Psychological Aspects of Colour Measurement

Abstract

STANDARDIZATION has two aspects which are of lequal importance-the physico-chemical and the psychological. The work of Ostwald1 has been severely criticized in NATURE by J. Guild with regard to its physico-chemical foundations2; with Ostwald's psychological and aesthetic considerations Guild refuses to deal, because “they have no relevance to colour measurement” (p. 272). TQ the psychologist, however, it is just these considerations which are of the greatest interest, particularly as the great success which the Ostwald system has had commercially both in Great Britain and in Germany indicates that the needs which Ostwald attempted to meet are very real needs among those who have to deal professionally with colours, coloured papers and the like. An examination of the claims advanced on behalf of Ostwald's “Colour-Science” in the psychological sphere may therefore not be out of place, especially at the present moment, when a psychological standardization, such as Ostwald attempted, may easily be of great importance in the practice of camouflage, where, as in pictorial art, human perception and not physical apparatus is the ultimate arbiter of colour and brightness equalities and differences.