From the article: Red pen too aggressive, Queensland teachers told By Gabrielle Dunlevy, AAP, December 03, 2008

“TEACHERS have been told to stop marking schoolchildren’s work with red pen because it is an “aggressive” colour.

Queensland’s Deputy Opposition Leader Mark McArdle told parliament today that teachers were being advised to reconsider their pen choice because it may offend children.”

As of this morning 301 readers had commented on the article and left some very negative reactions that I enjoyed reading.  It is always so enlightening to have people express their understanding (and misunderstanding) of the effects of color.

Read the article: Red pen too aggressive, Queensland teachers told

The Courier Mail displayed their sense of humor over the issue.  The picture above is one of several they posed.  For a laugh see the entire Red Pen Rogues Photo Gallery

I couldn’t help but leave a comment of my own.

It’s 1:30am here in Virginia but I have a good reason for still being awake.  I just got off the phone with George Noory the host of Coast to Coast AM.

He had seen the news story “Study says the woman in red drives the men crazy,” and wanted to know,  “Is it true?”

Since the results came as no surprise to me I confidently said “Yes!” and then shared some of the science behind the psychological effects of the color red.

Basically here’s what happens–

When we see red it sparks

By Will Dunham Will Dunham – Tue Oct 28, 1:44 am ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – If a woman wants to drive the men wild, she might want to dress in red.

Men rated a woman shown in photographs as more sexually attractive if she was wearing red clothing or if she was shown in an image framed by a red border rather than some other colour, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday.

The study led by psychology professor Andrew Elliot of the University of Rochester in Rochester, New York, seemed to confirm red as the colour of romance

Other times a color, or maybe more correctly a color in a specific context, can take us through the millions of images in our mind and locate exactly where we’ve seen that color before.  Recently I was reminded of just how powerful this phenomenon is.

I have received several emails from someone who uses a green font and whenever I read his messages I find my mind calling up images of my father’s handwriting.

You see my dad always loved to write with ballpoint pens or flair markers with green ink.  It quite literally became his signature color.

So although the context is a bit different when I see the green font it so clearly brings my father’s handwriting into my mind that even seven years after his death I can see his signature as clearly in my mind as if I was looking down at it on a piece of paper.

Amazing isn’t it?

Related:

Color Memories Stay With Us

Can you guess where it is?

I just posted a short article inspired by this sign.  You can read it here…