The effect of photo filters on the emotional resonance of teenagers

Photo filters are a type of software routine in which the appearance of an image is altered due to an adjustment in shade and color of the pixels. Photo filters have been known to change one’s emotional resonance by affecting the person’s own individual emotion and/or feeling. The purpose of this experiment was to see if there was a correlation between dark vs light filters and the emotions associated with them. In this experiment, photos with different filters were viewed by participants in order to observe any changes in their emotion after viewing the different filters. It was predicted that the dark filters (mono, tonal, and noir) would correspond more with the negative emotions while the light filters (chrome, process, and instant) would correspond more with the positive emotions. The negative and positive emotions were determined by using the eight primary emotions from Robert Plutchik’s theory and categorizing them into negative or positive. The negative emotions were anger, fear, sadness, and disgust while the positive emotions were surprise, anticipation, trust, and joy. Experimentation was accomplished by giving 30 participants 15 seconds to view each of the following: the photo blank, control (no filter), and each of the photos with the different filters. Surveys were used prior to testing and throughout testing in order to record the participant’s emotion. The hypothesis that the dark filters would correlate with the negative emotions and that the light filters would correlate to the positive emotions was supported. At α=0.05, there was a difference in the emotions that corresponded to dark vs light filters, F(7,232)=17.55, p=\u3c0.0001. In conclusion, dark filters corresponds to negative emotions while light filters correspond to positive emotions