Seeing Red

Since it is Valentine's Day, we thought an analysis of the color red would be appropriate. We all know that the color red can invoke powerful emotions out of the viewer. That is why it is used to represent love and passion. Smart advertisers use this knowledge to incorporate red in to their logos and ad campaigns to grab their audience's attention. This article from the New York Times reviews everything from how we see the color red to how we react to it.

....Dr. Nicholas Humphrey, a philosopher at the London School of Economics and the author of “Seeing Red: A Study in Consciousness.” “If you want to make a point, you make it in red.”

Whatever the primary spur to the evolution of our rose-colored retinas, we, like most other animals with multichromatic vision, have learned to treat red with respect. “In the evolution of languages,” Dr. Humphrey writes, “red is without exception the first color word to enter the vocabulary,” and in some languages it’s the only color word apart from black and white. It’s also the first color that most children learn to name, and that most adults will cite when asked to think of a color, any color.