world arereally badat understandingcolor . And yet , scientific papers are so often covered in brilliant , oculus - catch rainbow diagram , as researcher seek to communicate their finding in exciting , intuitive ways . But why – when humankind ca n’t even agree onthe colour of a wearing apparel – should we think that our erstwhile friend ROY G BIV will avail someone empathise complex scientific ideas ?
For decades , there has been a sphere of the scientific community contend that the rainbow necessitate to be retired . Not only is it entirely useless forcolorblindpeople , it ’s not even that helpful for the rest of us – we just ca n’t see color in a manner that would countenance us the right way render datum .
" masses like to expend rainbow because it catches the centre , " chemical substance and biological data analyst Jamie Nuñez explained toScientific American . " But once the eye actually receive there and people are trying to envision out what ’s in reality choke on inside of the persona , that ’s kind of where it hang aside . "
The problems are manifold : rainbow colors are disorganise ( how can you tell red , dingy , and yellow ? ) , they are nonlinear ( how can we tell which color is " halfway " between two others ? ) , and , fundamentally , our brains just do n’t mold that well with them – we naturally interpret bright coloration as more significant , regardless of where they occur on the " scale " .
And as if the cephalalgia was n’t enough to win over us to alter our ways , rainbow information visual image can literally put life at danger : aHarvard studyfound that medico confront with a 3D rainbow fashion model took longer , and were far less precise , to diagnose affection disease than when shown a 2D model using a red - to - black scale .
Thankfully , science has once again amount to the rescue . researcher , including Nuñez , at the US Department of Energy have created a color scale using state - of - the - artwork numerical clay sculpture and optimization technique that direct to solve our rainbow - relate miserableness . knight " cividis " – the rainbow scheme we ’re used to , by the way , is called " jet " – the scale run from dark blue sky to light yellow , is usable by colorblind people , and , crucially , is " perceptually linear " – so the perceived modification in color really do match actual changes in data . Their results are bring out in the journalPLOS ONE .
So why , despite all its issues , do we keep coming back to the rainbow ? The problem , cartographer andrainbow - criticKenneth line of business told Scientific American , is but that " [ p]eople love colored single-valued function . " This is something Nuñez ’s squad is all too aware of – a drawback of their color organisation , the study notes , is that " its minimal reporting of different colors … continue cividis from being as esthetically pleasing as [ other maps ] . "
Unfortunately , it seems that as pretty as rainbow are , they ’re basically useless – or downright life-threatening – as data point tools . When it comes to scientific analysis , explained Field , " [ r]ainbows get more problem than they solve . "
[ H / T : Scientific American ]
