Color and Emotion- a study on the affective judgment across media and in relation to visual stimuli

Four experiments were carried out to describe emotional responses to color and to analyze the relationship between color attributes and emotional dimensions. Conceptualization and measurement systems of emotion were discussed and emotional responses to colors were assessed in terms of valence, arousal, and dominance dimensions (Mehrabian, 1978; Osgood, Suci, & Tannenbaum, 1957), using Self Assessment Manikin (SAM) (Lang, 1980). The patterns of affective judgment were presented according to hue, Chroma, and lightness. Chroma was positively correlated with each of the three emotional dimensions in all experiments. In order to account for the cognitive quantity of color, stimuli were selected following hue and tone categorizations and based on the CIELab Lch system. Empirical evidence indicates that emotional responses to color vary more strongly with regard to tone than to hue categories. Moreover, the influence of the presentation medium on emotional response to color was investigated by presenting colors either on DIN A5-size paper or on CRT monitors. Utilizing the empirical results, a practical application tool was suggested for marketing purposes. In addition, emotional response to color was examined in a cross-modality stimulus context. Other than colors, modalities of visual stimulus, such as pictures selected from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS) (Lang, Bradley, & Cuthbert, 2005), film-clips, and adjectives were employed as background stimuli. Context effect was investigated by comparison to prior results and the emotional response to colors in arousal shifted significantly toward less excited. Judgmental shifts of affectivity of background stimuli were also analyzed. Furthermore, the process of affective judgment of colors was debated and future studies were proposed