Color And Emotion: Effects Of Hue, Saturation, And Brightness
Psychological Research (2018) 0-8ORIGINAL ARTICLEColor and emotion: effects of hue, saturation, and brightnessLisa Wilms1 Daniel Oberfeld1Received: 3 November 2016 / Accepted: 8 June 2017 / Published online: 13 June 2017 Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany 2017Abstract Previous studies on emotional effects of coloroften failed to control all the three perceptual dimensionsof color: hue, saturation, and brightness. Here, we presented a three-dimensional space of chromatic colors byindependently varying hue (blue, green, red), saturation(low, medium, high), and brightness (dark, medium, bright)in a factorial design. The 27 chromatic colors, plus 3brightness-matched achromatic colors, were presented viaan LED display. Participants (N 62) viewed each colorfor 30 s and then rated their current emotional state (valence and arousal). Skin conductance and heart rate weremeasured continuously. The emotion ratings showed thatsaturated and bright colors were associated with higherarousal. The hue also had a significant effect on arousal,which increased from blue and green to red. The ratings ofvalence were the highest for saturated and bright colors,and also depended on the hue. Several interaction effects ofthe three color dimensions were observed for both arousaland valence. For instance, the valence ratings were higherfor blue than for the remaining hues, but only for highlysaturated colors. Saturated and bright colors caused significantly stronger skin conductance responses. Achromaticcolors resulted in a short-term deceleration in the heart rate,This experiment was conducted as a part of LW’s master’s thesis inPsychology (Institute of Psychology, Johannes Gutenberg-UniversitätMainz, 2013). Portions of this work were presented at the Tagungexperimentell arbeitender Psychologen 2014, Gießen, Germany, atthe Conference of the International Society for Research on Emotion2015, Geneva, Switzerland, and at the international symposiumSeeing Colors 2016, Regensburg, Germany.& Daniel Oberfeldoberfeld@uni-mainz.de1Institute of Psychology, Section Experimental Psychology,Johannes Gutenberg-Universität, 55099 Mainz, Germany123while chromatic colors caused an acceleration. The resultsconfirm that color stimuli have effects on the emotionalstate of the observer. These effects are not only determinedby the hue of a color, as is often assumed, but by all thethree color dimensions as well as their interactions.IntroductionIn the scientific literature as well as in applied domains likeinterior design and architecture, systematic effects of coloron emotion are frequently assumed (e.g., Adams &Osgood, 1973; Greene, Bell, & Boyer, 1983; Heller, 2008;Meerwein, Rodeck, & Mahnke, 2007; Schaie, 1961;Schauss, 1985; Suk & Irtel, 2010; Valdez & Mehrabian,1994; Wright & Rainwater, 1962). For instance, lightconsisting predominantly of longer wavelengths (red) wasproposed to result in higher arousal than light with mediumor short wavelengths (blue or green) (e.g., Jacobs &Hustmyer, 1974; Kaiser, 1984; Walters, Apter, & Svebak,1982; Wilson, 1966). However, a color is specified not onlyby its hue (e.g., green, red, blue, or yellow), but also by twoadditional perceptual color dimensions: saturation (difference to an achromatic stimulus, i.e., a neutral gray orwhite) and brightness (perceived intensity of the light) (cf.Wyszecki & Stiles, 2000). Several studies indicated thatthe saturation of a color stimulus has a stronger effect onthe emotional response than the hue (e.g., Gao et al., 2007;Suk & Irtel, 2010; Valdez & Mehrabian, 1994).Unfortunately, many previous studies on emotionaleffects of color did not provide a sufficiently precise colorimetric specification of the stimuli or failed to control forsaturation and brightness when presenting stimuli withdifferent hues (see Elliot & Maier, 2014; Kaiser, 1984).
Psychological Research (2018) 82:896–914Several studies even used color words (e.g., ‘‘RED’’) ratherthan visual stimuli actually differing in color (e.g., Adams& Osgood, 1973). Here, we presented colorimetricallycontrolled stimuli defined in terms of the CIELAB colorspace (Commission Internationale de l’Éclairage, 2007),which is aimed at perceptual uniformity (Robertson, 1990),and we independently varied hue, saturation, and brightness in a factorial design.A second shortcoming of many previous studies oneffects of color on emotion was that associations betweenemotional terms (e.g., adjectives) and color were investigated, rather than measuring the actual emotional stateinduced by the color stimulus. For example, the study bySato, Kajiwara, Hoshino, and Nakamura (2000) presentedcolorimetrically defined color stimuli, but the task of theparticipants was to ‘‘[ ] select a word to describe thatcolor from the set of 12 descriptive pairs of words [ ]’’ (p.54), as for example ‘‘warm–cool’’. Thus, the participantsrated the presented color on the semantic differentials,rather than rating their own current emotional state whileviewing this color. Even though the emotional connotationsof the colors (Soriano & Valenzuela, 2009; Wright &Rainwater, 1962) may influence the emotional state of theparticipant, this type of experiment does not provide directinformation concerning emotional effects of color stimuli(cf. Whitfield & Wiltshire, 1990). Along the same line ofreasoning, studies on color preferences (e.g., Guilford &Smith, 1959; Hurlbert & Ling, 2007; Ou, Luo, Woodcock,& Wright, 2004a; Palmer & Schloss, 2010) could beviewed as measuring the valence of colors. However, astatement such as ‘I like this color.’ is qualitatively different from the statement ‘This color makes me feel good.’In the present study, we were interested in the latter, directassessment of effects of color on emotion and explicitlyinstructed the participants to rate their current emotionalstate while viewing a color stimulus.A second approach for gaining a better understanding ofemotional responses to color is to complement measures ofemotion experience (e.g., semantic differentials or ratingscales) with physiological measures. Many physiologicalparameters have been used to study emotional processes(e.g., Ashcroft, Guimaraes, Wang, & Deakin, 1991; Bradley, Codispoti, Cuthbert, & Lang, 2001; Carvalho, Leite,Galdo-Alvarez, & Goncalves, 2012; Cuthbert, Schupp,Bradley, Birbaumer, & Lang, 2000; Gomez, Zimmermann,Guttormsen-Schar, & Danuser, 2005; Knutson, Katovich,& Suri, 2014; Lane et al., 1997; Lang et al., 1998; Palomba,Sarlo, Angrilli, Mini, & Stegagno, 2000; Roedema &Simons, 1999; Witvliet & Vrana, 1995). In particular, theactivity of the autonomic nervous system is related toemotion (Cacioppo, Berntson, Larsen, Poehlmann, & Ito,2000; Kreibig, 2010; Mauss & Robinson, 2009). In thepresent study, we measured electrodermal (skin897conductance response; SCR) and cardiovascular (heartrate) parameters, which were proposed as correlates ofarousal (Lang, Greenwald, Bradley, & Hamm, 1993;Mauss & Robinson, 2009) and valence (Cacioppo et al.,2000), respectively.Various authors report a positive correlation betweenemotional arousal and the amplitude of the SCR, forexample when viewing emotional pictures (Bradley et al.,2001; Cuthbert et al., 2000; Lang et al., 1993; Roedema &Simons, 1999). SCR’s latency is also shorter in higharousal conditions compared to low arousal conditions(Witvliet & Vrana, 1995). Furthermore, phasic and tonicskin conductance parameters tend to increase with thepresented material’s valence (Cuthbert et al., 2000; Gomezet al., 2005; Lang et al., 1993).There is evidence for a positive correlation between thevalence of pictures and the heart rate (Cacioppo et al.,2000; Lang et al., 1993). Concerning the relation betweenheart rate and arousal, results are somewhat disparate.Some authors report an increase of the heart rate witharousal (e.g., Lang et al., 1993; Witvliet & Vrana, 1995),some a decrease (e.g., Bradley et al., 2001), or no effect atall (e.g., Gomez et al., 2005).Concerning physiological measures of color-inducedemotion, research has focused on the effect of hue onarousal. For example, the skin conductance level wasreported to be higher and the skin conductance response tobe stronger when viewing red compared to blue or greenstimuli (Gerard, 1958; Jacobs & Hustmyer, 1974; Nourse& Welch, 1971; Wilson, 1966), although a study byMikellides (1990) reported no effects. Gerard (1958) andJacobs and Hustmyer (1974) found no effects of hue on theheart rate, while Küller, Mikellides, and Janssens (2009)reported that the heart rate was higher when participants satin a blue room compared to a red room. Comparable effectshave been reported at the level of the central nervoussystem. Red light was reported to evoke higher corticalarousal measured by EEG than blue or green light (e.g.,Ali, 1972; Carterette & Symmes, 1952). Furthermore,neuroimaging techniques show differences in the activationof hypothalamus and amygdala when blue or green lightwas presented (e.g., Vandewalle et al., 2010).However, as mentioned above, most previous studiesmeasuring physiological effects of color suffered frommethodological problems concerning the control of thethree color dimensions, hue, saturation, and brightness. Inour study, we independently varied hue, saturation, andbrightness in terms of the CIE LCh color space, which isthe cylindrical representation of the CIE L*a*b* colorspace (Commission Internationale de l’Éclairage, 2007).We obtained ratings of the current emotional state of theparticipants while viewing a given color, and measuredelectrodermal and cardiovascular activity. Before the123
898background of the previous results, we expected an effectof hue on arousal, with red eliciting higher arousal thanblue even when controlling for brightness and saturation.We also expected a comparable or even stronger effect ofsaturation on arousal (Suk & Irtel, 2010; Valdez &Mehrabian, 1994). For valence, we expected the brightnessto have the strongest effect (Valdez & Mehrabian, 1994).Because the SCR and the heart rate were reported to beassociated with arousal and valence, respectively, weexpected similar effects of brightness, saturation, and hueon these measures, and a correlation between the emotionratings and the physiological measures.MethodPsychological Research (2018) 82:896–914white color on a black background on a 1500 computerscreen located above the LED panel.The skin conductance was measured using Ag/AgClelectrodes of 1 cm diameter, isotonic electrode gel, and aconstant voltage of 0.5 V (Boucsein et al., 2012). Theelectrodes were affixed on the thenar and the hypothenarsurfaces of the nondominant hand. The signals wereamplified and converted to the digital domain at a samplingrate of 10 Hz (12 bit resolution). The electrocardiogram(ECG) was obtained from chest leads with Ag/AgCl electrodes of 1.5 cm diameter and isotonic electrode gel. Oneelectrode was placed just below the right clavicle and theother one on the left side, on the lower lateral ribs. TheECG signals were sampled at a frequency of 512 Hz by therecording device Varioport (Kölner Vitaport-System,Becker Meditec). Skin conductance and ECG were bothrecorded continuously.ParticipantsColor stimuliSixty-five volunteer participants were recruited at theJohannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, Germany. Datafrom three participants had to be removed from the finalanalysis because of technical problems during the physiological recordings. Thus, 62 participants (49 women; age19–54 years, mean age 23.37 years, SD 6.0 years)remained in the analyses. All participants reported normalor corrected-to-normal visual acuity. They also had normalcolor vision, as confirmed by the Ishihara (2013) test forcolor blindness. The first 21 plates were shown underdaylight conditions and if 17 or more plates were readcorrectly, the color vision was regarded as normal. Participants received partial course credit. The experiment wasconducted in accordance with the principles expressed inthe Declaration of Helsinki. The participants were naı̈vewith respect to the hypotheses under test.Apparatus and materialsThe experiment was conducted in a completely darkened,electrically, and acoustically shielded double-walled cabin(Industrial Acoustics Company, Niederkrüchten) with ablack interior lining. The room temperature was approximately 22 C. Participants sat in an armchair positioned ata viewing distance of 1.5 m in front of an LED panel(Eurolite LED Panel RGB DMX) that presented the colorstimuli. The dimensions of the display were48 cm 9 48 cm (height 9 width), corresponding to avisual angle of approximately 18.18 9 18.18 . The panelcontains a total of 288 red, green, and blue LEDs, mountedunder a transparent white diffuser. The LED panel wascontrolled by a PC and a DMX interface attached to theUSB port. Instructions and rating scales were presented in123Thirty different colors were presented in the experiment. Ina 3 9 3 9 3 factorial design, three hues (blue, green, red)were combined with three saturation levels (low, medium,high) and three brightness levels (low, medium, high). Inaddition, participants were exposed to three achromaticstimuli (gray levels) on the same three brightness levels asfor the chromatic stimuli. The stimuli were selected basedon the Commission Internationale de l’Eclairage (CIE)1976 LCh colorimetric system (i.e., the cylindrical representation of the CIE 1976 L*a*b system; CommissionInternationale de l’Éclairage, 2007), in which each color isrepresented by the coordinates lightness (L*), chroma (C*),and hue (h*) (Brainard, 2003; Wyszecki & Stiles, 2000).Due to the display’s large visual angle, the 1964 CIE 10 standard observer (Commission Internationale de l’Éclairage, 2006) was used for computing the colorimetric valuesfrom the measured optical spectra (Photo Research PR-650spectroradiometer). The lightness (L*) is defined relative toa reference white and ranges from 0 to 100, where 100represents the lightness of the reference white. We used theD65 standard illuminant as reference (Commission Internationale de l’Éclairage, 2008), with the CIE 1964 chromaticitycoordinates(10 standardobserver)xref 0.31382, yref 0.33100, and Yref 223 cd/m2. Yrefcorresponds to the maximum luminance that can be produced by the LED panel. The chroma (C*) measures ‘‘colorpurity’’ in terms of the distance from an achromatic stimulus (gray level) of the same brightness, for which C* 0.The hue angle ranges from h* 0 (red) through p/2(yellow), p (green), 3/2p (blue), and back to 0. Because thechroma depends not only on ‘‘color purity’’ but also onbrightness (Wyszecki & Stiles, 2000), and is, strictlyspeaking, not defined for stimuli viewed in isolation before
Psychological Research (2018) 82:896–914899a black background as in our study (Fairchild, 2005), thechroma was converted into saturation (sat), using theequation sat C*/L*. Table 1 shows the colorimetricvalues of the presented stimuli. Table 2 shows the averagehue angle, saturation, lightness, and luminance as a function of the three color dimensions that we varied in theexperiment. The spectral peaks of the primaries werelocated at 625 nm (R), 515 nm (G), and 460 nm (B).In the experiment, a neutrally gray adapting field withthe values L* 45.011 (Y 32 cd/m2; CIE 1964 10 standard observer) and sat 0.0091 was presented prior toeach stimulus.Table 1 Colorimetric values ofthe 30 color umLowRedHighMediumLowGrayResponse measuresRatings of arousal and valenceIn the study of emotion, a distinction is made between thediscrete approach which considers different categories ofbasic emotions (e.g., Ekman, 1992) and the dimensionalapproach (e.g., Wundt, 1903) describing emotions with asmall number of dimensions. In the latter approach, mostauthors propose three dimensions, often referred to asvalence, arousal, and dominance (Mehrabian & Russell,1974), or evaluation, activity, and potency (Osgood, Suci,& Tannenbaum, 1957). We used the dimensional approach.SaturationL*sath*Y 717.3620.74High049.990.0240.406.257.68A factorial combination of hue (red, green, blue), saturation (low, medium, high), and brightness (low,medium, high) was presented, plus three equiluminant gray levels. The table displays the colorimetricvalues according to the CIE LCh (1976) system and a D65 reference white. The hue angle (h*) is specifiedin radians. The saturation was defined as sat C*/L*, where C* and L* is the chroma and lightness value,respectively, according to CIE LCh. The columns Y (luminance), X, and Z display the colorimetric coordinates according to the CIE 1964 system, 10 standard observer123
900Psychological Research (2018) 82:896–914Table 2 Average colorimetric values (CIE 1976 LCh system) forhue, saturation, lightness, and luminance (Y), averaged across theremaining dimensions for the set of 30 colors displayed in theexperiment (see Table 1)Color dimensionMeanSDHue 03Low20.0250.13Medium34.9770.04HighSaturation (sat C*/L*)Lightness (L*)50.0000.02Y (cd/m2)Low6.570.07Medium18.630.04High40.430.03For each color stimulus, the participants were asked to ratetheir current emotional state on the nonverbal ‘‘selfassessment manikin’’ (SAM) scales for arousal and valence(Lang, 1980). These scales have proven to be useful formeasuring emotional responses in various situations(Bradley & Lang, 1994) and have been used in connectionwith physiological measures (e.g., Bradley, Greenwald,Petry, & Lang, 1992; Gomez et al., 2005; Lang et al.,1993). The emotional dimensions valence and arousal areillustrated by five pictograms each. For the valencedimension, the scale ranges from a smiling, happy figure toa frowning, unhappy figure (see Fig. 2). For the arousaldimension, it ranges from a relaxed, sleepy figure to anexcited, wide-eyed figure. A computer-based version of thevalence and the arousal scale was used. In addition to theSAM pictograms, verbal descriptions of the emotional statewere presented on each scale’s left and right endpoints,based on semantic differentials from Mehrabian and Russell (1974) that show a high correlation with ratings on theSAM scales (Bradley & Lang, 1994). To the arousal scale,the German words ‘‘entspannt’’, ‘‘gelassen’’, and ‘‘träge’’(relaxed, calm, and sluggish) were added on the left side(representing low arousal) and ‘‘angeregt’’, ‘‘aufgeregt’’,‘‘erregt’’, ‘‘nervös’’, and ‘‘aufgerüttelt’’ (stimulated, agitated, excited, nervous, and startled) on the right side. Thevalence scale was presented with the words ‘‘unglücklich‘‘,‘‘verärgert‘‘, ‘‘traurig‘‘, and ‘‘abgestoßen‘‘(unhappy, angry,123sad, and disgusted) on the left side and ‘‘angenehm’’,‘‘fröhlich’’, and ‘‘vergnügt’’ (pleasant, cheerful, and joyful)on the right side. The scales were displayed with numericallabels ranging from ‘‘1’’ to ‘‘9’’, respectively. For thearousal scale, ‘‘1’’ corresponded to ‘‘calm’’ and ‘‘9’’ to‘‘aroused’’. For the
effects of color on emotion was that associations between emotional terms (e.g., adjectives) and color were investi-gated, rather than measuring the actual emotional state induced by the color stimulus. For example, the study by Sato, Kajiwara, Hoshino, and Nakamura (2000) presented colorimetrically defined color stimuli, but the task of the
Guess the emotion: Choose a card, read or act out what’s on the back, and ask someone to guess the emotion. Emotion storytelling: In a group, ask each person to choose an emotion card and tell a story about a time when they felt that way. Heads up: Get children to stick an emotion
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emotion concepts, she also becomes capable of emotional experi-ence and emotion perception. In this predictive processing ac-count, concepts are ad hoc, goal-based constructions that serve to make emotional meaning of sensory inputs. That is, in our view, emotional development is tantamount to emotion concept devel-opment.
o next to each other on the color wheel o opposite of each other on the color wheel o one color apart on the color wheel o two colors apart on the color wheel Question 25 This is: o Complimentary color scheme o Monochromatic color scheme o Analogous color scheme o Triadic color scheme Question 26 This is: o Triadic color scheme (split 1)
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79,2 79,7 75,6 86,0 90,5 91,1 84,1 91,4 C9 C10 C11 C12 C13 C14 C15 88,5 87,1 84,8 85,2 86,4 80,5 80,8 Color parameters Color temperature Color rendering index Red component Color fidelity Color gamut Color quality scale Color coordinate cie 1931 Color coordinate cie 1931 Color coordinate Color coordinate
consistency with the emotion profiles of specific identities. Each component of the theory will be discussed in turn. The core proposition is that social identities have associations to specific emotion states (e.g., athletes are angry), and these emotion profiles prescribe both the consumption and regulation of emotional experiences.
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