Edwin G. Boring

A method based not on experimentation but introspection is nowadays referred to as a «phenomenological analysis», the word «phenomenon» (literally, «appearing») therefore implying that a distinction must be drawn between an appearance and the event which that appearance proclaims. A double pyramid with back and white tips and a square base with psychology’s four «proto» or «original» colours at the corner points places particular emphasis on interconnecting axes which all extend towards the central grey axis. (Detailed text)


Date: This phenomenological colour-solid by the American psychologist Edwin G. Boring dates from 1929.

Country of origin: USA

Basic colours: Red, green, yellow and blue

Form: Double pyramid

Related systems: HeringPope

Bibliography: E. G. Boring, «Sensation and Perception in the History of Experimetal Psychology», New York 1942; S. Hesselgren, «Why Color Order Systems?», Color Research and Application 9, pp. 220-228 (1984); F. L. Dimmick, «Specification and calibration of the 1953 edition of the Inter-Society Color Council Color Aptitude Test», Journal of the Optical Society of America 46, pp. 389-393 (1956).