It's highly unlikely that the colour pink would show up under a sodium street light.

[jassi]

It would all depend upon the dye makeup and the exact lighting conditions, which could only be done by actually testing it. Nothing would come out as white under a sodium light.

[Carana]

Am interested, do you see pink lips on this image Carana, like i do?

http://www.fullspectrumsolutions.com/images_templ/graphics/heather2.jpg

If I look really closely, they do appear pink to me, but if I look at the picture as a whole from further away, I'm not entirely sure whether I'm just assuming they are or not, nor would I be able to tell whether there was a slight shade of lipstick or not.

On the other hand, I expect that many of us (certainly myself) have taken photos in artificial lighting without a flash and have been disappointed that the colours didn't reflect the visual perception of them - i.e., what a camera records isn't necessarily what the brain perceives.

It is of course possible that different people may have slightly different perceptions as to shade in the same conditions.

An exception that I've experienced, along with everyone with me on every occasion, is that a certain type of light makes red appear black. I've no idea what type of light that would be as I haven't looked into it. Whatever that was, it is not the street lights that give off that orangey light.

[jassi]

People might find this interesting - http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/experiments/exp/why-sodium-street-lights-make-things-look-orange/

Was the photo of the young woman in the woolly hat taken under a sodium lamp or under an orange filter?

A  blue light will make red appear black

[Alice Purjorick]

People might find this interesting - http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/experiments/exp/why-sodium-street-lights-make-things-look-orange/

Was the photo of the young woman in the woolly hat taken under a sodium lamp or under an orange filter?

A  blue light will make red appear black

Presumably in common with other optical devices the human eye also suffers chromatic aberration ?.

[jassi]

I should think so.  Even with your own eyes, one is likely to see slightly different colours when compared  to the other.
Imagination also plays a part. If you think something should be a certain colour, that's what you will tend to see, even if someone else sees it differently - not extremes, but shades

[Carana]

I should think so.  Even with your own eyes, one is likely to see slightly different colours when compared  to the other.
Imagination also plays a part. If you think something should be a certain colour, that's what you will tend to see, even if someone else sees it differently - not extremes, but shades

Yes, I expect that to be the case as well.

There must be academic research on people's perceptions of colour in different lighting conditions - unless, of course, there hasn't been much demand for it.

My own little experiments were simply to satisfy my own curiosity and I'm not even certain that the old street lamps near me are of precisely the same type as the old PdL ones. I might be able to find out, however.

In my initial experiment (just taking notes of my perception of colours and checking again in daylight), the only things that I knew in advance to be of a certain colour in the areas I checked were the yellow lines on the road and leafy bushes or trees.

I had no idea of the colour of parked cars, sweet wrappers or any other objects that were there by chance.

Could that advance knowledge of bushes and road markings have influenced my perception of other colours? Possibly.

My next little experiment involved a pink cloth object. I was interested in whether cloth would make a difference as opposed to a similar colour on, e.g., a painted object.

The objective issue is that I knew that I'd taken a pink object, although it was a spur-of-the-moment idea using the first pinky cloth object that I'd found lurking somewhere, placed it in a plastic bag, and hadn't spent any time taking prior note of the shade - I did that afterwards. I was actually surprised to note that my perception was the same, but admittedly it wasn't a blind experiment.

My conclusion is that my own perception of colour seems to be fairly accurate, but that doesn't mean that that is the same for other people. And then, of course, there is the issue of trying to explain the memory of the colour / shade to others.

[Carana]

The more I think about it, the more I think that there should be research on this for forensic purposes.

There have been what I have found to be fascinating studies on memory recall (or call thereof) of events, so wouldn't similar studies on colour memory recall be of interest?

[ShiningInLuz]

The more I think about it, the more I think that there should be research on this for forensic purposes.

There have been what I have found to be fascinating studies on memory recall (or call thereof) of events, so wouldn't similar studies on colour memory recall be of interest?

I'm sure there will be academic studies by the bucketload on this topic, but will any of them help?

You need Jane's eyeballs, or equivalent, at roughly the same time, at roughly the same distance, under whatever lighting there was on 3 May 2007.  I would think you can test for frilly bottoms and floral patterns, but more than that would be guesswork.

[Alice Purjorick]

The more I think about it, the more I think that there should be research on this for forensic purposes.

There have been what I have found to be fascinating studies on memory recall (or call thereof) of events, so wouldn't similar studies on colour memory recall be of interest?

I foresee a few problems:
Some people are red/green colour blind.
No one really knows what colour turquoise is.
The brain compensates for the fact we see images upside down so what else does it compensate for?
The Germans introduced introduced RAL numbers for colours about 90 years ago. I don't see any perp hanging still long enough to do a comparison with a RAL colour fan though !
May be what really counts is GISS, or JIZZ depending on where you was brung up?

[sadie]

Fascinating;

This is a sodium street light, as in Luz on 3rd May.

-snipped

http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/uploads/RTEmagicC_streetlight_light.jpg.jpg


But hows about the pink and green on this (bottom RH corner)?   I gave reasons for it saying that another light had shone on it, but what light might have shone on Tannerman?

[John]

The science of the sodium light spectra is indeed interesting but in the final analysis there was no better way of determining the question of the colour of the pyjamas than carrying out a reconstruction.  The PJ never did this so I would say nil pont's on that front.

[G-Unit]

The science of the sodium light spectra is indeed interesting but in the final analysis there was no better way of determining the question of the colour of the pyjamas than carrying out a reconstruction.  The PJ never did this so I would say nil pont's on that front.

I agree. Once the street lights were changed it became impossible too.

How about this for an interesting find; during the course of researching this subject I came upon a UK website where people interested in roads upload photos of roads, bridges, road signs - anything connected with roads. Road spotters, a bit like train spotters lol. I wonder why humans have this 'collecting' urge?

[ShiningInLuz]

I agree. Once the street lights were changed it became impossible too.

How about this for an interesting find; during the course of researching this subject I came upon a UK website where people interested in roads upload photos of roads, bridges, road signs - anything connected with roads. Road spotters, a bit like train spotters lol. I wonder why humans have this 'collecting' urge?

I guess it depends on what is being 'collected'.

A fun day out for us was taking the kids to a museum, and when I tell you the kids were always eager to go, you should be able to work out it was no ordinary museum.

The first building you went to was the telephone room.  It had all sorts of antique phones and switchboards in it, all working.  Do you remember red phone boxes with a big cash box, where you put 4 old pennies in and pressed button A if the call connected, and pressed button B to get your 4 pence back if the call did not go through?

Yes the phone box worked and yes it took 4 old pennies per call.  Our grandkids had never seen one of those boxes, but trying to drag them out of the telephone room was always a struggle.

Returning to Madeleine McCann, the lighting experiment depends on whether the Luz street lamps have all been replaced, or whether some of the 2007-spec ones are still around.  I am under the impression that a key lamp at the Smith sighting is old-style, though I can't prove it.  If it is 2007 vintage, then it would be possible to stage an equivalent there.

[G-Unit]

I guess it depends on what is being 'collected'.

A fun day out for us was taking the kids to a museum, and when I tell you the kids were always eager to go, you should be able to work out it was no ordinary museum.

The first building you went to was the telephone room.  It had all sorts of antique phones and switchboards in it, all working.  Do you remember red phone boxes with a big cash box, where you put 4 old pennies in and pressed button A if the call connected, and pressed button B to get your 4 pence back if the call did not go through?

Yes the phone box worked and yes it took 4 old pennies per call.  Our grandkids had never seen one of those boxes, but trying to drag them out of the telephone room was always a struggle.

Returning to Madeleine McCann, the lighting experiment depends on whether the Luz street lamps have all been replaced, or whether some of the 2007-spec ones are still around.  I am under the impression that a key lamp at the Smith sighting is old-style, though I can't prove it.  If it is 2007 vintage, then it would be possible to stage an equivalent there.

Ours were fascinated by old-style fruit machines which use old pennies too. Those phone boxes were good; later ones swallowed your money whether you managed to connect or not.

That experiment might be good. A 'blind' test with various smallish different coloured items being shown to someone who hadn't seen them before would be ideal. At the appropriate time, date and distance of course. I'm trying to find some near me, but it's the time and date which can't be replicated here.

[jassi]

Ours were fascinated by old-style fruit machines which use old pennies too. Those phone boxes were good; later ones swallowed your money whether you managed to connect or not.

That experiment might be good. A 'blind' test with various smallish different coloured items being shown to someone who hadn't seen them before would be ideal. At the appropriate time, date and distance of course. I'm trying to find some near me, but it's the time and date which can't be replicated here.

And only for a couple of seconds as well