Think about some places you have been where the light was altered: like a party with black lights, or a room completely painted in red paint. Or even consider how you feel on a sunny day, compared to a cloudy day. In this article- http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20827845.000-blue-light-taps-directly-into-your-emotions.html, researchers are trying to find out what really goes on in the human brain that triggers our good and bad emotions, connected by color. We all know that the retina contains two types of photoreceptors, rods and cones, which process visible light. Yet scientists have found a third type of photoreceptor particularly sensitive to blue light. Amazingly it has nothing to do with visual responses, instead mediates things such as sleep cycles and alertness.
Read the article and you decide on whether you think this pathway directly affects our emotional state or if you feel it is all just in your personal perspective?
Do you think this could be used to help treat mood disorders?
How does the light around you affect your mood? Or does it?
How do certain colors affect your mood? Or does it? And if they do, what colors do you feel affect you the most?
Does blue light tap directly into your emotions? That is a great question and an interesting article. I wish there would have been more to the article with more research results from studies. From what the article did provide I do think that light directly affects our emotional state . . . to a certain extent. I think that colors could be used to treat mood disorders for some people. In my opinion light affects your emotional state just a little the rest is whether you believe that the colors help, like a psychological thing.
ReplyDeleteFor me light does affect my mood or how I feel. Like in Mrs. Smith’s class on a sunny day if we are lecturing and the lights are off then I’m not sleepy, but if it is a cloudy day then I cannot stop yawning. Light also affects my sleep cycles: if the moon is bright then the light shines in my window and I have trouble sleeping because the bright light wakes me up and makes me feel less tired. If the moon isn’t very bright then I sleep just fine because of the dimmer light. Bright colors put me in a good mood. For example, when I see a bright yellow it just makes me happy because it reminds me of sunshine and that reminds me of happiness. Bright, soft colors affect me and make me feel happy. Bright, crazy neon colors make me feel excited. Dark, gloomy colors they make me feel exactly how they are described.
I agree with "McClaveCardinals" statement that light does affect our emotions but only to a certain extent. For me, I have the same emotion for both sunny and cloudy days. The bright sun makes me happy because it’s warm and makes me want to be outside. But I also like cloudy/darker days as much as I do sunny days. When it is cloudy on a rainy day, I want to relax because I feel calm.
ReplyDeleteIn the article they proved that the emotion response was stronger to the angry voice with the effect amplified by blue light rather than the neutral voice. Now I can see partially how light is used to treat mood disorders. The new discovery on the third type of photoreceptor was interesting because like it said in the article, it mediates non-visual responses such as sleep cycles and alertness. Maybe this is partially why we can sleep better in the dark compared to during the day time. All in all color does help the mood I’m in to a certain perspective.
I agree with a lot of the statements that McClave Cardinals said. Like McClave Cardinals light affects me a lot during class and at night. I’ve never really thought about how this would affect my mood though. The lights off just relaxes me to a point where I want to sleep at night that’s good, during school not so much. On the other hand, the lights on or any light at all, can keep me up and alert.
ReplyDeleteIn the article it said that light was used to treat mood disorders, this I can understand because we've all experienced mood changes from the light. It also said that there is a third type of photoreceptor, particularly sensitive to blue light. This was interesting to me but I wish the article put some more info about it. In my opinion it’s not just light that affects me its bright colors too. Bright neon colors make me feel peppier and bland colors make me feel less energetic. I really do think colors and light can change your mood.
I completely agree with the article. Think about when you are trying to sleep at night what does almost everyone do? Turn out the lights. Another example would have to be the lights being on during school, most of our teachers keep them on to keep us from falling asleep. Sometimes though we have to view powerpoints, and BANG the lights are out. Suddenly I find myself groggy and about ready to tip over in mu chair. My question about the article would have to be is, since blue light affects emotions much more, could the police use it in the interrogation room. I mean instead of using a simple light bulb in a dark room, use a blue light bulb, could that affect the feelings of the accussed and eventually lead to the truth?
ReplyDeleteI agree with article a little bit. The reason why I believe with this article because colors of shirts I wear seem to be the mood i'm in that day. But then I dont agree with the article. The reasoning for that is that colors shouldn't affect our brain because if they did then everyday we turned around our mood would change in seconds because our world is full of colors.
ReplyDeleteIf this color conrtols moodness is true then I believe it could be used for people that is diagnosed with problems that need help relaxing or help with other things.
Colors really don't affect me. They never really have but the mood I'm in is the color i wear. Don't know if that is along the same lines but looking at it now it could be. Colors have a lot of affect in this world but i just don't believe it affects our moods.
I agree with the article and I believe if scientists truly wanted to they could conduct many experiments to help treat moods disorders and such with different colors. I mean everyday is unexpected. We never know how we're gunna act or feel and why. Lighting, colors, weather, and other factors may contribute to why we feel the way we do. Just a tumor in the right part of the brain can affect a person's actions, personality, and emotions, different parts of our brain control different actions, feelings, and thougts to what we are exposed to. People also act differently. One person may react to something totally different than another person. So if light or colors are used to help cure illnesses in the near future, then more power to science! That would be a pretty cool treatment to have and probable no pain would be involved.
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