Dorothea Jameson (November 16, 1920 – April 12, 1998) was an American

cognitive psychologist Cognitive psychology is the scientific study of mental processes such as attention, language use, memory, perception, problem solving, creativity, and reasoning. Cognitive psychology originated in the 1960s in a break from behaviorism, which he ...

who greatly contributed to the field of

color Color (American English) or colour (British English) is the visual perceptual property deriving from the spectrum of light interacting with the photoreceptor cells of the eyes. Color categories and physical specifications of color are associ ...

and

vision Vision, Visions, or The Vision may refer to: Perception Optical perception * Visual perception, the sense of sight * Visual system, the physical mechanism of eyesight * Computer vision, a field dealing with how computers can be made to gain un ...

Biography

Jameson was born in

Newton, Massachusetts Newton is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is approximately west of downtown Boston. Newton resembles a patchwork of thirteen villages, without a city center. According to the 2020 U.S. Census, the population of Ne ...

. She went to

Wellesley College Wellesley College is a private women's liberal arts college in Wellesley, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1870 by Henry and Pauline Durant as a female seminary, it is a member of the original Seven Sisters Colleges, an unofficial g ...

. She elected psychology as her major in her first year because she was "intrigued that freshmen required special permission to enroll". She graduated in 1942. While at Welleseley she volunteered as a research assistant at

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

, where she met her future husband,

Leo Hurvich Leo Maurice Hurvich (September 11, 1910 – April 25, 2009) was an American psychologist who conducted research into human color vision. He was married to fellow cognitive psychologist Dorothea Jameson. The pair collaborated on much of their work, i ...

. They married in 1948. She was later appointed as a full professor of the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

in 1972. She was awarded honorary degrees from the University of Pennsylvania in 1972 and the

State University of New York The State University of New York (SUNY, , ) is a system of public colleges and universities in the State of New York. It is one of the largest comprehensive system of universities, colleges, and community colleges in the United States. Led by c ...

in 1989. Dorothea Jameson died unexpectedly on April 12, 1998, from a previously undiagnosed

lung cancer Lung cancer, also known as lung carcinoma (since about 98–99% of all lung cancers are carcinomas), is a malignant lung tumor characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissue (biology), tissues of the lung. Lung carcinomas derive from tran ...

.Krantz, David H. Dorothea Jameson: A memoir. ''Color: Research & Application, 23, 6,'' 358-361. December, 1998

Vision studies

While still an undergraduate at Wellesley, Jameson worked as a research assistant at Harvard, where she helped improve the accuracy of visual rangefinders used during World War II.Wayne, Tiffany K. ''American Women of Science since 1900''. 1st edition. ABC-CLIO, 2010. 546-548. Print. Jameson continued to study vision at

in 1947. At that time Ralph Evans, then head of the Color Control Division at

Eastman Kodak The Eastman Kodak Company (referred to simply as Kodak ) is an American public company that produces various products related to its historic basis in analogue photography. The company is headquartered in Rochester, New York, and is incorpor ...

, recognized that understanding color—both in the 3-dimensional world and in photographs—depends crucially on understanding perceptual processes and so recruited researches to work on visual perception. In 1957, Jameson together with her husband Hurvich provided quantitative data for Hering's

opponent process The opponent process is a color theory that states that the human visual system interprets information about color by processing signals from photoreceptor cells in an antagonistic manner. The opponent-process theory suggests that there are th ...

color theory. It was called the "hue cancellation method". Hue cancellation experiments start with a color (e.g. yellow) and attempt to determine how much of the opponent color (e.g. blue) of one of the starting color's components must be added to eliminate any hint of that component from the starting color. In 1982 Jameson won the Edgar D. Tillyer Award from

The Optical Society Optica (formerly known as The Optical Society (OSA) and before that as the Optical Society of America) is a professional society of individuals and companies with an interest in optics and photonics. It publishes journals and organizes conference ...

for her contributions to our understanding of visual processes.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jameson, Dorothea 1920 births 1998 deaths Neuropsychologists American neuroscientists American women neuroscientists 20th-century American women scientists Women in optics