Measuring the Immeasurable: Quantitative Analyses of Perceptual Experiments

Natural perception enables us to identify a wide range of qualities of objects. Color is typically a qualitative variable. This chapter aims to identify underlying aspects of color that can be evaluated and quantified by means of statistical methods. This contribution is based on a perceptual experiment which is part of a series of exploratory works undertaken to analyze qualitative aspects in perception, specifically of color perception and its relationship with spatial form. The chapter shows how, with the help of statistical methodology, quantitative aspects of color consistently linked to geometrical shapes can emerge. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.