UNIVERSITY OF HELSINKI
Faculty, Department
Faculty of Science Department of Physics
Author
Suvanto, Timo
Title
Colour Property Perception Experimentation
Subject, Level, Month and year, Number of pages
Education, M.Sc.Thesis, May 1998, 54 p.
Abstract
The aim of the study was to find out how colour properties could be taught using the method of perceptive experimentation. The physics relating to colours and the physiology of perceiving colours is treated very superficially in school physics and biology. Therefore, the entity described here is not aimed at a specific grade or course, but the presented methods and experiments can be applied from the lower level of comprehensive school to upper secondary school.
Colour can be observed either as the property of light or objects. The perceived colour of an object is formed through light and depends on both the light and the actual object. This study does not cover the properties of matter and objects inducing colour but rather looks at colour itself as a property and how it can be presented in terms of quality and quantity.
Based on visual observation, two colour properties are perceived: tone and lightness. Colours can be compared in terms of the lightness degree. However, there is no easy possibility to compare the degree or intensity of the tone, and the tone is therefore not directly quantifiable as a magnitude with a numerical value and unit. Qualitative perception, on the other hand, leads to classifications for which a physiological basis can be found, as well as a quantitative presentation using a spectrum distribution based on the physical properties of light.
This work first looks at the perception of colour properties using the colours of the spectrum as variables. Quantitative processing is then based on information on the wavelength of light as the quantitative equivalent of pure colours and by using a spectrometer for measuring. The study also presents several experiments clarifying the physiological aspects of seeing. Different colour systems are also presented in this conTEXT.
Transferring images between media is studied as an application combining the entity. The transfer of colour images between environments - for example, from film to a picture in a magazine - is a modern industrial process combining the central points of the theory of colours, the qualitative properties of colour, image digitising, the ability of the eye to perceive colours and different colour systems. Finally, results obtained by testing the teaching of this entity to adult upper secondary school students are presented.
Key words
Perceptive experimentation, spectrum division, colour systems, digital image
Where deposited
The Library of the Faculty of Science (also available at Heureka, the Finnish Science Centre)
