5 ms·

Need a Creative Boost? Find the Blue Room.

17 points by joshwa 18y ago

davi 18y ago
The only sentence in the article* that quantifies the magnitude of a color dependent effect is: And while red guests reported feeling hungry and thirsty, yellow guests ate twice as much. This is a pattern in science journalism: 1) scientists show statistically significant effect (sometimes minuscule in magnitude) 2) science writers describe the sign of the result without magnitude, and get some 'experts' to pontificate 3) public worries/speculates/exclaims about some new factor to think about in daily life Yadda yadda. [edit: *only sentence I saw after skimming ]
- joe_adk 18y ago
  It worked! I worried/speculated/exclaimed, "I guess thats why McDs is all reds and yellows."
electromagnetic 18y ago
I'm currently in a blue room, however I don't necessarily feel anymore creative than usual. I used to write in a red room and I notice no appreciable difference in attention span, creativity or anything. In fact my best concentration (how efficiently I completed a project) was best when I was actually in a yellow room. I do use a program called darkroom for typing, it allows you to change background color and font color easily. I usually use the old school neon-green on black, however I think I might try the equally old white on blue before a white on red and see if there's actually an effect. I do prefer the green on black. However, the white on blue feels quite comforting when I look at it and white on red gives me a strange tingling at my forehead, which kind of disconcerts me for staring into it for hours on end.
indiejade 18y ago
Speaking of paint. Yellow pigment is not the same as yellow light; nor is red pigment the same as red light; nor is blue pigment the same as blue light. :) The light-oriented color names are fancier. (cyan, magenta, etc.) Probably one of the most valuable things I learned as a physics student in high school!
- blasdel 18y ago
  You've got the pigments and light wavelengths swapped. (cyan, magenta, yellow, black) form a set of additive (pigment) colors.
ALee 18y ago
Here's a copy of the actual report. I think the authors actually describe the color significance in the report. http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1169144 http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1169144

17 points by joshwa 18y ago

davi 18y ago

The only sentence in the article* that quantifies the magnitude of a color dependent effect is: And while red guests reported feeling hungry and thirsty, yellow guests ate twice as much. This is a pattern in science journalism: 1) scientists show statistically significant effect (sometimes minuscule in magnitude) 2) science writers describe the sign of the result without magnitude, and get some 'experts' to pontificate 3) public worries/speculates/exclaims about some new factor to think about in daily life Yadda yadda. [edit: *only sentence I saw after skimming ]

joe_adk 18y ago
It worked! I worried/speculated/exclaimed, "I guess thats why McDs is all reds and yellows."

electromagnetic 18y ago

I'm currently in a blue room, however I don't necessarily feel anymore creative than usual. I used to write in a red room and I notice no appreciable difference in attention span, creativity or anything. In fact my best concentration (how efficiently I completed a project) was best when I was actually in a yellow room. I do use a program called darkroom for typing, it allows you to change background color and font color easily. I usually use the old school neon-green on black, however I think I might try the equally old white on blue before a white on red and see if there's actually an effect. I do prefer the green on black. However, the white on blue feels quite comforting when I look at it and white on red gives me a strange tingling at my forehead, which kind of disconcerts me for staring into it for hours on end.

indiejade 18y ago

Speaking of paint. Yellow pigment is not the same as yellow light; nor is red pigment the same as red light; nor is blue pigment the same as blue light. :) The light-oriented color names are fancier. (cyan, magenta, etc.) Probably one of the most valuable things I learned as a physics student in high school!

blasdel 18y ago
You've got the pigments and light wavelengths swapped. (cyan, magenta, yellow, black) form a set of additive (pigment) colors.

ALee 18y ago

Here's a copy of the actual report. I think the authors actually describe the color significance in the report. http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1169144 http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1169144