Did you say red or green? It confuses your brain because it's getting both messages -- the word red but the color green. Psychologists call this the Stroop effect. You can learn more about it at a neuroscience site sponsored by the University of Washington, and it even has a couple tests you can take to see how much more quickly you can say the colors when they match the word than when they don't. This is the beginning of my next quilt, the one with rainbow colors hinted at in the previous post.I am totally smitten with Tonya's wonky letters. So engaging! So many possibilities! I've been toying with various ideas about how to use them and finally settled on this. Seems to fit the style of the letters, too. If you've never seen Tonya's quilts, you're in for a treat. Her blog is Lazy Gal Quilting, and on the sidebar she has a link to tutorials for her wonky letters. It's not my usual style to just cut and stitch without measuring several times first, but it was a blast!
Here's a photo of an old (a very old) t-shirt of mine that has the mismatched color words. Guess I've been fascinated by this for a long time. We saw an exhibit on the Stroop effect at a science museum in Canada many years ago and my husband, who is a cognitive psychologist, explained it to our kids and me. My older daughter went on to major in social psychology in college and the younger one is finishing her major in cognitive neuroscience, so this quilt will fit our family well!
4 comments:
Well, THAT was fun!
However, this concept is going to stick in my brain, ALL DAY !!!! LOL, and yepper, now those letters of Tonya's look even MORE appealing ... just as you describe, with that Stroop effect. Wow, another whole concept to dwell on! Oh dear, brain drain here.
Loved it! 8-)
These things are crazy, huh? It will be fun to see your whole quilt with your crazy color letters!
thank you so much, Cheri, and I'm glad you're having fun with the letters. Your "red" is fabulous. I like the graphic pic on the t-shirt too - I think this quilt is going to be amazing. Enjoy yourself and ask if you have any questions.
now that is too funny to have us both post on the same thing! I love the concept of the new quilt you are doing. I LOVE doing the wonky letters ALA Tonya style. I have my next quilt planned out using her letters.
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