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

cognitive psychologist Cognitive psychology is the scientific study of human 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, whi ...

who greatly contributed to the field of

color Color (or colour in English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English; American and British English spelling differences#-our, -or, see spelling differences) is the visual perception based on the electromagnetic spectrum. Though co ...

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 und ...

. She was born in

Newton, Massachusetts Newton is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is located roughly west of Downtown Boston, and comprises a patchwork of thirteen villages. The city borders Boston to the northeast and southeast (via the neighborhoods of ...

. Jameson went to

Wellesley College Wellesley College is a Private university, private Women's colleges in the United States, historically women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Wellesley, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1870 by Henr ...

. 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, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher lear ...

, where she met her future husband, Leo Hurvich. They married in 1948. Jameson was later appointed as a full professor of the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...

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 education, public colleges and universities in the New York (state), State of New York. It is one of the List of largest universities and university networks by enrollment, larges ...

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

lung cancer Lung cancer, also known as lung carcinoma, is a malignant tumor that begins in the lung. Lung cancer is caused by genetic damage to the DNA of cells in the airways, often caused by cigarette smoking or inhaling damaging chemicals. Damaged ...

.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 film photography. The company is headquartered in Rochester, New York, and is incorporated i ...

, 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 thre ...

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 for her contributions to our understanding of visual processes.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jameson, Dorothea 1920 births 1998 deaths American neuropsychologists American women neuroscientists 20th-century American women scientists Women in optics APA Distinguished Scientific Award for an Early Career Contribution to Psychology recipients