The logic is based on perception, though. Colors either clash or go together because of how we percieve them and which colors go with which is pretty consistent between cultures and time periods.
But perception is for a large part embedded in memory, which differs individually. For me steel foundries smell amazing because I used to play on the beach near a steel foundry, to the point I need to put effort into understanding that it’s actually kind of acrid. So am I still “having the same perception” as someone who doesn’t have the lived experience?
This can happen at a society-wide level too. Liminal beige and seafoam green were not intended to create a feeling of disquiet, but of calm neutrality. Modern audiences perceive them as disquieting because they have been systematically used in our society to impose a sense of calm on un-calm situations, such as operating rooms or hallways in sketchy buildings.
I honestly don’t know how much of the commonality of associations across cultures comes from instinct and how much comes from the fact that all children learn to live on the same planet with the same physical laws. I would bet that for 99.9% of children, their first experience with a strong sulphur smell is going to be from rotten eggs (or similar rotten goods) that others act disgusted by. So the fact that sulphur smells disgusting to the vast majority of adults is not evidence for instinct over memory. The same goes for green plants, red blood, blue skies, etc.
Yeah, that wasn’t a good example since taste is weird. A better example would be that most people would agree that the pink background on this sprite sheet is almost painful to look at while other, more luminous, elements are fine. If our perception significantly varies, then simple mid-luminance color blocks shouldn’t have consistent effects from person to person. Parts of that yellow gradient on the right should cause more strain to someone you know than the magic pink field if perception is strongly variable.
The logic is based on perception, though. Colors either clash or go together because of how we percieve them and which colors go with which is pretty consistent between cultures and time periods.
But perception is for a large part embedded in memory, which differs individually. For me steel foundries smell amazing because I used to play on the beach near a steel foundry, to the point I need to put effort into understanding that it’s actually kind of acrid. So am I still “having the same perception” as someone who doesn’t have the lived experience?
This can happen at a society-wide level too. Liminal beige and seafoam green were not intended to create a feeling of disquiet, but of calm neutrality. Modern audiences perceive them as disquieting because they have been systematically used in our society to impose a sense of calm on un-calm situations, such as operating rooms or hallways in sketchy buildings.
I honestly don’t know how much of the commonality of associations across cultures comes from instinct and how much comes from the fact that all children learn to live on the same planet with the same physical laws. I would bet that for 99.9% of children, their first experience with a strong sulphur smell is going to be from rotten eggs (or similar rotten goods) that others act disgusted by. So the fact that sulphur smells disgusting to the vast majority of adults is not evidence for instinct over memory. The same goes for green plants, red blood, blue skies, etc.
But not everyone agrees on which colors go together and which clash
Yeah, that wasn’t a good example since taste is weird. A better example would be that most people would agree that the pink background on this sprite sheet is almost painful to look at while other, more luminous, elements are fine. If our perception significantly varies, then simple mid-luminance color blocks shouldn’t have consistent effects from person to person. Parts of that yellow gradient on the right should cause more strain to someone you know than the magic pink field if perception is strongly variable.
The relative perception of things may be similar while the absolute perception of something differs wildly for everyone