The impact of polychromatic phenomena as color signs in relation to age



Language is one of the pillars, supporting society as a whole. Language is one of the communication responses of the human information processing system, which requires signs. A polychromatic phenomenon is a color image, symbol as abstract reality, embodied in a concrete sign, capable of communicating even the most complex logical notions and ideas, mystical occurrences and states.
Each individual treats colors subjectively, however down at the bottom, it is based on objective patterns. A person's age can determine poly- or mono-chromatism in his/her perception. Our "inner" color changes, i.e., in the course of our lifetimes, we change our color predilections. Preference to a certain set of colors changes during the entire course of a person's lifetime. Children of 4 or 5 years of age prefer pure red. Gradually, the color preference shifts to blue, making red a runner-up. Children like bright, intense colors. Also, most children like yellow. Color preference among preschoolers and kids of young school age is as follows. They like bright and pure colors and prefer red, blue and yellow, red usually being their favorite color. Also, they tend to reject faded, non-bright shades. As they enter the age of puberty, they get more attracted to melancholy light blue. Young men, particularly under 25, mostly prefer red. According to Goethe, young women favor pink and light blue.⁽¹⁾
The research of several authors (E.-L. Raikh, M. Cimmermann, L. Schwartz, E. Ponomareva) shows that color preference does, in fact, change with age. And there is a certain pattern to this change. Within the scale of pure spectral colors, with age the preference changes from the warm to the cold and the more complex muffled colors. The principle of color pair construction changes as well. Younger children build the pairs based mainly on the contrast principle. Older ones do it based on the nuance combinations of colors in the pair. With age, they start to favor gray and pastel shades. Adults usually change their color predilections several times. Only 1.4% of adults simultaneously choose black and white among the achromatic colors. The majority of seniors prefer pastel shades. The older a person, the more he/she likes dark, muffled shades. More often than not, they give preference to the blue color (tendency to rest) and reject, first of all, the yellow color (anxiety). According to Goethe, at an old age, people prefer lilac and dark green.
It is a well-known fact that there are men and women who are physically not old, yet whose behavior and life-style make them look much older, as if they lost their freshness and ease. On the color test, they reject active colors, such as red and yellow, and usually prefer gray, brown, and dark green. These subdued colors, usually preferred by older people, are also colors of choice of biologically young people, whose natural life energy slows down due to disappointment, a neural disorder, or a weakening disease. On the contrary, if one were to ask an older person, who prefers red or yellow, how old they feel, one would most likely hear something along the following lines: "Of course, physically I cannot compete with someone younger, but I feel about 35."
Hence, polychromatic phenomena play an independent and active role; they are capable of creating associations and giving an emotional aspect to feelings. In the course of a lifetime, people frequently change their color predilections due to changes in their "inner" colors, their attitudes toward the surrounding polychromatic social environment.
⁽¹⁾ Goethe, I. V. Collected works on natural sciences. To the study of color (chromatics). - Moscow: The Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 1957. - Page 261.

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