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living perception
. We use the reflected attitude when we attend
to and consciously compare one colour to another. In liv-
ing perception colours are manifested to us in the totality of
spatial relations; it is the everyday way of attending to colours.
Depending on modes of attention, a nominally white surface
lit by ‘warm’ sunlight can be seen, with a reflective attitude, as
slightly yellowish. With living perception, however, we may feel
that the same surface is white; we experience intuitively that
it also has – independent of the accidental yellowish light – a
constant colour experienced beyond the perceived colour. One
could call this colour
constancy colour
(Klarén 2012: 24). Con-
stancy colour refers to a natural perceptual ‘skill’; we intuitively
summarize the totality of perceived visual information in a
given context.
We have a tendency to regard the constancy colour as the
“proper” or “real” colour of the wall. Ewald Hering’s concept
memory colour (Gedächtnisfarbe) touches on this phenom-
enon, but confines it to expected colours in objects: “What the
layman calls the real colour of an object is a colour of the ob-
ject that has become fixed, as it were, in his memory; I should
like to call it the memory colour of the object” (Hering 1920).
Merleau-Ponty says that the “real” colour persists “not as a
seen or thought-of quality, but through a non-sensory pres-
ence.” (Merleau-Ponty 2002: 356).
All these colour and light interactions are what makes us
perceive space visually. Normally we have no difficulty in mak-
ing distinctions between what is caused by the light and what
by the qualities of surfaces. The logically distributed colour
variations caused by light, reflections and shadings are to our
intuition natural and indispensable spatial qualities.
There is a tight perceptual attunement between us and the
world around. The experienced world is in ecological balance
with the human environment, and the perceptual relation
between the outer world and the human inner world is without
hindrance.
In addition to the basic perceptual processes and the direct
spatial understanding of the world around, human comprehen-
sive experience of colour and light is also related to culture.
Imaginations, conceptions and ideas about the world provide a
context to our sensory experiences. The American philosopher
Alva Noë (2004: 1–3) remarks that adaptation is not limited to
basic physiological reactions. It is both perceptual and cognitive
and derives its origin from multiple sources, external as well
as internal. Human experience of colour and light in the world
around is related to the context as a whole. It is made up from
interplay of the individual and the world on many levels. In this
sense colour and light are natural but non-physical.
Levels of experience
It is true that we see colour and light, but what we so vividly
experience is a coherent world full of life and meanings. The
human experience is multidimensional and dynamic. Its totality
cannot be described easily. Just like all sensory experiences,
colour and light are perceived and understood on different lev-
els: from the basic that are common to all humans to the most
rapidly changing cultural trends.
Figure 1 shows levels of experience - from experiences based
on categorical – basic – perception (formal aspects of colour
and light) through direct experience of the world around (colour
and light expressions) to the indirect experience (conventional
meanings of colour and light), imbedded in cultural expres-
sions; history, traditions, customs, trends, scientific theories,
art, poetry, etc.
Categorical perception
Categorical perception gives basic spatial and temporal struc-
ture to experience of the surrounding reality. It comprises the
basic perception of colour, light and space, balance, verticality
and horizontality, movement, etc.
We perceive the surrounding world (and ourselves) in time and
space, as were it, without hindrance. The world appears as an
aesthetic surface
(Prall 1936).
We perceive patterns of colours, shapes, sounds, scents,
tastes and textures as part of a spatial context. The ultimate
purpose of categorical perception is to build a comprehensive
mental image of the human world: “A reality without well-de-
fined borders is divided up into distinct units by our perceptual
mechanism” (Gärdenfors 2000: 20. Our transl.) . By natural
selection man has been endowed with certain perceptual and
cognitive tools for survival that are basically common to us all.
Categorical perception is in some respects determined geneti-
cally, but for the most part acquired in early life.
Perceiving colour distinctions and colour similarities are basic
to colour perception. If, for example, in a colour combination,
the colours have the same whiteness, blackness, chromatic-
ness, hue or lightness, we can sense that these colours have
something in common. We often say that colours in such colour
combinations
fit together
or
harmonize
or that the colours of
a painting or a room
hold together.
This experienced unity of
colours, however, has nothing to do with preferences. It follows
from the visual system itself: the ability to recognize colour
distinctions and colour similarities is part of the categorical
perception and is therefore predetermined. It is natural in the
same sense as recognition of characteristic colour scales in
perceptive colour systems.