大象传媒

If you鈥檝e ever wondered why you love blue and hate the colour khaki, or have spent hours arguing over a colour chart because you and your partner can鈥檛 agree on how to paint the bedroom, you鈥檒l be fascinated by Professor Anya Hurlbert. She鈥檚 a neuroscientist and a leading researcher into how the brain perceives colour, and why we feel so strongly about it. Brought up in Texas, studying at Princeton and Harvard, she is now Professor of Visual Neuroscience at the University of Newcastle; she鈥檚 also spent years advising the National Gallery on how to show their pictures so we can see the colours most vividly. She鈥檚 married to the science writer Matt Ridley.

In conversation with Michael Berkeley, Anya Hurlbert discusses the scientific research that reveals the world鈥檚 favourite colour: blue. She talks about how the brain processes colour, and why colour perception is so individual and so bafflingly complex. A few years ago for instance, ten million people took to Twitter to argue about the colour of 鈥楾he Dress鈥� 鈥� was it blue and black, or white and gold? Professor Hurlbert got hold of the real dress, put it in a tent in Newcastle, and invited people to come look at it. So, can she tell us what colour it is really?

Music is incredibly important in Anya Hurlbert鈥檚 life, and she grew up with an ambition to be a concert pianist. She still finds that playing Bach 鈥榗alms her soul鈥�. Music choices include Bach, Beethoven, and two composers she believes should be better known: Thea Musgrave and Elisabeth Lutyens. She chooses a song by Schubert which is all about the colour green. And she reveals her passion for country music, with Jerry Jeff Walkers 鈥淯p Against the Wall, Red Neck Mother鈥�.

Produced by Elizabeth Burke.
A Loftus Media production for 大象传媒 Radio 3