unexposed bees. We investigated whether bumblebees (Bombus impatiens) chronically exposed to imidacloprid at field-realistic levels of 2.6 and 10 ppb showed learning deficits that could affect foraging. Bumblebees were tested for their ability to associate flower colour with reward value in a simulated foraging environment. Bumblebees completed 10 foraging trips in which they collected sucrose solution from artificial flowers that varied in sucrose concentration. The reward quality of each artificial flower was predicted by corolla colour. Unexposed bumblebees acquired a preference for feeding on the most rewarding flower colour on the second foraging trip, while bumblebees exposed at 2.6 and 10 ppb did not until their third and fifth trip, respectively. The delay in preference acquisition in exposed bumblebees may be due to reduced flower sampling and shorter foraging trips. These results show that bumblebees exposed to imidacloprid are slow to learn the reward value of flowers and this may explain previously observed foraging inefficiencies associated with pesticide exposure.

Colours as Non-Verbal Signs on Packages

OpenAIRE

Kauppinen, Hannele

2005-01-01

Colour is an essential aspect of our daily life, and still, it is a neglected issue within marketing research. The main reason for studying colours is to understand the impact of colours on consumer behaviour, and thus, colours should be studied when it comes to branding, advertising, packages, interiors, and the clothes of the employees, for example. This was an exploratory study about the impact of colours on packages. The focus was on low-involvement purchasing, where the consumer puts...

Colour-grapheme synaesthesia affects binocular vision

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chris L.E. Paffen

2011-11-01

Full Text Available In colour-grapheme synaesthesia, non-coloured graphemes are perceived as being inherently coloured. In recent years, it has become evident that synaesthesia-inducing graphemes can affect visual processing in a manner comparable to real, physical colours. Here, we exploit the phenomenon of binocular rivalry in which incompatible images presented dichoptically compete for conscious expression. Importantly, the competition only arises if the two images are sufficiently different; if the difference between the images is small, the images will fuse into a single mixed percept. We show that achromatic graphemes that induce synaesthetic colour percepts evoke binocular rivalry, while without the synaesthetic percept, they do not. That is, compared to achromatically perceived graphemes, synaesthesia-inducing graphemes increase the predominance of binocular rivalry over binocular fusion. This finding shows that the synaesthetic colour experience can provide the conditions for evoking binocular rivalry, much like stimulus features that induce rivalry in normal vision.

Laser-induced plasmonic colours on metals

Science.gov (United States)

Guay, Jean-Michel; Calà Lesina, Antonino; Côté, Guillaume; Charron, Martin; Poitras, Daniel; Ramunno, Lora; Berini, Pierre; Weck, Arnaud

2017-07-01

Plasmonic resonances in metallic nanoparticles have been used since antiquity to colour glasses. The use of metal nanostructures for surface colourization has attracted considerable interest following recent developments in plasmonics. However, current top-down colourization methods are not ideally suited to large-scale industrial applications. Here we use a bottom-up approach where picosecond laser pulses can produce a full palette of non-iridescent colours on silver, gold, copper and aluminium. We demonstrate the process on silver coins weighing up to 5 kg and bearing large topographic variations (~1.5 cm). We find that colours are related to a single parameter, the total accumulated fluence, making the process suitable for high-throughput industrial applications. Statistical image analyses of laser-irradiated surfaces reveal various nanoparticle size distributions. Large-scale finite-difference time-domain computations based on these nanoparticle distributions reproduce trends seen in reflectance measurements, and demonstrate the key role of plasmonic resonances in colour formation.

Coloured phase singularities

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Berry, M.V.

2002-01-01

For illumination with white light, the spectra near a typical isolated phase singularity (nodal point of the component wavelengths) can be described by a universal function of position, up to linear distortion and a weak dependence on the spectrum of the source. The appearance of the singularity when viewed by a human observer is predicted by transforming the spectrum to trichromatic variables and chromaticity coordinates, and then rendering the colours, scaled to constant luminosity, on a computer monitor. The pattern far from the singularity is a white that depends on the source temperature, and the centre of the pattern is flanked by intensely coloured 'eyes', one orange and one blue, separated by red, and one of the eyes is surrounded by a bright white circle. Only a small range of possible colours appears near the singularity; in particular, there is no green. (author)

Better Educational Website Interface Design: The Implications from Gender-Specific Preferences in Graduate Students

Science.gov (United States)

Hsu, Yu-chang

2006-01-01

This study investigated graduate students gender-specific preferences for certain website interface design features, intending to generate useful information for instructors in choosing and for website designers in creating educational websites. The features investigated in this study included colour value, major navigation buttons placement, and…

Human colour in mate choice and competition.

Science.gov (United States)

Rowland, Hannah M; Burriss, Robert P

2017-07-05

The colour of our skin and clothing affects how others perceive us and how we behave. Human skin colour varies conspicuously with genetic ancestry, but even subtle changes in skin colour due to diet, blood oxygenation and hormone levels influence social perceptions. In this review, we describe the theoretical and empirical frameworks in which human colour is researched. We explore how subtle skin colour differences relate to judgements of health and attractiveness. Also, because humans are one of the few organisms able to manipulate their apparent colour, we review how cosmetics and clothing are implicated in courtship and competition, both inside the laboratory and in the real world. Research on human colour is in its infancy compared with human psychophysics and colour research in non-human animals, and hence we present best-practice guidelines for methods and reporting, which we hope will improve the validity and reproducibility of studies on human coloration.This article is part of the themed issue 'Animal coloration: production, perception, function and application'. © 2017 The Author(s).

Colour Perception on Facial Expression towards Emotion

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rubita Sudirman

2012-12-01

Full Text Available This study is to investigate human perceptions on pairing of facial expressions of emotion with colours. A group of 27 subjects consisting mainly of younger and Malaysian had participated in this study. For each of the seven faces, which expresses the basic emotions neutral, happiness, surprise, anger, disgust, fear and sadness, a single colour is chosen from the eight basic colours for the match of best visual look to the face accordingly. The different emotions appear well characterized by a single colour. The approaches used in this experiment for analysis are psychology disciplines and colours engineering. These seven emotions are being matched by the subjects with their perceptions and feeling. Then, 12 male and 12 female data are randomly chosen from among the previous data to make a colour perception comparison between genders. The successes or failures in running of this test depend on the possibility of subjects to propose their every single colour for each expression. The result will translate into number and percentage as a guide for colours designers and psychology field.

An RGB Approach to Prismatic Colours

Science.gov (United States)

Theilmann, Florian; Grusche, Sascha

2013-01-01

Teaching prismatic colours usually boils down to establishing the take-home message that white light consists of "differently refrangible" coloured rays. This approach explains the classical spectrum of seven colours but has its limitations, e.g. in discussing spectra from setups with higher resolution or in understanding the well…

Colour development in the apple orchard

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Tijskens, L.M.M.; Unuk, T.; Stanislav Tojnko, S.; Hribar, J.; Simcic, M.

2011-01-01

Colour is traditionally one of the important appearance features of all fruit for consumers in deciding to buy them. Colour is therefore important in the postharvest supply chain. But where does that colour of fruit come from? Clearly the period of growing and the circumstances during growth are

Shape, colour plasticity, and habitat use indicate morph-specific camouflage strategies in a marine shrimp.

Science.gov (United States)

Duarte, Rafael C; Stevens, Martin; Flores, Augusto A V

2016-10-18

Colour and shape polymorphisms are important features of many species and may allow individuals to exploit a wider array of habitats, including through behavioural differences among morphs. In addition, differences among individuals in behaviour and morphology may reflect different strategies, for example utilising different approaches to camouflage. Hippolyte obliquimanus is a small shrimp species inhabiting different shallow-water vegetated habitats. Populations comprise two main morphs: homogeneous shrimp of variable colour (H) and transparent individuals with coloured stripes (ST). These morphs follow different distribution patterns between their main algal habitats; the brown weed Sargassum furcatum and the pink-red weed Galaxaura marginata. In this study, we first investigated morph-specific colour change and habitat selection, as mechanisms underlying camouflage and spatial distribution patterns in nature. Then, we examined habitat fidelity, mobility, and morphological traits, further indicating patterns of habitat use. H shrimp are capable of changing colour in just a few days towards their algal background, achieving better concealment in the more marginal, and less preferred, red weed habitat. Furthermore, laboratory trials showed that habitat fidelity is higher for H shrimp, whereas swimming activity is higher for the ST morph, aligned to morphological evidence indicating these two morphs comprise a more benthic (H) and a more pelagic (ST) life-style, respectively. Results suggest that H shrimp utilise a camouflage strategy specialised to a limited number of backgrounds at any one time, whereas ST individuals comprise a phenotype with more generalist camouflage (transparency) linked to a more generalist background utilisation. The coexistence within a population of distinct morphotypes with apparently alternative strategies of habitat use and camouflage may reflect differential responses to substantial seasonal changes in macroalgal cover. Our findings

New particles and breaking the colour symmetry

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Krolikowski, W.

1975-01-01

In the framework of one-gluon-exchange static forces mediated by a colour octet or nonet of vector gluons, we discuss quark binding in coloured-meson states and its connection with breaking the colour symmetry. A possible identification of psi (3.1), psi(3.7) and the broad bump at 4.1 GeV with some coloured bound states of quarks and antiquarks is pointed out. This identification implies the existence of a second bump in the region of 5 GeV. The general conclusion of the paper is that the colour interpretation of the new particles may be true only if the colour symmetry is badly broken (provided the considered forces are relevant). (author)

Culture of colour in the city

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Vasiljević-Tomić Dragana

2009-01-01

Full Text Available The phenomenon of colour is examined through the evolution of colour and development of culture of colour, which significantly affects the colouristic priorities of people and the colour of the city itself. The terms functional colour and climate of colour are also considered, as some of the most important characteristics of architectural and urban design practice. The quality of the urban public space is directly predicated by cultural identity, and indirectly by appearance of polychromy in urban public space. The need to improve the quality of life in the city represents one of the key motives for operating in urban space, i.e. commencing the process of architectural and urban designing. Historical architectural policrhomy represents the basis for appearance of colour in public space. The complexity of colouristic attributes of the urban public space is conditioned by the basic characteristics: colouristic priorities, harmony of coloured spatial structures and materials in designing the polychrome ambient in the city. The factors that shape the colouristic ambient of the city are: characteristics of nature and climate, interrelations of colour and shape, as well as the experience of the form of the urban public space while preserving its identity. The acquired experiences point to the possibility of redefining the concepts of urban public space in planning and designing practice. The synthesized knowledge is sublimed through examination of the elasticity of its boundaries in accordance to the preservation of the identity of place and the future transformations of the city as well as of its users. The new principles are formed upon which the transformed model of the urban public space as a polychrome ambient is built.

A Bayesian Model of the Memory Colour Effect

OpenAIRE

Witzel, Christoph; Olkkonen, Maria; Gegenfurtner, Karl R.

2018-01-01

According to the memory colour effect, the colour of a colour-diagnostic object is not perceived independently of the object itself. Instead, it has been shown through an achromatic adjustment method that colour-diagnostic objects still appear slightly in their typical colour, even when they are colourimetrically grey. Bayesian models provide a promising approach to capture the effect of prior knowledge on colour perception and to link these effects to more general effects of cue integration....

A Bayesian model of the memory colour effect.

OpenAIRE

Witzel, Christoph; Olkkonen, Maria; Gegenfurtner, Karl R.

2018-01-01

According to the memory colour effect, the colour of a colour-diagnostic object is not perceived independently of the object itself. Instead, it has been shown through an achromatic adjustment method that colour-diagnostic objects still appear slightly in their typical colour, even when they are colourimetrically grey. Bayesian models provide a promising approach to capture the effect of prior knowledge on colour perception and to link these effects to more general effects of cue integration....

Colour reconstruction of underwater images

OpenAIRE

Hoth, Julian; Kowalczyk, Wojciech

2017-01-01

Objects look very different in the underwater environment compared to their appearance in sunlight. Images with correct colouring simplify the detection of underwater objects and may allow the use of visual SLAM algorithms developed for land-based robots underwater. Hence, image processing is required. Current algorithms focus on the colour reconstruction of scenery at diving depth where different colours can still be distinguished. At greater depth this is not the case. In this study it is i...

A method to measure the effect of food appearance factors on children's visual preferences

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kildegaard, Heidi; Olsen, Annemarie; Gabrielsen, Gorm

2011-01-01

The aim of the study was to examine children’s visual preferences for two food products; yoghurts and smoothies, by using a conjoint layout. In total, 274 children performed an incomplete ranking of 8 pictures formed by three factors each with two levels (23 design). The three food appearance...... for the eight smoothies. The children visually preferred the two products without visible fruit and colour had a large influence on visual preferences too. As regards the yoghurts, the children accepted a less simple variant whereas the most preferred smoothie was very simple. Significant synergetic effects...... between food appearance factors and segmentation factors were found. Additionally gender and ethnicity were found to be influential drivers for food choice....

The Attentional Capture of Colour in Visual Interface Design

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Andersen, Emil; Maier, Anja

2017-01-01

The use of colour is an integral component in visual interface design for creating separation between objects and for conveying meaning. It has previously been established that colours can be separated in a hierarchy of primary colours and secondary colours, and that colours are consistently...... in a controlled environment, in which 11 participants scanned a 20 item display for a coloured target amongst coloured distractors. We found evidence to support that primary colours capture attention significantly more than secondary colours, and inconclusive evidence that colours convey their meaning...... at a sufficiently early level of processing to influence attention. We end by discussing implications of our results for design practice and research in psychology....

Forbidden Structures for Planar Perfect Consecutively Colourable Graphs

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Borowiecka-Olszewska Marta

2017-05-01

Full Text Available A consecutive colouring of a graph is a proper edge colouring with posi- tive integers in which the colours of edges incident with each vertex form an interval of integers. The idea of this colouring was introduced in 1987 by Asratian and Kamalian under the name of interval colouring. Sevast- janov showed that the corresponding decision problem is NP-complete even restricted to the class of bipartite graphs. We focus our attention on the class of consecutively colourable graphs whose all induced subgraphs are consecutively colourable, too. We call elements of this class perfect consecutively colourable to emphasise the conceptual similarity to perfect graphs. Obviously, the class of perfect consecutively colourable graphs is induced hereditary, so it can be characterized by the family of induced forbidden graphs. In this work we give a necessary and sufficient conditions that must be satisfied by the generalized Sevastjanov rosette to be an induced forbid- den graph for the class of perfect consecutively colourable graphs. Along the way, we show the exact values of the deficiency of all generalized Sevastjanov rosettes, which improves the earlier known estimating result. It should be mentioned that the deficiency of a graph measures its closeness to the class of consecutively colourable graphs. We motivate the investigation of graphs considered here by showing their connection to the class of planar perfect consecutively colourable graphs.

Colour constancy in natural images through colour naming and sensor sharpening

OpenAIRE

Vázquez Corral, Javier

2014-01-01

Advisors: Maria Vanrell, Graham Finlayson. Date and location of PhD thesis defense: 28 February 2011, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona Colour is derived from three physical properties: incident light, object reflectance and sensor sensitivities. Incident light varies under natural conditions; hence, recovering scene illuminant is an important issue in computational colour. One way to deal with this problem under calibrated conditions is by following three steps, 1) building a narrow-band ...

Colour: code, mode, modality

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

van Leeuwen, Theo

2014-01-01

This article uses a social semiotic approach to discuss the influence of film, video and digital technologies on the way colour is used in audiovisual media......This article uses a social semiotic approach to discuss the influence of film, video and digital technologies on the way colour is used in audiovisual media...

Lessons learnt from WLCG service deployment

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Shiers, J D

2008-01-01

This paper summarises the main lessons learnt from deploying WLCG production services, with a focus on Reliability, Scalability, Accountability, which lead to both manageability and usability. Each topic is analysed in turn. Techniques for zero-user-visible downtime for the main service interventions are described, together with pathological cases that need special treatment. The requirements in terms of scalability are analysed, calling for as much robustness and automation in the service as possible. The different aspects of accountability - which covers measuring/tracking/logging/monitoring what is going on - and has gone on - is examined, with the goal of attaining a manageable service. Finally, a simple analogy is drawn with the Web in terms of usability - what do we need to achieve to cross the chasm from small-scale adoption to ubiquity?

Scientific collaborations on Living Labs: some lessons learnt from South Africa and Tanzania

CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

Herselman, M

2015-11-01

Full Text Available The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the specific lessons that were learnt when Tanzanian and South African Living Labs (LL) collaborated to support one another. It was a scientific collaboration which focussed on Living Labs...

Colour discrimination and categorisation in Williams syndrome.

Science.gov (United States)

Farran, Emily K; Cranwell, Matthew B; Alvarez, James; Franklin, Anna

2013-10-01

Individuals with Williams syndrome (WS) present with impaired functioning of the dorsal visual stream relative to the ventral visual stream. As such, little attention has been given to ventral stream functions in WS. We investigated colour processing, a predominantly ventral stream function, for the first time in nineteen individuals with Williams syndrome. Colour discrimination was assessed using the Farnsworth-Munsell 100 hue test. Colour categorisation was assessed using a match-to-sample test and a colour naming task. A visual search task was also included as a measure of sensitivity to the size of perceptual colour difference. Results showed that individuals with WS have reduced colour discrimination relative to typically developing participants matched for chronological age; performance was commensurate with a typically developing group matched for non-verbal ability. In contrast, categorisation was typical in WS, although there was some evidence that sensitivity to the size of perceptual colour differences was reduced in this group. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Genetic analyses of the human eye colours using a novel objective method for eye colour classification

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Andersen, Jeppe D.; Johansen, Peter; Harder, Stine

2013-01-01

In this study, we present a new objective method for measuring the eye colour on a continuous scale that allows researchers to associate genetic markers with different shades of eye colour. With the use of the custom designed software Digital Iris Analysis Tool (DIAT), the iris was automatically...... and TYR rs1393350) on the eye colour. We evaluated the two published prediction models for eye colour (IrisPlex [1] and Snipper[2]) and compared the predictions with the PIE-scores. We found good concordance with the prediction from individuals typed as HERC2 rs12913832 G. However, both methods had......-score ranged from −1 to 1 (brown to blue). The software eliminated the need for user based interpretation and qualitative eye colour categories. In 94% (570) of 605 analyzed eye images, the iris region was successfully extracted and a PIE-score was calculated. A very high correlation between the PIE...

Five Years after the Fukushima Daiichi Accident: Nuclear Safety Improvements and Lessons Learnt

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Magwood, William D. IV; Niel, Jean-Christophe; Fuketa, Toyoshi; Sheron, Brian; Boyd, Michael; McGarry, Ann; Dussart-Desart, Roland; Reig, Javier; Hah, Yeonhee; Nieh, Ho; Vasquez-Maignan, Ximena; Salgado, Nancy; White, Andrew; Lazo, Edward; Creswell, Len; Leeds, Eric; Gannon-Picot, Cynthia; Griffiths, Janice

2016-01-01

Countries around the world continue to implement safety improvements and corrective actions based on lessons learnt from the 11 March 2011 accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. This report provides a high-level summary and update on these activities, and outlines further lessons learnt and challenges identified for future consideration. It focuses on actions taken by NEA committees and NEA member countries, and as such is complementary to reports produced by other international organisations. It is in a spirit of openness and transparency that NEA member countries share this information to illustrate that appropriate actions are being taken to maintain and enhance the level of safety at their nuclear facilities. Nuclear power plants are safer today because of these actions. High-priority follow-on items identified by NEA committees are provided to assist countries in continuously benchmarking and improving their nuclear safety practices. (authors)

Balancing selection maintains cryptic colour morphs.

Science.gov (United States)

Wellenreuther, Maren

2017-11-01

Animals display incredibly diverse colour patterns, a testament to evolution's endless innovation in shaping life. In many species, the interplay between males and females in the pursuit of mates has driven the evolution of a myriad of colour forms, from the flashy peacock tail feathers to the tiniest colour markings in damselflies. In others, colour provides crypsis by allowing to blend into the background and to escape the eyes of predators. While the obvious benefits of this dazzling diversity for reproduction and survival seem straightforward, its maintenance is not. Theory predicts that genetic drift and various forms of selection reduce variation over time, making the persistence of colour variants over generations a puzzle. In this issue of Molecular Ecology, Lindtke et al. () study the cryptic colour morphs of Timema cristinae walking sticks to shed light on the genetic architecture and mechanisms that allow colour polymorphism maintenance over long timescales. By combining genome-wide data with phenotyping information from natural populations, they were able to map the green and melanistic colour to one genomic region with highly reduced effective recombination rate between two main chromosomal variants, consistent with an inversion polymorphism. These two main chromosomal variants showed geographically widespread heterozygote excess, and genomic signatures consistent with long-term balancing selection. A younger chromosomal variant was detected for the third morph, the green-striped colour morphs, in the same genomic regions as the melanistic and the green-unstriped morphs. Together, these results suggest that the genetic architecture of cryptic T. cristinae morphs is caused by nonrecombining genomic blocks that have been maintained over extended time periods by balancing selection making this study one of the few available empirical examples documenting that balancing selection of various forms may play an important role in maintaining adaptive genetic

Colour Vision Deficiency and Physics Teaching

Science.gov (United States)

Maule, Louise; Featonby, David

2016-01-01

1 in 12 males suffer from some form of colour vision deficiency (CVD) which in the present colour dominated world of education presentation can be a severe disadvantage. Although aware of "colourblindness" most teachers make little or no adjustment for these pupils for whom tasks may be more difficult. This article examines colour vision…

The colour wheels of art, perception, science and physiology

Science.gov (United States)

Harkness, Nick

2006-06-01

Colour is not the domain of any one discipline be it art, philosophy, psychology or science. Each discipline has its own colour wheel and this presentation examines the origins and philosophies behind the colour circles of Art, Perception, Science and Physiology (after image) with reference to Aristotle, Robert Boyle, Leonardo da Vinci, Goethe, Ewald Hering and Albert Munsell. The paper analyses and discusses the differences between the four colour wheels using the Natural Colour System® notation as the reference for hue (the position of colours within each of the colour wheels). Examination of the colour wheels shows the dominance of blue in the wheels of art, science and physiology particularly at the expense of green. This paper does not consider the three-dimensionality of colour space its goal was to review the hue of a colour with regard to its position on the respective colour wheels.

Radiation-reversible material carriers of different colour

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hofmann, G.

1976-01-01

A suggestion is made instead of using coloured material carriers - the cones and cylindrical tubes in spinning mills and weaving mills are given as example - to use such ones which change colour with irradiation and keep this colour until a new radiation impulse causes a new colour which differs well from the first one. (No data on material or type of radiation are given.) (UWI) [de

Colour-specific differences in attentional deployment for equiluminant pop-out colours: evidence from lateralised potentials.

Science.gov (United States)

Pomerleau, Vincent Jetté; Fortier-Gauthier, Ulysse; Corriveau, Isabelle; Dell'Acqua, Roberto; Jolicœur, Pierre

2014-03-01

We investigated how target colour affected behavioural and electrophysiological results in a visual search task. Perceptual and attentional mechanisms were tracked using the N2pc component of the event-related potential and other lateralised components. Four colours (red, green, blue, or yellow) were calibrated for each participant for luminance through heterochromatic flicker photometry and equated to the luminance of grey distracters. Each visual display contained 10 circles, 1 colored and 9 grey, each of which contained an oriented line segment. The task required deploying attention to the colored circle, which was either in the left or right visual hemifield. Three lateralised ERP components relative to the side of the lateral coloured circle were examined: a posterior contralateral positivity (Ppc) prior to N2pc, the N2pc, reflecting the deployment of visual spatial attention, and a temporal and contralateral positivity (Ptc) following N2pc. Red or blue stimuli, as compared to green or yellow, had an earlier N2pc. Both the Ppc and Ptc had higher amplitudes to red stimuli, suggesting particular selectivity for red. The results suggest that attention may be deployed to red and blue more quickly than to other colours and suggests special caution when designing ERP experiments involving stimuli in different colours, even when all colours are equiluminant. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The theory and phenomenology of coloured quark models

CERN Document Server

Close, F E

1975-01-01

A general introduction to coloured quark models is given and their phenomenology is described with particular reference to the new particles. It is shown that there are essentially three types of colour models with colour excitation when the colour group is SU(3)- Han-Nambu, Greenberg and a model which has the same charges as that of Tati and which can be thought of as the Gell-Mann colour scheme with excitation of the colour degrees of freedom. Particular attention is paid to the four problems of colour models for psi phenomenology-the radiative decays, the G parity conservation, the lack of deep inelastic threshold phenomena and the apparent discovery of dileptons at SPEAR. (40 refs).

The theory and phenomenology of coloured quark models

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Close, F.E.

1975-01-01

A general introduction to coloured quark models is given and their phenomenology is described with particular reference to the new particles. It is shown that there are essentially three types of colour models with colour excitation when the colour group is SU(3) - Han-Nambu, Greenberg and a model which has the same charges as that of Tati and which can be thought of as the Gell-Mann colour scheme with excitation of the colour degrees of freedom. Particular attention is paid to the four problems of colour models for PSI phenomenology - the radiative decays, the G parity conservation, the lack of deep inelastic threshold phenomena and the apparent discovery of dileptons at SPEAR. (author)

Energy losses (gains) of massive coloured particles in stochastic colour medium

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Leonidov, A.; Rossijskaya Akademiya Nauk, Moscow

1995-01-01

The propagation of massive coloured particles in stochastic background chromoelectric field is studied using the semiclassical equations of motion. Depending on the nature of the stochastic background we obtain the formulae for the energy losses of heavy coloured projectile in nonperturbative hadronic medium and for the energy gains in the stochastic field present, e.g., in the turbulent plasma. The result appears to be significantly dependent on the form of the correlation function of stochastic external field. (orig.)

Comparison of radiation-induced colouration images, thermoluminescence, and after-glow colour images with aluminium impurity distribution in Japanese twin quartzes

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hashimoto, Tetsuo; Ojima, Tetsu; Takahashi, Eishi; Konishi, Masayoshi; Kanemaki, Motoko.

1995-01-01

After-glow colour images (AGCI) and thermoluminescence (TL) from Japanese twin quartz slices have been successfully photographed by means of a commercially available negative colour film after the irradiation of X-rays. After-glow colour images (AGCI) offered very interesting distinction of colour images; the core part showed the colour changed from sky blue with zonal orange to blue with increasing absorbed doses, whereas the outer parts maintained orange AG colour giving clear boundary. On the other hand, the radiation-induced colour (blackish or brownish) center image (CCI) appeared at the core portion, while thermoluminescence colour images (TLCI) also consisted of two portions distinguishable into stripe and zonal bluish core and faint TL emission part in outer ones. These luminescence colour images, probably reflecting the formation mechanism of Japanese twin quartzes, are evidently correlated with the concentration patterns of aluminium impurity obtained by an EPMA (electron probe microanalyzer) method. From these radiation-induced images, it was assumed that the conditions of crystal formation should be greatly different between the core and the outer parts; the outer parts were secondarily started to grow from hydrothermal solution with higher Al-concentration after the initial formation of single core. (author)

Shell Colour Polymorphism in Bulla ampulla

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Cedhagen, Tomas

1999-01-01

Colour patterns of Bulla ampulla shells collected from Africa eastward to Pacific Islands were studied. 1\\vo common colour morphs were found. The typical morph is commonest. It is closely and finely mottled or all over with pinkish-gray on a creamy or flesh~tinted ground, with darker clouds......, irregular, V-shaped, or as longitudinal bands. The colouration of the other common morph is more uniform. It is lacking the darker clouds or bands and the colour is more greyish. The entire shell surface is densely mottled all over with small brown spots on a grey or beige background. Both morphs seem...

Whorfian effects on colour memory are not reliable.

Science.gov (United States)

Wright, Oliver; Davies, Ian R L; Franklin, Anna

2015-01-01

The Whorfian hypothesis suggests that differences between languages cause differences in cognitive processes. Support for this idea comes from studies that find that patterns of colour memory errors made by speakers of different languages align with differences in colour lexicons. The current study provides a large-scale investigation of the relationship between colour language and colour memory, adopting a cross-linguistic and developmental approach. Colour memory on a delayed matching-to-sample (XAB) task was investigated in 2 language groups with differing colour lexicons, for 3 developmental stages and 2 regions of colour space. Analyses used a Bayesian technique to provide simultaneous assessment of two competing hypotheses (H1-Whorfian effect present, H0-Whorfian effect absent). Results of the analyses consistently favoured H0. The findings suggest that Whorfian effects on colour memory are not reliable and that the importance of such effects should not be overestimated.

Scalable, full-colour and controllable chromotropic plasmonic printing

OpenAIRE

Xue, Jiancai; Zhou, Zhang-Kai; Wei, Zhiqiang; Su, Rongbin; Lai, Juan; Li, Juntao; Li, Chao; Zhang, Tengwei; Wang, Xue-Hua

2015-01-01

Plasmonic colour printing has drawn wide attention as a promising candidate for the next-generation colour-printing technology. However, an efficient approach to realize full colour and scalable fabrication is still lacking, which prevents plasmonic colour printing from practical applications. Here we present a scalable and full-colour plasmonic printing approach by combining conjugate twin-phase modulation with a plasmonic broadband absorber. More importantly, our approach also demonstrates ...

Field-portable pixel super-resolution colour microscope.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Alon Greenbaum

Full Text Available Based on partially-coherent digital in-line holography, we report a field-portable microscope that can render lensfree colour images over a wide field-of-view of e.g., >20 mm(2. This computational holographic microscope weighs less than 145 grams with dimensions smaller than 17×6×5 cm, making it especially suitable for field settings and point-of-care use. In this lensfree imaging design, we merged a colorization algorithm with a source shifting based multi-height pixel super-resolution technique to mitigate 'rainbow' like colour artefacts that are typical in holographic imaging. This image processing scheme is based on transforming the colour components of an RGB image into YUV colour space, which separates colour information from brightness component of an image. The resolution of our super-resolution colour microscope was characterized using a USAF test chart to confirm sub-micron spatial resolution, even for reconstructions that employ multi-height phase recovery to handle dense and connected objects. To further demonstrate the performance of this colour microscope Papanicolaou (Pap smears were also successfully imaged. This field-portable and wide-field computational colour microscope could be useful for tele-medicine applications in resource poor settings.

Colour vision experimental studies in teaching of optometry

Science.gov (United States)

Ozolinsh, Maris; Ikaunieks, Gatis; Fomins, Sergejs

2005-10-01

Following aspects related to human colour vision are included in experimental lessons for optometry students of University of Latvia. Characteristics of coloured stimuli (emitting and reflective), determination their coordinates in different colour spaces. Objective characteristics of transmitting of colour stimuli through the optical system of eye together with various types of appliances (lenses, prisms, Fresnel prisms). Psychophysical determination of mono- and polychromatic stimuli perception taking into account physiology of eye, retinal colour photoreceptor topography and spectral sensitivity, spatial and temporal characteristics of retinal receptive fields. Ergonomics of visual perception, influence of illumination and glare effects, testing of colour vision deficiencies.

IRIS COLOUR CLASSIFICATION SCALES – THEN AND NOW

Science.gov (United States)

Grigore, Mariana; Avram, Alina

2015-01-01

Eye colour is one of the most obvious phenotypic traits of an individual. Since the first documented classification scale developed in 1843, there have been numerous attempts to classify the iris colour. In the past centuries, iris colour classification scales has had various colour categories and mostly relied on comparison of an individual’s eye with painted glass eyes. Once photography techniques were refined, standard iris photographs replaced painted eyes, but this did not solve the problem of painted/ printed colour variability in time. Early clinical scales were easy to use, but lacked objectivity and were not standardised or statistically tested for reproducibility. The era of automated iris colour classification systems came with the technological development. Spectrophotometry, digital analysis of high-resolution iris images, hyper spectral analysis of the human real iris and the dedicated iris colour analysis software, all accomplished an objective, accurate iris colour classification, but are quite expensive and limited in use to research environment. Iris colour classification systems evolved continuously due to their use in a wide range of studies, especially in the fields of anthropology, epidemiology and genetics. Despite the wide range of the existing scales, up until present there has been no generally accepted iris colour classification scale. PMID:27373112

Colour reconnection in WW events

CERN Document Server

D'Hondt, J

2003-01-01

Preliminary results are presented for a measurement of the kappa parameter used in the JETSET SK-I model of colour reconnection in W /sup +/W/sup -/ to qq'qq' events at LEP2. An update on the investigation of colour reconnection effects in hadronic decays of W pairs, using the particle flow in DELPHI is presented. A second method is based on the observation that two different m/sub W/ estimators have different sensitivity to the parametrised colour reconnection effect. Hence the difference between them is an observable with information content about kappa. (6 refs).

Rockpool gobies change colour for camouflage.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Martin Stevens

Full Text Available Camouflage is found in a wide range of species living in numerous habitat types, offering protection from visually guided predators. This includes many species from the intertidal zone, which must cope with background types diverse in appearance and with multiple predator groups foraging at high and low tide. Many animals are capable of either relatively slow (hours, days, weeks or rapid (seconds and minutes colour change in order to better resemble the background against which they are found, but most work has been restricted to a few species or taxa. It is often suggested that many small intertidal fish are capable of colour change for camouflage, yet little experimental work has addressed this. Here, we test rock gobies (Gobius paganellus for colour change abilities, and whether they can tune their appearance to match the background. In two experiments, we place gobies on backgrounds of different brightness (black or white, and of different colours (red and blue and use digital image analysis and modelling of predator (avian vision to quantify colour and luminance (perceived lightness changes and camouflage. We find that gobies are capable of rapid colour change (occurring within one minute, and that they can change their luminance on lighter or darker backgrounds. When presented on backgrounds of different colours, gobies also change their colour (hue and saturation while keeping luminance the same. These changes lead to predicted improvements in camouflage match to the background. Our study shows that small rockpool fish are capable of rapid visual change for concealment, and that this may be an important mechanism in many species to avoid predation, especially in complex heterogeneous environments.

Rockpool gobies change colour for camouflage.

Science.gov (United States)

Stevens, Martin; Lown, Alice E; Denton, Alexander M

2014-01-01

Camouflage is found in a wide range of species living in numerous habitat types, offering protection from visually guided predators. This includes many species from the intertidal zone, which must cope with background types diverse in appearance and with multiple predator groups foraging at high and low tide. Many animals are capable of either relatively slow (hours, days, weeks) or rapid (seconds and minutes) colour change in order to better resemble the background against which they are found, but most work has been restricted to a few species or taxa. It is often suggested that many small intertidal fish are capable of colour change for camouflage, yet little experimental work has addressed this. Here, we test rock gobies (Gobius paganellus) for colour change abilities, and whether they can tune their appearance to match the background. In two experiments, we place gobies on backgrounds of different brightness (black or white), and of different colours (red and blue) and use digital image analysis and modelling of predator (avian) vision to quantify colour and luminance (perceived lightness) changes and camouflage. We find that gobies are capable of rapid colour change (occurring within one minute), and that they can change their luminance on lighter or darker backgrounds. When presented on backgrounds of different colours, gobies also change their colour (hue and saturation) while keeping luminance the same. These changes lead to predicted improvements in camouflage match to the background. Our study shows that small rockpool fish are capable of rapid visual change for concealment, and that this may be an important mechanism in many species to avoid predation, especially in complex heterogeneous environments.

The role of colour in implicit and explicit memory performance.

Science.gov (United States)

Vernon, David; Lloyd-Jones, Toby J

2003-07-01

We present two experiments that examine the effects of colour transformation between study and test (from black and white to colour and vice versa, of from incorrectly coloured to correctly coloured and vice versa) on implicit and explicit measures of memory for diagnostically coloured natural objects (e.g., yellow banana). For naming and coloured-object decision (i.e., deciding whether an object is correctly coloured), there were shorter response times to correctly coloured-objects than to black-and-white and incorrectly coloured-objects. Repetition priming was equivalent for the different stimulus types. Colour transformation did not influence priming of picture naming, but for coloured-object decision priming was evident only for objects remaining the same from study to test. This was the case for both naming and coloured-object decision as study tasks. When participants were asked to consciously recognize objects that they had named or made coloured-object decisions to previously, whilst ignoring their colour, colour transformation reduced recognition efficiency. We discuss these results in terms of the flexibility of object representations that mediate priming and recognition.

Salience of Primary and Secondary Colours in Infancy

Science.gov (United States)

Franklin, Anna; Pitchford, Nicola; Hart, Lynsey; Davies, Ian R. L.; Clausse, Samantha; Jennings, Siobhan

2008-01-01

Primary colour terms ("black", "white", "red", "green", "yellow", and "blue") are more fundamental in colour language than secondary colour terms ("pink", "purple", "orange", "brown", and "grey"). Here, we assess whether this distinction exists in the absence of language, by investigating whether primary colours attract and sustain preverbal…

Pseudoisochromatic test plate colour representation dependence on printing technology

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Luse, K; Ozolinsh, M; Fomins, S

2012-01-01

The aim of the study is to determine best printing technology for creation of colour vision deficiency tests. Valid tests for protanopia and deuteranopia were created from perceived colour matching experiments from printed colour samples by colour deficient individuals. Calibrated EpsonStylus Pro 7800 printer for ink prints and Noritsu HD 3701 digital printer for photographic prints were used. Multispectral imagery (by tunable liquid crystal filters system CRI Nuance Vis 07) data analysis show that in case of ink prints, the measured pixel colour coordinate dispersion (in the CIExy colour diagram) of similar colour arrays is smaller than in case of photographic printing. The print quality in terms of colour coordinate dispersion for printing methods used is much higher than in case of commercially available colour vision deficiency tests.

Relationship between natural tooth shade and skin colour.

Science.gov (United States)

Nourbakhsh, M; Mousavinejad, N; Adli, A R; Harati, M

2013-06-01

The purpose of this study was to assess the correlation of skin colour and tooth shade. One hundred and twenty six individuals aging between 18 to 25 years participated in this study. Colour of the maxillary central incisors was examined by VITA easy shade. Tooth shades were assigned to four ordinal values. Nivea Beauty Protect Foundation shade sample was used as a guide to assess facial skin colour Shin colours were also assigned to four ordinal values. Spearman test revealed that there was a significant relationship between tooth shade and skin colour Total co-relation factor was 51.6% (p men (p <0 .01). The highest tooth shade prevalence belonged to the second group and the highest skin colour prevalence was also in the second skin colour group.

Looking at anything that is green when hearing "frog": how object surface colour and stored object colour knowledge influence language-mediated overt attention.

Science.gov (United States)

Huettig, Falk; Altmann, Gerry T M

2011-01-01

Three eye-tracking experiments investigated the influence of stored colour knowledge, perceived surface colour, and conceptual category of visual objects on language-mediated overt attention. Participants heard spoken target words whose concepts are associated with a diagnostic colour (e.g., "spinach"; spinach is typically green) while their eye movements were monitored to (a) objects associated with a diagnostic colour but presented in black and white (e.g., a black-and-white line drawing of a frog), (b) objects associated with a diagnostic colour but presented in an appropriate but atypical colour (e.g., a colour photograph of a yellow frog), and (c) objects not associated with a diagnostic colour but presented in the diagnostic colour of the target concept (e.g., a green blouse; blouses are not typically green). We observed that colour-mediated shifts in overt attention are primarily due to the perceived surface attributes of the visual objects rather than stored knowledge about the typical colour of the object. In addition our data reveal that conceptual category information is the primary determinant of overt attention if both conceptual category and surface colour competitors are copresent in the visual environment.

An Urban Colour Space in the Context of Culture

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Olga Zheleznyak

2015-08-01

Full Text Available A colour space is seen as an actual discourse when discussing problems of formation and inhabitation of the modern city environment. The key aspect of such understanding is an activity-cultural interpretation of the urban environment colouristics proposed by the author, which allows building of an integral sphere of colour existence. This model of working with colour includes basic components and structures a colour space, while matching up all the elements (basic paradigms that provide proper functioning and development of the colour space; mechanisms of formation of colour paradigms; processes of formation and transformation of cultural norms and stereotypes; the culture of colour as a holistic unit that penetrates the variety of colour space forms, as well as the reality of colour establishment in the framework of human culture; the urban colouristics as a material and virtual, artificial and natural, organized and spontaneously appearing colour reality together with professional and conventional visions of it, etc..

Several ways of breaking the colour symmetry

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Krolikowski, W.

1975-01-01

We discuss some cases of colour-symmetry breaking and its implications for quark binding by one-gluon-exchange forces. We pay special attention to the case, where colour-isospin and colour-hypercharge subsymmetries are preserved. Then, the ω-PHI-like mixing of colour-nonet components 0 and 8 leads to a Zweig-type approximate selection rule for decays of PHI-like meson = antiqsub(B)qsub(B)(qsub(B) is the '' blue'' quark) into ordinary mesons (and photons). (author)

Dimensionality of the Consumer Perceived Value of Product Colour

OpenAIRE

Kiehelä, Hanna

2014-01-01

Consumers’ product assessments are largely based on colour, and a product’s colour can increase consumer satisfaction, awareness and loyalty. However, existing colour research is fragmented and calls for theoretically-enhanced understandings of the role of colour in consumer product perception. The existing colour research mainly focuses on consumers’ immediate reactions when exposed to colours although studies show that consumers evaluate products differently in purchase and in use. There...

Colour Consideration for Waiting areas in hospitals

Science.gov (United States)

Zraati, Parisa

2012-08-01

Colour is one the most important factors in the nature that can have some affects on human behaviour. Many years ago, it was proven that using colour in public place can have some affect on the users. Depend of the darkness and lightness; it can be vary from positive to negative. The research will mainly focus on the colour and psychological influences and physical factors. The statement of problem in this research is what is impact of colour usually applied to waiting area? The overall aim of the study is to explore the visual environment of hospitals and to manage the colour psychological effect of the hospital users in the waiting area by creating a comfortable, pleasant and cozy environment for users while spend their time in waiting areas. The analysisconcentrate on satisfaction and their interesting regarding applied colour in two private hospital waiting area in Malaysia.

Exploring the benefit of synaesthetic colours: Testing for “pop-out” in individuals with grapheme–colour synaesthesia

Science.gov (United States)

Rich, Anina N.; Karstoft, Karen-Inge

2013-01-01

In grapheme–colour synaesthesia, letters, numbers, and words elicit involuntary colour experiences. Recently, there has been much emphasis on individual differences and possible subcategories of synaesthetes with different underlying mechanisms. In particular, there are claims that for some, synaesthesia occurs prior to attention and awareness of the inducing stimulus. We first characterized our sample using two versions of the “Synaesthetic Congruency Task” to distinguish “projector” and “associator” synaesthetes who may differ in the extent to which their synaesthesia depends on attention and awareness. We then used a novel modification of the “Embedded Figures Task” that included a set-size manipulation to look for evidence of preattentive “pop-out” from synaesthetic colours, at both a group and an individual level. We replicate an advantage for synaesthetes over nonsynaesthetic controls on the Embedded Figures Task in accuracy, but find no support for pop-out of synaesthetic colours. We conclude that grapheme–colour synaesthetes are fundamentally similar in their visual processing to the general population, with the source of their unusual conscious colour experiences occurring late in the cognitive hierarchy. PMID:23768150

Colour and lighting in hospital design

Science.gov (United States)

Dalke, Hilary; Little, Jenny; Niemann, Elga; Camgoz, Nilgun; Steadman, Guillaume; Hill, Sarah; Stott, Laura

2006-06-01

Little information or guidance has been available to assist the development of a hospital's visual environment. A report on lighting and colour design schemes, accessible to non professionals with responsibility for refurbishment strategies, was required by NHS Estates. Firstly, 20 hospitals were audited to establish a picture of current practice and to identify key issues where colour design could broadly enhance the environment for patients, staff and visitors. Critical areas were outlined in this report, where colour design can be utilised and applied, for the benefit of all users, from ambience to essential legal requirements such as colour contrast for the visually impaired. Provision of staff relaxation rooms that are different in terms of colour and lux levels from immediate work spaces, or thoughtfully designed areas for patients awaiting intensive treatment, have been shown to have some beneficial effects on a sense of well being. Colour and design have not been established as a definite cure for sickness and ill health, but certainly monotony and poor conditions in premises that have not been refurbished with any care, have had a detrimental affect on recovery rates and staff morale. The realisation that a well balanced and attractive environment is of major importance to patients' health is, in no way new; Florence Nightingale observed that 'a variety of form and brilliance of colour in the objects presented to patients are an actual means of recovery'.

ANALYSES OF ROCK SURFACE COLOUR CHANGES DUE TO WEATHERING

OpenAIRE

GOKAY, Mehmet Kemal

2018-01-01

Description parameters of rock masses and minerals include their colours as well. Colours appear in daylight for surfaced rock masses are changing slightly due to weathering layers which have been covering its surface gradually. Healthy human eyes can manage to differentiate visible light spectrum to identify colours of substances including rock masses. Then visible blackish colours of magnetite minerals, reddish colours of Terra- Rosa soils, greenish colours of weathered copper ore, pure whi...

ANALYSES OF ROCK SURFACE COLOUR CHANGES DUE TO WEATHERING

OpenAIRE

GÖKAY, Mehmet Kemal

2018-01-01

Description parameters of rock masses and minerals include their colours as well. Colours appear in daylight for surfaced rock masses are changing slightly due to weathering layers which have been covering its surface gradually. Healthy human eyes can manage to differentiate visible spectrum to identify the colours of substance including rock masses. Then visible blackish colours of magnetite minerals, reddish colours of Terra- Rosa soils, greenish colours of weathered copper ore, pure white ...

Plants and colour: Flowers and pollination

Science.gov (United States)

Miller, Renee; Owens, Simon J.; Rørslett, Bjørn

2011-03-01

While there is a range of colours found in plants the predominant colour is green. Pigments in plants have several roles e.g. photosynthesis and signalling. If colour is to be used as a signal then it must stand out from green. However, one should be aware that there are also coloured compounds where we have not yet fully investigated the role of colour in their functions—they may have roles in, for example, defence or heat exchange. In this paper, we will describe the basic chemistry of the major pigments found in plants and especially floral pigments. We will then discuss their locations in parts of the flower (such as sepals, petals, pollen and nectar), the cells in which they are found and their sub-cellular locations. Floral pigments have a large role to play in pollination of flowers by animals. They can and are modified in many ways during the development of flowers in nature, for example, at emergence and post-pollination. There are a range of biochemical mechanisms of colour change both within flowers and in isolated pigments. Some of the factors influencing colour are temperature, co-pigments, pH, metals, sugars, anthocyanin stacking and cell shape. There is a renewed interest in analysing floral pigments and how they are modified partly because of advances in recombinant DNA technologies, but also because of pollinators and their significance to biodiversity and for evolutionary studies. There is continued strong interest from the horticultural industry for the introduction of new colours e.g. the blue rose and for the exploitation of natural dyes. Funding in this area may impact future research in a potentially beneficial way but it must not deflect us from science-based conservation.

Producing colour pictures from SCAN

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Robichaud, K.

1982-01-01

The computer code SCAN.TSK has been written for use on the Interdata 7/32 minicomputer which will convert the pictures produced by the SCAN program into colour pictures on a colour graphics VDU. These colour pictures are a more powerful aid to detecting errors in the MONK input data than the normal lineprinter pictures. This report is intended as a user manual for using the program on the Interdata 7/32, and describes the method used to produce the pictures and gives examples of JCL, input data and of the pictures that can be produced. (U.K.)

Synchronization analysis of coloured delayed networks under ...

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

This paper investigates synchronization of coloured delayed networks under decentralized pinning intermittent control. To begin with, the time delays are taken into account in the coloured networks. In addition, we propose a decentralized pinning intermittent control for coloured delayed networks, which is different from that ...

Flare colours and luminosities

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Cristaldi, S.; Rodono, M.

1975-01-01

Flare colours determined from simultaneous UBV observations made at Catania Observatory and from sequential UBV observations made at McDonald Observatory are presented. They fit fairly well with the theoretical colours computed according to the Gurzadian's (1970) non-thermal model. Only part of the observed flare colours are consistent with the solar type models by Gershberg (1967) and Kunkel (1970). From a B-band patrol of UV Cet-type stars carried out from 1967 to 1972, some quantitative estimates of flare frequencies and luminosities and their average contributions to the stellar radiation are given. The corresponding parameters for the Sun, which were estimated from 'white light' flare activity, are also given for comparison. The Sun and V 1216 Sgr can be regarded as low-activity flare stars of the type found by Kunkel (1973). (Auth.)

Fundamentals of colour awareness: a literature review

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

A. Rubin

2005-12-01

Full Text Available A description of some of the basic or funda-mental aspects of the colour sensory mechanism will be provided here, based on modern ideas and literature, with reference specifically to the likely origins and evolution of colour vision.  The mo-lecular basis for colour awareness and the human colour pathway will also be considered in some detail. This paper intends to provide the theoreti-cal and philosophical basis for further papers that will introduce a modern and original computer- based  method  for  more  comprehensive  colour vision  assessment.    This  new  approach,  to  be fully described in later manuscripts, may contrib-ute towards improvements in understanding and knowledge of human colour perception and its measurement, still perhaps a relatively under-ex-plored or neglected field of study within optom-etry and ophthalmology.

ON f-EDGE COVER-COLOURING OF SIMPLE GRAPHS

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

Song Huimin; Liu Guizhen

2005-01-01

An f-edge cover-colouring of a graph G = (V, E) is an assignment of colours to the edges of G such that every colour appears at each vertex υ∈ V at least f(υ) times.The maximum number of colours needed to f-edge cover colour G is called the f-edge cover chromatic index of G, denoted by χfc(G). This paper gives that min[d(ν)-1/f(ν)] ≤χfc(G) ≤min[d(υ)/f(υ)].

Responses of female New World screwworm flies to coloured targets in the laboratory

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Green, C.H.; Warnes, M.L.

1992-01-01

The responses of unmated female New World screwworm flies, Cochliomyia hominivorax, to visual targets were studied in a wind-tunnel. Both activity and frequency of contacts with targets increased greatly when the screwworm attractant mixture swormlure-4 was added to the airstream. Target-orientated responses depended on target colour, with red and black targets being preferred over blue, white and yellow ones; this preference was much greater in the presence of odour than in its absence. No preference was detected for different shapes and orientations of red targets, all of equivalent surface area. Omitting different components from swormlure-4 generally resulted in a large reduction in activation and target contacts. Attempts to substitute 1-octen-3-o1 for the butanol fraction were unsuccessful, but skatole may substitute to some extent for indole; the two isomers of butanol normally present in swormlure-4 may substitute partly or completely for each other. This type of measurement forms a suitable bioassay in the development of attractive targets for monitoring and control of wild adult screwworm populations. 4 figs, 1 tab

Long-range correlations from colour confinement

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jurkiewicz, J.; Zenczykowski, P.

1979-01-01

A class of independent parton emission models is generalized by the introduction of the colour degrees of freedom. In the proposed models colour confinement extorts strong long-range forward-backward correlations, the rise of one-particle inclusive distribution and the KNO scaling. It leads to the analytically calculable definite asymptotic predictions for the D/ ratio which depends only on the choice of the colour group. Multiplicity distribution develops a remarkably long tail. (author)

String Formation Beyond Leading Colour

CERN Document Server

Christiansen, Jesper R.

2015-08-03

We present a new model for the hadronisation of multi-parton systems, in which colour correlations beyond leading $N_C$ are allowed to influence the formation of confining potentials (strings). The multiplet structure of $SU(3)$ is combined with a minimisation of the string potential energy, to decide between which partons strings should form, allowing also for "baryonic" configurations (e.g., two colours can combine coherently to form an anticolour). In $e^+e^-$collisions, modifications to the leading-colour picture are small, suppressed by both colour and kinematics factors. But in $pp$ collisions, multi-parton interactions increase the number of possible subleading connections, counteracting their naive $1/N_C^2$ suppression. Moreover, those that reduce the overall string lengths are kinematically favoured. The model, which we have implemented in the PYTHIA 8 generator, is capable of reaching agreement not only with the important $\\left(n_\\mathrm{charged})$ distribution but also with measured rates (and ra...

Counting with Colours? Effect of Colours on the Numerical Abilities of House Crows (Corvus splendens) and Common Myna (Acridotheres tristis)

OpenAIRE

Rahman, Nor Amira Abdul; Ali, Zalila; Zuharah, Wan Fatma; Fadzly, Nik

2016-01-01

We conducted several aviary experiments to investigate the influence of colours in quantity judgments of two species of birds; house crow (Corvus splendens) and common myna (Acridotheres tristis). Different quantity (in seven different food proportions) of mealworms were presented nonsequentially to all birds using artificially coloured red mealworms, for experiment 1, and using artificially coloured green mealworms, for experiment 2. Both red and green coloured mealworms have no significant ...

Application of Modern Colour Measurement Dervices in Coloration Industries

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

CHUNG Y.S.; XIN John H.; SIN K.M.

2002-01-01

In colour measurement ralated industry, reflectance spectrophotometer is the one of the popular measuring machine for measutring colour and quality control. Colour communications is frequently confusing. This is because the colour appearance is subject to the influence of at least three different phenomena: the light source, the object and the visual system. The variation in either the radiant quantity or the spectral distribution of the source can alter the observed colour. Because of this reason,the objective quantitative tool, colour measurement equipment and communication method; become more important in evaluating of the colour. In fact, based on the advanced in computer system and electronic device,the colour measurement becomes more and more accuracy, especiany in spectrophotometer measurement.In this paper, we will focus on the review of modern spectrophotometers in coloration industries.

Vnímání barev žákem s mentálním postižením Perception of colours by mentally-handicapped pupils

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Olga Krejčířová

2006-02-01

Full Text Available Předložená stať se pokouší o využití obecných poznatků o barvách v oblasti tělesné kultury a aplikuje je na tělesnou výchovu v podmínkách speciálních škol. Vychází z předpokladu, že vzdělávání žáků s mentálním postižením by mělo probíhat za podmínek, které v nich evokují libé pocity. A k těmto podmínkám patří i barevnost. Jsou prezentovány výsledky šetření preference barev probandy s lehkým a středně těžkým mentálním postižením. Výsledky naznačují, že probandi s lehkým mentálním postižením mají tendenci citlivě vnímat barvy, a to i v abstraktní podobě. Preferují modrou, případně zelenou a červenou barvu a hůře přijímají černou a fialovou. Preference oblíbené barvy je u probandů s těžším mentálním postižením více variabilní než u probandů s lehkým mentálním postižením. The following article attempts to utilize general knowledge of colours in the sphere of physical culture and applies it to physical education in special schools. It is based on the precondition that education of mentally-handicapped pupils should proceed under conditions evoking pleasurable feelings in them. And such conditions also include colours. The article presents the results of an examination of colour preference in probands with slight to moderate mental handicaps. The results show that probands with a slight mental handicap tend to be sensitive in relation to colours, even in their abstract form. They prefer blue, respectively green and red, and they have difficulties with perception of black and violet. The favourite colour preference in probands with a more serious mental handicap is more variable than in probands with a slight mental handicap.

Colour Management as a Precondition of Quality

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Stefan Brues

2004-12-01

Full Text Available Colour management technology has reached a high level of maturity. Only ten years after it first appeared on the market, ICC colour profiles have become indispensable in modern premedia. It can be said without exaggeration that colour management has revolutionised digital proof printing. A whole range of newcomers in the print industry supplier community offer an intelligent combination of a PostScript RIP with integral colour management functions. The quality of these low-priced proofing systems has now reached such a high level that even discerning customers accept such digital proofs as contract proofs. Modular proofing solutions are regularly to be found among the leaders in the digital proofer tests.Working with colour profiles and profiled workflows is still a major problem area. It is no mere chance that notably digital proofing is the field in which users work with colour profiles in virtually all systems, since applications here are locally limited.An important step for the widespread use of colour management technology is the now very extensive implementation of ICC mechanisms in application programs such as Adobe Photoshop. Version 7 is regarded as a model of well thought-out ICC-based colour management implementation. As Microsoft has neglected the ICC standard in recent years, Adobe has created its own colour management interface, called ACE. Based on the ICC standard, it is regarded by many experts as a reference implementation. Adobe products, which are so important for the graphic arts industry, now contain a standard colour management platform across all supported operating systems. Incompatibilities at system level can now be virtually ruled out, at least across the Adobe product line, including the important interfaces with PostScript and PDF.Modern prepress technology is set to move ever further away from exclusive print production for standardised offset print. Multiple use of production data is still at an early stage

Fundamentals of colour awareness: a literature review

OpenAIRE

A. Rubin

2005-01-01

A description of some of the basic or funda-mental aspects of the colour sensory mechanism will be provided here, based on modern ideas and literature, with reference specifically to the likely origins and evolution of colour vision.  The mo-lecular basis for colour awareness and the human colour pathway will also be considered in some detail. This paper intends to provide the theoreti-cal and philosophical basis for further papers that will introduce a modern and original computer- based  met...

Influence of drug colour on perceived drug effects and efficacy.

Science.gov (United States)

Tao, Da; Wang, Tieyan; Wang, Tieshan; Qu, Xingda

2018-02-01

A drug's physical characteristics, such as colour, could be factors influencing its therapeutic effects. It is not well understood whether people's expectations on drug effects and efficacy are affected by colour, especially among Chinese population. This study was conducted to examine people's expectations on drug effects and efficacy on the basis of drug colour, and to reveal possible gender differences in colour-related drug expectations. Participants (n = 224) were asked to classify seven single-coloured and six two-coloured capsules into one of four categories of drug effects, and to indicate the strength of drug efficacy. It is found that all the coloured capsules yielded non-chance distributions in classifications of drug effects, with six single-coloured and four two-coloured capsules associated with specific drug effects. Colour also conveyed differential strengths of drug efficacy in general and in relation to specific drug effects. There were gender differences in drug expectations for some colours and colour combinations. Practitioner Summary: Drug colour was found to have impacts on perceived drug effects and efficacy. The findings from the present study can be used by ergonomics practitioners to design appropriate drug colours in support of drug differentiation, therapeutic effects and medication adherence.

Kac's ring: The case of four colours

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

2017-03-15

Mar 15, 2017 ... generalize the discussion to more than two colours. Although the generalization seems nearly trivial, it will be shown that there appear interesting, unanticipated technical difficulties or surprises when we consider four colours. In this work, we consider the Kac's ring with balls of four colours, calling them red ...

The evolutionary history of colour polymorphism in Ischnura damselflies.

Science.gov (United States)

Sánchez-Guillén, Rosa A; Cordero-Rivera, Adolfo; Rivas-Torres, Anais; Wellenreuther, Maren; Bybee, Seth; Hansson, Bengt; Velasquez-Vélez, María I; Realpe, Emilio; Chávez-Ríos, Jesús R; Villalobos, Fabricio; Dumont, Henri

2018-05-10

A major challenge in evolutionary biology consists of understanding how genetic and phenotypic variation is created and maintained. In the present study, we investigated the origin(s) and evolutionary patterns of the female-limited colour polymorphism in ischnuran damselflies. These consist of the presence of one to three colour morphs: one androchrome morph with a colouration that is similar to the male, and two gynochrome morphs (infuscans and aurantiaca) with female-specific colouration. We (i) documented the colour and mating system of 44 of the 75 taxa within the genus Ischnura, (ii) reconstructed the evolutionary history of colour and mating system to identify the ancestral state, (iii) evaluated the stability of the colour morph status over time, and (iv) tested for a correlation between colour and mating system. We found that the ances tral female colour of Ischnura was monomorphic and aurantiaca and that colour morph status changed over time; characterised by many gains and losses across the species tree. Our results further showed that colour polymorphism is significantly more frequent among polyandric species, whereas monandric species tend to be monomorphic. Research on some Ischnura species has shown that colour morphs have evolved to reduce male mating harassment, and our finding that the same phenotypic morphs have evolved multiple times (convergent evolution) suggests that several species in this genus might be experiencing similar selective pressures. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

A five-colour colour-coded mapping method for DCE-MRI analysis of head and neck tumours

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yuan, J.; Chow, S.K.K.; Yeung, D.K.W.; King, A.D.

2012-01-01

Aim: To devise a method to convert the time–intensity curves (TICs) of head and neck dynamic contrast-enhanced (DCE) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data into a pixel-by-pixel colour-coded map for identifying normal tissues and tumours. Materials and methods: Twenty-three patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) underwent DCE-MRI. TIC patterns of primary tumours, metastatic nodes, and normal tissues were assessed and a program was devised to convert the patterns into a classified colour-coded map. The enhancement patterns of tumours and normal tissue structures were evaluated and categorized into nine grades (0–8) based on the predominance of coloured pixels on maps. Results: Five identified TIC patterns were converted into a colour-coded map consisting of red (maximum enhancement), brown (continuous slow rise-up), yellow (rapid wash-in and wash-out), green (rapid wash-in and plateau), and blue (rapid wash-in and rise-up). The colour-coded map distinguished all 21 primary tumours and 15 metastatic nodes from normal structures. Primary tumours and metastatic nodes were colour coded as predominantly yellow (grades 1–2) in 17/21 and 6/15, green (grades 3–5) in 3/21 and 5/15, and blue (grades 6–7) in 1/21 and 4/15, respectively. Vessels were coded red in 46/46 (grade 0) and muscles were coded brown in 23/23 (grade 8). Salivary glands, thyroid glands, and palatine tonsils were coded into predominantly yellow (grade 1) in 46/46 and 10/10 and 18/22, respectively. Conclusion: DCE-MRI derived five-colour-coded mapping provides an objective easy-to-interpret method to assess the dynamic enhancement pattern of head and neck cancers.

Phenomenology of colour exotic fermions

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Luest, D.

1986-01-01

The authors discuss the phenomenological consequences of a dynamical scenario according to which the electroweak symmetry breaking and generation of fermion masses is due to fermions that transform under high colour representations. Particular emphasis is given to the predictions for rare processes and to the spectrum of high colour boundstates. (Auth.)

Behavioural evidence for colour vision in an elasmobranch.

Science.gov (United States)

Van-Eyk, Sarah M; Siebeck, Ulrike E; Champ, Connor M; Marshall, Justin; Hart, Nathan S

2011-12-15

Little is known about the sensory abilities of elasmobranchs (sharks, skates and rays) compared with other fishes. Despite their role as apex predators in most marine and some freshwater habitats, interspecific variations in visual function are especially poorly studied. Of particular interest is whether they possess colour vision and, if so, the role(s) that colour may play in elasmobranch visual ecology. The recent discovery of three spectrally distinct cone types in three different species of ray suggests that at least some elasmobranchs have the potential for functional trichromatic colour vision. However, in order to confirm that these species possess colour vision, behavioural experiments are required. Here, we present evidence for the presence of colour vision in the giant shovelnose ray (Glaucostegus typus) through the use of a series of behavioural experiments based on visual discrimination tasks. Our results show that these rays are capable of discriminating coloured reward stimuli from other coloured (unrewarded) distracter stimuli of variable brightness with a success rate significantly different from chance. This study represents the first behavioural evidence for colour vision in any elasmobranch, using a paradigm that incorporates extensive controls for relative stimulus brightness. The ability to discriminate colours may have a strong selective advantage for animals living in an aquatic ecosystem, such as rays, as a means of filtering out surface-wave-induced flicker.

The "Human Colour" Crayon: Investigating the Attitudes and Perceptions of Learners regarding Race and Skin Colour

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Neeske Alexander

2017-07-01

Full Text Available Some coloured and black learners in South Africa use a light orange or pink crayon to represent themselves in art. Many learners name this colour “human colour” or “skin colour”. This is troublesome, because it could reflect exclusionary ways of representing race in images and language. This case study, conducted with two schools in the Western Cape, investigated Grade 3 learners’ attitudes and perceptions regarding race and skin colour through art processes and discussion. The aim was to promote critical engagement with race in Foundation Phase educational contexts. Suggestions include changing the language used to describe skin colour, just recognition and representation of races in educational resources and the promotion of critical citizenship education. This research indicates the need to create practical curriculum guidelines to discuss race issues in the South African classroom.

Special Section on Coloured Petri Nets

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

1998-01-01

Special section on coloured Petri nets, their basic concepts, analysis methods, tool support and industrial applications.......Special section on coloured Petri nets, their basic concepts, analysis methods, tool support and industrial applications....

Genetics and evolution of colour patterns in reptiles.

Science.gov (United States)

Olsson, Mats; Stuart-Fox, Devi; Ballen, Cissy

2013-01-01

The study of coloration in the polyphyletic reptilians has flourished in the last two decades, in particular with respect to the underlying genetics of colour traits, the function of colours in social interactions, and ongoing selection on these traits in the wild. The taxonomic bias, however, is profound: at this level of resolution almost all available information is for diurnal lizards. Therefore, we focus on case studies, for which there are as complete causal sequences of colour evolution as possible, from phenotypic expression of variation in colour, to ongoing selection in the wild. For work prior to 1992 and for a broader coverage of reptilian coloration we refer the readers to Cooper and Greenburg's (Biology of the Reptilia, 1992) review. There are seven major conclusions we would like to emphasise: (a) visual systems in diurnal lizards are broadly conserved but among the wider range of reptiles in general, there is functionally important variation in the number and type of photoreceptors, spectral tuning of photopigments and optical properties of the eye; (b) coloration in reptiles is a function of complex interactions between structural and pigmentary components, with implications for both proximate control and condition dependence of colour expression; (c) studies of colour-variable species have enabled estimates of heritability of colour and colour patterns, which often show a simple Mendelian pattern of inheritance; (d) colour-polymorphic lizard species sometimes, but not always, show striking differences in genetically encoded reproductive tactics and provide useful models for studying the evolution and maintenance of polymorphism; (e) both male and female colours are sometimes, but not always, a significant component of socio-sexual signalling, often based on multiple traits; (f) evidence for effects of hormones and condition on colour expression, and trade-offs with immunocompetence and parasite load, is variable; (g) lizards show fading of colours

Complementary Colours for a Physicist

Science.gov (United States)

Babic, Vitomir; Cepic, Mojca

2009-01-01

This paper reports on a simple experiment which enables splitting incident light into two different modes, each having a colour exactly complementary to the other. A brief historical development of colour theories and differences in a physicist's point of view with respect to an artist's one is discussed. An experimental system for producing…

Improper colouring of (random) unit disk graphs

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Kang, R.J.; Müller, T.; Sereni, J.S.

2008-01-01

For any graph G, the k-improper chromatic number ¿k(G) is the smallest number of colours used in a colouring of G such that each colour class induces a subgraph of maximum degree k. We investigate ¿k for unit disk graphs and random unit disk graphs to generalise results of McDiarmid and Reed

Mixed colour states in QCD confining vacuum

OpenAIRE

Buividovich, P. V.; Kuvshinov, V. I.

2005-01-01

We show that confinement of spinless heavy quarks in fundamental representation of $SU(N_{c})$ gauge group can be treated as decoherence of pure colour state into a white mixture of states. Decoherence rate is found to be proportional to the tension of QCD string and the distance between colour charges. The purity of colour states is calculated.

Geographical variation in colour of female threespine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus).

Science.gov (United States)

French, Connor M; Ingram, Travis; Bolnick, Daniel I

2018-01-01

The ecological multifunctionality of colour often results in multiple selective pressures operating on a single trait. Most research on colour evolution focuses on males because they are the most conspicuous sex in most species. This bias can limit inferences about the ecological drivers of colour evolution. For example, little is known about population divergence in colour of female threespine stickleback ( Gasterosteus aculeatus ), which is among the most intensively-studied model vertebrates in evolution, ecology, and behaviour. In contrast, the evolution and ecology of colour in male stickleback has received considerable attention. One aspect of female colouration that is lacking previous research is non-ornamental body colour. Non-ornamental colour can play defensive and social roles, and indicate other aspects of female stickleback ecology. To remedy this knowledge gap, we measured the colour and brightness of one dorsal and one ventral lateral area on female stickleback from nine lake populations on Vancouver Island. We found that lake populations varied in overall colour brightness and dorso-ventral contrast. In addition, we found that female brightness increased with lake size, indicating potential ecological drivers of these colour differences. Our results demonstrate that there is substantial scope for future research on female colour diversification, which has been overlooked because past researchers focused on dramatic male nuptial colours.

Colour print workflow and methods for multilayering of colour and decorative inks using UV inkjet for fine art printing

Science.gov (United States)

Parraman, Carinna

2012-01-01

In order to increase density of colour and improve ink coverage when printing onto a range of non standard substrates, this paper will present research into multi-layering of colour and the appearance of colour at 'n' levels of ink coverage. Returning to our original investigation of artist's requirements when making inkjet prints, these observations are based on empirical approaches that address the need to present physical data that is more useful and meaningful to the designer. The study has used multi-pass printed colour charts to measure colour and to provide users with an understanding at a soft-preview level to demonstrate the appearance of printed colour on different substrates. Test results relating to the appearance of print on different surfaces, and a series of case studies will be presented using recent research into the capabilities of UV printing technology, which has widened the opportunities for the designer to print onto non-standard materials. It will also present a study into layering of greys and gloss in order to improve the appearance of printed images onto metal.

Limits of colour vision in dim light.

Science.gov (United States)

Kelber, Almut; Lind, Olle

2010-09-01

Humans and most vertebrates have duplex retinae with multiple cone types for colour vision in bright light, and one single rod type for achromatic vision in dim light. Instead of comparing signals from multiple spectral types of photoreceptors, such species use one highly sensitive receptor type thus improving the signal-to-noise ratio at night. However, the nocturnal hawkmoth Deilephila elpenor, the nocturnal bee Xylocopa tranquebarica and the nocturnal gecko Tarentola chazaliae can discriminate colours at extremely dim light intensities. To be able to do so, they sacrifice spatial and temporal resolution in favour of colour vision. We review what is known about colour vision in dim light, and compare colour vision thresholds with the optical sensitivity of the photoreceptors in selected animal species with lens and compound eyes. © 2010 The Authors, Ophthalmic and Physiological Optics © 2010 The College of Optometrists.

Music-colour synaesthesia: Concept, context and qualia.

Science.gov (United States)

Curwen, Caroline

2018-05-01

This review provides a commentary on coloured-hearing arising on hearing music: music-colour synaesthesia. Although traditionally explained by the hyperconnectivity theory (Ramachandran & Hubbard, 2001a) and the disinhibited feedback theory (Grossenbacher & Lovelace, 2001) as a purely perceptual phenomenon, the review of eight coloured-hearing neuroimaging studies shows that it may not be assumed that these explanations are directly translatable to music-colour synaesthesia. The concept of 'ideaesthesia' (Nikolić, 2009) and the role of conceptual and semantic inducers challenge the likelihood of a single mechanism underlying the cause of synaesthesia and argue for a move away from a purely sensory to sensory explanation. Finally, music-colour synaesthesia forms a challenge for established philosophical theories and the position of synaesthesia is considered within the larger context of musical qualia. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Please pass me the skin coloured crayon!

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Zimmermann, Martina; Levisen, Carsten; Beck, Thorhalla Gudmundsdottir

2015-01-01

worldviews and idealised cognitive models embedded in skin-based colour concepts in contemporary German and Scandi- navian languages. Arguing that colour concepts are linguistic constructs through which speakers have learned to pay attention to their visual worlds, we trace the origin of the skin......This study explores the cultural semantics of colour words in the four urban, European communities of Munich, Berne, Aarhus, and Reykjavik, focussing on hautfarben (German), hutfarb (Bernese Swiss German), hudfarvet (Danish), and húðlitur (Icelandic), all of which can be translated as ‘skin...... coloured’. Unlike in English, where skin coloured has fallen out of use due to its racist semantic profile, these words are still widely present within the four communities. Using evidence from a referential colour naming task and semi-structured interviews, our study seeks to reveal the linguistic...

A familial factor in the development of colour agnosia.

Science.gov (United States)

Nijboer, Tanja C W; van Zandvoort, Martine J E; de Haan, Edward H F

2007-04-09

An important aspect of research into the link between genes and behaviour concerns the identification of familial determination. There is evidence for familial factors in selective deficits, such as developmental dyslexia and developmental prosopagnosia. Colour agnosia concerns a selective neuropsychological condition in which colour perception is intact, while the identification and naming of colour is disrupted. We recently demonstrated that this deficit can occur as a developmental deficit. Here, we show that there is a familial factor in the development of colour agnosia by reporting the colour processing abilities of the mother and the daughters of a man with developmental colour agnosia.

Colour contribution to children's wayfinding in school environments

Science.gov (United States)

Helvacıoǧlu, Elif; Olguntürk, Nilgün

2011-03-01

The purpose of this study was to explore the contribution of colour to children's wayfinding ability in school environments and to examine the differences between colours in terms of their remembrance and usability in route learning process. The experiment was conducted with three different sample groups for each of three experiment sets differentiated by their colour arrangement. The participants totalled 100 primary school children aged seven and eight years old. The study was conducted in four phases. In the first phase, the participants were tested for familiarity with the experiment site and also for colour vision deficiencies by using Ishihara's tests for colour-blindness. In the second phase, they were escorted on the experiment route by the tester one by one, from one starting point to one end point and were asked to lead the tester to the end point by the same route. In the third phase, they were asked to describe verbally the route. In the final phase, they were asked to remember the specific colours at their correct locations. It was found that colour has a significant effect on children's wayfinding performances in school environments. However, there were no differences between different colours in terms of their remembrances in route finding tasks. In addition, the correct identifications of specific colours and landmarks were dependent on their specific locations. Contrary to the literature, gender differences were not found to be significant in the accuracy of route learning performances.

Colour relations for Mira and Semiregular (SR) type stars

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Guney, Yavuz; Yesilyaprak, Cahit

2016-01-01

In this study, the period-colour relations, the colour-colour relations and the effective temperature were examined for Semiregular (SR) and Mira type variable stars. SR variables show an obvious period-colour relations, especially in infrared (IR). There are differences between SR and Mira type variable stars with respect to their colour relations. It has been thought that these differencies are caused by their mass loss rates and their effective temperatures. (paper)

Perceived effects of coloured overlays on reading material in persons with albinism

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

N. T. Makgaba

2008-12-01

Full Text Available Persons with albinism often complain of glare when reading. They may therefore benefit from coloured filter overlays just as they benefit from tinted lenses. The purpose of this study was to assess the effectof coloured overlays on print perception in persons with oculocutaneous albinism (OCA.   Fifty subjects were included in this study, their ages ranged from 12 to 31 years with a mean of 16.12 years (SD = ± 4.56 years.  Following refraction and subsequent compensation for refractive errors, subjective perception of print was examined with the subject looking at the Wilkins® reading rate test chart with and without colored filter overlay/s.  The subjects were asked to respond to questions previously used in a questionnaire by Wilkins (2001. The percentage frequencies of positive (beneficial responses were used to decide whether or not a particular overlay would enhance reading performance.  McNemar’s test was used to establish significant differences between responses to questions without and with overlays. All single overlays gave greater percentages of positive responses (92.0-97.2% than without overlay (85.2%.  The single overlay that provided the highest positive responses was blue (97.2% and the least was purple (92.0%. All double overlays, except grey/grey (82.0% gave greater positive responses than without overlay (85.2%. Aqua/blue gave the greatest positive responses (possible benefits (97.2%, followed by rose/rose (96.8%.  Comparing the responses without overlay with single and double overlays, the difference in responses to the five questions was only significant (p < 0.05 with regard to brightness of the surface. The results suggest that overlays provided a more glare-free reading surface than without an overlay. It was, therefore concluded that the best advantage of the coloured overlays was in glare reduction.  Although this study showed that there were more subjects who preferred single blue and aqua/blue double

Facial Identification in Observers with Colour-Grapheme Synaesthesia

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Sørensen, Thomas Alrik

2013-01-01

Synaesthesia between colours and graphemes is often reported as one of the most common forms cross modal perception [Colizolo et al, 2012, PLoS ONE, 7(6), e39799]. In this particular synesthetic sub-type the perception of a letterform is followed by an additional experience of a colour quality....... Both colour [McKeefry and Zeki, 1997, Brain, 120(12), 2229–2242] and visual word forms [McCandliss et al, 2003, Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 7(7), 293–299] have previously been linked to the fusiform gyrus. By being neighbouring functions speculations of cross wiring between the areas have been...... of Neuroscience, 17(11), 4302–4311], increased colour-word form representations in observers with colour-grapheme synaesthesia may affect facial identification in people with synaesthesia. This study investigates the ability to process facial features for identification in observers with colour...

Chemical, chromatic, and sensory attributes of 6 red wines produced with prefermentative cold soak.

Science.gov (United States)

Casassa, L Federico; Bolcato, Esteban A; Sari, Santiago E

2015-05-01

Six red grape cultivars, Barbera D'Asti, Cabernet Sauvignon, Malbec, Merlot, Pinot Noir and Syrah, were produced with or without prefermentative cold soak (CS). Cold soak had no effect on the basic chemical composition of the wines. At pressing, CS wines were more saturated and with a higher red component than control wines. After 1 year of bottle aging, CS wines retained 22% more anthocyanins than control wines, but tannins and total phenolics remained unaffected. Both saturation and the red component of colour were slightly higher in CS wines. From a sensory standpoint, CS only enhanced colour intensity in Barbera D'Asti and Cabernet Sauvignon wines, whereas it diminished colour intensity in Pinot Noir. Cold soak had no effect on perceived aroma, bitterness, astringency, and body of the wines. Principal Component Analysis suggested that the outcome of CS is contingent upon the specific cultivar to which the CS technique is applied. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Floral colour versus phylogeny in structuring subalpine flowering communities.

Science.gov (United States)

McEwen, Jamie R; Vamosi, Jana C

2010-10-07

The relative number of seeds produced by competing species can influence the community structure; yet, traits that influence seed production, such as pollinator attraction and floral colour, have received little attention in community ecology. Here, we analyse floral colour using reflectance spectra that include near-UV and examined the phylogenetic signal of floral colour. We found that coflowering species within communities tended to be more divergent in floral colour than expected by chance. However, coflowering species were not phylogenetically dispersed, in part due to our finding that floral colour is a labile trait with a weak phylogenetic signal. Furthermore, while we found that locally rare and common species exhibited equivalent floral colour distances from their coflowering neighbours, frequent species (those found in more communities) exhibited higher colour distances from their coflowering neighbours. Our findings support recent studies, which have found that (i) plant lineages exhibit frequent floral colour transitions; and (ii) traits that influence local population dynamics contribute to community structure.

The cause of 50 million-year-old colour.

OpenAIRE

Parker, Andrew R; McKenzie, David R

2003-01-01

Multilayer reflectors cause structural, 'metallic' colours in a diversity of animals today, yet are unknown in extinct species. We identify a multilayer reflector, causing structural colour, in a 50-million-year-old beetle from Messel, Germany. It is proposed that the original material of this reflector has been preserved, although this is not a precondition for determining original colours from ancient multilayer reflectors. Therefore, the potential exists to reveal the original colours of o...

Geographical variation in colour of female threespine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Connor M. French

2018-05-01

Full Text Available The ecological multifunctionality of colour often results in multiple selective pressures operating on a single trait. Most research on colour evolution focuses on males because they are the most conspicuous sex in most species. This bias can limit inferences about the ecological drivers of colour evolution. For example, little is known about population divergence in colour of female threespine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus, which is among the most intensively-studied model vertebrates in evolution, ecology, and behaviour. In contrast, the evolution and ecology of colour in male stickleback has received considerable attention. One aspect of female colouration that is lacking previous research is non-ornamental body colour. Non-ornamental colour can play defensive and social roles, and indicate other aspects of female stickleback ecology. To remedy this knowledge gap, we measured the colour and brightness of one dorsal and one ventral lateral area on female stickleback from nine lake populations on Vancouver Island. We found that lake populations varied in overall colour brightness and dorso-ventral contrast. In addition, we found that female brightness increased with lake size, indicating potential ecological drivers of these colour differences. Our results demonstrate that there is substantial scope for future research on female colour diversification, which has been overlooked because past researchers focused on dramatic male nuptial colours.

Asymmetric chiral colour

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Cuypers, F.

1990-01-01

Chiral colour is considered in a general framework where the coupling constants associated with each SU(3) component are allowed to be different. To reproduce QCD at low energy, gluons and axigluons cannot then be maximally mixed. Present data form e + e - colliders contrains the axigluon mass to values between 50 GeV and 375 GeV whilst the mixing angle is bounded by 13deg and 45deg. The lower limit of the axigluon mass is a definite bound at 90% C.L., whereas the upper limit only applies if chiral colour is to explain the anomalously high rates of hadron production at TRISTAN. (orig.)

Colour, vision and ergonomics.

Science.gov (United States)

Pinheiro, Cristina; da Silva, Fernando Moreira

2012-01-01

This paper is based on a research project - Visual Communication and Inclusive Design-Colour, Legibility and Aged Vision, developed at the Faculty of Architecture of Lisbon. The research has the aim of determining specific design principles to be applied to visual communication design (printed) objects, in order to be easily read and perceived by all. This study target group was composed by a selection of socially active individuals, between 55 and 80 years, and we used cultural events posters as objects of study and observation. The main objective is to overlap the study of areas such as colour, vision, older people's colour vision, ergonomics, chromatic contrasts, typography and legibility. In the end we will produce a manual with guidelines and information to apply scientific knowledge into the communication design projectual practice. Within the normal aging process, visual functions gradually decline; the quality of vision worsens, colour vision and contrast sensitivity are also affected. As people's needs change along with age, design should help people and communities, and improve life quality in the present. Applying principles of visually accessible design and ergonomics, the printed design objects, (or interior spaces, urban environments, products, signage and all kinds of visually information) will be effective, easier on everyone's eyes not only for visually impaired people but also for all of us as we age.

Global skin colour prediction from DNA.

Science.gov (United States)

Walsh, Susan; Chaitanya, Lakshmi; Breslin, Krystal; Muralidharan, Charanya; Bronikowska, Agnieszka; Pospiech, Ewelina; Koller, Julia; Kovatsi, Leda; Wollstein, Andreas; Branicki, Wojciech; Liu, Fan; Kayser, Manfred

2017-07-01

Human skin colour is highly heritable and externally visible with relevance in medical, forensic, and anthropological genetics. Although eye and hair colour can already be predicted with high accuracies from small sets of carefully selected DNA markers, knowledge about the genetic predictability of skin colour is limited. Here, we investigate the skin colour predictive value of 77 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) from 37 genetic loci previously associated with human pigmentation using 2025 individuals from 31 global populations. We identified a minimal set of 36 highly informative skin colour predictive SNPs and developed a statistical prediction model capable of skin colour prediction on a global scale. Average cross-validated prediction accuracies expressed as area under the receiver-operating characteristic curve (AUC) ± standard deviation were 0.97 ± 0.02 for Light, 0.83 ± 0.11 for Dark, and 0.96 ± 0.03 for Dark-Black. When using a 5-category, this resulted in 0.74 ± 0.05 for Very Pale, 0.72 ± 0.03 for Pale, 0.73 ± 0.03 for Intermediate, 0.87±0.1 for Dark, and 0.97 ± 0.03 for Dark-Black. A comparative analysis in 194 independent samples from 17 populations demonstrated that our model outperformed a previously proposed 10-SNP-classifier approach with AUCs rising from 0.79 to 0.82 for White, comparable at the intermediate level of 0.63 and 0.62, respectively, and a large increase from 0.64 to 0.92 for Black. Overall, this study demonstrates that the chosen DNA markers and prediction model, particularly the 5-category level; allow skin colour predictions within and between continental regions for the first time, which will serve as a valuable resource for future applications in forensic and anthropologic genetics.

Colour learning when foraging for nectar and pollen: bees learn two colours at once.

Science.gov (United States)

Muth, Felicity; Papaj, Daniel R; Leonard, Anne S

2015-09-01

Bees are model organisms for the study of learning and memory, yet nearly all such research to date has used a single reward, nectar. Many bees collect both nectar (carbohydrates) and pollen (protein) on a single foraging bout, sometimes from different plant species. We tested whether individual bumblebees could learn colour associations with nectar and pollen rewards simultaneously in a foraging scenario where one floral type offered only nectar and the other only pollen. We found that bees readily learned multiple reward-colour associations, and when presented with novel floral targets generalized to colours similar to those trained for each reward type. These results expand the ecological significance of work on bee learning and raise new questions regarding the cognitive ecology of pollination. © 2015 The Author(s).

The cause of 50 million-year-old colour.

Science.gov (United States)

Parker, Andrew R; McKenzie, David R

2003-11-07

Multilayer reflectors cause structural, 'metallic' colours in a diversity of animals today, yet are unknown in extinct species. We identify a multilayer reflector, causing structural colour, in a 50-million-year-old beetle from Messel, Germany. It is proposed that the original material of this reflector has been preserved, although this is not a precondition for determining original colours from ancient multilayer reflectors. Therefore, the potential exists to reveal the original colours of other (particularly arthropod) extinct species.

KINETICS OF COLOUR CHANGE OF TOMATOES DURING DRYING

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

A. Unadi

2016-10-01

Full Text Available Colour is one of the pharameters determining the quality of dried tomatoes. The changes in colour of the skin of tomatoes during drying in an experimental dryer at various temperatures were measured every two hours by using Minolta CR 200 colorimeter and the colours were represented in Hunter-Lab scale. The objective of this research was develop a model for predicting colour changes of tomatoes during drying. The decrease in darkness as represented by dL value varied from 10 to 16%, while decrease in chroma value (dL varied from 20 to 37% of initial values. An empirical logarithmic equation with six constants was derived to fit the data of chroma changes during drying at various temperature and times. The model of colour change of tomatoes can be used for determining the optimum drying temperature to produce acceptable colour of dried tomatoes at reasonable cost.

The existence of panchromatic colourings for uniform hypergraphs

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Shabanov, Dmitrii A

2010-01-01

The well-known extremal problem concerning panchromatic colouring of hypergraphs is investigated. An r-colouring of the set of vertices of a hypergraph is said to be panchromatic if each link of the hypergraph is incident to vertices of all colours. The quantity p(n,r) defined as the minimum number of links in an n-uniform hypergraph which admits no panchromatic r-colourings is studied. New lower and upper bounds for p(n,r) are obtained, which improve earlier results for many of the relations between the parameters n and r. In addition, a sufficient condition for the existence of a panchromatic r-colouring of an n-uniform hypergraph is obtained. Bibliography: 18 items.

Selective interference reveals dissociation between memory for location and colour.

Science.gov (United States)

Vuontela, V; Rämä, P; Raninen, A; Aronen, H J; Carlson, S

1999-08-02

The aim was to study whether there is indication of a dissociation in processing of visuospatial and colour information in working memory in humans. Experimental subjects performed visuospatial and colour n-back tasks with and without visuospatial and colour distractive stimuli presented in the middle of the delay period to specifically affect mnemonic processing of task-related information. In the high memory-load condition, the visuospatial, but not the colour, task was selectively disrupted by visuospatial but not colour distractors. When subvocal rehearsal of the memoranda in the colour task was prevented by articulatory suppression; colour task performance was also selectively disrupted by distractors qualitatively similar to the memoranda. The results support the suggestion that visual working memory for location is processed separate from that for colour.

Methods used and lessons learnt in conducting document reviews of medical and allied health curricula - a key step in curriculum evaluation.

Science.gov (United States)

Rohwer, Anke; Schoonees, Anel; Young, Taryn

2014-11-02

This paper describes the process, our experience and the lessons learnt in doing document reviews of health science curricula. Since we could not find relevant literature to guide us on how to approach these reviews, we feel that sharing our experience would benefit researchers embarking on similar projects. We followed a rigorous, transparent, pre-specified approach that included the preparation of a protocol, a pre-piloted data extraction form and coding schedule. Data were extracted, analysed and synthesised. Quality checks were included at all stages of the process. The main lessons we learnt related to time and project management, continuous quality assurance, selecting the software that meets the needs of the project, involving experts as needed and disseminating the findings to relevant stakeholders. A complete curriculum evaluation comprises, apart from a document review, interviews with students and lecturers to assess the learnt and taught curricula respectively. Rigorous methods must be used to ensure an objective assessment.

Annotating Coloured Petri Nets

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Lindstrøm, Bo; Wells, Lisa Marie

2002-01-01

Coloured Petri nets (CP-nets) can be used for several fundamentally different purposes like functional analysis, performance analysis, and visualisation. To be able to use the corresponding tool extensions and libraries it is sometimes necessary to include extra auxiliary information in the CP......-net. An example of such auxiliary information is a counter which is associated with a token to be able to do performance analysis. Modifying colour sets and arc inscriptions in a CP-net to support a specific use may lead to creation of several slightly different CP-nets – only to support the different uses...... of the same basic CP-net. One solution to this problem is that the auxiliary information is not integrated into colour sets and arc inscriptions of a CP-net, but is kept separately. This makes it easy to disable this auxiliary information if a CP-net is to be used for another purpose. This paper proposes...

Use of colour for hand-filled form analysis and recognition

OpenAIRE

Sherkat, N; Allen, T; Wong, WS

2005-01-01

Colour information in form analysis is currently under utilised. As technology has advanced and computing costs have reduced, the processing of forms in colour has now become practicable. This paper describes a novel colour-based approach to the extraction of filled data from colour form images. Images are first quantised to reduce the colour complexity and data is extracted by examining the colour characteristics of the images. The improved performance of the proposed method has been verifie...

Edge colouring by total labellings

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Brandt, Stephan; Rautenbach, D.; Stiebitz, M.

2010-01-01

We introduce the concept of an edge-colouring total k-labelling. This is a labelling of the vertices and the edges of a graph G with labels 1, 2, ..., k such that the weights of the edges define a proper edge colouring of G. Here the weight of an edge is the sum of its label and the labels of its...

Colouring our view of safety

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Spare, P.

2000-01-01

The public have great difficulty interpreting numerical risk data, and particularly the relative importance of the hazards presented by advanced technologies compared with everyday activities. A form of presentation is proposed, utilizing a decade-based seven colour spectrum. The colours are directly connected to the auditable statistics and provide a qualitative measure of the risk to the non-specialist. (author)

The effects of colour and valence on news evaluation.

Science.gov (United States)

Kaspar, Kai; Grümmer, Melanie; Kießler, Antje; Neuß, Celina; Schröter, Franziska

2017-12-01

Research across different fields of psychology has reported effects of colour cues on a variety of cognitive processes. Especially, the colour red has been shown to have striking influences. In the context of media reception, however, colour effects have been widely neglected so far. This study made a first step in this direction by investigating the effects of the colour red (compared with blue and grey) on the way news articles are evaluated. Two types of news were framed by a coloured border while the valence of the news content additionally varied. Based on 369 participants who read and evaluated the news articles online, we observed effects for colour cues and news valence in the absence of an interaction effect, indicating that the colour red induced approach motivation. However, only the contrast between red and grey reached statistical significance, indicating that chromatic and achromatic colours may differ in their perceived visual saliency. Overall, these results provide an important complement to previous studies and have practical implications for media researchers and producers. © 2015 International Union of Psychological Science.

Conjunctions of colour, luminance and orientation: the role of colour and luminance contrast on saliency and proximity grouping in texture segregation.

Science.gov (United States)

Leonards, U; Singer, W

2000-01-01

To examine whether perceptual grouping on the basis of orientation can be performed simultaneously with or only subsequently to grouping according to colour or luminance, we tested whether subjects are able to segregate arrays of texture elements that differ from surrounding elements by conjunctions of either (i) colour and orientation, or (ii) luminance contrast and orientation, or (iii) luminance contrast polarity and orientation. Subjects were able to use conjunctions between luminance and orientation for segregation but not conjunctions between colour or contrast polarity and orientation. Our results suggest that (i) in agreement with earlier findings, there seem to exist no specific conjunction detectors for colour and orientation or contrast polarity and orientation, and (ii) when orientation defined textures are to be distinguished by virtue of differences in luminance, colour, or contrast polarity, luminance provides a much stronger cue than colour or contrast polarity for saliency-based orientation grouping.

Colour and camouflage: design issues in military clothing

CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

Baumbach, J

2012-07-01

Full Text Available itself. Colour differences can be defined in terms of hue, chromaticness (or chromaticity) and lightness. A person?s hue discrimination (yellow, red, blue and green are different hues of colour) can be determined by the Farnsworth-Munsell 100 Hue... environment are blue. Yellow is the second-lightest colour of the cube in the blue environment. But, when abovementioned blue and yellow squares are isolated from their respective environments (taken out of context), all of them have the same colour...

Global skin colour prediction from DNA

NARCIS (Netherlands)

S. Walsh (Susan); L.C. Chaitanya (Lakshmi); Breslin, K. (Krystal); Muralidharan, C. (Charanya); Bronikowska, A. (Agnieszka); E. Pośpiech (Ewelina); Koller, J. (Julia); L. Kovatsi (Leda); A. Wollstein (Andreas); W. Branicki (Wojciech); F. Liu; M.H. Kayser (Manfred)

2017-01-01

textabstractHuman skin colour is highly heritable and externally visible with relevance in medical, forensic, and anthropological genetics. Although eye and hair colour can already be predicted with high accuracies from small sets of carefully selected DNA markers, knowledge about the genetic

The colour analysis method applied to homogeneous rocks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Halász Amadé

2015-12-01

Full Text Available Computer-aided colour analysis can facilitate cyclostratigraphic studies. Here we report on a case study involving the development of a digital colour analysis method for examination of the Boda Claystone Formation which is the most suitable in Hungary for the disposal of high-level radioactive waste. Rock type colours are reddish brown or brownish red, or any shade between brown and red. The method presented here could be used to differentiate similar colours and to identify gradual transitions between these; the latter are of great importance in a cyclostratigraphic analysis of the succession. Geophysical well-logging has demonstrated the existence of characteristic cyclic units, as detected by colour and natural gamma. Based on our research, colour, natural gamma and lithology correlate well. For core Ib-4, these features reveal the presence of orderly cycles with thicknesses of roughly 0.64 to 13 metres. Once the core has been scanned, this is a time- and cost-effective method.

Multi-agency data linkage- How to and lessons learnt through the Western Australian Developmental Pathways Program

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rebecca Glauert

2017-04-01

This Program is the largest data linkage program in Australia, and is continually expanding with new agencies coming on board every year. Here we will provide a useful overview of the Program, along with key lessons learnt.

[Optic mixing of colours in Seurat's painting].

Science.gov (United States)

Cernea, Paul

2002-01-01

Georges Seurat is the initiator and master of the divisionism. He founds the neoimpressionism current that tries to reproduce the nature exclusively through coloured vibration. Seurat applies the colours in small touches uniformly distributed on the canvas; the colours merge if they are looked by a certain distance, through optical interference. When the spectator approaches from the picture, the special frequency decreases, the optical merging does not appear and the onlooker looks a lot of coloured spots. When the spectator moves away from the picture, the optical interference appears and the clarity of the image becomes perfectly. This current opened the way of the future's modern painting performed by Cézanne, Renoir, Van Gogh.

String formation beyond leading colour

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Christiansen, Jesper R. [Department of Astronomy and Theoretical Physics, Lund University,Sölvegatan 14, Lund (Sweden); Theoretical Physics, CERN,CH-1211, Geneva 23 (Switzerland); Skands, Peter Z. [Theoretical Physics, CERN,CH-1211, Geneva 23 (Switzerland); School of Physics and Astronomy, Monash University,VIC-3800 (Australia)

2015-08-03

We present a new model for the hadronisation of multi-parton systems, in which colour correlations beyond leading N{sub C} are allowed to influence the formation of confining potentials (strings). The multiplet structure of SU(3) is combined with a minimisation of the string potential energy, to decide between which partons strings should form, allowing also for “baryonic” configurations (e.g., two colours can combine coherently to form an anticolour). In e{sup +}e{sup −}collisions, modifications to the leading-colour picture are small, suppressed by both colour and kinematics factors. But in pp collisions, multi-parton interactions increase the number of possible subleading connections, counteracting their naive 1/N{sub C}{sup 2} suppression. Moreover, those that reduce the overall string lengths are kinematically favoured. The model, which we have implemented in the PYTHIA 8 generator, is capable of reaching agreement not only with the important 〈p{sub ⊥}〉(n{sub charged}) distribution but also with measured rates (and ratios) of kaons and hyperons, in both ee and pp collisions. Nonetheless, the shape of their p{sub ⊥} spectra remains challenging to explain.

Metal free structural colours via disordered nanostructures with nm resolution and full CYMK colour spectrum

KAUST Repository

Bonifazi, Marcella

2017-02-28

Structural colours represents a research area of great interest, due to a wide field of application ranging from micro-security to biomimetic materials. At present metallic substrate are heavily employed and only a partial spectra of colours can be realised. We propose a novel, metal-free technology that exploits the complex scattering from a disordered three-dimensional dielectric material on a silicon substrate. We reproduce experimentally the full spectrum of CMYK colours, including variations in intensity. Our resolution lies in the nm range, limited only by the electron beam lithography fabrication process. We demonstrate that this technique is extremely robust, suitable for flexible and reusable substrates. Full of these notable proprieties these nano-structures fits perfectly with the requirements of a real-world technology.

Metal free structural colours via disordered nanostructures with nm resolution and full CYMK colour spectrum

KAUST Repository

Bonifazi, Marcella; Mazzone, Valerio; Fratalocchi, Andrea

2017-01-01

Structural colours represents a research area of great interest, due to a wide field of application ranging from micro-security to biomimetic materials. At present metallic substrate are heavily employed and only a partial spectra of colours can be realised. We propose a novel, metal-free technology that exploits the complex scattering from a disordered three-dimensional dielectric material on a silicon substrate. We reproduce experimentally the full spectrum of CMYK colours, including variations in intensity. Our resolution lies in the nm range, limited only by the electron beam lithography fabrication process. We demonstrate that this technique is extremely robust, suitable for flexible and reusable substrates. Full of these notable proprieties these nano-structures fits perfectly with the requirements of a real-world technology.

Synaesthetic Colour in the Brain: Beyond Colour Areas. A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study of Synaesthetes and Matched Controls

OpenAIRE

van Leeuwen, Tessa M.; Petersson, Karl Magnus; Hagoort, Peter

2010-01-01

Background In synaesthesia, sensations in a particular modality cause additional experiences in a second, unstimulated modality (e.g., letters elicit colour). Understanding how synaesthesia is mediated in the brain can help to understand normal processes of perceptual awareness and multisensory integration. In several neuroimaging studies, enhanced brain activity for grapheme-colour synaesthesia has been found in ventral-occipital areas that are also involved in real colour processing. Our q...

What Colour Is a Shadow?

Science.gov (United States)

Hughes, S. W.

2009-01-01

What colour is a shadow? Black, grey, or some other colour? This article describes how to use a digital camera to test the hypothesis that a shadow under a clear blue sky has a blue tint. A white sheet of A4 paper was photographed in full sunlight and in shadow under a clear blue sky. The images were analysed using a shareware program called…

The guidance of spatial attention during visual search for colour combinations and colour configurations

OpenAIRE

Berggren, Nick; Eimer, Martin

2016-01-01

Representations of target-defining features (attentional templates) guide the selection of target objects in visual search. We used behavioural and electrophysiological measures to investigate how such search templates control the allocation of attention in search tasks where targets are defined by the combination of two colours or by a specific spatial configuration of these colours. Target displays were preceded by spatially uninformative cue displays that contained items in one or both tar...

Colour terms in the interior design process

OpenAIRE

Attiah, DY; Cheung, TLV; Westland, S; Bromilow, D

2015-01-01

Colour is a very important topic that interior designers need to consider. Considerable research has been conducted in the area of colour application in interior design; in this study we are concerned with colour terms in interior design, mainly the terms designers use and know about. Fifteen interior designers with varied professional backgrounds, but based in the Middle East (Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Bahrain, Lebanon, Egypt, and Turkey), were interviewed. Previously we reported that fourteen ou...

Multi-jet correlations and colour coherence phenomena

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lee Jason S.H.

2017-01-01

Full Text Available In multi-jet events, colour coherence was shown to play a important role in the topology of these events. In modern Monte Carlo generators, the colour coherence effect has become an inherent feature, such that the colour coherence effect can no longer be disentangled in a simple manner. This study looks at the multi-jet correlations by comparing Monte Carlo generators in Parton Shower dominant and Matrix Element dominant regions.

Colour discrimination and categorisation in Williams syndrome

OpenAIRE

Farran, E. K.; Cranwell, M. B.; Alvarez, J.; Franklin, A.

2013-01-01

Individuals with Williams syndrome (WS) present with impaired functioning of the dorsal visual stream relative to the ventral visual stream. As such, little attention has been given to ventral stream functions in WS. We investigated colour processing, a predominantly ventral stream function, for the first time in nineteen individuals with Williams syndrome. Colour discrimination was assessed using the Farnsworth-Munsell 100 hue test. Colour categorisation was assessed using a match-to-sample ...

Synaesthetic colours do not camouflage form in visual search.

Science.gov (United States)

Gheri, C; Chopping, S; Morgan, M J

2008-04-07

One of the major issues in synaesthesia research is to identify the level of processing involved in the formation of the subjective colours experienced by synaesthetes: are they perceptual phenomena or are they due to memory and association learning? To address this question, we tested whether the colours reported by a group of grapheme-colour synaesthetes (previously studied in an functional magnetic resonance imaging experiment) influenced them in a visual search task. As well as using a condition where synaesthetic colours should have aided visual search, we introduced a condition where the colours experienced by synaesthetes would be expected to make them worse than controls. We found no evidence for differences between synaesthetes and normal controls, either when colours should have helped them or where they should have hindered. We conclude that the colours reported by our population of synaesthetes are not equivalent to perceptual signals, but arise at a cognitive level where they are unable to affect visual search.

AFLP genome scans suggest divergent selection on colour patterning in allopatric colour morphs of a cichlid fish.

Science.gov (United States)

Mattersdorfer, Karin; Koblmüller, Stephan; Sefc, Kristina M

2012-07-01

Genome scan-based tests for selection are directly applicable to natural populations to study the genetic and evolutionary mechanisms behind phenotypic differentiation. We conducted AFLP genome scans in three distinct geographic colour morphs of the cichlid fish Tropheus moorii to assess whether the extant, allopatric colour pattern differentiation can be explained by drift and to identify markers mapping to genomic regions possibly involved in colour patterning. The tested morphs occupy adjacent shore sections in southern Lake Tanganyika and are separated from each other by major habitat barriers. The genome scans revealed significant genetic structure between morphs, but a very low proportion of loci fixed for alternative AFLP alleles in different morphs. This high level of polymorphism within morphs suggested that colour pattern differentiation did not result exclusively from neutral processes. Outlier detection methods identified six loci with excess differentiation in the comparison between a bluish and a yellow-blotch morph and five different outlier loci in comparisons of each of these morphs with a red morph. As population expansions and the genetic structure of Tropheus make the outlier approach prone to false-positive signals of selection, we examined the correlation between outlier locus alleles and colour phenotypes in a genetic and phenotypic cline between two morphs. Distributions of allele frequencies at one outlier locus were indeed consistent with linkage to a colour locus. Despite the challenges posed by population structure and demography, our results encourage the cautious application of genome scans to studies of divergent selection in subdivided and recently expanded populations. © 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Edges, colour and awareness in blindsight.

Science.gov (United States)

Alexander, Iona; Cowey, Alan

2010-06-01

It remains unclear what is being processed in blindsight in response to faces, colours, shapes, and patterns. This was investigated in two hemianopes with chromatic and achromatic stimuli with sharp or shallow luminance or chromatic contrast boundaries or temporal onsets. Performance was excellent only when stimuli had sharp spatial boundaries. When discrimination between isoluminant coloured Gaussians was good it declined to chance levels if stimulus onset was slow. The ability to discriminate between instantaneously presented colours in the hemianopic field depended on their luminance, indicating that wavelength discrimination totally independent of other stimulus qualities is absent. When presented with narrow-band colours the hemianopes detected a stimulus maximally effective for S-cones but invisible to M- and L-cones, indicating that blindsight is mediated not just by the mid-brain, which receives no S-cone input, or that the rods contribute to blindsight. The results show that only simple stimulus features are processed in blindsight. 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Inheritanceof seed coat colour pattern in cowpea [ Vigna ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Hybridization experiments were conducted in the screen house to study the inheritance of seed colour pattern in cowpea. Cowpea varieties of varying seed coat colour were used as parents for the investigation. Parental, F1 and segregating F2 populations were raised in the field and the study revealed that self colour ...

Fusion of colour and monochromatic images with edge emphasis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rade M. Pavlović

2014-02-01

Full Text Available We propose a novel method to fuse true colour images with monochromatic non-visible range images that seeks to encode important structural information from monochromatic images efficiently but also preserve the natural appearance of the available true chromacity information. We utilise the β colour opponency channel of the lαβ colour as the domain to fuse information from the monochromatic input into the colour input by the way of robust grayscale fusion. This is followed by an effective gradient structure visualisation step that enhances the visibility of monochromatic information in the final colour fused image. Images fused using this method preserve their natural appearance and chromacity better than conventional methods while at the same time clearly encode structural information from the monochormatic input. This is demonstrated on a number of well-known true colour fusion examples and confirmed by the results of subjective trials on the data from several colour fusion scenarios. Introduction The goal of image fusion can be broadly defined as: the representation of visual information contained in a number of input images into a single fused image without distortion or loss of information. In practice, however, a representation of all available information from multiple inputs in a single image is almost impossible and fusion is generally a data reduction task.  One of the sensors usually provides a true colour image that by definition has all of its data dimensions already populated by the spatial and chromatic information. Fusing such images with information from monochromatic inputs in a conventional manner can severely affect natural appearance of the fused image. This is a difficult problem and partly the reason why colour fusion received only a fraction of the attention than better behaved grayscale fusion even long after colour sensors became widespread. Fusion method Humans tend to see colours as contrasts between opponent

The influence of colour on the aesthetics of wind turbine generators

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

NONE

1999-11-01

This paper summarises the results of studies examining the role that colour plays in reducing the visual impact of wind turbines and the development of a method for selecting the colour and pattern focusing on UK rural wind farms. Published material is reviewed, and visual factors relevant to visibility, factors influencing the choice of colour for buildings and other installations in the landscape, issues arising from the choice of colour, theories of camouflage, the testing of different colours, strategies for applying colour to wind turbines, the effectiveness of the different colours, and the effect of the different colour schemes on the visual impact of wind turbine arrays are addressed. Recommendations concerning colour selection are presented. A compact disc is provided with the paper. (UK)

Flower colour and cytochromes P450.

Science.gov (United States)

Tanaka, Yoshikazu; Brugliera, Filippa

2013-02-19

Cytochromes P450 play important roles in biosynthesis of flavonoids and their coloured class of compounds, anthocyanins, both of which are major floral pigments. The number of hydroxyl groups on the B-ring of anthocyanidins (the chromophores and precursors of anthocyanins) impact the anthocyanin colour, the more the bluer. The hydroxylation pattern is determined by two cytochromes P450, flavonoid 3'-hydroxylase (F3'H) and flavonoid 3',5'-hydroxylase (F3'5'H) and thus they play a crucial role in the determination of flower colour. F3'H and F3'5'H mostly belong to CYP75B and CYP75A, respectively, except for the F3'5'Hs in Compositae that were derived from gene duplication of CYP75B and neofunctionalization. Roses and carnations lack blue/violet flower colours owing to the deficiency of F3'5'H and therefore lack the B-ring-trihydroxylated anthocyanins based upon delphinidin. Successful redirection of the anthocyanin biosynthesis pathway to delphinidin was achieved by expressing F3'5'H coding regions resulting in carnations and roses with novel blue hues that have been commercialized. Suppression of F3'5'H and F3'H in delphinidin-producing plants reduced the number of hydroxyl groups on the anthocyanidin B-ring resulting in the production of monohydroxylated anthocyanins based on pelargonidin with a shift in flower colour to orange/red. Pelargonidin biosynthesis is enhanced by additional expression of a dihydroflavonol 4-reductase that can use the monohydroxylated dihydrokaempferol (the pelargonidin precursor). Flavone synthase II (FNSII)-catalysing flavone biosynthesis from flavanones is also a P450 (CYP93B) and contributes to flower colour, because flavones act as co-pigments to anthocyanins and can cause blueing and darkening of colour. However, transgenic plants expression of a FNSII gene yielded paler flowers owing to a reduction of anthocyanins because flavanones are precursors of anthocyanins and flavones.

Bentonite and Gelatine Impact on the Young Red Wine Coloured Matter

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Slobodan Jović

2004-01-01

Full Text Available This paper deals with the impact of two fining agents (bentonite and gelatine on the coloured matters of young red wines Vranac, Pinot Noir and Gamay Noir. Both agents caused decrease in these substances. The effect is more intensive with the dose of bentonite of 1 g/L, but the variability depends on variety. Higher decrease was found in the colour intensity, coloured anthocyanins and polymers (up to 44 %, but lower in the colourless anthocyanins (up to 20 %. The intensity of red and blue colours decreases, while that of yellow colour increases. The use of bentonite in dosages higher than those recommended may cause the wine to obtain more pronounced »brick red« colour (the colour tint increases while the value of the spectrum form decreases. Fewer changes occurred in the coloured matters after treating the wine with gelatine. The colour intensity, colourless and coloured anthocyanins showed a decrease of up to 10 % and polymers of up to 16 %. The intensity of yellow colour decreases, while that of red increases as well as the ΔA/% value.

Colour dematerialization in spiritual literature and painting

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dadang Sudrajat

2017-12-01

Full Text Available Colour in variety of art expression can be interpreted differently. This study is aiming at analyzing the colour dematerialization of Javanese spiritual literature “Falsafah Jeroning Warna” by Suprapto Kadis and a painting by Ahmad Sadali entitled “Gunung Mas”. Research was done by employing qualitative research, while data was collected by observation, interview, discussion, and documentation study. The analysis of meanings in the two art works was done in descriptive way by using the theory and the knowledge of tasawwuf or sufism, the aesthetics, and arts. Results showed that both sufis, Ahmad Sadali and Suprapto Kadis, share similarities in doing dematerialization towards colour. For them, colour was initially taken from nature (the external territory which then experienced dematerialization when it made contact with inspiration that was created from the internal area (mental. On the other hand, the difference between the two art works lies on an understanding that colour in FJW is naturalistic mimesis in nature, meanwhile, the painting of Ahmad Sadali is naturaly abstract.

Human Commercial Models' Eye Colour Shows Negative Frequency-Dependent Selection.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Isabela Rodrigues Nogueira Forti

Full Text Available In this study we investigated the eye colour of human commercial models registered in the UK (400 female and 400 male and Brazil (400 female and 400 male to test the hypothesis that model eye colour frequency was the result of negative frequency-dependent selection. The eye colours of the models were classified as: blue, brown or intermediate. Chi-square analyses of data for countries separated by sex showed that in the United Kingdom brown eyes and intermediate colours were significantly more frequent than expected in comparison to the general United Kingdom population (P<0.001. In Brazil, the most frequent eye colour brown was significantly less frequent than expected in comparison to the general Brazilian population. These results support the hypothesis that model eye colour is the result of negative frequency-dependent selection. This could be the result of people using eye colour as a marker of genetic diversity and finding rarer eye colours more attractive because of the potential advantage more genetically diverse offspring that could result from such a choice. Eye colour may be important because in comparison to many other physical traits (e.g., hair colour it is hard to modify, hide or disguise, and it is highly polymorphic.

Developing an evaluation framework for clinical redesign programs: lessons learnt.

Science.gov (United States)

Samaranayake, Premaratne; Dadich, Ann; Fitzgerald, Anneke; Zeitz, Kathryn

2016-09-19

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present lessons learnt through the development of an evaluation framework for a clinical redesign programme - the aim of which was to improve the patient journey through improved discharge practices within an Australian public hospital. Design/methodology/approach The development of the evaluation framework involved three stages - namely, the analysis of secondary data relating to the discharge planning pathway; the analysis of primary data including field-notes and interview transcripts on hospital processes; and the triangulation of these data sets to devise the framework. The evaluation framework ensured that resource use, process management, patient satisfaction, and staff well-being and productivity were each connected with measures, targets, and the aim of clinical redesign programme. Findings The application of business process management and a balanced scorecard enabled a different way of framing the evaluation, ensuring measurable outcomes were connected to inputs and outputs. Lessons learnt include: first, the importance of mixed-methods research to devise the framework and evaluate the redesigned processes; second, the need for appropriate tools and resources to adequately capture change across the different domains of the redesign programme; and third, the value of developing and applying an evaluative framework progressively. Research limitations/implications The evaluation framework is limited by its retrospective application to a clinical process redesign programme. Originality/value This research supports benchmarking with national and international practices in relation to best practice healthcare redesign processes. Additionally, it provides a theoretical contribution on evaluating health services improvement and redesign initiatives.

Environmental and hormonal factors controlling reversible colour change in crab spiders.

Science.gov (United States)

Llandres, Ana L; Figon, Florent; Christidès, Jean-Philippe; Mandon, Nicole; Casas, Jérôme

2013-10-15

Habitat heterogeneity that occurs within an individual's lifetime may favour the evolution of reversible plasticity. Colour reversibility has many different functions in animals, such as thermoregulation, crypsis through background matching and social interactions. However, the mechanisms underlying reversible colour changes are yet to be thoroughly investigated. This study aims to determine the environmental and hormonal factors underlying morphological colour changes in Thomisus onustus crab spiders and the biochemical metabolites produced during these changes. We quantified the dynamics of colour changes over time: spiders were kept in yellow and white containers under natural light conditions and their colour was measured over 15 days using a spectrophotometer. We also characterised the chemical metabolites of spiders changing to a yellow colour using HPLC. Hormonal control of colour change was investigated by injecting 20-hydroxyecdysone (20E) into spiders. We found that background colouration was a major environmental factor responsible for colour change in crab spiders: individuals presented with white and yellow backgrounds changed to white and yellow colours, respectively. An ommochrome precursor, 3-OH-kynurenine, was the main pigment responsible for yellow colour. Spiders injected with 20E displayed a similar rate of change towards yellow colouration as spiders kept in yellow containers and exposed to natural sunlight. This study demonstrates novel hormonal manipulations that are capable of inducing reversible colour change.

Colour in visualisation for computational fluid dynamics

OpenAIRE

Kinnear, D; Atherton, MA; Collins, MW; Dokhan, J; Karayiannis, TG

2006-01-01

Colour is used in computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulations in two key ways. First it is used to visualise the geometry and allow the engineers to be confident that the model constructed is a good representation of the engineering situation. Once an analysis has been completed, colour is used in post-processing the data from the simulations to illustrate the complex fluid mechanic phenomena under investigation. This paper describes these two uses of colour and provides some examples to il...

Coevolution of coloration and colour vision?

Science.gov (United States)

Lind, Olle; Henze, Miriam J; Kelber, Almut; Osorio, Daniel

2017-07-05

The evolutionary relationship between signals and animal senses has broad significance, with potential consequences for speciation, and for the efficacy and honesty of biological communication. Here we outline current understanding of the diversity of colour vision in two contrasting groups: the phylogenetically conservative birds, and the more variable butterflies. Evidence for coevolution of colour signals and vision exists in both groups, but is limited to observations of phenotypic differences between visual systems, which might be correlated with coloration. Here, to illustrate how one might interpret the evolutionary significance of such differences, we used colour vision modelling based on an avian eye to evaluate the effects of variation in three key characters: photoreceptor spectral sensitivity, oil droplet pigmentation and the proportions of different photoreceptor types. The models predict that physiologically realistic changes in any one character will have little effect, but complementary shifts in all three can substantially affect discriminability of three types of natural spectra. These observations about the adaptive landscape of colour vision may help to explain the general conservatism of photoreceptor spectral sensitivities in birds. This approach can be extended to other types of eye and spectra to inform future work on coevolution of coloration and colour vision.This article is part of the themed issue 'Animal coloration: production, perception, function and application'. © 2017 The Author(s).

Recent advances in the biomimicry of structural colours.

Science.gov (United States)

Dumanli, Ahu Gümrah; Savin, Thierry

2016-12-21

Nature has mastered the construction of nanostructures with well-defined macroscopic effects and purposes. Structural colouration is a visible consequence of the particular patterning of a reflecting surface with regular structures at submicron length scales. Structural colours usually appear bright, shiny, iridescent or with a metallic look, as a result of physical processes such as diffraction, interference, or scattering with a typically small dissipative loss. These features have recently attracted much research effort in materials science, chemistry, engineering and physics, in order to understand and produce structural colours. In these early stages of photonics, researchers facing an infinite array of possible colour-producing structures are heavily inspired by the elaborate architectures they find in nature. We review here the recent technological strategies employed to artificially mimic the structural colours found in nature, as well as some of their current and potential applications.

Adaptive Colour Feature Identification in Image for Object Tracking

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Feng Su

2012-01-01

Full Text Available Identification and tracking of a moving object using computer vision techniques is important in robotic surveillance. In this paper, an adaptive colour filtering method is introduced for identifying and tracking a moving object appearing in image sequences. This filter is capable of automatically identifying the most salient colour feature of the moving object in the image and using this for a robot to track the object. The method enables the selected colour feature to adapt to surrounding condition when it is changed. A method of determining the region of interest of the moving target is also developed for the adaptive colour filter to extract colour information. Experimental results show that by using a camera mounted on a robot, the proposed methods can perform robustly in tracking a randomly moving object using adaptively selected colour features in a crowded environment.

Categorical Effects in Children's Colour Search: A Cross-Linguistic Comparison

Science.gov (United States)

Daoutis, Christine A.; Franklin, Anna; Riddett, Amy; Clifford, Alexandra; Davies, Ian R. L.

2006-01-01

In adults, visual search for a colour target is facilitated if the target and distractors fall in different colour categories (e.g. Daoutis, Pilling, & Davies, in press). The present study explored category effects in children's colour search. The relationship between linguistic colour categories and perceptual categories was addressed by…

Investigation into the Accuracy of Colours Reproduced by the Ricoh Printer

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Andrius Gedvila

2013-02-01

Full Text Available The paper investigates the reproduction accuracy of Ricoh Aficio colour 3006 printer. The study has been conducted analyzing four-color (CMYK gradation curves – the compliance of zonal absorbance with standard references and printing stability of gradation scales. The obtained colours have been measured spectrophotometrically determining the coordinates of colours CIE L*a*b* and differences in colours ΔE. Eight printing regimes and their settings have been examined. It has been found that the printer Ricoh has inaccurately colour grading. However, the quality of colour reproduction is sufficient for printing data not requiring high accuracy of colour reproduction. Colour grading significantly differs from the theoretical approaches, though some regimes (Gamma, Brightness, CMYK simulation allows achieving theoretical values. Despite the high inaccuracy of gradation, differences in colour are not high enough due to corrections made by software.Article in Lithuanian

Colours Convey Lanna Identity in Lamphun and Chiang Mai Area

Science.gov (United States)

Raksawin, Karuna; Wonglaksanapan, Arphaphon; Suthasupa, Supagtra

2017-10-01

Colour control is a specific tool to identify local environment. Especially in the historic area or conservation area, to promote colour control is very necessary. Therefore, there are many standards of colour to control such as Munsell, colour name, and L*a*b*. This research is aimed to analyze the appropriate colour control by using a Munsell standard colour which is suitable to visual perception. The study area is scoped in northern region of Lanna culture in Thailand which nowadays used names of colours to control. Chiang Mai and Lamphun are selected to be case study because they are in a center of Lanna Empire of Thailand and have many historic significant things such as city wall, temple, monastery, palace, and city moat. The mainly procedure conducts in this article is based on the analysis of material colour. The study chose local natural materials which are used in the historic significant things. Earthen clay tile, wooden roof tile, burnt clay brick, laterites, hard wood, bamboo, silver, and gold are evaluated. The procedure used the DIC application of android processor on smart phone. This application has a conversion data to switch a colour value from pick-up point in photo to many colour values such as RGB, CMYK which Munsell value is included. The photos were taken within the historic area of Chiang Mai and Lamphun by random. The result can scope a range of colours of Munsell standard of natural colour (N), red (R), yellow (Y), and yellow-red (YR). A natural colour (N) can be suggested a range 1.0-9.0 (N 1.0-9.0). Red can be ranged the value between 3.0-7.0 and chroma between 3.0-9.0 (R 3.0-7.0/3.0-9.0). Yellow can be ranged the value between 6.0-9.0 and chroma between 4.0-12.0 (Y 6.0-9.0/4.0-12.0). Yellow-red can be ranged the value between 2.0-8.0 and chroma between 2.0-11.0 (YR 2.0-8.0/2.0-11.0). The results can be revealed a process of colour analysis of historic colour control and may offer to be an ordinance in further.

Colour characteristics of winter wheat grits of different grain size

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Horváth Zs. H.

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Nowadays, wheat has spread all over the world due to its extensive usability. The colour of wheat grits is very important for the milling and baking industry because it determines the colour of the products made from it. The instrumental colour measuring is used, first of all, for durum wheat. We investigated the relationship between colour characteristics and grain size in the case of different hard aestivum wheats. We determined the colour using the CIE (Commission Internationale de l’Eclairage 1976 L*, a*, b* colour system measured by MINOLTA CR-300 tristimulus colorimeter. After screening the colour of the wheat fractions of different grain size, grits was measured wet and dry. We determined the L*, a*, b* colour co-ordinates and the whiteness index, too. To evaluate the values we had obtained, we used analysis of variance and regression analysis. We pointed out that the colour of wheat grits of different grain size is dependent on the hardness index of wheat. The lightness co-ordinate (L* of grits of the harder wheat is smaller, while a* and b* co-ordinates are higher. We also found that while grain size rises, the L* co-ordinate decreases and a*, b* values increase in the case of every type of wheat. The colour of grits is determined by the colour of fractions of 250-400 μm in size, independently from the average grain size. The whiteness index and the L* colour co-ordinate have a linear relation (R2 = 0.9151; so, the determination of whiteness index is not necessary. The L* value right characterizes the whiteness of grits.

Floral colour versus phylogeny in structuring subalpine flowering communities

OpenAIRE

McEwen, Jamie R.; Vamosi, Jana C.

2010-01-01

The relative number of seeds produced by competing species can influence the community structure; yet, traits that influence seed production, such as pollinator attraction and floral colour, have received little attention in community ecology. Here, we analyse floral colour using reflectance spectra that include near-UV and examined the phylogenetic signal of floral colour. We found that coflowering species within communities tended to be more divergent in floral colour than expected by chanc...

Colour Mathematics: With Graphs and Numbers

Science.gov (United States)

LoPresto, Michael C.

2009-01-01

The different combinations involved in additive and subtractive colour mixing can often be difficult for students to remember. Using transmission graphs for filters of the primary colours and a numerical scheme to write out the relationships are good exercises in analytical thinking that can help students recall the combinations rather than just…

Marked colour divergence in the gliding membranes of a tropical lizard mirrors population differences in the colour of falling leaves.