What is the significane of using Red color for danger? is it the wavelength or any other factors

 

Thanks,

Murulidhara

its nothing to do with its physical properties. its all about psychology. we probably pick it for danger time and again because it is the same colour as blood.

Red is the color of aggression. There are studies indicating that teams who wear red tend to perform better. From what I remember armies in red fair better as well -- eg Rome and England. It just demands attention or something.

Red is not exactly one of the most popular colors in society as we know it, so it stands out. That's probably one of the reasons it is typically reserved for things such as danger or caution. It has probably evolved into that classification over a time.

in China, Red has a completely different connotation altogether, so it`s probably a Cultural thing.

Red is the color of fire. Fire has been used for signalling for millenniums.

thanks

 

Murulidhara

We are more sensitive to red than we are to blue or green. Imagine being on an African plain with green grass and blue sky everywhere you look; we would have died out from constant headaches

We are more sensitive to red than we are to blue or green. Imagine being on an African plain with green grass and blue sky everywhere you look; we would have died out from constant headaches

 

actually, out eyes are most sensitive to green. this is why red an blue lights are used where night vision is important so your pupils do not shrink as much.

We're physically more sensitive to green (i.e., we can see it the easiest), but psychologically more sensitive to red (i.e., it gets our attention more). Something red (blood, fruit, etc.) is more likely to be worthy of our immediate attention. The reason for green sensitivity, I'm guessing, is just because it's right in the middle of the visible spectrum, while red and purple are at the extremes?

What about differential activity patterns in brain areas dealing with emotional affairs?

 

There is certainly a lot of culturally-driven significance of colours, as to be seen in yellow being associated with wealth in china, red being associated with utmost beauty in russia - this reaching far beyond communist times.

But apart from this, I believe colour makes a difference on the level of cerebral processing of visual data in the way that I would expect different activity patterns for example in the limbical system as a region dealing with emotional affairs, resulting in different outputs of hormones such as adrenalin and of different neurotransmitters.