It is common knowledge that women have more of a feel for colours. This is backed up by Professor František Vyskočil, a neurophysiologist from the Institute of Physiology at the Academy of Sciences. “Women’s spectrums overlap better and they are able to describe colours in the finest of detail. This is probably because, ever since prehistoric times, they have had to decide which food is ready to eat, which is not yet ripe, and whether particular foods can even be eaten at all,” he explains. Women also have better peripheral vision, whereas men have a better sense of distance and perspective.
The impact of colours on the psyche was being debated as far back as the ancient Greeks. In the fifth century BC, the Greek physician Hippocrates, the man behind the division of temperaments into the sanguine, phlegmatic, choleric and melancholic, attributed different colours to different natures. Even today, a colour spectrum is used in psychology for personality tests based on the shades that different people prefer. Pessimists – and more frequently men – are inclined towards darker colours, while women and optimists prefer lighter hues.