"Albert Manfredi" wrote in
:

I'm saying, it's not that we are conditioned to the color of tungsen,
it's that we are looking for something close to 2000 K at night. Much
cooler cooler light than that (higher temp) is stark and generally
unpleasant.


It is conditioning, but it's worth thinking about what the conditioning is.

First, how can a hotter temperature be cold?? The only way to account for
that is to look at the environment. Blue sky accepts radiant heat from the
earth so nights chill faster on clear evenings, pale light from the moon or
stars accompanies those same conditions within hours, and those sources are
so pale that we have scotopic vision to cope with them.

The whole thing is based on comfort. There is one exception to the usual
perception of cool faint lights. The whole midsummer night's dream idyll is
based on this, the almost magical inversion that allows a warm night to
make perception of these 'cold' lights seem something other than
threatening to our health.

I bet we could get used to 'cold' light plenty fast so long as we weren't
actually cold ourselves. Conversely, Dickens and many others have commented
on the bleakness of a small flame when there isn't enough heat to warm the
people who need it. It really has to do with our ambient conditions, not
direct colour perceptions at all.