Can We Sense Color Through Our Hands?

[zoobyshoe]

From the book Color by Paul Zelanski & Mary Pat Fisher:

"A final limitation of scientific theorizing on the artist's use of color perception is the fact that many of us percieve colors through senses other than our vision. The ability to feel colors with our hands is not uncommon among blind people. Try it yourself: take several sheets of silk-screened colored papers in different hues, close your eyes, and run your hands over them. Can you feel any differences? Yellow, for instance, may feel much clearer and `faster' than red."

1989, Prentice-Hall, p. 27

This short paragraph is the only thing the book says about this, and the rest of the book discusses color in terms of conventional scientific ideas about it.

An artist I used to know told me the same thing. She said she made a set up such that she could stick her hand into a box without being able to see what colors the paper was, and that she began to be able to differentiate between colors by feel.

Can anyone do this, or know anyone who can do this? Anyone else heard of this?

Zooby

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I only find two "potentially" [but not likely to be] mainstream sources that claim this is a genuine phenomenon. They look pretty shaky.

Here is all that seems to pop up.

dermo-optical perception (DOP)
Dermo-optical perception (DOP) is the alleged ability to "see" without using the eyes. DOP is a conjurer's trick, often involving elaborate blindfolding rituals, but always leaving a pathway (usually down the side of the nose), which allows for unobstructed vision.

http://skepdic.com/dop.html

Dermo-optical sensitivity in rats
P.O. Peretti & T. A. Hay
Studies which have been done with human ~'s regarding the possibility of dermo-optical perception or sensitivity are conflicting. Further work is indicated as necessary before any clear-cut conclusions can be drawn. The present research attempted to investigate (1) the possibility of dermo-optical sensitivity in the rat; (2) the particular conditions Winder which this sensitivity might be demonstrated, and/or, if (3) it was found to exist at all in the rat. The results indicated significant differences in performance between experimental and control Ss. It was concluded that rats had dermo-optical sensitivity, and that this quality or ability was most prevalent when the Ss were shaven previous to their exposure to the relevant stimuli.

http://www.educ.kyoto-u.ac.jp/cogpsy/psychologia/ab/1646.htm

This person seems to the the source of a majority of the web info claiming that this "perception" is genuine.

DERMO-OPTICAL SENSITIVITY
Yvonne DUPLESSIS
Centre d'information de la couleur

"Optical Radiation and Colours : Facts and Effects"
INRS (French National Research and Safety Institute for the Prevention of Occupational Injuries and Diseases)
CORSS (French Scientific and Technical Research Committee for Health and Safety in Extractive Industries)

Our eyes perceive only a limited part of the electromagnetic spectrum which, in daylight, reveals to us the colours and shapes of our environment.
The skin is sensitive to a wider range of this spectrum, as shown by tanning due to the ultraviolet radiation of the solar spectrum or the sensation of the accompanying heat due to infrared radiation.
However, even if invisible, this radiation surrounds us totally and it would therefore be surprising if it had no influence on our behaviour.
Research carried out for over two decades in the United States, but more particularly in the former Soviet Union and in France, showed that the skin is sensitive to radiation that, according to one physical hypothesis, are situated in the far infrared.

By 1960, pluridisciplinary teams began studying this capacity, particularly in the laboratories of the Urals. On 9 October 1962, Professor Novomeysky of the Pedagogical institute in Sverdlovsk termed it "dermo-optical sensitivity".
It thus became possible to accept that humans react to the coloured objects of their environment, not only in daylight but also in total darkness, even at a certain distance or if these objects are covered by opaque screens.

http://www.creatic.fr/cic/B118Doc.htm

Dermo-Optical Sensitivity : A abstract of researches
Yvonne Duplessis, Ph.D.
From 1960 to the present time, research carried on in the USA, but principally in the USSR and in France, showed that the skin was sensitive to invisible radiations of the electro-magnetic spectrum, situated in the far infrared range.

Dermo-Optical Sensitivity refers, therefore, to the human organism's capacity to respond to colored surfaces, hidden from sight, when they are under opaque screens, or at some distance away, or in the darkness.
Dermo-Optical Perception - more exactly Dermo-Radiative Perception - refers to the ability of subjects, who succeed in differentiating, consciously, these surfaces, through their hands, hence by non-visual subjective impressions.
Objective methodes allow to measure and record dermo-optical effects.
Subjective methods allow the development of dermo-optical perception and are based on the phenomenon of synesthesia.
There are many applications of this research in pedagogy, decoration ... It might improve living conditions.

http://www.creatic.fr/cic/B080Doc.htm

 

[username]

Sounds like this is more of a question of so called esp exists more than anything else. I would like to see a esp napster if possible don't know if there hsa been any reliable experiments/data onthis sort of stuuf though.
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Life Is Like A Box of Chocolates. Forrest Gump ;)

EDIT: just to put the record strait, guess its not a question of ESP at all but of evolution, does not seem very likely.